Cambridge's proportional representation system of voting is another factor which traditionally leads to a tight race, said Albert H. Giroux, the spokesperson for the school department.
The system, which is unique among the elections in the Unites States, allows voters to cast their ballots for as many candidates as they want, by assigning their first choice their number one vote, then the next number two vote, and do on.
Such a method allows minority voters to be represented on the school committee and often leads to closer races than other voting methods, Wolf said.
Key Issues
Both Wolf and Giroux named the school budget as the chief issue dominating this years's committee election.
Several candidates said that while they oppose cutting funds to the classroom, much can be done to chop administrative costs within the system.
"In the top level of administration, three people's salaries rose by 20 percent in the last 18 months, and that's ridiculous," Maher said. "In times when surrounding town's school budgets are being ravaged, they're still giving away big increases. That's an awful lot of waste."
But others said that because of Cambridge's fortunate financial position relative to neighboring towns, budget cuts will not be necessary.
"Cambridge is the wealthiest city out of 350 cities and towns in the Commonwealth," said candidate Albert B. Fantini, who has served on the committee for 10 years and is currently the senior member. "I don't anticipate wholesale budget cuts because out city is well-off. I think times will be tough, but we can manage reasonably well."
How to improve Cambridge's "controlled choice" program is another important issue for the candidates. The program, which has been held up as a national model for school reform, allows students to pick which of the system's 13 elementary school they would like to attend. Cambridge has only one high school.
"The school choice program in Cambridge works well," Fanini said. "However, on the down side, we spend over a million dollars a year in busing kids throughout the city... Any program that pays out millions of dollars for busing which is not actually educational will have to be addressed eventually."
"Certainly choice is most desirable, but whether or not we have real choice in Cambridge is perhaps another question," said candidate Ronald S. Crichlow. "I think the Cambridge choice program needs to be reviewed, so we don't just have integrated schools with segregated magnet enrichment programs."
Wolf said maintaining the diversity of Cambridge's academic programs, making decisions concerning teacher and administrator appointments, and eliminating sexist and racist texts from the curriculum are other key issues in tomorrow's election.