D.C. Council member Robert C. White Jr. had the prime seat at an education-focused mayoral debate Wednesday evening. Alone, mostly.

       His most recognizable competitors didn’t attend, making it a debate-less debate stage as White (D-At Large) and a long-shot candidate delivered their broad education plans with no challenges.

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       Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), who organizers said did not RSVP, wasn’t there. Council member Trayon White Sr. (D-Ward 8), who organizers said confirmed he would attend but then switched to a “maybe” the day before the event, wasn’t there either.

       Organizers said they were so hopeful that Trayon White would show up that they delayed the start of the event by 30 minutes, killing time by having audience members participate in icebreaker activities that included directing attendees to play “rock, paper, scissors” to determine who would provide a restaurant recommendation to their seat neighbor.

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       That gave Robert White enough time to introduce himself and shake hands with every person in the audience before the debate began. DC Education Coalition for Change, a community advocacy group, organized the debate. More than 50 people, mostly students and teachers, attended.

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       By 7 p.m., it was just Robert White and candidate Andre Davis, a former D.C. teacher, who sat on the auditorium stage at Cardozo Education Campus in Northwest Washington with two empty seats beside them.

       The moderator asked pre-submitted questions from teachers and students. White and Davis agreed on most questions — taking stances at odds with the mayor’s record.

       They both want education agencies to have more independence from the mayor, instead of the current system of mayoral control. They want more money designated for students considered at-risk for academic failure. They want to divert money away from the school system’s central offices and put more into schools. And they said they want to abolish IMPACT, the controversial teacher-evaluation system that ties student performance to teacher job security.

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       “I do support a transparent and effective evaluation system — and that is not IMPACT,” Davis said.

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       Robert White — who is trailing far behind Bowser in a Washington Post poll on the mayoral race — vowed to be the “education mayor” and used the empty debate stage as an the opportunity to take swipes against Bowser’s education record with no pushback. (Bowser also said she wanted to be the education mayor when she first ran for the city’s top office in 2014.)

       “Our mayor is consumed with the idea of mayoral control. We need a mayor who is consumed with the idea of mayoral accountability,” White said, when asked if he thought the city should have an elected school board that oversees public education instead of the current system of mayoral control of schools.

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       “We have a mayor who all the time touts how much money she spends on schools,” he later answered a question. “We do not have a money problem, we have a leadership problem.”

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       And when talking about the controversial teacher-evaluation system he vowed to eliminate, he said, “When we dismiss teachers because they didn’t make enough change in the classroom, then we need to dismiss the mayor because she did not make enough change across the school system.”

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       Neither candidate at the debate mentioned Trayon White — who served on the D.C. State Board of Education before serving on the council. Trayon White and Robert White have voted similarly on big education issues before the council.

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       Robert White also made big commitments to the public Wednesday if elected mayor. He vowed to get rid of the teacher-evaluation system during his first year in office. He said he would provide free high-speed Internet to the thousands of public housing units in the city. And he agreed to expanding a program that helps students and school paraprofessionals become licensed teachers by providing financial assistance and mentorship.

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       He was pushed to provide details about his education plan only at the end of the debate, when teachers in the audience jumped in and asked questions from their seats. They asked if he wanted to make cuts to the school system’s central office so schools could have more money, a common request among education advocates who say school headquarters is too large. (D.C. Schools Chancellor Lewis D Ferebee has made modest cuts to the size of the central office during his tenure.)

       “I propose we round up half of central office, put them in a rocket and send them off to space. Do you support this?,” asked Paul Abdou, a math teacher at Cardozo Education Campus. White’s response: “Anyone who thinks we are doing good enough has got to go.”

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       Another teacher said White didn’t have enough specifics in his plans and wanted to know exactly how he would improve education in the city.

       “This is going to require major restructuring, and we need to make sure it is not a top-down approach,” he said.

       White said that he would set specific target goals to increase teacher retention each year and to reduce the achievement gap as a way to hold the mayor accountable.