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When mayoral hopeful and D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray unveiled his education platform a month ago at the Thurgood Marshall Academy public charter school in Anacostia, there wasn’t a whole lot of media folks there.
That’s because most of them were across the river at DCPS headquarters, where Mayor Adrian Fenty and schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee were holding their own news conference to announce the progress they’d made in reforming the city’s special education programs.
LL asked a Rhee spokeswoman about the timing, but she said that it had nothing to do with Gray’s event.
Flash forward one month: Gray announces his economic development plan this morning, saying it will get folks back to work.
A couple hours later, the Fenty administration announces $2.56 million in grants designed to—you guessed it—get folks back to work.
Said Gray in a statement:
Unfortunately, for the last three and a half years, the administration has operated with no economic development strategy, and has virtually ignored unemployment, doing precious little to deal with the growing crisis.The administration has focused more on creating jobs for the Mayor’s friends and allies than on the growing number of District residents trying to make ends meet, … As Mayor, it will be one of my top priorities to develop a real strategy for creating jobs in every part of the District.
Countered Fenty in his statement:
In response to the very challenging economic conditions created by the national recession, we have been making an unprecedented investment in workforce development and job training for the people of Washington, D.C. … These job training grant awards today are part of a $30 million investment in adult job training this year into provide assistance to those who are looking for work.
Check in tomorrow to see who won the battle of the news cycle.