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Charter school leaders concerned about frozen budgets got a friendly hearing at City Hall Tuesday. But they didn’t get any promises that officials will follow their call to unfreeze their budgets. And the mayor himself did not show up.

Instead, Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott offered to schedule a second meeting with the leaders of the schools to continue discussing their request.

I explained the outlines of charter leaders’ request earlier this week. The gist is they want the city not only to lobby on their behalf in Albany — but also, if lawmakers decide to freeze charter school budgets anyway, to make up the difference from its own coffers.

A reader who attended the meeting sent over the above photos from it. They show a strong turnout from a community that once shied away from politics, but followed the lead of more outspoken leaders when Michael Bloomberg ran for reelection last year and when mayoral control of schools came up for renewal.

The more politically active leaders — Eva Moskowitz, of the Success Charter Network in Harlem; Seth Andrew, of Democracy Prep in Harlem; and Stacey Gauthier, of Renaissance Charter School in Queens — made personal appearances. The heads of the largest networks — Uncommon Schools, KIPP, and Achievement First — sent representatives from their charter management organizations.

Parents and elected officials gathered at City Hall today to protest crowding in Manhattan that has led to long waiting lists for public school kindergartens. (GothamSchools Flickr)

A crowd of shell-shocked parents gathered outside City Hall this afternoon, angry that the Department of Education hasn’t found seats for the hundreds of rising kindergarten students who have been placed on waiting lists for next year at their local public schools.

The waiting lists, which include 273 names in just two Manhattan districts, mean that families in baby- and building-boom areas like the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side, and Greenwich Village could find themselves unable to secure a spot at their neighborhood school’s kindergarten.

The lists attracted extra attention yesterday after news leaked that the city was considering closing or relocating prekindergarten classes at two Greenwich Village elementary schools, PS 3 and PS 41, in order to make room for kindergartners.

Parents at the rally said they felt confused and powerless. “As far as I can tell, I don’t have a Plan B — other than home school or moving to Jersey,” said Jay Douglas, whose 4-year-old son is number 42 on a waiting list for PS 187 in Washington Heights.

Elected officials joined the parents at City Hall today to criticize city officials for not planning ahead to meet the demand for spots in public schools. Scott Stringer, Manhattan’s borough president, said the DOE is “closing its eyes” to a widespread capacity problem, warning that taxpaying parents will pack up and move, taking their kids and tax dollars somewhere else if they can’t enroll in their local public school. (more…)

Council Member Simcha Felder displays one of the cue cards a teachers union representative handed him.

At today’s education committee hearing, City Council members took turns questioning Department of Education officials on the rise of charters schools. Their questions were passionate, specific, and universally accusatory. They may have also been scripted.

Just before the hearing began, a representative of the city teachers union, which describes itself as in favor of charter schools, discreetly passed out a set of index cards to Council members, each printed with a pre-written question.

One batch of cards offered questions for the Department of Education, all of them challenging the proliferation of charter schools. “Doesn’t the Department have a clear legal and moral responsibility to provide every family in the city guaranteed seats for their children in a neighborhood elementary school?” one card suggested members ask school officials. “Isn’t the fundamental problem here the Department’s abdication of its most important responsibility to provide quality district public schools in all parts of the city?” another card said. (View more of the cards in a slideshow here.)

Several council members picked up on the line of thought. “Shouldn’t we aspire to have every school in the city good enough for parents to feel comfortable sending their children?” Melinda Katz, a Council member from Queens, said in questioning school officials. “I remember when Joel Klein became the chancellor,” the committee chair, Robert Jackson, said. “Back then, he used to talk about making every neighborhood school a good school where every parent would want to send their children. I don’t hear him talk about that anymore.”

Asked about the cards, union president Randi Weingarten provided a statement saying that she regretted the tactic. “We are often asked by the council for information and ideas about various issues. Additionally, when I am available, I often respond to what others testify to. In this instance, I was in Washington and couldn’t be at City Hall,” she said in the statement. “I am proud of the testimony we gave today, but I regret the manner in which our other concerns were shared.” (more…)

Mayor Bloomberg's address, scheduled to begin at 1pm, is being broadcast online.

Mayor Bloomberg will give his annual “State of the City” address this afternoon. On the subject of education — you better sit down before reading this — Bloomberg is announcing his intention to lobby the legislature to preserve mayoral control of the public schools, according to a press release preview City Hall just sent out. Bloomberg’s other education-related announcements are two parent-outreach initiatives that seem designed to target one of the biggest concerns about mayoral control: that it’s left parents out of the schools.

One new program, called “Parent Connect,” will expand 311 services for parents, so that they can find information about admissions and transportation by calling the free city hotline. The other program is the fact that parents are going to have access to ARIS data some time this year (something we already knew from school officials).

You can watch the speech on NY1 or online here.

I mentioned in a previous post that two charter school students from Harlem were among those testifying in favor of extending term limits at the City Council earlier this month. Their school head, Seth Andrew of Democracy Prep, sent me their testimonies, which he said they drafted on their own, on blank pieces of paper, by hand.

Andrew said the students had the opportunity to testify either for or against extending term limits. Both came out in favor. (Not a surprise, since Andrew also said that his students testified at the invitation of James Merriman, the executive director of the New York City Center for Charter School Excellence and a political ally of Mayor Bloomberg.)

The testimonies are worth a read. Here’s how seventh-grader Daniel Clarke Jr. explained the connection between term limits and education:

Well, this chancellor has made a lot of progress in seven years, but he’s not done…YET. My school goes from grade 6 to 8 right now, but we are supposed to grow all the way to grade 12. Unfortunately, we can’t do this without a public school building, and this chancellor says he wants to give us one. He wants to close bad traditional schools and grow good ones like mine. If you pass this bill, my school will have a chance to take me all the way to college. If you don’t, the progress can’t continue and my school might not be able to grow. But I deserve a great high school, and there aren’t any others in my neighborhood like Democracy Prep that are open to all kids.

Term limits prevent my family from having a choice, both in schools and in mayors and what we need are more choices, not fewer. This bill is not about Mayor Bloomberg or the City Council; it is about giving our community choice, voice, and progress for the kids of New York City. Thank you for Listening, I’m Daniel Clark Jr.

The full testimonies are after the jump. (more…)