School district's CEO to make $325,000 a year

By a vote of 4-0, the School Reform Commission yesterday made Arlene Ackerman the highest-paid leader in the history of the Philadelphia School District.

Ackerman's contract will pay her a base salary of $325,000 per year, an annual performance bonus and a retention bonus.

The retention bonus, according to a district source, would likely pay Ackerman $100,000 after three years of service. The actual amounts of the two bonuses, however, have not been finalized, said Sandra Dungee Glenn, chairwoman of the reform commission.

The length of the contract also has not been finalized, but it will likely be five years, she said.

Ackerman's base salary is $50,000 more than the $275,000 paid to her predecessor, Paul Vallas.

Dungee Glenn said Ackerman's compensation package is well within the normal range of what other leaders of large, urban school districts are paid.

"The package in its entirety, I believe, at the end, will be very comparable, competitive [and] a fair package for her," Glenn said.

Ackerman, who is to start June 1, did not attend yesterday's Reform Commission meeting.

Also at yesterday's meeting, Mayor Nutter and other dignitaries witnessed Gov. Rendell swear in Heidi Ramirez, who filled a vacancy on the five-member Reform Commission created when former chairman James Nevels resigned in September.

Ramirez, director of Temple University's Urban Education Collaborative and the Reform Commission's first member of Hispanic descent, linked her humble beginning as a Head Start student with challenges faced today by many minority children.

"But I am here, and that speaks volumes about the power of high expectations, access to quality educational opportunities that start early and are ongoing and the strength of family and community involvement," said Ramirez, 33, who has a master's degree from Harvard and a master's and doctorate from Stanford University.

In other news, a report released yesterday says that six years after the state took control of the school district, steady progress continues to be made, but not nearly enough to reach the lofty achievement goals set by district officials.

The annual report from the district's Accountability Review Council also found that "charter schools are not performing substantially better nor substantially worse than district schools in raising student achievement."

ARC was created as part of the state's takeover of city schools in December 2001.

The independent council evaluates and validates the district's reform efforts and reports its findings and recommendations to the Reform Commission annually.

ARC members, who are education officials from around the country, presented their report during the Reform Commission meeting.

Philadelphia has 61 publicly funded, independently operated charter schools. The report found that from 2002 to 2007, charter schools had the largest percentage increase in schools making adequate yearly progress under the federal No Child Left Behind law, when compared with district-managed schools and district schools operated by outside management organizations.

But charter schools, the report noted, have fewer subgroups of students than traditional schools, such as those with special-education needs and those who are learning English as a second language.

The report cautions that the goals in the district's 2004-adopted Declaration of Education cannot be met by this year's deadline, and thus a new deadline should be created and greater planning and resources should be put toward reaching the goals.

Among the goals that will not be met by the end of this academic year are that 80 percent of all students in grades 3 through 11 perform at or above the proficiency level in reading and math.

Currently, 40.6 percent are advanced or proficient in reading; 44.9 percent are advanced or proficient in math, officials said.

Glenn said she suspects the Reform Commission will follow the report's recommendations, including making decisions on a school-by-school basis rather than using a one-size- fits-all approach. *