Education advocates, worried that Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration is breaking its own reform laws, are pushing D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee to disclose her budget plans for next year, The Examiner has learned.

A public hearing on the nearly $1 billion school system will be held next week, but top aides to Rhee have said publicly that her proposed budget won’t be available for public comment until late February or

early March.

The law that gave Fenty control of the schools required that he put any budget in front of the public before formal hearings, the

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reformers claim.

In an “open letter” drafted Friday and sent to Rhee on Monday, more than 100 school reform advocates urged Rhee to disclose the figures “in the next few days.”

“Our schools and children will live every day with the impact of your specific dollar proposals,” the letter states.

Fenty spokeswoman Mafara Hobson told The Examiner that Rhee was following the letter of the law.

“Before the chancellor submits to the mayor, she will give the public a chance to review,” Hobson wrote in an e-mail.

Mary Levy, a schools and budget expert for the Washington Lawyers Committee, signed the letter. She said she’s concerned by the insularity of the Fenty-Rhee team.

“There’s very little communication from them to anybody,” Levy said.

Levy said she wasn’t surprised that Fenty had to go back on a promise last year and ask for an additional $81 million for the schools after his original budget had already passed.

“It wasn’t realistic,” she said. “As I listened to the people who were advocating for the school takeover, I thought, ‘They don’t know what they’re getting into.’ ”

D.C. Council Member Phil Mendelson, D-at large, agreed.

“There shouldn’t be this controversy,” said Mendelson, who opposed Fenty’s takeover. “We need to meet the statutory deadlines for providing the proposed budget to the public so that we can have meaningful debate.”

Got a tip on the D.C. schools? Call Bill Myers at 202-459-4956 or send him an e-mail, bmyers@dcexaminer.com.