Taking a closer look at Doug Oliver’s position on school closures

 Doug Oliver responds to a question about school closures at the Al Dia mayoral-conversation event. (Steph Aaronson/via The Next Mayor partnership)

Doug Oliver responds to a question about school closures at the Al Dia mayoral-conversation event. (Steph Aaronson/via The Next Mayor partnership)

On Tuesday, NinetyNine brought you a recap of the quirkier aspects from this week’s Al Dia mayoral-conversation event, but there was one nuance that warranted breaking out into its own story.

It had to do with Doug Oliver’s position on school closures, specifically as interpreted by WHYY’s Shai Ben-Yaacov, who served as one of the journalistic moderators at Monday night’s event.

Does Philadelphia mayoral candidate Doug Oliver support school closures?

I asked Oliver about that at Monday night’s mayoral forum, because his campaign literature suggests that he does. Take a look for yourself at the section labeled “Closure of Wrongly-Sized and Poorly-Maintained Schools.”

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But when I asked him about it, he said, “I’ve never been a proponent of closing schools.”

Ben-Yaacov explored the subsequent dissonance in a NewsWorks post, which you can read via this link.

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