SACRAMENTO, California (AP) -- Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa reached a compromise Wednesday with lawmakers and teachers unions that would give him some authority over his city's schools without handing him the outright control he had sought.
The deal gives the superintendent of the nation's second largest school district more power over personnel, business operations, budgeting and other areas.
It gives Villaraigosa a "central role" in choosing that superintendent, but still allows the school board power to direct student achievement, said Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, who helped broker the deal.
The tentative deal does not, however, spell out who will control the budget of the troubled Los Angeles Unified School District, which essentially sets the district's educational priorities.
In April, Villaraigosa had called on the Legislature to largely strip power from the district and shift much of it to his office in a proposal loosely modeled on mayoral takeovers in Chicago, Boston and New York.
He said Wednesday that his plan was about accountability, not mayoral control.
"I knew this would be a tough road from the very beginning," he said during a Capitol news conference. "I knew it would not be easy. Change never is."
Critics called the mayor's proposal a power grab, and it has strained his relationships with district officials and the teachers union.
Nunez said the compromise strikes a balance between the governing authority of the school board and the authority of the mayor.
"This is a great win for the mayor, but it's also a win for the teachers," Nunez said. "Most of all, it is a win for the students of L.A. Unified."