NYC's mayor to keep control of schools: lawmakers

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will keep control of the biggest U.S. school system, state Senate Democratic leaders said on Friday, adding that the mayor accepted their plans to give parents more say.

The state law letting the city's mayor directly run the schools expired last month while the state Senate was gridlocked in a five-week leadership battle that eventually put the Democrats back in charge of the Legislature's upper chamber.

The stakes were high in Bloomberg's fight to keep mayoral control because he is running for a third term, as an independent, based on improvements in school test results and higher graduation rates as well as his business acumen.

A number of New York City Democratic senators wanted to curb Bloomberg's power over the schools, which spend $22 billion a year to educate 1.1 million pupils.

But the mayor at first objected to the Democratic senators' plans to change even one word in the bill the Democratic-led Assembly had already approved.

Some city Democratic senators wanted to make an oversight board more independent by changing its members' terms to fixed periods. This would have let the members keep their seats if they clashed with the mayor, who otherwise could push them out.

While that proposal has died for now, the school fight this week grew more complicated as a few borough presidents weighed whether to exert more influence through their appointees to the Board of Education that Bloomberg revived after the law expired.

While a Bloomberg spokeswoman had no comment, the Senate Democrats said he has accepted a new center to train parents how to exert their influence on the schools. Bloomberg had derided this plan, likening it to spending public money to teach people how to disrupt the school administration.

Senate Democratic Majority Conference Leader John Sampson said in a statement: "To provide our children with the tools they need to succeed in life requires a partnership between parents, educators and policy makers."

Schools will have to hold a public meeting on safety every year, superintendents will be required to consider the "quality of curriculum and instruction" when they review principals, and an arts advisory committee will be set up, the Senate Democrats added.

(Reporting by Joan Gralla; Editing by Jan Paschal)