State Senator Bill Perkins is mad as hell and he's not gonna take it anymore. Or at least that's the message he sent to parents in his district, where 20 charter schools have given opportunity to thousands of kids. He thinks it's all one big scam.

Over the last decade, as charter schools have multiplied, Mr. Perkins has undergone a dramatic shift and emerged as their most outspoken critic in the Legislature, writing guest columns in newspapers and delivering impassioned speeches criticizing the "privatization" of public schools.

When officials of the city's Department of Education announced last year that they planned to place a charter school inside the Public School 123 building in Harlem, Mr. Perkins was infuriated. With help from his chief of staff, several parents and teachers' union representatives staged a protest there on the first day of school, holding signs that labeled charter schools as "separate and unequal."

Mr. Perkins recently announced plans to hold public hearings on charter schools, to examine, among other things, the sources of their financing and "how much profit there is in not-for-profit" schools.