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Parents who battled the mayor over school governance and lost are regrouping and redirecting their efforts to electing sympathetic city candidates.

The new organization, NYC Kids PAC, announced a roster of candidates for City Council, Comptroller and Public Advocate they will support in the fall campaign season. Ann Kjellberg, president and spokeswoman for the PAC, said that the group has begun to collect donations and will distribute them amongst the candidates they endorse.

Many PAC steering committee members were also active in the Parent Commission on School Governance, which lobbied heavily for stronger outlets for parent involvement during the debate over mayoral control. Kjellberg said that many members were disillusioned by their experience as parents fighting for the ears of Albany lawmakers. Rather than continuing to lobby their opponents, she said, they decided to boost their political allies.

The PAC’s steering committee looked for candidates whose voting records align with the organization’s mission, which includes strengthening local control and community involvement in schools, reducing class size, opposing private sector influence in public schools and reducing standardized test preparation in classes. But the deciding factor, Kjellberg said, was each candidate’s stance against the city’s school capital program.

“We were very, very grateful and moved by those officials who stepped forth under considerable pressure from the mayor and voted their consciences on the capital plan and we wanted to encourage other officials,” she said. (more…)

A New York non-profit whose political action committee supports critics of mayoral control is making its debut into city education politics tonight. But its strategy is to hold off supporting city candidates this election year and instead spend the fall collecting community input.

Glynda Carr

The effort kicks off tonight with two “neighborhood dialogue” meetings in Brooklyn and Queens, said Glynda Carr, executive director of Education Voters of New York, a three-year old branch of the national Education Voters of America.

The group has previously supported some of mayoral control’s staunchest opponents in Albany. But Carr said that she aims to launch a public conversation about schools freed of political agendas, including her own. “These neighborhood dialogues aren’t going to be framed,” she said.

Carr said she planned to use the fruits of the fall meetings to map out an agenda for future local campaign work.  If she succeeds, her group could become a key player amid a crop of new lobbying groups directing their dollars with education issues in mind. (more…)