This year's battle for control of the state Senate is more than a question of partisan head count, according to New York's education advocates. The prospect of a Democratic takeover of the upper chamber has enormous implications for funding, priorities, teacher evaluations and even upstate-downstate relations.

In the Legislature, the majority party rules and minority party members settle for leftovers, if they get anything at all. That's already causing "trepidation" in suburban and rural districts, said New York State Council of School Superintendents communications director Bob Lowry, because so few Democratic senators represent upstate communities.

"Politicians' views are affected by their daily lives as well as by advocacy," Lowry said. "I think that city people don't grasp property tax issues and school issues the same as people from outside the city do because they don't live with those issues the way people elsewhere do."

And then there's the Foundation Aid formula, which is supposed to direct aid toward schools and districts that need it the most. But as it is currently applied, it takes money that would otherwise be directed to New York City and funnels it elsewhere in the state, said David Friedfel, director of state studies at the Citizens Budget Commission. That could change in a Democratic Senate, with its heavy component of New York City senators.