Well played, Mr. Mayor

In the increasingly bitter match of wills over control of LAUSD schools, Mayor Villaraigosa aced today's serve. He named former superintendent Ramon Cortines to be his deputy mayor for education, youth and families. (Carolyn Webb de Macias is returning to USC as promised after a year at City Hall. She is VP of external relations.) Even school board president Marlene Canter applauded, telling the Times Cortines "will bring some depth to the conversation...I have a lot of respect for the work Ramon Cortines has done. If his goal is to create a partnership, this will be very helpful." Cortines has run the schools in Pasadena, New York, San Francisco and San Jose and says he took his name out of consideration for the top job at LAUSD in order to become the mayor's top education adviser. With his hiring, Bob Sipchen's Predict-o-Meter at the School Me blog raised Villaraigosa's chances of actually taking control of the district to 88.7%.