D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser appointed a Philadelphia schools official to a top education job in the District, filling a key role as the city tries to recover from a pandemic that has upended learning for more than a year.

Christina Grant was named the State Superintendent of Education on Thursday. If approved by the D.C. Council, Grant will lead an agency with various responsibilities, including overseeing federal education programs in the city, setting learning standards and administering standardized exams for public schools. 

“D.C. has made great strides in recent years and has much to be proud of,” Grant said in a statement. “I look forward to working with educators and the community to build on that progress.”

City officials did not make Grant available for an interview. She is expected to start in an interim capacity on June 21 until the Council holds a hearing to confirm her appointment.

She would replace Hanseul Kang, who left the job in October to lead the Broad Center at the Yale School of Management, which trains school leaders and conducts education research.

Grant, who is the charter schools chief in the School District of Philadelphia, would lead the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) at a time when D.C. lawmakers and advocates have pushed to reduce the mayor’s power over schools.

In 2007, the D.C. Council transferred control of the state superintendent’s office and the beleaguered public school system to then-Mayor Adrian Fenty. Key education leaders, including the state superintendent and the D.C. schools chancellor, now report directly to the mayor rather than an elected board.

Schools have improved academically over the last decade but major issues persist, leading many to argue for an end to mayoral control. They point to statistics like this: in 2019, just 37% of students were meeting expectations in reading, while 31% were meeting math expectations. Data also show widening achievement gaps between white students and their Black peers.

Jacqueline Pogue Lyons, president of the Washington Teachers’ Union, said OSSE should have more autonomy. The union is still gathering information about Grant’s background but Lyons said the superintendent position should not be selected by the mayor, who can fire the person in the role at will. 

“You have to question: does that person feel like they have to answer to the mayor or to the children of the District of Columbia and their parents?” she said. 

As chief of charter schools and innovation in the Philadelphia school district, a system of more than 200,000 students, Grant is currently responsible for authorizing charter schools, said Claire Landau, the chief of staff to the Philadelphia Board of Education.

Grant oversees a $1 billion budget and has managed to gain trust from people across the city, including advocates of the traditional public school system and charter school supporters, Landau said. Tension between traditional public schools and charters is also a perennial issue in D.C. politics. 

“In Philadelphia, education can be a fairly contentious topic with people who have very different viewpoints and takes on how public education should look,” Landau said. “Christina has been able to foster relationships with everybody and get everyone moving in a positive direction, which is a real feat.” 

Grant has worked in education for more than two decades, Bowser said, and has spent the last six years in the Philadelphia school system.

She started her career as a public school teacher in Harlem before serving as superintendent of the Great Oaks Foundation, a charter management organization that has opened multiple campuses in the Northeast. Grant also served as deputy executive director at the New York City Department of Education.

She was selected to participate in a leadership development program in 2020 with Chiefs for Change, a non-profit dedicated to cultivating school leaders, according to a news release from the organization.

“She is particularly skilled at recognizing the needs of vulnerable students and ensuring schools have equitable resources and supports,” said Chiefs for Change CEO Mike Magee in a statement. 

Grant has a doctorate in education from the University of Pennsylvania and two master’s degrees, including one in organizational leadership from the Teachers College of Columbia University.