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Protestors at P.S. 123 yesterday applauded lawmakers pushing for limits on charter schools in Harlem. Eva Moskowitz, the C.E.O. of the Success Charter Network, was a particular target. (Photo screenshot from video below.)

The next front for the Harlem school wars could be Albany.

City Council member Inez Dickens yesterday proposed changing the state law to cap the number of charter schools that a single operator can open in a given school district.

She was speaking at a protest against the Success charter school network’s expansion into a traditional Harlem public school, P.S. 123.

Dickens said she had the support of state Sen. Bill Perkins, and Keith Wright, an Assemblyman representing Harlem, said he would introduce legislation to make that change on his side of the legislature.

A neighborhood- and operator-specific cap would add to what exists now, a cap on the number of charter schools across New York state at 200. There are 1,500 public schools in the city.

Such a cap would also squarely challenge the strategy the Success Charter Network has pursued of opening a large number of charter schools in a designated area; Eva Moskowitz, the network’s CEO, has said her goal is to open 40 Harlem charter schools in the next 10 years. (more…)

One day before June 30, a lobbying group has launched an ad campaign to pressure the state Senate to renew mayoral control.

Learn NY, which is urging Senators to pass a version of the Assembly’s bill, is running advertisements, sending out robocalls, and planting its volunteers in the halls of the state capital today. The plan, according to spokeswoman Julie Wood, is to put enough pressure on state senators to force them to bring the issue to a vote.

“We’re in real jeopardy of having the school system be in chaos,” Wood said, echoing the mayor’s escalating warnings of anarchy.

The banner ads, which are running on three New York City politics websites — Politicker, Daily Politics, and NY1 — urge readers to call their state Senators and ask them to “pass the Assembly’s education reform bill now.”

There’s also a campaign to get people to sign the group’s online petition, as well as robocalls, which are going out to New Yorkers starting today. (If you’ve gotten one — please! — record and send it to tips@gothamschools.org.)

How long the campaign will last remains to be seen, Wood said. She said it’s possible that Learn NY would continue to operate after the school governance question has been settled. The nonprofit organization was created to champion mayoral control.