Boston’s six major mayoral candidates took up discussions about exam school admissions, the place, if any, of police in school settings, and the governance of the School Committee during a virtual forum on education held last Thursday (May 27).

Mayor Kim Janey, City Councillors Andrea Campbell, Annissa Essaibi George, and Michelle Wu, state Rep. Jon Sanitago, and former city official John Barros have largely found consensus in past forums. But during this event— hosted by the Boston Teachers Union (BTU) and Boston Education Justice Alliance (BEJA) — sharp differences in policy approaches emerged.

The biggest divide was on the issue of admissions to the city’s three exam schools. Last year, amid the pandemic, school officials cancelled the annual exam school test and adopted a new system that uses grades and zip codes to assign seats to Boston Latin School, Boston Latin Academy, and the John D. O’Bryant School. The policy shift, which officials have said is a temporary one necessitated by the pandemic restrictions, was the subject of an ultimately rejected lawsuit brought by mainly White and Asian parents.

When candidates were asked if they would keep the no-testing policy in place permanently, Wu and Janey said they would. Campbell, Barros, Santiago, and Essaibi George said they were against maintaining the policy in future years. 

In the area of staffing at BPDS, Janey was the sole candidate to say that she would not commit to using federal relief funds to hire more staff, including teachers. “There won’t be any money to continue when the federal funding runs out,” Janey explained. “It’s not a good investment of money, because you won’t be able to continue seven years out.”

There were areas of consensus. All the candidates support ensuring that Boston Public School students are not homeless, and providing ethnic studies in curriculums.  The group was also unanimous in looking to limit private foundations’ policy influences in BPS and offering non-citizen BPS graduates a tuition-free community college plan.

The candidates all agreed that BPS students should spend less time on standardized testing. However, Santiago and Campbell said they are against eliminating the MCAS testing requirement.

There was also disagreement on whether to take police officers out of school buildings. Janey, Wu, Campbell, and Barros support removing police, while Essaibi George and Santiago do not.

Candidates were also split on whether to dismantle the Boston Regional Intelligence Center’s gang database as a way to prevent racial profiling of BPS students. Janey, Wu, and Campbell would dismantle, while Barros, Santiago, and Essaibi George favor keeping the database.

During the main discussion portion where candidates gave 90-second responses to questions about how to improve BPS necessities, reinstituting an elected school committee, academic racial and disability inequities, and infrastructure repair. 

While BTU and BEJA said they supported transitioning to a publicly elected school committee, all of the candidates supported either a hybrid appointed-and- elected approach or an appointed panel.

Barros pointed to Boston’s past fight to eliminate the elected system. “We fought hard to get away from an elected school board to an appointed one … There are major challenges with the elected school board… but what we are hearing everywhere is what people want: They want to be more engaged, they want their voices heard.”

Essaibi George said she favors a nine-member body appointed by the city council and the mayor. “I’ve been working toward this as a member of the city council and will continue with that as mayor of the city,” she said. “The mayoral appointments will be designated to represent important education stakeholders, our parents, our students, our teachers, those in higher ed.”

The virtual forum was one in a series hosted by local unions and progressive organizations. The next event — this Thursday (June 3 at 6 p.m.— will be hosted by Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE) and focus on climate justice. Past forums and registration for future events can be found at bostonmayoralforums.org.