Three issues dominated Maher’s brief conversations with neighbors: Cambridge public schools, rent control and the various home improvement projects that dozens of people were trying to finish on a 70-degree November day.

Kathleen Knisely of Newman Street pushed aside Maher’s introduction.

“I remember you from your school board days,” she says.

After eight years on the school committee, Maher was happy to talk about his plans to improve the city’s school system through greater cooperation with Harvard.

Average test scores at Cambridge public schools rank among the worst in the state, even though the city boasts one of Massachusetts’ best-funded districts.

Maher plans to involve Harvard in an advisory partnership, which he says would benefit the University and the city.

“I don’t want a takeover like in Chelsea, but it would be a win-win,” he told Knisely, referring to the state-endorsed program that gave Boston University control of the ailing Chelsea school district in 1989.

Maher says the city’s school system hurts Harvard’s attempts to woo new professors.

“When a professor is deciding between Cambridge and Stanford, he’ll choose Stanford because of the schools,” he says.

The contentious issue of rent control also weighed on some residents, like John Carbone, a plumber by trade who was laying brick for his own driveway.

Carbone worries that the ballot proposition on rent control will be passed (see story, page 3).

Rent control would discourage owners from investing in the upkeep and improvement of their property, he says.

Maher opposes rent control, which he says is a divisive and destructive policy.

“In this market it is very ill-conceived,” Maher says.

He said, however, that the proposition had little chance of passing because it requires the approval of one-third of registered voters—a number roughly equal to voter turnout in a typical year.