A federal court ruled blocked the city's controversial plans to close 19 underperforming schools (including Jamaica High School, right, in Queens) by upholding "a lower court finding that the city’s Education Department did not comply with the 2009 state law on mayoral control of the city schools because it failed to adequately notify the public about the ramifications of the closings." And since students thought the schools were closing, few applied, so some schools may only have a few dozen students! Mayor Bloomberg was not happy with the ruling, "There's a whole bunch of kids that at least for one year will get a terrible education that ... they'll probably never recover from." more ›

Though the "Snowacane" is in full effect, New York City public schools will be open tomorrow, according to Mayor Bloomberg. After preemptively closing schools before the "Snowpocalypse"—awarding students their third snow day in the past six years—Bloomberg announced this afternoon that city schools will remain open on Friday. In a statement to 1010WINS that leaves just enough doubt for students to feel disappointed right now, and again tomorrow morning, he said: "My hope is that the snow will stay to the north and west of us and we'll just have rain, our kids need another school day ... We will cancel school only if it really would be dangerous to get the kids into school and get them home." more ›

The city has added nine more schools to its list of school closings (last week, the city announced eight closures, including Jamaica High School) due to poor performance and graduation rates. Today, NY1 reports that the Department of Education doesn't want any more kids to enroll in "Bronx's Christopher Columbus High School and New Day Academy, Beach Channel High in Queens, Harlem Choir High School and Norman Thomas High School in Manhattan, as well as Paul Robeson High School, Metropolitan Corporate Academy, and Middle School for Academic and Social Excellence in Brooklyn." The schools will eventually be replaced by smaller ones; a Beach Channel High student said, "I can't say we're boosting performance cause all they're doing is breaking up the schools. All the kids from Beach Channel are just going to go to the new schools that are made there. So it really won't make a difference." more ›

Just as the city announced it would close three failing schools, it turns out nine city high schools made a list of top public schools in the country. U.S. News & World Report ranked Stuyvesant as #23 on its Top 100 high schools list; other NYC mentions were H.S. of American Studies (29), Dual Languages & Asian Studies (31), Staten Island Tech (32), Bronx Science (33), Baccalaureate School of Global Education in LIC (38), Queens H.S. of Science (48), Brooklyn Tech (67) and Townsend Haris H.S. (71). As for the failing schools, NY1 reports that JHS 40 in Manhattan will be phased over over two years, PS 90 in the Bronx will be replaced by two new schools, and PS 225 will be split into elementary and middle schools. Other schools may be up for closing or phasing out in future weeks. more ›