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Learn NY, the group lobbying the legislature to renew mayoral control, today sent out a second message to parent e-mail lists. The message addresses concerns from parents who’ve been wondering why they should support mayoral control if they don’t support the mayor’s education policies.

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. (more…)

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. (more…)

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: (more…)

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. (more…)

Another recommendation from the Suozzi report I wrote about earlier today, the one recommending ways for state schools to cut costs, is that the mayors of the Big Four cities — Rochester, Syracuse, Buffalo, and Yonkers — be granted control of their public school systems, like Mayor Bloomberg was in 2002. How could mayoral control cut school costs?

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. (more…)

The nonprofit pro-mayoral control advocacy group that was originally titled MASS, for Mayoral Accountability for Student Success, is now called Learn NY, and its official first day of existence is today. The group has close ties with the Bloomberg administration, but it is not being funded by the mayor, officials said in a background press conference with reporters this morning.

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. (more…)

Harlem Children’s Zone CEO Geoffrey Canada announced this weekend that he’s launching a new nonprofit, Learn NY, to support mayoral control of the public schools.

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.” (more…)