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Three finalists for job of Phila. schools chief

A former executive at the for-profit Edison Schools Inc. - which manages 20 Philadelphia public schools - is one of three finalists for the top job in the Philadelphia School District, sources said yesterday.

A former executive at the for-profit Edison Schools Inc. - which manages 20 Philadelphia public schools - is one of three finalists for the top job in the Philadelphia School District, sources said yesterday.

Leroy D. Nunery II, who oversaw Edison's New York City-based charter school division, also previously held high-level positions with the National Basketball Association and the University of Pennsylvania. He currently oversees PlusUltre L.L.C., a Philadelphia-based education-consulting company.

Nunery, a resident of Philadelphia, rounds out the finalist list along with Arlene Ackerman, 61, a former schools superintendent in Washington and San Francisco, and Kent McGuire, 52, dean of the College of Education at Temple University.

All three finalists - for a job in a school district with a student body that is about two-thirds African American - are black. There were 37 applicants, 15 African American and 29 male.

The finalists will meet with a 40-member citizens advisory committee on Wednesday to discuss their reasons for wanting to lead the 167,000-student Philadelphia district, a job that now pays $275,000.

The School Reform Commission is expected to make a selection by the end of January or early February.

Nunery was hired by Edison in July 2005 and oversaw dozens of Edison charter schools around the country, including several in the Philadelphia area. He left Edison last summer.

Edison was extremely controversial when it was one of several outside groups hired in 2002 to run 45 of the district's lowest performing schools. How Nunery's former ties to Edison will be received by community activists is unclear.

Nunery, who is in his early 50s, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

He has a history degree from Lafayette College, an MBA from the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis and a doctorate in higher education management from Penn, according to a profile of him in a Lafayette magazine.

He previously worked as a managing director of Global Corporate Investment Bank and as a senior client for BankAmerica Securities LLC, the profile said.

At the NBA, where he worked for four years, he served as vice president for business development and human relations. And at Penn, where he worked before Edison, he was vice president for business services.

Ackerman is an education professor at Columbia University's Teachers College and the superintendent-in-residence of a California group that trains nontraditional candidates such as military leaders for positions as school superintendents.

Ackerman, who started her career as an elementary and middle school teacher, left the San Francisco Unified School District in 2006 after a six-year tenure during which she butted heads with school board members. The board and Ackerman declared they were incompatible in announcing her departure, according to news reports.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that her tenure saw a rise in student achievement and better financial health, but that it was "marred by charges that she was autocratic and excluded parents and teachers from important decisions."

She did not shy away from controversy. Soon after her arrival in San Francisco, she uncovered "widespread corruption in the district's facilities department," according to the Chronicle.

For her work, she drew distinction. She was named superintendent of the year for 2004-05 by the National Association of Black School Educators.

Before San Francisco, she ran the Washington public schools for about two years. There, she made progress on some significant reforms, including creating a fairer funding formula for the schools.

Ackerman has a bachelor's degree in elementary education and a master's in educational administration and policy. She also has a master's and a doctorate in education administration, planning and social policy from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.

In her role at the Los Angeles-based Broad Superintendents Academy, Ackerman coaches military, business, nonprofit, government and other nontraditional candidates for superintendent posts.

McGuire, a Michigan native who lives in Moorestown, previously held positions at the Education Commission of the States in Colorado, where he worked on school finance; the University of Colorado; the U.S. Department of Education in the Clinton administration; and several prominent research and charitable institutions. He sits on the Moorestown school board.