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Randi Weingarten’s participation in a press conference today beside two groups who’d like to see changes in Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s mayoral control bill doesn’t mean that she’s going to fight for those changes, too. Weingarten is being overall “very positive” about the bill, a union lobbyist in Albany told me.

“It would be very unlikely that we would oppose, because we think there’s so much good in here,” the lobbyist in Albany told me. “It would only be whether or not to issue a memo in support.”

Weingarten is still hoping that a parent initiative will get added into the law, and she met with lawmakers today to promote the idea, the lobbyist said. She and the other two groups are asking the state to fund a separate organization or initiative that would give parents a voice in the policy discussion. The idea is similar to one Weingarten endorsed in a speech last year, when she urged a community coalition that had fought budget cuts to become a permanent organization.

The clarification of her participation follows confusion among lawmakers about exactly where Weingarten stands on mayoral control, a state legislator told me today. (more…)