Five of six Dem. mayoral candidates commit to tonight’s education forum in S. Philly

 Tonight's mayoral forum will be held at the G.W. Childs School, 1599 Wharton St. (Image from Google Maps)

Tonight's mayoral forum will be held at the G.W. Childs School, 1599 Wharton St. (Image from Google Maps)

Considering that education sits atop voter-issue lists in advance of the May 19 primaries, it’s no surprise that most of the announced Democratic candidates for mayor will attend tonight’s public forum at the G.W. Childs School, 16th and Wharton sts.

Questions were submitted in advance for the event which will be livestream-recorded and made available for viewing later. Sponsored by Neighbors Investing in Childs Elementary, Friends of Jackson and Newbold Neighbors Association, the forum will be moderated by WHYY/NewsWorks’ Kevin McCorry.

The lone non-attendee is Lynne Abraham whose campaign, according to event sponsors, said this morning that she couldn’t make it.

More than 450 attendees have registered. While seating is limited, you can still register to attend as well.

  • WHYY thanks our sponsors — become a WHYY sponsor

Stephen Singer, advocacy chair for the Friends of Jackson group, said there will be roughly five longer-form questions and several shorter ones posed of the candidates. 

The event came together as the three groups got wind of one another’s drive to get involved in the mayoral-forum mix, said Singer, a public-school product whose son is in the first grade at Andrew Jackson Elementary School, itself already making an appearance in the mayoral campaign.

“We’d really like to see some level of engagement and creativity beyond standard responses, about having to work with Harrisburg,” Singer told NinetyNine this morning. “We don’t deny that a lot of this is about funding, but there’s so much to it than that.”

WHYY is your source for fact-based, in-depth journalism and information. As a nonprofit organization, we rely on financial support from readers like you. Please give today.

Want a digest of WHYY’s programs, events & stories? Sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Together we can reach 100% of WHYY’s fiscal year goal