Mayor Eric Adams doubled down Tuesday on calling protesters against school budget cuts “clowns” — saying those who confronted him at a town hall deserve the label because they turned the event into a “circus.”

“When you stand up and yell while your neighbors are talking and attempting to solve a problem, then you turn the place into a circus — and one of the people in the circus is a clown,” said Adams at an unrelated press conference in Manhattan.

“So when you do things that’s clown-like, then you should be probably defined as what you are,” he added.

The demonstrators were escorted out of the Police Athletic League in Upper Manhattan, where Adams was holding a discussion on public safety Monday night.

“See, this is the clown, this is the clown,” said Adams during the forum. “And this is what we’re up against — people want to spend time being disruptive, that’s what people want to do. But we got to stay focused, and not get distracted.”

Members of the group — including a Department of Education employee who was let go from her school because of the cuts — told The Post they wanted Adams to answer publicly for slashing the funds sent to individual schools.

At least one protester said he was forcibly pushed out.

“They basically threw me out here and they started getting in my face, trying to shame me, reprimand me for using my constitutional right to demand a response from the mayor,” said Matt Gonzales.

An estimated 1,200 schools are seeing cuts totaling more than $215 million, and some have already been forced to lose programs, teachers and school staff.

The mayoral event on Monday was originally billed as a conversation about public safety — as most major crime is up in the Big Apple — but most of the questions ended up being about the city’s public schools and programs for youth during the pandemic.

Still, Adams slammed the manner in which the protesters spoke out about the issue.

“There’s a way for speaking out against budget cuts, there’s a way to disagree without being disagreeable,” he said.

“You don’t stand up at a peaceful conversation with your neighbors, yell and then run towards the mayor — where my security detail is not going to allow you to run towards the mayor. They are responsible to ensuring safety, particularly with some of the issues that we’re seeing in the city.”

The drastic cuts affect the primary source of schools’ budgets through what’s called the Fair Student Funding formula. The formula is tied to the number of students in a given schools, and enrollment has been down citywide.

The Adams administration has repeatedly attributed the shrunken budgets to fewer students, though a Post investigation recently revealed that spending per student under the formula was reduced, too.

On Monday, Adams deflected blame for the cuts squarely onto state lawmakers. 

“There’s something called Fair Student Funding, which is a wrong equation that we’re fighting Albany to fix,” said Adams. “We need your help to tell Albany let’s change the equation.”

“We’re going based on what Albany is doing. We are creatures of Albany, they give us our Fair Student Funding. Now we look like the bad guy, because we’re the ones who have to adjust what Albany is doing to us,” he added.

The formula is largely funded by the state, according to DOE finance documents — but the equation, weighted for students’ grade levels and instructional needs, was created and is approved annually by the city. 

This year’s budget included a $300-million increase in state aid for city schools, per the DOE’s own budget materials. 

“The city created its Fair Student Funding formula to allocate the state funding to individual schools. The state has nothing to do with the FSF,” said Scott Sieber, communications director for the chair of the State Senate Committee on NYC Education John Liu on Tuesday.

“We know the new administration is still getting up to speed,” he added. “Senator Liu is ready, willing and able to conduct a review session for City Hall and the DOE on basic school funding.”