Get ready for Helen Gym. She’s now a member of the Philadelphia City Council.
With the election of Democrats Jim Kenney as mayor and Helen Gym to City Council on Tuesday, there is a new dynamic at City Hall regarding education policy.
Kenney has promised to work toward universal preschool and has thrown his support behind community schools as the primary reform strategy for the District. That is a departure from Mayor Nutter’s approach. Throughout his administration Nutter supported the strategy that relied heavily on closing low-performing schools and expanding charters with the goal of having “a great school” in every neighborhood.
Gym rode to Council on the strength of her education activism, in which she has been severely critical of the dominant District and city policy of closing schools, growing charter enrollment, and primarily using test scores to decide which schools are candidates for turnaround and privatization.
Kenney captured about 85 percent of the mayoral vote, handily defeating Republican Melissa Murray Bailey. Gym was the leading vote-getter among Council at-large candidates with nearly all of the vote counted.
I’m biased because my friend’s father served as her campaign treasurer, but there’s a new regime coming in Philly and we’ll get a chance to see if they can do anything to improve the city’s beleaguered school system.
