WASHINGTON, D.C.-U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said during an interview on Thurs. that while the Obama administration has waived some No Child Left Behind Act standards to 10 states for developing educational initiatives that include additional resources for at risk children and provisions to enhance educational outcomes for African-American students, teacher merit pay plans like the one proposed by Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson in an effort to dismantle teacher tenure are not something required for Ohio and other states to qualify.

"That is not a requirement," said Duncan to the question posed by The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com and Cleveland Urban News.Com.

Jackson and Kasich are working hand in hand as a Democratic mayor and Republican governor to ditch teacher tenure and seniority and institute a merit pay system for Cleveland schools through their request for state legislation to seal the deal, though Black state legislators from Cleveland said that the mayor of the predominantly Black major metropolitan city, who controls the largely Black city schools via state law, had not discussed his plan with them.

CLEVELAND, Ohio- Adding to a growing list of endorsements such as East Cleveland Mayor Gary Norton, Ohio State Sen. Nina Turner (D-25), Cleveland Councilpersons Mamie Mitchell and Terrell Pruitt, The Carl Stokes Brigade, The Imperial Women, and Cuyahoga County Councilmen Julian Rogers (D-10), Pernell Jones (D-8), and Dale Miller (D-2), U.S. Rep. Marcia L. Fudge (D-OH) announced today her support of Subodh Chandra for Cuyahoga County prosecutor.

“Subodh Chandra is the clear choice for county prosecutor,” Fudge said in a press release. “He is honest and committed, and he has the experience and integrity to ensure real reform and change in our justice system.”

Chandra, 44,  said that he is grateful to gain the endorsement from a respected community servant and federal legislator like Fudge, who represents Ohio's 11th Congressional District, a predominantly Black district that includes the east side of Cleveland and its eastern suburbs, and a majority Black pocket of Akron and staggering parts of its Summit County suburbs.

E. Cleveland, Ohio-Cuyahoga County prosecutor hopeful Tim McGinty stunned the Black community yesterday by getting only a single vote for a straw poll at a debate for the five candidates for county prosecutor held Sat. afternoon at the East Cleveland Library, an event sponsored by the East Cleveland Coalition and moderated by Fox 8 News Anchor Wayne Dawson and Call and Post Managing Editor Kevin Heard..

Candidate Stephanie Hall, (pictured with her son) the only Black and woman in the race, won that straw poll, snatching the victory from McGinty, Subodh Chandra, Robert Triozzi and James McDonnell.

A straw poll is an unofficial audience ballot vote taken on the candidates, typically after a political debate, and designed as a indicator of how people there would likely vote on the ballot in the upcoming official election. It has no essential research validity.

Editor's note: This video below, produced by The PlayaT Show (www.playatshow.com) at Saturday's debate at the East Cleveland Library, reveals McGinty dodging legitimate questions on his record as a former Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas judge, and answering questions about his role as a former assistance county prosecutor.

BEREA, Ohio-Berea Municipal Court Judge Mark Comstock, who is now under investigation for documented impropriety by the Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper, is under fire.

Among a host of other allegations, Comstock is accused of recruiting out-of-town retired White visiting judges with nothing to lose to replace him in cases previously before him to harass maliciously prosecuted Blacks and women including triple bonds issued without holding a bond forfeiture hearing and without revoking the first bond as required by state law.

(Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper Online Photo www.cleveland.com)

CLEVELAND,Ohio-A controversial custody-adoption trial that began last Nov. between a poor Black Cleveland family and an affluent White couple with the popular judicial surname of Gallagher that were handed two new born Black children taken involuntarily from their teen mothers continues.

Taken within months of their births and precluded from being cared for by extended family members as state law requires, the celebrated trial to get back three year-olds Jamela and Jamyla Barringer is center stage at the new Juvenile Court Justice Center on Quincy Ave. in Cleveland before Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Judge Alison Nelson Floyd, who is Black.

"Children and Family Services have a modern day slave plantation by stealing Black children and we want our children back," said Angelique Cunningham, the 39-year-old grandmother of the three-year-old cousin toddlers of two of Cunningham's daughters, one 20 and the other 17, but both teens when their daughters Jamela and Jamyla were taken from them at two and four months old, respectively. "They have harassed us at every turn because we are Black and not middle class or rich."