EV charter school loses appeal to stay open

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 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. The chairwoman of Girls Prep has been behind millions in donations to former schools Chancellor Joel Klein, the academy noted in its appeal. But the state’s decision this week didn’t address those allegations, noting that the issue was outside its jurisdiction. “We have 1.1 million students in this city who all deserve excellence, and that means replacing our lowest performing schools with new schools that serve families better — and Ross Global is the city’s lowest performing charter school. Now is the time to move forward and focus on providing these kids a higher quality education,” Cathie Black, the new schools chancellor, said in a statement. [NYT]