Arlene Ackerman set to head Philadelphia schools

Philadelphia Daily News 2/18/08

Ackerman to be chosen as city schools CEO
by MENSAH M. DEAN
Philadelphia Daily News
deanm@phillynews.com
After months of closed-door deliberations that included Gov. Rendell and Mayor Nutter, the School Reform Commission is expected to announce that Arlene Ackerman will become the next chief executive officer of the School District of Philadelphia, sources have told the Daily News.
An announcement could be made as soon as Tuesday.

Ackerman, 61, who served as superintendent of San Francisco schools from 2000 to 2006, and Washington, D.C. schools from 1998 to 2000, last month was named among the three finalists for the $275,000 position.C. Kent McGuire, dean of Temple University’s College of Education, withdrew his name from consideration late last month.

Along with Ackerman, Leroy D. Nunery II, 52, a former executive with Edison Schools Inc., is also a finalist to run the nation’s eighth-largest school system.

Ackerman and Nunery, however, failed to spark much public support or enthusiasm from the city’s education activists, many of whom called for the CEO-search process to be reopened to attract other candidates.

Some complained that while in San Francisco Ackerman had rocky relationships with the teachers’ union, some parent groups and three school board members. Others, however, noted that test scores rose each year under Ackerman, and the budgets were balanced.

She was named Superintendent of the Year for 2004-05 by the National Association of Black School Educators. For 2005-06, she was elected chairwoman of the Council of Great City Schools, a coalition of the nation’s largest urban school systems.

Last month, Ackerman told reporters that if selected she would seek higher pay for teachers who work in the hardest-to-staff schools, put more social service programs in the schools, reform 70 schools with input from the community and prove to lawmakers that she can manage the district’s money before asking them for more.

While running the schools in San Francisco and Washington, Ackerman won praise for introducing a weighted student funding formula, which is designed to provide equity in the distribution of funds to all schools based on student characteristics, such as poverty.

Earlier this month the Daily News reported that Ackerman was set to share in a $350,000 contract to help create a similar funding system for Philadelphia’s schools.

In December, the reform commission approved a resolution awarding the contract to nonprofit Education Resource Strategies. The Watertown, Mass. firm hired Ackerman as a subcontractor.
Ackerman told the paper that her participation in the contract did not conflict with her CEO candidacy because her involvement had been halted until a CEO was hired.

School district spokeswoman Cecilia Cummings had said Ackerman’s role in the contract would be terminated if she were selected CEO. Several education advocates, however, felt the matter should have been disclosed prior to appearing in the paper.

“I don’t think it’s the best way to do business when you’re trying to hire somebody who is already doing business with you,” Dolores Shaw, a parent leader with the Eastern Pennsylvania Organizing Project, told the paper.

Ackerman, who is divorced with two grown sons and three granddaughters, is a professor at Columbia University and is a superintendent in residence at the Los Angeles-based Broad Superintendents Academy. Ackerman trains executives to take leadership positions in urban school districts.

Thomas Brady, the school district’s former chief operating officer, has been serving as interim CEO since last year. He replaced Paul Vallas, who resigned the CEO position following last school year to become superintendent of the Recovery School District in New Orleans.