By ABBY GOODNOUGH
 

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said yesterday that the movement to abolish the New York City Board of Education was gaining momentum, and that there might soon be "critical mass in the city and Albany to make the change." 

Mrs. Clinton said in an interview that she favored handing the mayor control of the school system. 

Although she embraced that position in concept during her 2000 campaign, she said then that mayoral control would not work under Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, her original opponent in the race. The Daily News reported yesterday that Mrs. Clinton, in a meeting with its editorial board, had strengthened her position on mayoral control and favored abolishing the Board of Education. 

A growing number of Democrats, including Mrs. Clinton, have spoken forcefully in favor of mayoral control in recent months, as Mr. Giuliani's term winds down and the possibility of a Democratic mayor grows. The Democrats supporting such a plan have also pointed to the board's recent presidential election, which was marred by political infighting, as proof that the current system does not work. The mayor's candidate, Ninfa Segarra, won after a bitter battle by securing the vote of a board member, Irving S. Hamer Jr., who has usually been in the opposite ideological camp on school issues. 

Three of the four major Democratic candidates for mayor are calling for mayoral control of the school system, although only one, Peter F. Vallone, would actually disband the board. Two others, Alan G. Hevesi and Mark Green, would allow the mayor, who now appoints two of the seven members, to appoint a majority of the board. 

Even Randi Weingarten, the president of the city's formidable teachers' union, has abandoned her longtime opposition to mayoral control. Last month, she announced that the union would support giving the mayor a majority of appointees to an expanded Board of Education. But under the union's proposal, the board would continue to select the schools chancellor. 

Yesterday, Mrs. Clinton said it was important to go further and let the mayor appoint the schools chief because only then could the mayor be held fully accountable for the school system. For example, she said that there would be "a better chance of avoiding" budget battles between Schools Chancellor Harold O. Levy and City Hall, like the recent one over school construction costs, if the mayor was solely responsible for budget decisions affecting schools. 

"A lot of the issues that come back to interfere with the functioning of the system are ones where people can point their fingers at each other," she said. "We could save money and produce better results if we gave the mayor the ultimate responsibility." 

But while Mrs. Clinton said that abolishing the board was "clearly a priority and something that I see more and more people moving toward," Steven Sanders, the Democratic chairman of the State Assembly's education committee, said that such a change was still highly unlikely. The State Legislature, with the governor, has to approve any changes in the structure of school systems. 

"Senator Clinton's position is a valuable addition to the debate on this issue," Mr. Sanders said. "But most people in the State Assembly remain utterly unconvinced that turning total autonomy of the school system over to any mayor will somehow improve academic outputs." 

However, Mr. Sanders said that the Assembly would consider expanding the number of board members and letting the mayor appoint a majority of the members, as the teachers' union and several mayoral candidates have proposed. Currently, the mayor appoints two members and each borough president appoints one of the remaining five. 

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver did not return a call seeking comment, but his spokesman, Skip Carrier, said that Mr. Silver's opinions on the matter were aligned with Mr. Sanders's.