Panel defeats effort to stop New York City school closings

A New York City panel has rejected a proposal to stop city-mandated school closings. The New York Times says the proposal would have withdrawn current plans to close, co-locate or phase out struggling public schools and also would have placed a moratorium on such future plans until the process could be re-evaluated. The plan was sponsored by four members of the Panel for Educational Policy, a school oversight board, who are not administration appointees. But the rest of the panel, chosen by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, voted the proposal down. Several candidates running to replace Bloomberg have spoken out against the closings, which they say disproportionately affect minority students.