The New Cambridge

So what's behind this downward trend?

"The number one reason is the decline of rent control," says Lois Sullivan, district director of public information.

The gradual elimination of caps on rent prices, phased in over the past four years, has changed Cambridge's demographics.

"A lot of people who lived here and raised their kids here and developed the sense of community that I grew up in have been forced to move from Cambridge," says school committee candidate and lifelong Cambridge resident Michael Harshbarger, a football coach at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School (CRLS).

And in their place, "a very large majority of empty-nesters are moving in," says School Superintendent Bobbie D'Alessandro.

Even those new families with children may be less likely to send their children to public school.

"I'm not so sure that we have so many fewer children as much as we may have a different group of children," says School Committee incumbent candidate Alice Turkel. "Families [now] have different economic resources and different values."