More than 15,000 charter school parents and supporters, including many from Queens, gathered at Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn for the March for Excellence last Thursday, demanding that all have equal access to schools.

The event was organized by more than 200 of the city’s charters, including Uncommon, Achievement First, KIPP NYC, Dream Charter Schools, Success Academy and the Black Latinx Asian Charter Collaborative.

According to a press release promoting the event, the groups lamented that charters “consistently face bureaucratic obstruction” and are “denied equitable per pupil funding and access to classroom space in public school buildings.”

Charter schools educate more than 150,000 students, and the majority of those pupils are low-income and historically underserved.

The march saw children taken out of school for the day to flood the streets of Brooklyn along with parent and teacher advocates, with signs reading “excellence is a civil right” and calling for the state-imposed cap to be lifted. Charters are banned from opening new schools due to a state-imposed limit of 275.

At the march, Eva Moskowitz, the founder and CEO of Success Academy, the largest charter network in New York City, said, “What bothers me about the city, state and country, is that affluent parents get choice. They move to the suburbs. They rent an apartment in an affluent district that has better schools. All we want is what affluent parents get. We want the same choices no matter what ZIP code you live in.”

Asked by an attendee if she’s worried about leading mayoral candidate Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani (D-Astoria), who has voiced opposition to charters, Moskowitz said, “I’m worried about every elected official.”

She said she’s worried about support for charters “because we can’t even establish that charter schools are public schools” and added, “This is crazy talk.”

Bishop Raymond Rivera, the founder of Family Life Academy Charter Schools, said his clergy network met with Mamdani, and that he seemed “open to dialogue.”

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is second in polling in the mayoral election, has praised charter networks, and his campaign website states he wants to expand them.

The rally received some backlash. Last Friday, state Sens. John Liu (D-Bayside), the chair of the Committee on NYC Education, and Shelley Mayer (D-White Plains), the chair of the Committee on Education, called for an investigation into the March for Excellence in a letter sent to State Education Department Commissioner Betty Rosa and SUNY Chancellor John King.

The legislators said multiple reports indicate that charters closed for the day and mandated attendance at the rally, with staff and families “feeling pressured to participate and fearful of repercussions if not.”

Liu and Mayer said canceling classes and forcing families and students to “engage in a political rally is an egregious misuse of instructional time and state funds.”

They called on the SED and SUNY to determine if there were any violations of state law, and if so, to claw back a portion of state per capita funding from each participating school.

Leaders from Ember Charter Schools, Lamad Academy Charter Schools, the Council of Holistic Christian Churches and Ministries and Zeta Charter Schools sent a letter to the senators in response on Tuesday.

“This was not a partisan display,” they wrote. “It was the most fundamental expression of civic life — families demanding fairness, equity and access to quality education.”

They called the legislators’ letter “defamatory and dismissive” and said siding against parents of charter students, many of whom are Black and brown, “is to side with failure and inequality.”