The BATTLE IN BROOKLYN

By night's end, all the testimony by the community meant nothing to Bloomberg/Klein's Panel. They were going to close 19 city schools no matter what evidence was presented. Here's the last on-the-scene report from Anna & Maura at Gotham Schools.

4 a.m. After a two-hour protest that closed the streets in Fort Greene; nearly nine hours of testimony by concerned elected officials, parents, teachers, and students; and a series of votes that underscored the divide between Mayor Bloomberg and everyone else on school politics, the Panel for Educational Policy determined early this morning that 20 city schools, both young and old, small and large, will begin to close this fall. We’ll have more about the implications of the panel’s decisions starting sometime tomorrow afternoon.