As the Philadelphia Police Department's independent integrity officer, she skewered drug cops for making their own rules and senior officers for covering up their own crimes.

Green-Ceisler made few friends on the thankless job. Her brutal 2004 report on police misconduct was condemned by Police Commissioner Sylvester M. Johnson and Mayor Street.

After that, the former prosecutor ran the Special Investigations and Fraud Unit for the city controller.

Paul Vallas knew what he was getting when he hired Green-Ceisler to probe the Philadelphia School District's discipline system in late 2005.

Unhappy with her findings, he sat on her report for six months, until pressured to release it by my colleague Susan Snyder six days after a Germantown High School teacher had his neck broken after confiscating a student's iPod.

It's tough to say who's more of a symbol of the crisis: The iPod-assault victim, the West Philadelphia High music teacher who had his jaw wired shut after a classroom attack, or Green-Ceisler, whose report foreshadowed both tragedies.

The teachers' mistakes? Trying to impose order amid the chaos.

Vallas'? Not heeding the message he paid for and then stuffed in a drawer.

No backup

Over eggs and hot tea at the Trolley Car Diner in Chestnut Hill last week, Green-Ceisler told me she could still hear the frustration in the voices of teachers under siege in city schools.

"The feedback was so negative," said Green-Ceisler, a lawyer running for a judgeship on the Court of Common Pleas. "They felt so profoundly discouraged."

Worried about basing her findings on an unscientific group of cynics, Green-Ceisler met with more teachers. At a gathering of a couple hundred educators, she asked how many were happy with the school district's discipline system.

Not a hand went up.

"People were just drained and feeling powerless," she recalled.

The root problem was as simple as what I see on Supernanny every week: The grownups aren't in charge. The kids - second graders to seniors - recognize their power and abuse it.

Teacher after teacher told Green-Ceisler that their get-tough efforts in the classrooms and halls were squelched or ignored by superiors.

"They want responses, feedback, action when they take action," she said.

"You've got to be backed up. If you don't, you give up."

Giving up, we now know, turns the tables even more in favor of the tiny tyrants and high school heavies. Across the city, students don't respect adults in their midst because respect is not demanded and the consequences for bad behavior are inconsistent or nonexistent.

On TV, brats learn fast that the naughty spot is no fun and that they will do time for their crimes.

In Philly schools, students know they can prey on teachers and might not pay. Depends on the school, the principal and the day.

The truth hurts

In a district of 174,000 students at 268 schools, Green-Ceisler discovered a multitude of discipline programs and positions - anyone know what a "climate manager" is? - that overlap and underdeliver.

"The district needs to find out what works, with each age group, and do that consistently," she said. "Everything, in every school, must be consistent from Day One."

I tell her she's sounding like Supernanny again, and though she doesn't watch the show, we agree that the discipline crisis is born at home.

She recalled observing a second grader spiral out of control over the loss of a free toothbrush and another child crying out for attention by trying to hang himself from the window blinds.

Teachers need more training on how to spot and soothe home-life horrors. Those who can't handle the extra weight of urban suffering may want to rethink their chosen career.

"We're asking schools and police to be the disciplinarians and parents for the underclass in this city," she said. "It takes a special person."