Councilman Is Positioned to Become Washington's Youngest Mayor

My friend James Stovall, co-CEO of Victory Schools, sent me this email:

Just wanted to give you an update that my good friend Adrian Fenty won the Democratic nomination for mayor of DC on Tuesday. Adrian's landmark landslide victory (he won every ward in the city and had equal support among both blacks and whites) signals a new era in politics in our nation's capital. I have been pretty invovled in the campaign and will be helping to advise Adrian on school reform in the District -- his top priority. I'll be inviting Adrian back up to NYC in the near future. Please feel free to spread the good news!

Below is an article about Fenty that James sent me -- gotta love this:.

Mr. Fenty, however, expressed his optimism and “a can-do attitude,” saying that “the mere fact that we beat my opponent in the face of such odds energizes us to take on even bigger challenges.”

Pausing, he laughed briefly and added, “I mean, I’m talking about really big challenges, like the entrenched bureaucracy of our school system.”

To be frank, however, I heard from another friend that Fenty did not support the DC voucher program when I was being debated.  I'm digging into this and will let you know what I come up with.  Now that the voucher program is in place, at least he does not appear to be criticizing the experiment and hopefully is keeping an open mind about the results.

 

The good news is that he is supporting charter schools.  In the article I sent around a month ago (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/14/AR2006081401072.html), in which "D.C. School Superintendent Clifford B. Janey [was] calling for a moratorium on new charter schools in the District", Fenty said exactly the right thing:

Fenty called the proposal "knee-jerk," saying "the government should be in the business of supporting quality schools," regardless of who runs them.

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Councilman Is Positioned to Become Washington’s Youngest Mayor

 

By IAN URBINA

Published: September 14, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/14/washington/14fenty.html

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 — Gaunt and energetic, Adrian M. Fenty is an avid triathlete who shuns caffeine for vitamin-fortified water and who plans to compete in his eighth marathon this fall.

Thanks to his upset victory in the Democratic primary on Tuesday, Mr. Fenty, who is 35, also expects to be Washington’s next mayor, the youngest in its history.