Public schools in the city of Boston will enter a “new era” with the selection of Dr. Tommy Chang as their new superintendent, school committee members said Tuesday night in voting, 5-2, to approve his selection.

Chang comes to Boston from Los Angeles where he has been serving as an instructional superintendent in that city’s Unified School District.

“We cannot rest on our laurels as one of the best districts in the nation,” said school committee member Michael Locanto, who voted for Chang. “We cannot continue to do things as we have in the past and expect a different result,” adding that for the “collective success of the children in Boston, “we need nothing short of full community support for our new superintendent.”

School Committee Chair Michael O’Neill said that Chang, whom the committee reached by phone following the vote, is “deeply honored; there’s no question about it. He knows the responsibility at hand and he’s looking forward to it.”

In the hours before the meeting for the vote, which took place at BPS headquarters on Court Street, Chang emerged as the front-runner with backing from Mayor Martin Walsh. Dr. Dana Bedden, a favorite of many students and parents who spoke at the public comment period as well as of school committee members, dropped out of the race after deciding to stay on as superintendent of the Richmond (Va.) Public Schools.

O’Neill said he received an email from Bedden 20 minutes before the beginning of the 6 p.m. meeting.

In the public comment period before the vote, City Councillor Tito Jackson, chair of the panel’s committee on education, and state Rep. Russell Holmes, both of Dorchester, registered their support for Chang.

“I recommend strongly Dr. Chang,” Holmes said. “I believe he has the vision and the capabilities. We had some conversations around his experience, but he will certainly grow and is capable.” Chang, unlike other candidates, is not a system superintendent.

“Dr. Chang will provide the leadership that our school system needs and I am confident that his innovative views on education will move our students forward. We need a transformative leader and that is Tommy Chang,” Walsh said in a statement released after the vote.

In his current position in Los Angeles, Chang oversees 132 schools and roughly 95,000 students. He is charged with managing the LA school district’s “best thinking and resources in schools doing the most challenging and innovative work,” according to a bio provided by the city.

Boston’s public school system, which bills itself as the “birthplace of public education in this nation,” has 57,230 students and 128 schools. Its fiscal 2015 budget is around $975 million, and in an effort to balance the fiscal 2016 budget, school officials have proposed closing five schools.

Asked what caused him to back Chang as superintendent, Walsh told the State House News Service that “his innovation, his talk of organization, things like that. Every candidate was very impressive in their own different way, but I feel that Tommy is a person who can lead us right away.”

Superintendent candidate Pedro Martinez received two votes, from committee members Regina Robinson and Miren Uriate. Both made impassioned appeals for Martinez, who is Latino, and had been endorsed by the Greater Boston Latino Alliance. “Forty percent of kids in BPS would have a leader that looks like them,” said Uriate before the vote. “I thought that Martinez would have been – would be –a wonderful addition to BPS.”

The superintendent of schools is among the city’s highest paid public employees. Carol Johnson, who earned $267,000 a year as superintendent, retired in June 2013 after six years in the job. The school committee is now finalizing Chang’s contract, which will include salary and start date, and will be brought back to the committee for a final vote as soon as March 11.

Last week, all four candidates for the position had a day of back-to-back-to-back public interviews with the press, school officials, students, parents, and other stakeholders. “I’m proud of the process we underwent,” O’Neill said on Wednesday. “You can’t please all the people all the time, but I’m proud of the process we did. We showed our candidates how we do business in Boston,”

Meg Campbell, a school committee member and founder/director of the Codman Academy Charter Public School, said the vote was critical for both the district and the school committee. “This is an opportunity to reset the button and I hope we do that,” she said.

McDonough hailed: Many in attendance on Tuesday night used the occasion to thank Interim Superintendent John McDonough, who has been filling the post since Johnson left 20 months ago. Johnson was present at the meeting.