Local Town Meeting Focuses on Schooling

Cambridge must improve its school system without spending any additional funds, Mayor Alice K. Wolf told approximately 50 concerned citizens at a town meeting last night at the Cambridge Public Library.

Wolf, who also chairs the school committee, said she advocates "changes essentially within the structure" of school programs without "major infusions" into the school budget.

Using computerized graphs and charts, she projected a $4 million decline in aid to the city from the state government in the 1992 fiscal year. The cut would shrink the percentage of the city budget provided by the state from the 1988 level of 22 percent to 13.7 percent by 1992. The gap in income, Wolf said, must be filled by increased property taxes.

Parents at the meeting said they were worried that the city, which currently spends approximately 38 percent of its budget on education, will have difficulty improving and adding to its school programs in the face of the budget cuts.

"Somehow we have to be able to do things with the money we have now," Wolf answered. "I support the concept that we have to be able to do new things with the existing resources."

When asked what sorts of new plans she supports, Wolf said that she would concentrate her efforts on improving science and math education. The mayor pointed out that the school board has already hired a new curriculum director to oversee such reforms.

Wolf said she advocated finding ways to provide students with a "basic core curriculum without stifling approaches" to teaching. Wolf added that she would like to create more "support systems" for teachers dealing with the challenges of educating Cambridge's ethnically diverse student body.

Two parents criticized a city policy which requires parents to choose just one race when identifying their multi-racial children on school registration and selection forms. Under the current system, parents list, in order, the three schools they prefer that their children attend. The schools are then filled by lottery according to racial balance.

Citizens also complained that some parents abuse the system by falsely identifying their childrens' ethnicity to improve their chances of enrolling in the school of their choice.

The mayor said she would consider the criticism and offered to meet with the parents