The biggest issue of the election

Mayor Thomas Menino is responding to the competition. He has embraceda form of in-district charter schools, which he opposed for the first 16 years of his mayoralty; rapid bus transit for Blue Hill Avenue; and a new online Constituent Relationship Management system that residents can use to track the status of their service requests.

He has also balanced a difficult 2009 city budget, and is keen to tout Boston’s overall economic growth and the few pockets of success in its public school system. But, as last week’s debate made clear, both Menino and Flaherty need to provide new answers to enormous challenges that remain in these areas.

The tools Menino used to avoid Draconian budget cuts this year - primarily federal stimulus and wage concessions from city unions - will not be available to the next mayor. Balancing the budget will require state legislation allowing the mayor to shift municipal employees into the state’s health insurance pool. The next mayor must also increase current funds dedicated to paying down future employee healthcare benefits, which could balloon to $5.6 billion if not addressed.

Job growth and retraction in Boston have largely tracked trends nationwide, with a significant reduction during the 1991-’92 recession, followed by recovery and then reductions in 2000 and again in 2004. While 15,000 new jobs were created in Boston, most were filled by suburban commuters. Federal surveys suggest the number of new jobs filled by residents of Boston’s neighborhoods is less than 400.

Questions around the budget and the need to create jobs for residents pale, however, in comparison to what is the central question in this election. How does the city improve its schools? Specifically, how does it reduce the number of students dropping out and boost the achievement of those remaining in them?

Roughly 24,000 students have dropped out of Boston Public Schools since 1993. While the mayor may cite improvement in the dropout rate since the 2005-2006 academic year, a statistical outlier, the fact is that the rate has remained relatively flat over the last decade. This is unacceptable.

With more than 100 schools on federal and state watch lists, there are too few quality options for parents in several of the city’s minority neighborhoods. Indeed, this was one of the reasons Superintendent Carol Johnson was forced to withdraw her plan to overhaul Boston’s school transportation.

Menino’s proposal to create in-district charter schools is a response to this need. But his hybrid model would inject cumbersome school committee politics into the charter approval process. The right move would simply be to support Governor Patrick’s call to double the number of urban charter schools.

To critics who argue that new charter schools would drain needed resources from the school system, it is worth noting that in 2009 the city diverted to charter schools less than 5 percent of its overall school funding - $47 million out of a school budget that, once federal funds are included, approaches $1.1 billion. Boston forfeits less than $10,000 for every Boston student attending a charter school while overall spending on public school students, where enrollment has declined from 65,000 in 2002 to 56,000 today, has been calculated at more than $19,000 per student. (According to the US Department of Education, Boston’s 2006-2007 per-pupil spending was the highest of any of the nation’s 100 largest districts.)

Boston remains a beautiful, livable city. But it must address key budget, employment, and education issues facing it, not just for its overall prosperity in a global economy, but also so that all residents can stake their claim to a part of its success.

Jim Stergios is executive director and Liam Day is director of communications at Pioneer Institute.