By JIM BARON

PROVIDENCE — Despite dissention on the House Finance Committee about the creation of “Mayoral Academy” charter schools, and vows from labor leaders and other powerful lobbyists to kill the idea, Cumberland Mayor Daniel McKee says he is confident his pet legislative project “has the full support of the leadership of the House and Senate.”

Opposed by teacher unions and advocates for more traditional charter schools because they would be allowed to skirt pension, fringe benefit and prevailing wage regulations that others must abide by, mayoral academies drew five “no” votes in the House Finance Committee earlier this week, despite being contained in the same budget article as $13 million in funding for local school districts.
Opponents said they would seek a separate vote on the mayoral academies, splitting them off from the hike in school district funding, and voting to defeat them when the budget reaches the House floor on Wednesday.
Pawtucket Rep. William San Bento and North Smithfield Rep. Raymond Church, both Democrats, said the concept needs more study. Republican Rep. John Savage worried that the legislature was sacrificing its oversight role in creating the new academies.
Robert Walsh, executive director of the National Education Association of RI, said McKee “has declared war on public education…he is going try to decimate his own school system for some unknown political agenda. We're going to have to do everything we can to get it changed.”
“There are those people who want to protect the status quo and don’t want to embrace any change or innovation,” McKee responded. “The status quo is not in the best interest of people who live in Rhode Island and I think people realize that.
“if you are not creating some level of change in an organization, then you are standing still or going backward. Rhode Island is ready to take a step that will put us in a leadership position in public education reform in the country.”
But legislative leaders told him they are backing the measure, McKee said, “and when someone tells me something, until they tell me something different, then there’s no reason to believe it has changed.”
House Majority Leader Gordon Fox threw his weight behind the mayoral academies Friday. 
“I have had several meetings with Mayor McKee and other supporters of the Mayoral Academy and I am intrigued by their innovative proposal,” Fox said in a written statement. “Based upon their desire to recruit the best teachers, engage parents as partners, and put student achievement first, I believe it is important to give them the opportunity to develop their plan for ultimate approval by the Board of Regents. I am also excited that the academy has zero fiscal impact on the state budget and will attract new capital investment and philanthropic support.
“It's time to think outside the box,” Fox asserted. “As Franklin Roosevelt once said, ‘it is common sense to take a method and try it.  If it fails, admit it frankly and try another.  But above all, try something!’  I think it is worth trying this Mayoral Academy concept.”
McKee remains convinced that the academy he is pushing for, which would teach students from Cumberland, Lincoln, Central Falls and Pawtucket, “is going to benefit students, teachers, parents and taxpayers. It is a policy issue that would put us in a position to speak to a lot of innovators in public education throughout the country.”
Just on the strength of news reports after the finance committee made mayoral academies part of the 2009 state budget, McKee said he received a contact from a nationwide think tank offering their help in creating the new institution.
He said the Center for Education Reform sent out 50,000 e-mails praising the committee’s action