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City Council member Charles Barron outside Tweed Courthouse yesterday. (GothamSchools Flickr)

City Councilman Charles Barron tried to haul Schools Chancellor Joel Klein off to jail yesterday but left Tweed Courthouse empty-handed.

His attempted citizen’s arrest came during a rally yesterday to protest Mayor Bloomberg’s continued school control even after mayoral control legally expired last week. Midway through event, Barron took the microphone and ascended Tweed’s steps, some of the crowd following him.

“They are in there illegally,” he said when he got to the doors, which were closed. “They should have to leave. This is the people’s building now.” The doors had been open earlier during the event.

“This is a citizen’s arrest,” he declared, ostensibly because Klein did not vacate his offices after mayoral control technically ended. (In fact, the newly convened Board of Education voted the next day to rehire Klein as chancellor and give him the same authority he had before the mayoral control law expired.)

“Is the chancellor in there?” he asked the security guards on the other side of the glass doors. “No? Tell him I’m looking for him.”

Barron, who has called for Klein to be fired before, said a longtime community activist, Jitu Weusi, should be the chancellor. Weusi was a lead organizer of yesterday’s event, which attracted about 100 people from across the city. (View more pictures from the rally.) (more…)

Mayor Bloomberg’s school critics are joining up today to protest how little has changed since the mayoral control technically ended last week.

All spring, local activists who oppose mayoral control have been urging people to contact their lawmakers. But after the mayoral control law expired and Bloomberg packed the new Board of Education with his appointees anyway, it became clear that a more powerful protest was needed, according to Jitu Weusi, a longtime activist from Brooklyn.

A protest being held at 5 p.m. today outside Tweed Courthouse, education department headquarters, will highlight widespread opposition to “the mayoral control dictatorship,” Weusi said. He told me that community activists from all five boroughs have signed onto the event.

City Councilman Charles Barron, who has called for Schools Chancellor Joel Klein to be fired, helped organize a planning meeting last week that about 40 people attended, Weusi said. (more…)