The city teachers union has launched a multimillion-dollar ad campaign to grab the attention of policy-makers as they make major budgeting and education reform decisions this month.

The “Listen to a Teacher” campaign comes as Governor Spitzer prepares a budget that could include billions of dollars in education funding increases for New York City, in compliance with the final court decision in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit.

The United Federation of Teachers president, Randi Weingarten, has urged the governor to fund smaller class sizes, a focus of the commercials. One shows a teacher sculpting a human head, which gradually becomes recognizable as a child.

“Some things should be shaped one by one,” the ad says.

The ads are appearing a week before Mayor Bloomberg gives his State of the City address, in which he is expected to announce major changes in the education system.

Both parents and teachers have been pushing the city administration to allow them more input into the overhaul of the education bureaucracy. Mr. Bloomberg, along with the schools chancellor, Joel Klein, met yesterday with a former governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, and principals from empowerment schools, which are part of the mayor’s latest bureaucratic restructuring.

“Learning is not just about structure; it’s about instruction,” Ms. Weingarten said in a statement about the ad campaign, an apparent jab at the Bloomberg administration’s focus on changing bureaucratic structure.

The Department of Education had no comment on the ads.