UPDATED | After a long legal battle and amid much anguish by teachers and other educators, the city Department of Education released individual performance rankings of 18,000 New York City public school teachers to the public on Friday. The rankings are now available on SchoolBook, listed by school.

Sixth graders in New York City regularly study the Middle East, but it is up to individual schools to craft the lessons. At Public School 101 School in the Gardens in Queens, a parent has filed a complaint about a lesson, written by a teacher, that told sixth graders the countries surrounding Israel “seek to destroy Israel and the Jewish people. They do not want peace.”

The New York City teachers’ union lost another round in its yearlong court battle to keep performance ratings of about 12,000 city teachers secret, with the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court in Manhattan ruling that it would not take up the case.

As she nears retirement next year after 50 years, a principal still believes that “if rules are firm and consistent, children and adults will flourish and rise to meet expectations.”

More than a year ago, the state informed the city that it would require it to create a plan to improve its performance in serving English language learners, and on Wednesday it released the city’s 31-page pledge. Among other things, the plan spells out the extent to which the city is in violation of state law with the services it does provide.

How long have state officials known that teachers sometimes find an extra point or two on their students’ state Regents exams scores to help them pass? Evidence is growing that they were given repeated warnings about the practice, even as they expanded the stakes carried by the Regents exams.

Two technology company executives stole at least $6.5 million from the city, the special investigator for the New York City school system charged.

A years-long, city-backed effort to extend job protection to contracts that cover busing for preschool-aged students appears to be dead — at least for now.

The news: The city is considering introducing a slew of new local tests beginning next year, as part of the developing teacher evaluation system, and officials said there will be some kind of new effectiveness ranking linked to those tests. The background: our primer on the evolving teacher evaluation system.

What would the Upper West Success Academy Charter School be without “success?” Thanks to an eleventh-hour save, the latest addition to the Success Charter Network does not have to find out.