Ackerman vows to fight to stay on as Philadelphia schools chief

Embattled Philadelphia schools chief Arlene C. Ackerman vowed Wednesday to fight for her job even as officials dramatically scaled back her signature initiative and the teachers' union said it would not consider concessions while she was in charge.

Rumors of Ackerman's departure have been swirling all summer, and a small group of supporters gathered at a special School Reform Commission meeting Wednesday to call on the superintendent to stay while denouncing her critics.

"I have to have the support of the people who hired me, but I am going to fight," Ackerman said after the meeting.

Asked to respond to speculation that the SRC was negotiating to remove Ackerman, Chairman Robert L. Archie Jr. said her contract was not up.

"Dr. Ackerman has a contract, which the SRC extended for an additional year," said Archie, who has been an Ackerman ally.

Commissioner Johnny Irizarry declined to say whether he still backed Ackerman. A terse SRC statement issued late Wednesday said the commission "remains committed to working with" the superintendent under her contract.

Ackerman could be entitled to a $1.5 million severance package if the SRC forces her out without cause.

The political climate appears to be growing tougher for Ackerman.

Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, said Wednesday, "It's time for new leadership at the School District."

To close a $629 million budget gap, the district is, among other things, banking on $75 million in concessions from the PFT and other unions.

Jordan has long said he will not negotiate, but he added a qualifier Wednesday: "As long as that superintendent is in place, we will not discuss concessions."

The district has already laid off more than 2,700 employees and ordered deep cuts in programs and school budgets to try to make up for the shortfall in the 2011-12 school year.

On Wednesday, chief financial officer Michael Masch laid out a plan to cut $35 million more.

A program particularly dear to Ackerman will take the largest cut: Nearly $18 million will be slashed from the budget for Promise Academies, overhauled schools that get more resources to help overcome years of failure.

Instead of 11 new Promise Academies in the fall, there will only be three - Germantown, Martin Luther King, and West Philadelphia High Schools.

Saturday school for all Promise Academies, including the existing six, is gone, as is one extended school day per week and some teacher training.

That news inflamed the crowd at the SRC meeting. The audience erupted with cries of, "Why would you cut Dr. Ackerman's promise?" and, "You've got to be joking!"

People settled down once an official threatened to have security start removing people.

Archie said the SRC was still behind Promise Academies.

"We'd love to keep them. We just don't have the money," he said. He said parents upset by the cut should take their complaints to the district's funders in Harrisburg and City Hall.

Emmanuel Bussie, a district parent and activist, angrily decried the loss of Promise Academies. He said they "level the playing field for inner-city kids" but "pose a threat" to other schools' resources.

He compared Ackerman to the civil rights heroine Rosa Parks and urged her to remain in Philadelphia.

"We've got your back," Bussie told the superintendent. "Stay, stay, stay."

Other speakers hailed Ackerman as a visionary sent by God and described those who attack her as "despicable and deplorable." Others called her critics racists.

Gloria Thomas, secretary of the Parent Power group and chair of the advisory council at Sayre High, was upset by the attacks on Ackerman and distraught at the news that her school would not get the overhaul it had been promised.

"Now we're going to have an unproductive school year," Thomas said. "We're getting teachers who don't want to be there."

It was not immediately clear whether teachers who were to be transferred from Sayre and the other schools that will not become Promise Academies would be able to stay in their jobs.

Jordan said he had not received word from the district about what would happen to those teachers, but said they should have a say in whether they stay at their old schools or pick new assignments.

That, and much about the coming school year, remains up in the air.

In addition to cutting back on Promise Academies, the district will lay off more nurses and cut its central book budget by $1.2 million, the Parent University budget by $500,000, and in-school suspension programs by $600,000.

It will also close two Parent Resource Centers and cut a regional Early Childhood Education Center pilot.

The district's central office, which had been slashed by 50 percent, will lose 24 percent more from nonpersonnel budgets, saving the district $1.6 million.

But it's not yet clear how many layoffs the new cuts will mean.

District spokeswoman Shana Kemp declined to give an exact number. She said "there will only be a small number of additional force reductions," and that most of the cuts would coincide with the beginning of the school year in September.

Thousands of teachers still don't know where they will be working in September. An arbitrator's decision on 174 layoffs is due any day, Jordan said. Until then, displaced teachers cannot begin to select vacancies.

Between budget cuts and job uncertainty, Jordan said, his members "are not happy with the conditions under which they're going to have to open school."