largest high school, Cambridge High and Latin. While both have been generally well received, some poor whites feel threatened by what they see as the take-over of their school system.

By the 1975 election, Cheatham probably will have received tenure (granted by state law to all school personnel after three years in office), which would virtually guarantee him the superintendency for as long as he wanted it. If they win a majority on the School Committee, the Independents must fire Cheatham during the next two years or not at all.

Ironically, the balance of power on the School Committee probably will be determined by the outcome of the City Council race. The school board usually is evenly dividied three-three between CCA and Independent candidates, and the mayor casts the seventh and deciding vote. The mayor is elected by the City Council from among its own members.

Four of the incumbent School Committeemen--two CCA and two Independent--are running for re-election, and all should win easily.

Peter G. Gesell '61 won last time on the strength of his support in the upper-middle class liberal wards of West Cambridge. A professional educator (he works at the Fernald State School in Waltham), Gesell says he is interested in improving the School Department's budgeting and performance monitoring system.

The other CCA-backed incumbent, Charles M. Pierce, is the only black on the School Committee. Although Cambridge is only six per cent black, Pierce has the solid support of the black community, and that backing combined with his white liberal support should be sufficient for victory. Cambridge children have reading scores well below the national average (as do children in most urban areas), and Pierce says his top priority is to improve reading scores by beefing up remedial reading programs.

Independent Committeeman James F. Fitzgerald, a lawyer, has served on the School Committee for two decades. He is the most vociferous advocate of "Cambridge jobs for Cambridge residents," is very conservative fiscally, and vigorously defends his right to dispense patronage. Fitzgerald in recent years has slipped from his position as the top vote-getter in the City, but his solid backing in East Cambridge should be more than sufficient to re-elect him.

The fourth incumbent, Independent Joseph E. Maynard, represents his municipal employee constituency well. His chief concern is that School Department employees receive generous contracts, but he also enthusiastically supports "alternate education" programs in the City.

Of the remaining 22 candidates, all but five are on one of three slates: CCA-Common Slate, Independent, or Socialist Workers.

The Independent slate is a diverse group of 12 candidates whose only real similarities are a commitment to hiring and promoting Cambridge residents within the school system and a distrust of the CCA.

Robert Romagna '74, a life-long resident of East Cambridge, should pick up a sizeable Italian vote. He says he supports Cheatham, but he is critical of Cheatham's teaching and administrative appointments. "The new teachers have been mindless political cadres who spout the liberal CCA line," Romagna said last week.

Warren McManus is the Comptroller of the Cambridge Model Cities program, and he asserts that active community participation (which he feels has been very successful in Model Cities) is essential to improving the quality of Cambridge education. McManus says he is not opposed to the CCA but joined the Independent Slate as a means of getting elected.

A. George Catavolo is a well-known North Cambridge politician who has run for School Committee (and lost) several times. Catabolo says that the school budget should be cut drastically by improving management techniques, but he also says that the School Department should wipe out unem- ployment in Cambridge by hiring extra personnel.

Leo Johnson, also from North Cambridge, supports construction of a new elementary school in that area to relieve overcrowding. He lives in the Wasserman Towers on Rindge Ave.--a sizable base of support--but he is not well known in other areas.

Michael G. Sico Jr. has been campaigning on a platform consisting almost exclusively of a pledge to hire more Cambridge residents in the School Department. Sico has been active in youth recreation groups, and has a fair amount of support in the Strawberry Hill section of Cambridge.