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The fight over mayoral control isn’t over, according to a stalwart group of activists who convened a meeting Saturday to plan how to increase local control of city schools.

Comptroller candidate John Liu and mayoral candidate Tony Avella joined an energized and sometimes raucous crowd of around 70 public school parents, teachers and advocates at the launch event for the Coalition for Public Education, held at the lower Manhattan headquarters of the municipal union District Council 37.

The coalition could be one legacy of this spring’s protracted debate over school governance. That debate was finally settled, at least for the next six years, when Gov. Paterson signed into law a new bill that continues a modified version of mayoral control. Vowing to keep the fight against mayoral control going into the new school year, coalition organizers announced rallies in four boroughs for the first day of school next week.

“The struggle continues on this battle,” said Esmeralda Simmons, director of the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College. “Do not be fooled into thinking that because something has happened in Albany, there’s nothing else that can be done.” (more…)