The state’s education commissioner has rejected a poorly-performing East Village charter school’s appeal to stay open after the city’s Department of Education announced that it would not renew its charter for next year, the New York Times reported. The Ross Global Academy, which was founded by Courtney Sale Ross, widow of the former Time Warner chairman Steven Ross, has been up for closure five times before. Nonetheless, the academy had claimed that the city’s decision to shutter it was linked to favoritism towards Girls Prep, a charter school that was slated to take over its space, at 420 East 12th Street, on the corner of Avenue A. [more]

Chancellor Joel Klein

The opening of 26 new school locations will add more than 17,000 new seats for the 2010-11 school year, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein announced today. The new buildings, annexes and leased spaces represent the most new classroom seats to come in one year since the School Construction Authority was created in 1988. The Department of Education is on track to add nearly 100,000 new school seats across the city by 2013. “Modernizing our schools is a part of the bold education reforms that have helped turn around the public school system here in New York City,” Bloomberg said. “Thanks to strong support from the state and city council, we are in the midst of the largest school construction effort in New York City history.” TRD

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New York City Schools chancellor Joel Klein announced he supports opening a public high school on the Upper West Side that specializes in writing. The school, which would be named after late Pulitzer Prize-winning author and teacher Frank McCourt, would open in fall 2010 at the Louis D. Brandeis High School campus on 84th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus avenues. The Frank McCourt School would join three other specialized high schools on the campus, including Global Learning Collaborative, the Urban Assembly School for Green Careers, and Innovation Diploma Plus, which helps older students graduate from high school. The city is planning to hold a public forum before the Panel for Educational Policy votes on the school.