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Comptroller Bill Thompson. (Via Azi's Flickr.)

My former colleague Jacob Gershman is very good at raising subjects everyone is talking about but nobody says in print. He did so with today’s piece on Comptroller William Thompson Jr., who is making school issues a big part of his mayoral campaign — without clarifying his positions on some of the main school issues of the day.

Gershman argues Thompson possesses a “carefully cultivated irrelevance.” But there is stuff we do know about where Thompson stands on education issues, though much of the facts raise more questions than they answer.

First, we know that he’s said he favors retaining control of the school system if he becomes mayor. It’s unclear exactly how much control he’d like to give himself (a big empty space, as we pointed out), but he’s said repeatedly that he supports the mayor having primary authority. “I may be in a shrinking group of those who support it,” he told a committee in testimony that was supposed to be off the record but which I obtained when I was at the New York Sun.

We also know the two main points of attack Thompson has selected for criticizing Bloomberg’s school efforts: He criticizes the mayor on transparency, which he says is so poor that even his office struggles to understand the school system’s finances, and parental involvement. Both of these are safe issues; they’re exactly the points conceded by one of the most prominent mayoral allies on schools, Geoffrey Canada, and they avoid the nastier battlegrounds of school closings, accountability, and charter schools. (more…)

From the mayor's new campaign web site.

Mayor Bloomberg’s campaign manager, Bradley Tusk, sent out a letter to likely supporters today listing the reasons they’ll probably want to vote Bloomberg into a third term. Number two on the list was education.

The key excerpt, bolded by me, not Tusk:

Mike Bloomberg’s record speaks for itself. New York City has never been safer – crime is down nearly 30% since he took office. Mike took control of the public school system and now test scores and graduation rates are on the rise, while the achievement gap is shrinking. Quality of life has improved across the five boroughs, our streets are cleaner than ever, and new parks are being created all across the city. And Mike has a nine-point economic plan that will create and retain 400,000 jobs in New York.

One other thing of note: As he shifts into campaign mode, the mayor is signaling a new preference for how to be addressed. It’s not Mr. Bloomberg or Hizzoner. It’s Mike, just Mike, please. I guess that’s one way to make a multi-billionaire feel a little more accessible (though not technologically accessible, says Sewell Chan).