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If buildings could sing, the Choir Academy of Harlem would echo with gospel and jazz. But the sound of music at the beleaguered school, once the home of the famed Boys Choir of Harlem, may soon become much fainter. On Monday, Department of Education officials announced plans to phase out the Choir Academy's high school, starting by not admitting a ninth grade in September, while leaving intact its middle school, which has performed better academically. The school is one of 20 the city has over the last two weeks proposed closing, from large ones like Jamaica High School in Queens to small schools created under the Bloomberg administration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

When Jeanne Shapiro received two letters on Saturday from Public School 290 on the Upper East Side, where she always assumed she would send her twin daughters, her husband cracked a joke about the way thin envelopes from college admissions offices tended to bear bad news. Mrs. Shapiro just laughed; P.S. 290 was a block and a half from the family's apartment, she figured, and every New Yorker knows that an address in a good school zone is tantamount to a guaranteed kindergarten seat. But the letters said the 5-year-olds had been placed on a waiting list for the school, on East 82nd Street. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]