Top 10 Education Stories of 2011

The year began with city schools still trying to live down Mayor Michael Bloomberg's controversial and, in the end, unsuccessful bid to install Cathie Black as chancellor. And 2011 ended with an almost as equally controversial plan to shutter 19 centers for learning across the city, including in Clinton Hill.

Story by story, here are picks for the top 10 stories relating to schools in our neck of the woods—and the rest of the city.

10. Here's a piece of rare good news for our places of learning: Fort Greene's made the U.S. News and World Report's —the only Brooklyn institution to make the cut.

9. Parents, teachers and staff of the long embattled , which for the past few years has been located at K287 in Fort Greene, quietly received the news of .

8. The City Council this month that holds the city Department of Education accountable for reporting on the removal of PCB-laden light fixtures in schools.

7. Though the proposed co-location of Success Charter Academy mostly roiled Cobble Hill, anger over DOE's impending decision when Borough President Marty Markowitz demanded a crucial meeting be held at Brooklyn Tech. The meeting of the Panel for Education Policy ended up being held in Queens.

6. : Brooklyn Tech's powerhouse team took on their opponents at the New York State Debate Coaches Association tournament in April. 

5. Fort Greene-Clinton Hill isn't just host to secondary schools. The neighborhood also hosts several institutions of higher learning—one of which, , experienced .

4. Shocking parents, Community Roots Charter School . School leaders blamed the decision partly on "anti-charter/anti-school choice entities."

3. The City University of New York voted last month at all campuses in the five boroughs over the protests of students, some faculty and staff.

2. The year ends as it begins: haunted by the ghost of failed mayoral schools chancellor pick Cathie Black. Patch's asks, "Is [current schools chief] Dennis Walcott the New Cathie Black?"

1. And we couldn't end this list with any other story but the announcement earlier this month that . One of which, M.S. 103 on Fulton Street in Clinton Hill, was the subject of at least one rally to save it from the budgetary axe. And so the debate continues...