Inquirer Editorial: Top of the class

Philadelphia School Superintendent Arlene Ackerman has ruffled plenty of feathers since taking over the school system in 2008.

But her fellow big-city school chiefs from around the country are giving her high marks for her reform agenda and improved test scores.

They named Ackerman the nation's top urban school leader of the Council of Great City Schools at a conference this month in Florida. She was selected from a pool of nine finalists.

Ackerman received the highest individual award in urban education - the Richard R. Green Award. It comes with a $10,000 college scholarship award that Ackerman will present to either a Philadelphia student or a 12th grader from her high school alma mater in St. Louis.

The award is a coup for Ackerman, who has had a rocky tenure at times running the city's 167,000-student public school district. She has clashed with teachers and union leaders and drawn criticism for her handling of violence against Asian students last year at South Philadelphia High.

But standardized test scores have continued to improve under her leadership. Half of all Philadelphia schoolchildren met math and language-arts benchmarks. That's a milestone, although there is much room for improvement.