Elmer Smith: Time for Ackerman to get specific with her accusations

WHATEVER ELSE you can say about Arlene Ackerman's $905,000 buyout, you can't call it hush money.

The former school-district superintendent has been on blast since she floated to a soft landing in her public/private parachute Wednesday. In extended interviews with Education Week, Fox 29 and WURD-AM, Ackerman unleashed a torrent of direct hits and glancing blows at the mayor and the School Reform Commission.

She told WURD-AM host Fatimah Ali that Mayor Nutter forced the SRC to get rid of her after she wouldn't "play politics" on funding for full-day kindergarten.

But, by far, her most damning accusation was when she told Education Week that the SRC put her on its hit list when she refused to support an unnamed politician who wanted her to back a bid by Foundations Inc. to run Martin Luther King High School as a charter.

King's parent-led School Advisory Council had voted to have Mosaica Turnaround Partners run the school as a charter. The SRC voted to honor the parents' wishes. SRC Chairman Robert Archie abstained from voting because his law firm had represented Foundations Inc.

But that potential conflict of interest didn't keep Archie from meeting with John Porter of Mosaica, state Rep. Dwight Evans and Deputy Superintendent Leroy Nunery after the vote.

A day later, despite spending thousands of dollars on the application process, Mosaica decided it didn't want the $12 million-a-year contract, clearing the way for Foundations, a firm with close ties to Evans.

Foundations later walked away from the contract when the questionable maneuvers became public. But the whole deal smacked of political favoritism.

A Nutter-administration probe is expected to be made public in two weeks. But Ackerman's innuendos have raised the stakes on the investigation. She claims someone, again unnamed, told her that her refusal to back Foundations led indirectly to her ouster.

"I was told then that I was making a career decision," she told Education Week.

In her interview with Ali, she said she had "been asked to do things that are totally unconscionable."

I'm not buying her martyrdom. Ackerman's claim that she didn't know anything about the backroom meeting didn't pass the smell test. After denying it for weeks, she later admitted that Nunery had briefed her on it.

If she wants us to believe she was asked to do things that were totally unconscionable, she needs to say who asked her and what they asked her to do. She has spent the past two days making veiled accusations; if she wants to be believed, it's time to get specific.

It's time for the mayor to get specific, too. His refusal to reveal the names of those who kicked in $405,000 in private contributions to Ackerman's buyout stands in stark contrast to his billing as the reigning champion of transparency in government.

For him to spend political capital by calling a few well-heeled friends for large contributions doesn't square with his image as the ethics mayor. You can't help wondering if he's calling in his marks for some past favors or setting himself up to owe them one.

The mayor had no problem with the naming of Leroy Nunery as interim superintendent for the district. But Nunery is one of the subjects of the probe that Nutter's chief integrity officer, Joan Markman, is conducting into the King High School affair.

If Markman's report exonerates Nunery and Archie, who was appointed to the SRC by Nutter, the process may appear tainted.

Arlene Ackerman has done what she set out to do. Her clear purpose in the interviews and in her pledge to hang around the city long enough to stir the pot is to heap as much dirt as she can on the mayor, the SRC and anyone else within range.

"I'm not a politician," she likes to say.

Maybe not for the children. But she sure knows how to play the political game when it comes to garnering support for herself.

Send email to smithel@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2512. For recent columns: www.philly.com/ElmerSmith