From the Metro Desk of Cleveland Urban News.Com and the Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com

CLEVELAND, Ohio-The education committee of the Cleveland Chapter of the New Black Panther Party in cooperation with the Urban Education Justice League will host an educational forum in opposition to the Cleveland schools property tax levy from 6 pm to 8 pm on Monday, August 20, at Cleveland State University's Main Classroom Building, room 134, 2121 Euclid Ave. in Cleveland.

For more information contact Al Porter at 216-704-5036.

Donna Walker Brown, a community activist who says she will run for Cleveland mayor in 2013, told Cleveland Urban News.Com that she will speak at the event and  that she is against the schools levy because it is "the same ole levy with the same ole crooks to misappropriate the levy money." (Editor's Note: Walker Brown and Kimberly Brown will debate Cleveland Ward 8 Councilman Jeff Johnson on the schools levy at a grassroots forum sponsored by Cleveland Urban News.Com, the Imperial Women, Cleveland African American Museum, the Carl Stokes Brigade, the Underground Railroad, Organize Ohio, Ohio Family Rights, the Oppressed People's Nation, Black on Black Crime, the Family Connection Center, Cleveland Jobs With Justice and others on Thursday, August 30, 2012 from 6 to 8 pm at Lil Africa, 6816 Superior Ave. The moderator is state Rep. Bill Patmon (D-10). For more information on the debate contact Kathy Wray Coleman at 216-659-0473 and ktcoleman8@aol.com)

Other speakers at the CSU forum include Community Activist Norma Freeman, and Rhonda Hill, a Cleveland schools parent.

Cleveland voters will decide the schools levy at the ballot box on November 6.

It it passes, the levy would cost the owner of a $50 thousand home additional annual property taxes of $300.

The last time that Cleveland voters passed a schools operating levy was in 1996, shortly after the state took over the city schools and began ousting qualified Black central office administrators and principals and assistant principals with unqualified Whites, data show.

Under state law the Cleveland Municipal School District is controlled by the city mayor, currently Frank Jackson, who appoints the once elected Cleveland Board of Education.

Reach Cleveland Urban News.Com by telephone at 216-659-0473 and by email@ editor@clevelandurbannews.com