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Students and teachers from two high schools on the city’s chopping block are planning to join in protest on Wednesday — and they’re asking their allies from across the city to join in.

The Union Square rally comes during the final week of hearings before the Panel for Educational Policy, which has never rejected a city proposal, votes on 25 school closure proposals Feb. 9.

Students at Manhattan’s Legacy School for Integrated Studies are planning to walk out of their classes and head for Union Square just four hours before their school’s closure hearing. The walkout is the latest in a series of high-profile protest actions that have included a phone-banking session and a guerrilla appearance on “The Today Show” — activities chronicled in a video posted to YouTube over the weekend by the Save Legacy Coalition.  (more…)

Pushing back against criticism of its involvement in a lawsuit that could negatively affect charter schools, the NAACP has announced plans to stage a rally of its own tomorrow.

The historic civil rights group and its supporters plan to rally tomorrow morning outside the offices of the Success Charter Network. The charter school chain’s CEO, Eva Moskowitz, was a leader in galvanizing parents to protest the NAACP’s involvement in the lawsuit.

The NAACP’s rally, which will feature elected officials named as plaintiffs in the suit, is the latest episode in a dust-up that makes race a central issue in the ongoing battle over charter school co-locations.

Since the NAACP signed on last month to a union-initiated lawsuit to stop 22 school closures and prevent 17 charter schools from opening, moving, or expanding, charter school parents and advocates have been battering the group. Black parents whose children attend charter schools are questioning why the NAACP, which has long fought for education equity for black students, would stand in the way of their interests. They held a 2,500-person strong rally against the NAACP in Harlem last week and yesterday appeared at the Midtown office of the group’s New York leader, Hazel Dukes.

Last week, Dukes told me she joined the lawsuit for the same reason that the NAACP brought the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case, which ended “separate but equal” schooling based on race. “Co-location is not the answer,” Dukes said. “We are setting up separate and unequal education.”

“Because of the NAACP’s stand for all children, they are being criticized by those who seek to only divide our community, pitting parent against parent, and distorting the facts about the lawsuit against the NYC DOE,” states a press release about the event tomorrow.

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Protesters against teacher layoffs during a rally on the steps of City Hall.

Under a blazing sun, protesters rallied on the steps of City Hall today before the City Council’s education budget hearing against the Department of Education’s plans to lay off more than 4,000 teachers.

Speakers at the rally included elected officials, union leaders, parents, community advocates, and even a star of the sitcom “Third Rock From the Sun.” Dozens more — including at least 15 City Council members, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer — stood behind to cheer their support. Robert Jackson, chair of the council’s education committee, led the rally.

“Protect our children, not millionaires,” the protesters chanted in between speakers. (more…)

Hundreds of Bronx teachers turned out on Friday to protest the high school principal they say is responsible for a 70 percent teacher turnover rate. In record time over the weekend, the Bronx division of the United Federation of Teachers produced a video about the event, which it coordinated.

Teachers charge that in the four years since Iris Blige has been principal of Fordham High School for the arts, a small school that opened in 2002, the school has run through nine assistant principals, four business managers, and more than 100 teachers. (This data point is in clear view on a protester’s poster in the video.) Blige replaced the founding principal, Sal Mazzola, who was removed after two years in charge because of poor performance, according to the school’s Insideschools review.

Fordham High School for the Arts' teacher turnover figures from its 2006-2007 state report card

According to the school’s most recent state report card, more than a quarter of all teachers left the school after the 2005-2006 school year, and the previous year the school lost more than half of all relatively new teachers. The UFT says turnover has only accelerated since then, with more than 70 percent of teachers leaving during the 2007-2008 school year.