Last Friday, Democratic state senators reached a deal with Mayor Bloomberg (that may or may not pass), essentially ending the drawn-out negotiations. Yet groups that were in the thick of the political fight just last week are intent on remaining active, even if the mayoral control debate has largely ended.

Learn NY, which was set up roughly a year ago by allies of the Bloomberg administration to campaign for mayoral control’s renewal, will continue to exist until the Senate passes a bill bringing mayoral control back. After that, the group’s future is uncertain.

Learn NY spokeswoman Julie Wood refused to comment in greater detail.

On the opposite side of the debate are groups like the Campaign for Better Schools, the 3Rs Coalition, and the Parent Commission on School Governance, all of which advocated for significant changes to the 2002 school governance law, but favored keeping mayoral control in place. Each them face their own existential questions.

“No determination about the future of the Campaign for Better Schools has been made,” said the campaign’s director Billy Easton, in an email today.

“There is no question that the groups who comprise the Campaign for Better Schools will continue working together and organizing for educational justice,” he wrote.

At least a portion of the campaign’s funding will end this Friday, when a $350,000 grant from the Donors’ Education Collaborative, known as DEC, is set to expire.

“The grant was given a little over a year ago to encourage debate around the issue of mayoral control,” said Norma Rollins, coordinator of DEC. Rollins added that all of the campaign’s lobbying efforts were funded separately.

Steven Bell, a member of the 3Rs Coalition, which has worked with the Parent Commission to lobby for increased parental involvement, said his group would continue lobbying regardless of whatever deal is brokered.  “Even after the legislature passes whatever they pass, we’ll probably continue working,” he said.

Leonie Haimson, a member of the Parent Commission, was more guarded about the organization’s future. “I think we’ll be putting out a statement later,” she said. “I don’t think we want to jump the gun at this point.”

One day before June 30, a lobbying group has launched an ad campaign to pressure the state Senate to renew mayoral control.

Learn NY, which is urging Senators to pass a version of the Assembly’s bill, is running advertisements, sending out robocalls, and planting its volunteers in the halls of the state capital today. The plan, according to spokeswoman Julie Wood, is to put enough pressure on state senators to force them to bring the issue to a vote.

“We’re in real jeopardy of having the school system be in chaos,” Wood said, echoing the mayor’s escalating warnings of anarchy.

The banner ads, which are running on three New York City politics websites — Politicker, Daily Politics, and NY1 — urge readers to call their state Senators and ask them to “pass the Assembly’s education reform bill now.”

There’s also a campaign to get people to sign the group’s online petition, as well as robocalls, which are going out to New Yorkers starting today. (If you’ve gotten one — please! — record and send it to tips@gothamschools.org.)

How long the campaign will last remains to be seen, Wood said. She said it’s possible that Learn NY would continue to operate after the school governance question has been settled. The nonprofit organization was created to champion mayoral control.

Yesterday I highlighted a new book by some of Mayor Bloomberg’s most vocal education critics. Now, here’s a video put together by some of his biggest supporters, the folks at the pro-mayoral control lobbying group Learn NY.

On Sunday and Monday, Learn NY traveled from borough to borough to promote the governance structure, holding events featuring the group’s backers among religious and community leaders. The tour culminated in a rally at the Harlem Children’s Zone on Monday afternoon, which Learn NY said attracted more than 1,000 parents. The video above was shown at the Monday rally, which is why Harlem Children’s Zone founder and CEO Geoffrey Canada is featured so prominently. The video is the first produced by Learn NY and is meant to draw attention to President Obama’s support for mayoral control.

In recent weeks, Learn NY has focused on the bus tour and doesn’t have any other large-scale events planned before the June 30 end of the legislative session, spokeswoman Julie Wood said today.

Protesters derailed the monthly city school board meeting last night, filing out during the middle of the meeting with chants of “Hey hey, ho ho, one-man-rule has got to go!”

The protesters are part of the Campaign for Better Schools, a coalition of community groups that is pushing the state legislature to add checks to the mayor’s control of public schools. They argue that the school board, currently known as the Panel for Educational Policy, is nothing more than a rubber stamp for the mayor’s school policies. Panel members have almost always voted with the administration since Mayor Bloomberg fired three members who signaled they would oppose a third-grade promotion policy in 2005.

The group began the meeting, at Stuyvesant High School in Lower Manhattan, with a rally outside the school, then filed quietly into the meeting room, nearly filling the lower level of an auditorium as they listened to a presentation about swine flu. But as Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, who chairs the PEP, tried to shift the topic of conversation to test scores, the Campaign for Better Schools protesters stood up, and one member launched into a speech encouraging panel members to “think for yourselves.”

“In the meantime, for those of you who cannot, we have brought you something that we hope you can use moving forward,” the speaker said, referring to actual rubber stamps the campaign had made that read “PEP approved.”

As the protesters left the auditorium, one of them, William Hargraves, launched into an impassioned speech of his own, which starts at the beginning of the second minute of the video above. “Yo, chancellor,” he said. “What did you prove? Ninety percent of your audience left. … You’d rather be in front of nobody so that you can say what you’ve got to say, than to hear what the majority got to say?”

“I’ve heard your view,” Klein said. “We’ve got a meeting to conduct.”

“A meeting in front of who?” Hargraves asked. A moment later, when he had reached the auditorium doors to exit, he said angrily, pointing at the chancellor, “Maybe you could sway somebody – maybe you could just sway somebody if you’d just take the time to listen.”

A Campaign for Better Schools supporter at yesterday's rally, with counter-protesters from Learn NY behind her. (GothamSchools)

Hargraves told me he is angry because his school, PS 123 in Harlem, is crunched for space and cannot add the programs it wants ever since a charter school, Harlem Success Academy 2, moved into the building. That school is one of four run by the charter school operator Eva Moskowitz.

Organizers at the Campaign for Better Schools told me they thought the protest was effective despite some facility hurdles. The room the Department of Education selected for yesterday’s meeting had an orchestra pit separating the audience from the panel onstage, preventing campaign members from hand-delivering the stamps to panel members. Panel meetings are often held down the street from Stuyvesant, at Tweed Courthouse, in a room where audience members nudge right against panel members.

“We didn’t anticipate the security,” April Humphrey, a campaign organizer, told me.

About 20 counter-protesters from Learn NY, the organization that is lobbying to preserve the mayor’s control of the schools, also attended the rally before the meeting. Humphrey told me that yesterday was the first time Learn NY supporters staged a counter-rally.

One Learn NY supporter, Abiodun Bello, a parent leader from Brooklyn, said he supports mayoral control because the graduation rate in his neighborhood, Bushwick, has risen in the last seven years.

The crowd at Harlem Charter Night.

Mayor Bloomberg and Lil Mama cheered charter schools, school choice, and mayoral control of the public schools before a crowd of thousands of parents and students last night.

The mayor and the rapper even shared some tactics. “Do we want more parent choice?” Mayor Bloomberg yelled. “I can’t hear you! Do we want more competition? Do we want better test scores and higher graduation rates?”

Lil Mama was more successful with the call-and-response style. She called “Parent” while the crowd screamed back, “Choice!” “You don’t have to send your child to a regular public school,” the Harlem native said before performing two of her hits, “G-Slide” and “Lip Gloss.” “You can send them to a public charter school.”

While many of the kids seemed most excited to watch Lil Mama perform, a team of volunteers and interns at the pro-mayoral control group Learn NY were on hand to encourage parents to sign a petition supporting mayoral control, and a parade of education officials used the unprecedented crowd size to push their causes. (The legislature will vote on whether to renew the mayor’s control of the public schools in June.)

The Harlem-born rapper Lil Mama performed on stage with charter school students.

Geoffrey Canada, founder of Harlem Children’s Zone and the chairman of Learn NY, spoke about how, just seven years ago, Harlem schools were the worst-performing in the state. “If people want to know why I support mayoral control, this never happens otherwise,” he told me after his speech, gesturing towards the enormous crowd of enthusiastic students and their parents. He said he’s a big fan of regular public schools as well, but “the issue is we want great education for our children, and if it’s parochial, if its public, if it’s charter—whatever it is, that’s what we’ve go to do for these kids.”

Because space is tight in lotteried charter schools, critics say the schools leave unlucky children in increasingly unsuccessful regular public schools. Bloomberg made one answer to the problem in his speech, saying that 30,000 kids are waiting to enter charter schools. The answer? Build more.

“We’ve got to make sure that the reforms that we made don’t all get rolled back by the politicians this June,” he said.

President Obama was the unseen star of the show. Organizers passed out buttons saying “Obama [heart] Charters,” and Canada played a video clip of the president’s recent education speech, where he declared that caps on charter schools are not ”good for our children our economy or our country.”

Chancellor Joel Klein declared that charter schools can deliver on the promise of Brown v. Board of Education. “Unless you are willing to stand up and fight and support public charter schools and parental choice so that every kid has an opportunity for the American dream, we will never, ever be the country we want to be,” he said.

The activist Howard Fuller, who chairs the pro-voucher and pro-charter Black Alliance for Educational Options, said that demanding school choice continues in the spirit of Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, and other black leaders. “Harriet Tubman’s mission was to rescue slaves. Our mission is to rescue children,” he said.

I also spoke to Paul Fucaloro, the director of literacy and math for Harlem Success Academy, who departed slightly from the cheerleading to say that not all charter schools are excellent. “Just because people open schools doesn’t mean they’re going to get the same care and attention to detail that we have,” he told me. “We put our money where our mouth is.”

We’ll post more on parents’ experience at charter night later today.

The law that created mayoral control is set to expire at the end of June, and state legislators are currently grappling with whether to preserve, eliminate, or alter the school governance system. Learn NY is trying to amass a coalition to show legislators that many New Yorkers are happy with mayoral control as it currently exists. 

Yesterday the group announced that the coalition now has 40 members, up from just over 30 a month ago. The new additions range in size from a single person, in the case of Demetrius Carolina, pastor of Staten Island’s First Central Baptist Church, to all of Fordham University.

One of the organizations added to the list yesterday also runs one of the nine support networks that principals can hire to provide training for teachers. Fordham University’s network currently works with 10 schools. Other coalition members, including Urban Assembly, Ghetto Film School, and the Young Women’s Leadership Network, are lead partners for DOE schools created during Mayor Bloomberg’s administration. In the past, Bloomberg has been criticized for citing as backers organizations to which he or the city gives financial support.

Learn NY has solicited backers in a “grassroots” fashion since launching late last year, by reaching out to community groups and trying to sell them on Learn NY’s platform, spokeswoman Julie Wood told me. Member organizations aren’t expected to do more than let Learn NY make its case to their constituents, Wood said. The goal is for those constituents then to write their legislators or turn out at Assembly hearings on mayoral control like the one held in Manhattan last month.

“We’ll keep talking to people until the day a bill is passed,” she said.

Hispanic Federation president Lillian Rodriguez Lopez, center. (Via Flickr)

What exactly does it mean to be a “partner”? When Learn NY, the group fighting to preserve the mayor’s control over the school system, announced partnerships with three racial-minority groups last week, it seemed like evidence that the groups would join its lobbying battle.

But the president of one of the three groups, Lillian Rodriguez Lopez of the Hispanic Federation, told me late last week that “partner” in this case has a “very contained and limited” meaning. The Hispanic Federation will not adopt Learn NY’s position on mayoral control; it will come up with its own, separate position, after talking to parents, she said.

That keeps Lopez open to maintaining the scathing critique of mayoral control that she provided to Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum’s commission on school governance last year:

“The dial towards improvement has moved very, very slowly during the years of mayoral control and in certain communities we have seen the dial moving in the opposite direction towards a worsening of the schools,” she said in testimony that you can read here (page 130 — UPDATE: sorry about broken link, should work now).

In her testimony, Lopez blamed both the Bloomberg administration’s “corporate” approach to school policy and the mayoral control system itself, which she said silenced debate. She also challenged the idea promoted by Learn NY board chairman Geoffrey Canada that mayoral control brings a clear line of accountability. Lopez said that under mayoral control it has been impossible to know who is responsible for what. “Too many of us are unsure of what the system really looks like now,” Lopez said.

So why is Lopez partnering with Learn NY? She said that the resources the group offered her, combined with the chance to boost the voice of the Latino community, sealed the deal. Learn NY is covering the costs of questionnaires that Lopez will design and hand out to her community members. The questionnaires will ask what parents feel is working in the law and what isn’t. “Whenever you do that engagement, it requires support,” Lopez said.

She said she was also happy that Learn NY approached the Hispanic Federation in search of a partnership, rather than simply asking the group to sign onas an afterthought. “That’s what I care about,” she said. “I care about my community knowing and being involved in major decisions that always happen on the rooftop, and we’re knocking on the door trying to figure out what’s happening and trying to get in.”

Lopez hinted that her partnership could also work in the reverse, bending Learn NY more towards her skepticism of mayoral control as it’s currently written. After she signaled several times her happiness that a Latina woman, Rossana Rosado, the publisher of El Diario, has joined Learn NY’s board, I asked her whether she hoped Rosado would persuade Learn NY to think more critically of mayoral control. “Yup,” she replied.

“I think you would agree it’s important to be able to work and inform systems and processes from the inside as well as the outside,” she said.

First, the Department of Education and the group supporting mayoral control, Learn NY, dismissed the union’s proposal as a step backward, comparing it to the way the public schools were run before mayoral control. Both don’t like the union’s proposal to empower the Panel for Educational Policy, now seen as a rubber stamp, into an effective school board that would have to approve policy decisions.

Now, the mayor controls a majority of appointments on the panel, and can dismiss any of these members at a moment’s notice. Under the union’s proposal, the mayor would control only 5 of 13 seats, and term limits would protect board members from overnight removal.

“We can’t have it both ways,” Learn NY board chair Geoffrey Canada said in a statement. “Either one person is in charge, or no one is.”

The union is also receiving criticism from a group of its own members, who late last night released a minority report suggesting that the legislature carve even more power away from the mayor. While the union’s official proposal calls for the mayor to retain authority over the school budget and over day-to-day operations inside the school system, the minority report looks very much like the pre-mayoral control governance setup. It recommends making school board membership elected positions, giving parents the authority to select superintendents, and having the central school board — not the mayor — select the schools chancellor.

Members of the union’s own committee to study school governance wrote the minority report. They belong to an opposition caucus inside the union called the Independent Community of Educators, or ICE.

CORRECTION: I originally included a photo with this post that was not related to ICE. Apologies for the error.

But I’m guessing, based on having been to a number of events that previewed the showdown, that those who are testifying at Queens Borough Hall might be having trouble separating their thoughts on the idea of mayoral control with their views on the way Mayor Bloomberg has ruled the city’s schools since 2002. Learn NY, the pro-mayoral control lobbying group, thinks the distinction is important, but they’re not the only ones: The commission convened by Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum in 2007 to study mayoral control also did so without evaluating Bloomberg’s reforms. That commission ultimately argued in favor of a constrained form of mayoral control.

At Teachable Moment, John has a very good summary of how this distinction complicates the mayoral control debate. He writes:

Our image of mayoral control is so linked to Bloomberg that it’s hard to see it any other way.

This is, of course, not helped by the fact that Bloomberg, Klein, and Learn NY aren’t really even playing by their own rules. They will undoubtedly be highlighting rising test scores and graduation rates as evidence that mayoral control is working. They will point out the major dysfunctions that existed under many of the local school boards that mayoral control replaced. But that isn’t playing fair. If we’re really supposed to look at a governance system as a governance system, then we shouldn’t be looking at the successes under one man (who the system is designed to eventually replace) or the failures of the previous administrators.

What’s going on is a very sophisticated kind of mental jiu jitsu where every success under Bloomberg is hailed as proof that the system works while the failures are faults of the man and shouldn’t affect our view of the system. We’re also being asked to compare the platonic ideal of mayoral control (because we’re not looking at the policies Bloomberg implemented through it) to the very messy realities of the previous governance structure.

This isn’t exactly up is down thinking, but it certainly makes it hard to get a hold of a clear idea of what the terms of the debate actually are.

On the heels of news last week that the publisher of El Diario is joining the Learn NY board, this could bring a not-so-covert racial dynamic to the mayoral control debate. Another way Learn NY might make the same point: Among the group’s lobbyists are former Bronx party boss Roberto Ramirez, who heads the MirRam group. Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan, chairwoman of the education committee, just told me MirRam lobbyists have already begun meeting with lawmakers to pitch Learn NY’s stance on the law. Learn NY’s lead spokesman so far has been Geoffrey Canada, the black C.E.O. of Harlem Children’s Zone.

Having the city’s non-white communities stand strongly for mayoral control would be a departure from the historical pattern. In the past, racial minorities have opposed mayors’ efforts to take control. Remember decentralization here in the 1960s, led in part by the black and Puerto Rican communities? The pattern applies to other cities, too, according to this essay (PDF) by Columbia Teachers College professor Jeff Henig:

The most important complaints have come from racial minorities, parents, and teachers. Despite the fact that it is presented in race-neutral language, mayoral control has sparked racially defined responses in a number of cities.

Here’s the full Learn NY press release:

Hispanic Federation, Black Equity Alliance, Asian American Federation Partner with Learn NY
________________________________

Diverse groups come together for grassroots effort to educate New Yorkers on mayoral control of schools

New York, NY – Learn NY is pleased to announce new partnerships with several organizations that will host forums and talk with parents about the current school governance system.  These organizations are the Hispanic Federation, Black Equity Alliance, and the Asian-American Federation of New York.

“These three organizations represent many of the faces of New York City,” said Learn NY Board Chair Geoffrey Canada.  “They are joining us to get involved in education issues and will help Learn NY connect and work with New York City parents.”

“We are partnering with Learn NY to help parents increase their understanding of mayoral control,” said Lillian Rodríguez López, President of The Hispanic Federation, an umbrella organization of Latino non-profits, serving millions of underprivileged Latinos in the areas of education, health, elderly services, child care, HIV/AIDS, housing, immigrant services, arts and culture, and economic development. “Parents must play a vital role in their kids’ schools and to do that, they need to have all the facts.”

“Our forums will ensure that the number one stakeholder in the education of New York City’s 1.1 million school children—parents—are fully informed, engaged and empowered to make the best decision possible for their children,” said Joyce S. Johnson, President and CEO, Black Equity Alliance.  “The bottom line is that we’ve got to create a system that delivers for our children and step one in that process is ensuring that parents, educators and community members are educated about the key issues involved in the effective management of our city’s schools,” Johnson added. “Black Equity Alliance supports all efforts to increase opportunities for open, comprehensive dialogue among all concerned with the welfare of New York City’s public school children. We appreciate the work of Learn NY and this outreach partnership with our fellow federations. “

Black Equity Alliance is a nonprofit organization promoting the economic and social sustainability of New York City’s 2 million blacks and working in collaboration with several hundred nonprofit, faith-based, business and human service organizations in the New York City area.

“We want parents to be engaged in their children’s schools, so it’s important that their views are heard,” said Cao K. O, Executive Director of the Asian American Federation, a nonprofit leadership organization which represents 42 member agencies in the New York metropolitan area working to advance the civic voice and quality of life of Asian Americans in the New York metropolitan area.

Learn NY has made open dialogue with parents a priority.  Over the past several months, Learn NY has been working with leaders of religious and school communities to talk to parents about the school system.

In November, we participated in a neighborhood forum on mayoral control in Brooklyn, attended by approximately 1,000 parents and community leaders.  In December, another community forum was held, with about 600 Queens parents and residents attending.

We have also held small educational meetings in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn.  To date we have met with hundreds of parents and clergy leaders through these smaller meetings.  Learn NY has also attended, and continues to participate in, public forums to engage directly with parents on all sides of the mayoral control issue.

Learn NY has an interactive website, www.learn-ny.org/, that gives parents the tools they need to get the facts on mayoral control, learn about what to expect grade by grade, find a calendar on public hearing on education issues, check out the latest news about mayoral control, and read about the results in our schools.  On our website, parents can also share stories about their schools and ask questions about mayoral control.  Most of the tools are in both English and Spanish.

Answers Learn NY, in the e-mail (reprinted in full below the jump):

These are fair discussions, but I would like to state that I am not here to champion or defend specific policy decisions that the mayor has made. But the fact that parents are holding the mayor directly accountable for the changes in our schools highlights the key issue for those advocating for the renewal of the law– for the first time, we have a line of responsibility: the schools are accountable to the mayor, and the mayor is accountable to us.

We are all, now, education voters. Just as much as our next mayor is responsible for keeping the streets safe and providing city social services, the mayor’s job description now includes education and there is a clear obligation to insure that our schools improve.

Learn NY’s first message to parents (and parent bloggers) was introductory. The full e-mail is after the jump.

Dear New York City Parents,

I hope you all have had a wonderful beginning to the New Year. Since I posted about the issue of Mayoral Control here last month, parents from across the city have written to Learn NY, asking questions, sharing their stories and getting involved.

As the state legislature gets to work, I was eager to come back again, hoping to share some additional information and address some of the questions we have received.

Many of the comments that we received were about Mayor Bloomberg’s impact on the school system. These are fair discussions, but I would like to state that I am not here to champion or defend specific policy decisions that the mayor has made. But the fact that parents are holding the mayor directly accountable for the changes in our schools highlights the key issue for those advocating for the renewal of the law– for the first time, we have a line of responsibility: the schools are accountable to the mayor, and the mayor is accountable to us.

We are all, now, education voters. Just as much as our next mayor is responsible for keeping the streets safe and providing city social services, the mayor’s job description now includes education and there is a clear obligation to insure that our schools improve.

With the law coming up for renewal, now is the time for discussion and improvements, particularly when it comes to increasing transparency and ensuring more parental engagement.

That is why parents from across the city are getting involved with Learn NY. By coming together to share our stories, our experiences, and our ideas for the future, we will ensure that parent voices are well-represented as state legislators debate renewing mayoral control this spring.

To that end, the New York State Assembly Standing Committee on Education wants to hear from you about the Governance of the New York City School System, and they are holding hearings all over the city to give you that opportunity. The first of the hearings is taking place this Thursday at 10 A.M in Kew Gardens. Please click here for more details.

Already, concerned parents in your community have signed up to attend the hearings. Click here to join them and to make sure that your voice is heard.

Additionally on the site, you will find resources specifically for parents like links to school progress reports, grade-by-grade guides and a parent’s bill of rights, as well as other ways for you to get involved.

I look forward to working with you all. Please email me if you have any questions.

Robin Warren

Learn NY

Better Schools, Brighter Futures

PS- Many of you have asked about funding of Learn NY.  Many educational and community leaders have expressed their support of Mayoral Control in order to preserve the level of accountability now in the NYC school system; however, this non-profit is not being funded by the Mayor, and neither the Mayor nor other City Hall officials have a formal role.

Brooklyn mom blogger Louise Crawford posted Learn NY's statement on her web site, but other parents are refusing.

Learn NY is ramping up its dogged campaign to bring public school parents on board its effort to preserve mayoral control of the city schools. Its latest technique: asking parent-bloggers to post a canned introductory letter directly to their web sites.

The group, which includes a set of four high-profile board members, some anonymous rich donors, and one seasoned political hand, was formed last year as the premier campaign to lobby for mayoral control when it comes up for renewal this spring. (The law could be scrapped, bringing back the old school board, revised, or kept intact.) Part of Learn NY’s argument for keeping mayoral control is that, though some very vocal parents loudly criticize the system, a silent majority of non-loud parents support it — or would, if they properly understood what mayoral control is.

The blogosphere campaign is part of its effort to find those parents and educate them. An earlier effort involved shooting off an arsenal of e-mails to parent e-mail lists.

The campaign is hitting some snags. After e-mails went out to parent list-serves, Leonie Haimson, the executive director of Class Size Matters, denounced the group on the public school parents list serve she runs. Another blogger, David Quintana of Queens, who received an inquiry from Learn NY today, declined the offer and passed it on to press contacts. Quintana’s blog includes a clock excitedly counting down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds left in the Bloomberg administration.

Julie Wood, a spokeswoman for Learn NY, said the organization is deliberately reaching out to diverse groups because it wants to start a dialogue. “It’s similar to what we’ve been doing all along, going to forums where there are lots of people against us, people who have lots of disagreements with mayoral control and the mayor,” she said.

She said Learn NY also wants to transform the conversation about mayoral control from a shouting match about Mayor Bloomberg, Joel Klein, and Learn NY’s own behind-the-scenes happenings into a substantive debate on the merits of mayoral control as a way to govern the public schools. “If this is a referendum on Joel Klein, that doesn’t serve the interests of the school system,” she said. “We think that it’s about more than that.”

The group is waging campaigns off the Internet, too. Community organizers employed by Learn NY have held meetings in the outer boroughs with groups of 20 or 30 parents, Wood says, and the group right now is marshaling a set of nonprofit allies who could come with Learn NY spokesmen to testify at Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan’s hearing on mayoral control in Queens Wednesday (the first of a set of hearings in every borough).

The letter Learn NY asked Quintana to post is below:

Hello New York City Parents,

My name is Robin Warren and I work with an education advocacy coalition called Learn NY based here in New York City.

Some background on our organization: Learn NY is a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that each of New York City’s students receives a high-quality education. We believe in an education governance system that provides our schools with accountability and efficiency, so that our children have a chance at a brighter future.

I am reaching out to online New York City parent communities across all five boroughs to introduce our organization and to hopefully begin a real dialogue with you all.

In this community and other New York neighborhoods, concerned parents are discussing how we can improve the education system in New York City; one of the issues that we are trying to raise more awareness about is the renewal of the important Mayoral Control Law, as well as how we can work to improve it.

With the law coming up for renewal, now is the time for discussion and improvements, particularly when it comes to increasing transparency and ensuring more parental engagement in the New York City school system.
That is why parents from across the city are getting involved with Learn NY. By coming together to share our stories <http://www.learn-ny.org/e/l/14378/13706d60-8a43-4471-8102-4cbf27281ed1> , our experiences, and our ideas for the future, we will ensure that parent voices are well-represented as state legislators debate renewing mayoral control this spring.
To that end, the New York State Assembly Standing Committee on Education wants to hear from you about the Governance of the New York City School System, and they are holding hearings all over the city to give you that opportunity. The first of the hearings is taking place this Thursday at 10 A.M in Kew Gardens. Please click here for more details <http://www.learn-ny.org/main.cfm?actionId=globalShowStaticContent&screenKey=cmpContent&htmlKey=parentsSchedule&s=learnNY> .
Already, concerned parents in your community have signed up to attend the hearing. Click here to join them <http://www.learn-ny.org/main.cfm?actionId=globalShowStaticContent&screenKey=userNewsletterSpecial&s=learnNY>  and to make sure that your voice is heard.
Additionally on the site, you will find resources specifically for parents <http://www.learn-ny.org/e/l/14376/13706d60-8a43-4471-8102-4cbf27281ed1>  like links to school progress reports, grade-by-grade guides and a parent’s bill of rights, as well as other ways for you to get involved <http://www.learn-ny.org/e/l/14377/13706d60-8a43-4471-8102-4cbf27281ed1> .
In the coming weeks, I hope to come back here to give you some more background on Learn NY and on this issue for those who might be less familiar with the law.
I look forward to working with you all. Please email me if you have any questions.
Robin Warren
robin@learn-ny.org
Learn NY
Better Schools, Brighter Futures

An advertisement for Learn NY that appeared on the New York Times' web site yesterday.

Learn NY, the nonprofit group lobbying to preserve mayoral control, has added a fourth member to its board: Rossana Rosado, the publisher of the Spanish-language daily newspaper El Diario/La Prensa. That’s good news for Learn NY, which said months ago it wanted to recruit more board members but had instead so far stuck to its original group of three (Geoffrey Canada, CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone, Sister Paulette LoMonaco of Good Shepherd Services, and the Reverend Calvin Butts III, a Baptist minister in Harlem).

The appointment could help Learn NY reach out to Latino families and lawmakers (although I can think of at least one who almost certainly won’t be persuaded). The organization’s major goal right now is to reach out to parents, a push that already includes online advertisements at the New York Times’ web site (see graphic).

Rosado’s appointment to the board raises questions about El Diario’s coverage of mayoral control and the city schools. It isn’t the first time a major newspaper publisher has taken a stance. Mort Zuckerman, who publishes the Daily News and my old employer, U.S. News & World Report, is on the board of the Fund for Public Schools.

Rosado’s statement about why she is joining Learn NY is after the jump:

“For decades under the old Board of Education the school system had failed our children,” said Rosado.  “Since the mayor was given control of schools, I have seen positive changes in communities across the city. More students are graduating, schools are safer, and teachers are better-trained.”

“There is still much work to be done, but we must continue to build on the reforms and improvements we have seen under mayoral control,” continued Rosado. “I am excited to join this esteemed group of education leaders on the Learn NY Board and am eager to begin working with them to engage the community on this critical issue.”

Learn NY also solicits parents' ideas on its web site.

The lobbying group that is campaigning to preserve the mayor’s control of the public school system is making good on its promise to reach out to parents. Today a staffer at the group, called Learn NY, sent an introductory message to e-mail lists run by public school parents.

The staffer explained the group’s mission, promised to send follow-up messages about the positive effects of mayoral control, and asked for feedback.

She wrote:

the more we hear from parents, the more we can improve the mayoral control law when it comes up for renewal next year. I would love to gather some feedback from you to help us better inform lawmakers in Albany of what’s working and what’s not.

The messages went out to at least two list-serves, one for parents in District 3 and one for parents of gifted and talented students, at about the same time today, 11:50 a.m. and 11:52 a.m, respectively. One list has already seen some responses, a mix of confusion and suspicion.

Here’s one parent’s reaction:

In the interest of fairness, I suppose this person should be allowed to post. However, this looks like(and probably is) part of a PR campaign from the mayor to tout mayoral control. I am going to contact this person and find out exactly who she represents.

For the record, though Mayor Bloomberg also supports renewing mayoral control, which he hopes to make a hallmark of his legacy, and though Learn NY early on had ties to the top City Hall and Department of Education officials, the group says that it has received no money from the mayor and claims it is totally independent of him. Learn NY’s lead spokesman, Geoffrey Canada, runs a service organization in Harlem that has received large donations (more than $500,000) from the mayor. But Canada has openly criticized parts of the Bloomberg administration’s education program — including its parental engagement, which he called inadequate.

Here’s the full e-mail sent to the District 3 list (which by the way includes parents from the Upper West Side and Manhattan Valley):

Hello Harlem Parents,

My name is Robin Warren and I work with an education advocacy coalition called Learn NY based here in New York City.

Some background on our organization: Learn NY is a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that each of New York City’s students receives a high-quality education. We believe in an education governance system that provides our schools with accountability and efficiency, so that our children have a chance at a brighter future.

I am reaching out to online New York City parent communities across all five boroughs to introduce our organization and to hopefully begin a real dialogue with you all.

In this community and other New York neighborhoods, concerned parents are discussing how we can improve the education system in New York City; one of the issues that we are trying to raise more awareness about is the renewal of the important Mayoral Control Law, as well as
how we can work to improve it.

In the coming weeks, I hope to come back here to give some more background on Learn NY and on this issue for those who might be less familiar with the law. I also want to share with you some of the results and improvements that we seen, and which are directly
benefitting New York City students.

And lastly, the more we hear from parents, the more we can improve the mayoral control law when it comes up for renewal next year. I would love to gather some feedback from you to help us better inform lawmakers in Albany of what’s working and what’s not.

Parents from across the City are getting involved with Learn NY, and we hope you will too. We have received many comments noting the differences in the school system recently, from how the schools are safer to the increase in test scores.

If you would like to share your observations about your school’s performance recently, please share your story with us on our website, a post here, or you can write to me at robin@…

We all want the best for our children. You can learn more about Mayoral Control at our website www.learn-ny.org, read what others are saying at www.Learn-NY.org/Viewpoints, or follow our blog at www.Learn-NY.org/Blog..

I look forward to continuing this discussion with you all.

Robin

The commission makes two arguments. One is that handing control to the mayor would allow for more efficient spending. The schools could be linked with other services under the mayor’s purview, like parks, recreation, and social programs. The second argument is more long-term:

Most importantly, if mayoral control is successful in improving school performance, there may be a positive effect on economic development, retention of middle class families, and protection or expansion of the property tax base.

The arguments are interesting — especially because they provide two good yardsticks to measure New York City’s mayoral control experiment. First, there’s the idea that the mayor, given control, will creatively find ways to link schools to other city agencies. Teachers union president Randi Weingarten has argued that school districts should do this more often, using mayoral control to create what she calls “community schools.” But did inter-agency cooperation happen in New York? I can’t think of any examples, but maybe readers can.

Then, there’s the question of whether mayoral control helped retain middle class families in New York City. This question would probably make a terrific PhD dissertation, or three. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to tackle it here, too. I have some ideas about data points that give a sense of whether middle-class families were moved to keep their kids in the public schools after mayoral control. And I know that lawmakers and public school parents have strong thoughts, too. I’ll share both in coming posts. In the meantime, readers, other ideas about how to answer this question?

Finally, for the record, this is not the first time a mayoral control exportation has been floated.

Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters has already done impressive digging into the group’s media strategy. A spokesperson for the group confirmed to me today that the blog commenter Haimson noticed voicing his passion for mayoral control is indeed on the payroll of Learn NY. Brian Keeler, an online-media specialist who ran unsuccessfully for state senate in 2006 with the help of a following he built at Daily Kos, has been posting positive comments on this blog, Leonie’s, and others. He is also an employee of the Web design firm that built Learn NY’s Web site and will write a regular blog on the site, the spokesperson, Julie Wood, said.

Something that will surely be asked — especially by critics of mayoral control and the Bloomberg administration, including Haimson — is how much of a “MASS” organization Learn NY really is. This is an important question to ask, for sure, just as it will be important to ask of groups opposing mayoral control. The question in this case is difficult to answer, partly because the pro-mayoral control forces have been circling for a while, but with some unexplained zig-zags.

First, there was the news, from Adam Lisberg at the Daily News, that a pro-mayoral control campaign was being led in part by Emma Bloomberg, Mayor Michael’s daughter and an employee of the Robin Hood Foundation. The foundation invests in charter schools that are generally strong mayoral control supporters. Then, Jenny Medina and Elissa Gootman reported in the Times that a campaign would be called MASS; that it was expected to have Deputy Chancellor Christopher Cerf serve as informal liason to the Bloomberg admnistration; and that Geoffrey Canada, the CEO of Harlem Children’s Zone and chairman of MASS’s board, would recruit additional board members.

Now, MASS is calling itself Learn NY; has the same original three board members; and is disavowing all ties to the Bloomberg administration (though its leaders say that they have had conversations with administration officials). The group is also staking out a position that tacitly accepts two of the most-repeated criticisms of Mayor Bloomberg’s rule of the schools, pushing for a way to increase parental involvement and for a way to increase transparency and access to data.

Here’s the key excerpt from Canada’s introductory op/ed, published in Sunday’s Daily News:

There is more data available now than ever before, but parents and citizens deserve to have full confidence in its accuracy. An independent organization should be formed to analyze school performance and policy effectiveness. There should also be increased fiscal transparency, with audits to ensure that money is going toward children and learning.

The Department of Education has not done nearly enough to engage parents. Parents should have more notice before major decisions, like school closings or the cell phone ban, are made. And they should be given forums to voice their opinions – not merely free-for-all complaint sessions, but substantive discussions that are taken seriously. The DOE should establish community engagement benchmarks to monitor progress toward greater involvement of parents.

Canada is toeing the Bloomberg administration line pretty close in this battle. But he does of course have a mind of his own — and sometimes his ideas are unconventional.

Last week at the Campaign for Educational Equity symposium at Teachers College, Canada semi-jokingly proposed a redistribution scheme for teachers. “All the lousy teachers, we should send to the upper-middle-class communities,” he said. “In those communities a kid could have a lousy teacher and still survive.”

Canada said he’d been pitching the idea to audiences around the country so he thought he should tell New Yorkers about it as well. The idea is based on research that says high-quality teaching can do the most to help poor children do better academically.

(Building off the same research, Chancellor Joel Klein has tried to build in incentives to attract teachers to low-performing schools, but to my knowledge has never publicly suggested transferring bad teachers to affluent communities.)

The event was the same one where Canada worried that fixating on “outcomes” could hurt poor communities.