Her all-encompassing platform does feature diversity and “racial justice” prominently, but it also raises many perennial Cambridge issues, namely neighborhoods and affordable housing.

Like many other candidates, Simmons says rents should be more reasonable for mom-and-pop businesses.

She supports levying a charge on Harvard and other universities for students who live in private housing and allocating the proceeds for the city’s affordable housing fund. She also wants to make it easier for Cantabrigians to find out about city services.

Where supporters say Simmons can distinguish herself most clearly from other candidates is on a key issue in the election—education.

Her terms on the School Committee—where she promoted parental involvement and focused on racial and class-based achievement gaps—will give her an edge, they say.

“You see City Councillors talking about schools,” says School Committee member Nancy Walser, often a Simmons ally. “Schools are the burning issue.”

Cambridge spends nearly $17,000 per student in its school district—more money than any other district in the state—but most Cambridge students score poorly on the state-mandated MCAS tests, and as many as one-third of high school sophomores regularly fail parts of the MCAS, putting them in danger of not receiving their diplomas.

The education situation has so perplexed policy-makers in Cambridge that the City Council has increasingly concerned itself with school affairs.

Last year, several councillors threatened not to approve the school budget. And now other council candidates are suggesting that the city’s governing board should scrutizine the School Department budget more closely.

Past attempts at joint meetings between the council and the School Committee were tense affairs that led to hard feelings on both sides.

Walser and another of Simmons’s School Committee allies, Alice L. Turkel, say they expect Simmons to be a sympathetic ear on the council.

“For me on the School Committee to know there’s someone on the City Council who understands the issues [means] you can cut to the chase,” Walser says.

The two governing bodies should meet at least twice a year, Simmons says, even though the City Council cannot dictate the School Committee’s agenda.

“Yes, they should care,” she says of the City Council, “but they can’t mandate the School Committee to do anything.”

—Staff writer Andrew S. Holbrook can be reached at holbr@fas.harvard.edu.