Acting Superintendent of Schools Carolyn Turk (above) replaced Bobbie J. D’Alessandro after the latter was forced out for failing to enact a controversial school merger proposal.

Newly-hired Superintendent of Schools Thomas Fowler-Finn is regarded by many in Cambridge as a ray of hope for the city’s ailing public schools.

At a recent meeting attended by local university representatives and Cambridge officials, one person even referred to Fowler-Finn as a “messiah.”

Picked by a unanimous vote of the Cambridge School Committee in May, Fowler-Finn has made an impressive record of achievements for himself in his current position as superintendent of public schools in Fort Wayne, Ind.

“We were met by many, many members of the [Fort Wayne] community who begged us not to offer this job to Mr. Fowler-Finn,” Cambridge School Committee member Nancy Walser said in May. “His proven experience was very impressive.”

However, Fowler-Finn is coming to a district afflicted by a host of problems and traumatized by the past year’s events.

He will be charged with solving the district’s financial woes and boosting low achievement levels among minority and low-income students.

Additionally, Fowler-Finn must implement a controversial school merger plan—a task that proved the undoing of the previous superintendent—in a city whose residents have become demoralized and mistrustful of the district’s leadership.

The Crux of the Problem

Nearly every component of the Cambridge Public School system that Fowler-Finn will inherit is afflicted by major problems—almost all of which have been exacerbated by the events of the past year.

Over the last decade, enrollment in the system has decreased by over 11 percent. High rents have forced families out of Cambridge and low public confidence in the city’s schools has led those with the economic means to send their children to private school.

“People are making other choices for their kids and the Cambridge Public Schools are not one of them,” Cambridge Mayor Michael A. Sullivan said last week.

Declining enrollments have played a major role in creating the $3.6 million budget deficit which the school system now faces, as the district expends resources heating and maintaining half-used buildings and employing an unnecessarily large staff.

Among the students who have remained in the system, there remain vast discrepancies in academic performance between tax brackets and racial groups—the so-called “achievement gap.”

Nearly one quarter of all seniors—or about 70 students—at Cambridge’s high school, Cambridge Rindge and Latin School (CRLS), will not graduate this year because they have yet to pass the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) test, a high-stakes, state-wide standardized exam. The school committee has voted to issue certificates of completion to these seniors, allowing them to walk with their class at graduation before they spend the summer trying to pass the test.

CRLS received another blow in April when the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC)—which is in charge of accreditation for New England schools—put the high school on probation for “significant deficiencies.” The report states that CRLS lacks a clear mission statement, standards, curriculum and effective leadership.