Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Annette John-Hall: The Ackerman situation is another big school-district mess

Food fight! That's how State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams aptly described the behavior of so-called grown-ups in their handling of embattled School District Superintendent Arlene C. Ackerman.

Food fight!

That's how State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams aptly described the behavior of so-called grown-ups in their handling of embattled School District Superintendent Arlene C. Ackerman.

As with kindergartners out of control, the Ackerman drama has deteriorated into a hot mess, like spinach all over the cafeteria walls.

Here we are, three weeks before school starts, a time that is supposed to be about new beginnings for students, teachers, and parents, a time of hope for continued progress.

Instead, more than 1,000 teachers don't have a clue where they'll be teaching, laid-off teachers are owed money, and Ackerman's reform initiatives are on life support.

And most distressing of all: Who the heck knows whom our superintendent is going to be?

Ackerman has told friends that she wants to stay, but sources say she has been trying to negotiate a buyout for six weeks.

If that's true, here's some makes-no-sense math: If the School Reform Commission is really trying to get rid of Ackerman, why would it have extended her $325,000-per-year contract (complete with a $1.5 million severance package) until 2014?

And what message does it send if she is sent on her way with a lucrative buyout when the district faces a $629 million budget deficit?

I was never good at math, but I do know such a scenario amounts to a zero-sum game in which students stand to lose the most.

PR disaster

Look, I'll be the first to say that Ackerman has been a public relations disaster. When it comes to the fundamental task of dealing with people, she's been her own worst enemy again and again: the disastrous handling of beatings of Asian students at South Philadelphia; her intimidating, heavy-handed lording over teachers and staff; and a defensive attitude that makes people question her transparency.

Even when her intentions are good, she manages to botch things. Like last year, when she awarded a $7.5 million contract to a minority firm to install security cameras in the schools. She was one of the few superintendents committed to making sure minority firms received a share of the district's work. Yet the way she went about it - getting rid of another firm that had already started the job - was all wrong.

Lost in all of this have been the impressive academic gains made under Ackerman's watch, overshadowed by the negativity surrounding her, which has taken on a life of its own - from newspaper covers belittling the superintendent, including one depicting her as a whining baby in diapers, to staff leaks no doubt intended to speed up her take-down; from the teachers' union refusing to negotiate as long as she's in charge, to an ample supply of critics trying to find fault with every nonnewsworthy thing she does.

To me, it feels like piling on.

And you've got to wonder. Who'd come here anyway, in all of this chaos, if Ackerman does leave?

What's really important?

You have to ask yourself where the focus should really be - on the number of vacation days Ackerman has taken, or the number of children able to read at grade level.

Now that the teachers' union has successfully lobbied to cut her signature Promise Academies from 11 to three, I'm guessing she's as good as gone.

Ackerman didn't show up at an SRC meeting Wednesday, which doesn't bode well for the schoolchildren of Philadelphia, 80 percent of whom are African American and disadvantaged. Say what you will about Ackerman, you can't doubt her commitment to those kids and their parents.

Now it's up to Mayor Nutter to her give his vote of confidence - or not. Nutter said through a spokesman Wednesday that because Ackerman works for the SRC, he wouldn't discuss personnel matters "related to other agencies."

Uh, excuse me, but didn't the mayor appoint the SRC chair?

What isn't in dispute is that generations after generations of kids have been failed by the school system.

And sadly, it looks like the cycle won't be broken any time soon.