She walks, nobody talks

BACK IN MARCH, the leadership of Superintendent Arlene Ackerman was exemplary enough that the School Reform Commission extended her contract for another year.

But it didn't take long for the commissioners to realize the error of their ways, it seems. By June, they launched a campaign to raise funds to buy her out.

Yesterday, they paid the 64-year-old Ackerman more than $500,000 in taxpayer dollars and $405,000 from "anonymous private contributions" to leave, ending her tumultuous three-year tenure in Philadelphia, which included continued rises in test scores but seemingly nonstop political and public-relations missteps.

Deputy Superintendent Leroy Nunery was appointed acting superintendent while a nationwide search for Ackerman's successor gets under way.

Questions continue to swirl around the private donors' identities, which district and SRC officials have kept under lock and key.

Zack Stalberg, of the political-watchdog group Committee of Seventy, raised ethical concerns about anonymous private donors contributing to buy out the remainder of Ackerman's contract.

"Because they are anonymous, we have no idea what these people expect or might get in return," Stalberg told the Daily News yesterday. "Some of them might not expect anything, but certainly the public has a right to be concerned whether they will be rewarded.

"In politics in general, the swing is toward more and more transparency. This arrangement, although it helps solves a problem, is the opposite of transparency. The public has a right to be skeptical about it."

Meanwhile, Councilman Bill Green directed questions toward the SRC, which he said had acted irresponsibly when it extended Ackerman's contract.

"Everyone on the SRC knew there was going to be a shortfall," Green said, referring to the district's remaining $35 million budget gap.

"They made the decision to [extend] her contract automatically, when they could have done it then, at no cost to taxpayers."

Ackerman's buyout, which also includes $75,000 in health benefits, is one of the largest awarded to a school superintendent in recent U.S. history - including that of her predecessor, Paul Vallas, who was paid $180,000 in 2007. The SRC is expected to vote on the buyout package tomorrow.

Ackerman forfeited compensation for the last year of her contract to have it designated for Promise Academies, one of her key initiatives to turn around troubled schools, said her attorney, Dean Weitzman.

Mayoral spokesman Mark McDonald said that the donated cash would be funneled through Philadelphia's Children First Fund, a nonprofit agency that has worked closely with the district since 2003. Ackerman, Nunery and SRC Chairman Robert Archie all sit on the fund's board, and its headquarters are located inside Duane Morris, the Center City law firm where Archie works.

Robert Louis, counsel to the fund's board, said that he was told by its chairman, Sheldon Bonovitz, to refer calls seeking comment to the school district. A district spokesman directed inquiries to SRC Chief of Staff Erin Davis, who did not return requests for comment.

Nutter said during a City Hall news conference yesterday that he was aware of conversations surrounding the embattled schools chief's departure since as early as June. But he was mum as to the reasons behind the move.

The mayor said that he became involved in making phone calls to help limit the amount of public money that would be needed to buy Ackerman out.

Ackerman initially was owed $1.5 million, but after negotiations walked away with the $980,000.

Nutter said that he "stayed in touch with the SRC not only about the decision, but how to ultimately get to a settlement."

"I did agree with the decision. I've supported the decision," Nutter said about the plan for Ackerman to move on.

Community activist and staunch Ackerman supporter Pamela Williams was outraged at Nutter's involvement and said that she would call for an investigation into his actions.

"He was outside his responsibility as a mayor," she said. "He acted unethically." A message left with McDonald, Nutter's spokesman, seeking a response went unanswered.

The SRC has refused to make any comment other than in a joint statement from Archie, Ackerman and Nutter praising the superintendent for her leadership.

"We see tangible evidence of the progress the district has made toward that goal in just three short years under Dr. Ackerman's leadership," the statement read.

But Williams, who's also a school police officer, said that for weeks a plan was afoot to remove Ackerman.

"If they praised her so much, they would try to keep her," she said. "Show me why my tax dollars are being used to buy her out when there was no cause for her removal."

For his part, Nunery said that he plans to focus on the start of school, Sept. 6.

- Staff writers Jan Ransom, Valerie Russ, Jason Nark and Chris Brennan contributed to this report.