*Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified Wallace Smith.*

We may find out this week whether Rochester will get mayoral control. Maybe, given City's Tuesday afternoon press deadline, we'll know by the time you read this. Or maybe the issue won't come up for a Senate vote this week, and the suspense and the fighting will continue.

Whatever happens, those of us who support the change need to think hard about what the opponents have been saying.

Best I can tell, mayoral control has been controversial wherever it's been proposed. And the local objections - voting rights, parent participation, business influence - aren't unique to Rochester. What's playing out here is pretty much a textbook case. And frankly, the opponents are doing a heck of a lot better job spelling out their concerns than supporters are.

Four of the opponents, all well-known African-American community activists, were in my office recently, making sure I understand their objections. The media have reported many of them, but political leaders need to understand the depth of the critics' concerns. And they can't just dismiss them.

Some of the most vocal opponents of mayoral control are members of the district's unions, and mayoral control proponents note their vested interest in the way the school district is governed. But of the four critics in my office earlier this month - Howard Eagle, Wallace Smith, Glenny Williams, and Bishop Michael Tillman Sr. - none are school district employees. All are members of the Community Education Task Force coalition. They're walking encyclopedias on the experience and concerns related to mayoral control in other cities. And calling them passionate is putting it mildly.

They've been fighting mayoral control since Mayor Bob Duffy proposed it in January, but their activism around Rochester schools goes way back before that. In our discussion, Williams - who has been both a parent and grandparent of city students - took a burn to what he said is Duffy's implication that parents and others hadn't been working for school reform.

And, said Williams: "Let me be clear: We are not satisfied with the status quo," neither the success rate of the school district nor the school system itself.

They want the school district to be fiscally independent, with the public, not City Council, voting on the budget.

They criticize the caliber of school board members - and, especially, the way they're selected. They want non-partisan school boards, and Eagle, who has run unsuccessfully for school board, suggests that board members either shouldn't be paid at all or should be full-time board members with an adequate salary.

Under the present system, they insist, Democratic Party leaders virtually control who gets on the ballot as a Democrat. And in this city, no one but a Democrat stands much chance of getting elected.

Like many of the critics, the four say rather than try to take control of the schools, the mayor ought to take care of the things he's already responsible for: crime reduction, for instance. "There's been a reduction in homicides, yes," said Tillman, "but there's been an increase in gunshots, stabbing wounds."

Added Williams: "We do find it interesting that the mayor wants to fix things through governance. He wants to have longer school days, better after-school services. Can't we solve all those things without a change in governance?"

"We tried for years to have one-stop shopping at schools, multi-services," said Williams, and the city wouldn't pay the costs of keeping the schools open later. "These buildings are their buildings."

Also like many critics, these four suspect that City Hall's real interest is in diverting some of the district's money to services that the city now pays for. And they suspect that City Hall is eager to get its hands on the money or control the contracts related to the modernizing of city schools: the "$1.5 billion that's going to flow through the community," said Eagle.

They, like some of the other critics, are also convinced that another motive of mayoral control's supporters is to privatize the schools, closing public schools and turning them over to private interests. Williams points to one big change mayoral control would bring: the method for closing schools. Currently, the school board has to approve a superintendent's recommendation to close a school. Parents, students, and teachers turn out in force for board meetings, and it's not unusual for the superintendent to back down.

Under mayoral control, while there would be hearings, the mayor would make the decision.

Rochester, said Wallace Smith, "will be a guinea pig" for New York State.

Duffy, of course, has added fuel to the fire of the opposition by agreeing to run for lieutenant governor. There is the potential, noted Smith, for Rochester to have three mayors in three years: Duffy until he moves to Albany, an interim mayor between then and the November 2011 election, and yet another mayor filling out the last two years of Duffy's term.

And there's certainly no guarantee that either of the next two mayors would embrace mayoral control. "I want to give you a hypothetical," said Eagle. "Say Van White [a vocal opponent of mayoral control] runs for mayor. Suppose he decides to dismantle the mayoral control system. Then we've really got a problem.

"This is no game," said Eagle.

Perhaps the critics' most powerful argument against mayoral control - certainly the most emotionally powerful - is that it takes away the public's right to vote for school board.

"Parents now have major input into school operations; they can vote for school board members," said Tillman. "If you take that piece away, you've taken away the whole thing."

Equally serious, concern about racism with the suffrage issue is unavoidable. Rochester's large minority population would not get to vote for school board under mayoral control. Residents of the predominantly white suburban districts would continue to have that right.

"If this system passes," said Eagle, "this looks like Jim Crow."

Also related to the issue of suffrage is the critics' concern about parent involvement in the district. I pointed out that lack of parent access is a long-standing criticism of the Rochester district, and that the mayoral-control legislation seems to ensure parents greater involvement and influence than they have now. While the legislation eliminates the school board, for instance, it establishes several advisory councils and mandates that their members include parents.

The four critics in my office weren't impressed. The advisory council members would be appointed - by City Council and the mayor - not elected by the public, they pointed out.

"Parents should be at the decision-making table," said Williams. "There's a major difference between ‘advisory' and shared decision making."

In suburban districts, "there's shared decision making," said Williams. "They help to pick the principal."

If the new Rochester councils are advisory only, he said, "all they get to do is yak."

And Williams portrayed the advisory councils more as a barrier than an avenue for parent participation. There would be seven of them under mayoral control: an overall "education commission," an "advisory council" for each quadrant of the city, a citywide council that would deal with issues related to the needs of special-education students, and another for the needs of children whose first language is not English.

"And City Council," said Williams. "They want a piece of the power. And after you dust off these new layers, then you get to talk to the decision-maker. The mayor is the decision-maker."

And that, the critics say, takes away what little power parents have now and puts it in the hands of one person.

Eagle pointed to a significant power that would transfer to the mayor from the school board: "The mayor doesn't need permission to remove the superintendent. He has the sole power."

What, then? If the critics aren't satisfied with the district now, and if they don't want mayoral control, what's going to bring about reform?

Howard Eagle sees hope for reform within the current, school-board based system. "I believe we are at a critical junction," he said. Teachers-union leaders, he thinks, recognize the need "for change and collaboration."

And like other critics, Glenny Williams worries that change simply for the sake of change could make things worse. "Everybody says, ‘We've got to do something,' he said during our interview. "Well, you know: slavery was ‘something.'"

If the state Senate doesn't deal with the mayoral control bill this session, the issue will simply resurface when the legislature reconvenes, and the fight between supporters and opponents will continue. If the Senate kills the legislation? Some mayoral-control supporters think that the issue has so focused public attention on the district's needs that a push for reform will continue. I hope they're right. And I hope that Eagle's right, that this may be a turning point, and everybody will pull together and bring about change.

I'm not optimistic. But it's safe to predict one thing: if the Senate passes the mayoral-control bill, its supporters, the mayor, the superintendent, and other public officials will have their work cut out for them. The opposition in some parts of the community is deep. The mayor and others dispute the critics' arguments, but the concerns about the district are genuine, and they pre-date the mayor's push for mayoral control. Mayoral control can't be successful if those concerns aren't met, and if parents don't feel that the district and City Hall value their participation, not just in helping their own children but also in setting district policies.