After Ackerman

The Arlene C. Ackerman era is over.

After a summer of speculation, the colorful and controversial superintendent is out of the Philadelphia School District, bought out of her contract for $905,000 with help from anonymous private donations.

If the School Reform Commission signs off Wednesday, the district will pay $500,000 and an additional $405,000 will come from the unnamed donors, whose contributions will be funneled through a nonprofit foundation.

Leroy Nunery II, who had been Ackerman's deputy, is now acting superintendent. The district will conduct a national search for a permanent replacement.

The news came Monday morning, announced jointly by School Reform Commission Chairman Robert L. Archie Jr. and Mayor Nutter in a statement that praised Ackerman for her "personal commitment to demonstrating that, given the right systemic reforms, all of our children can achieve."

Ackerman, who often said she was an educator and not a politician, lost the support of both the SRC and Nutter during a painful spring of wrangling over a $650 million budget gap.

The SRC first approached Ackerman in June about buying out the rest of her contract, which had been extended through 2014, sources close to the negotiations said. Though Ackerman publicly vowed to fight for her job, in private she immediately began talking about a financial settlement, the sources said.

From that point on, the mayor was working to find a replacement.

"Ever since the budget, her career has been unraveling," said Councilwoman Jannie L. Blackwell, chair of the Education Committee. "She may have been an educator, but she's in a political environment, and anyone in her position has to accept that."

Nutter, who appoints two of the five members of the School Reform Commission, acquiesced to the SRC's plan for the buyout. But in conversations with each of the SRC members, the sources said, the mayor insisted that the board set a ceiling on public funds going toward the settlement.

"The mayor took a quick look at it and said he didn't want to see more than $500,000 in public funds spent," the sources said. "That set the tone for the subsequent negotiations."

Under her contract, Ackerman was entitled to accumulated vacation and sick days and a $100,000 retention bonus. Six months of severance pay, viewed as reasonable by Nutter and the SRC members, would have gotten her most of the way toward the $500,000.

Ackerman's initial claim was for $1.3 million to $1.5 million, based on the amount she would receive if she served out her contract to 2014, the sources said.

Her base salary was $348,140.

The private fund-raising, in which Nutter himself participated, helped close the gap, the private contributions to be made through the Philadelphia's Children First Fund, a nonprofit with close ties to the School District.

Nutter's spokesman, Mark McDonald, said all the contributors intended to remain anonymous and referred all other questions - the number of donors, the size of their donations, the extent of the fund-raising effort - to Archie, who did not return calls for comment.

Nutter and Ackerman seemed to have a strong working relationship through most of her tenure, which began in June 2008. They were said to have met once a month and to have talked occasionally by phone. At a news conference Monday, Nutter applauded her success in raising test scores and graduation rates.

But the relationship deteriorated this year as the district's finances turned sour and Ackerman needed Nutter's help seeking more money from City Council.

Nutter was particularly peeved at Ackerman for announcing a plan to save full-day kindergarten without the mayor's knowledge, after Nutter had made kindergarten the focus of pleas for a tax increase.

Asked if the district was better with Ackerman gone, Nutter declined to say.

"I'm not going to get into better or worse," he said. "I did agree with the decision."

Ackerman got credit from many for attempting to speed achievement in poor schools and for engaging district parents. Her supporters were vocal, often staging rallies and speaking at SRC meetings.

But Ackerman was extremely unpopular with many, including teachers.

"PFT members will certainly be pleased that the reign of arrogance, intimidation, and disrespect has come to an end," said Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.

The last few weeks of a protracted endgame had been tough to watch, Jordan said.

"All summer, the attention has been focused on Arlene," he said. "Now, it's time to focus on the children."

On Thursday, Ackerman publicly dared her bosses to fire her, entering a district principals' meeting to a defiant musical soundtrack and stating, in an emotional speech, that she was guilty only of being herself.

"Is it a crime to stand up for children instead of stooping down into the political sandbox and selling our children for a politician's victory?" Ackerman said at the time.

Two days later, the deal to get her out of Philadelphia was done. Ackerman attorney Robert S. Nix said she gave up money owed to her under a one-year contract extension signed this year by the SRC.

That money will help finance Promise Academies, district turnaround schools that operate with extra money and are an Ackerman signature initiative.

"There was no fighting or wrangling over that," Nix said. "She's just giving back that last year and saying, 'Earmark it for the Promise Academies.' It seemed like the best thing."

Nix said Ackerman got "everything that was coming to her under her contract."

"She came in here leaving a nice position up in New York, and they begged her to come," he said. Before coming to Philadelphia, Ackerman, 64, had been a professor at Columbia University.

Of the split, Nix said, there were "differences in opinion in how to allocate the scarce resources for children."

Members of the legislature's black caucus rallied around Ackerman. They blamed mismanagement of the SRC for much of her troubles and for sending the School District into a "state of chaos" two weeks before school started.

"Our position on Dr. Ackerman's achievements hasn't changed," said Rep. Ron Waters (D., Phila.), caucus chair. "This isn't about saving Dr. Ackerman's job; it's about keeping what's working in place."

Rep. Mike McGeehan (D., Phila.), a vocal critic of Ackerman's administration, asked state Attorney General Linda Kelly to weigh in on the deal, saying, "We shouldn't be rewarding failure."

Others blamed the SRC for Ackerman's woes.

"If the SRC is supposed to be the monitor for the school system, they failed miserably," said Rep. James Roebuck (D., Phila.), the top Democrat on the House Education Committee. "They made a bad situation worse in their failure to create a budget that took the loss of the federal stimulus money into account."

Roebuck said he was sponsoring legislation to disband the SRC and to shift to an elected school board, like other school districts in the state.

Gov. Corbett distanced himself from the fight over Ackerman and the scuffle with the SRC, although the district operates under state oversight and he appoints three members and the chairman.

Corbett said he would have more to say when his SRC appointee, Pedro Ramos, has been confirmed by the state Senate in September.

"At that point in time, I feel I'll have more input in that whole process than I do right now," Corbett said. "It is a local issue at this point in time. The mayor has been in communication with me; I've talked with him."

Ackerman did not appear in public Monday and did not return phone calls seeking comment.

In a farewell letter to Philadelphians, she listed 22 "significant accomplishments" and urged people to "stay the course" to continue her plans.

"When I accepted this superintendent's job three years ago, I did not imagine just how difficult an assignment it would be," Ackerman wrote. "However, I take great pride and satisfaction in knowing that I am leaving the district better than I found it for thousands of young people."

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