City School Stories

Notes from the Field

Submitted by Frank Murphy on August 16, 2011

A new school year is fast approaching and our city’s schools are far from ready to greet returning students.  More than one thousand teacher positions must be filled, a budget deficit has yet to be resolved, confusion is rampant and uncertainty prevails.  This state of affairs does not bode well for the future well being of our children.

Currently, Superintendent Arlene Ackerman is engaged in a bitter and divisive struggle to maintain her leadership position in Philadelphia.  A handful of Ackerman loyalists have disrupted recent SRC board meetings in an effort to demonstrate their support for her.  They do so even though Ackerman has lost the confidence and support of much of the Philadelphia community.  The actions of these few individuals are hardly a surprise.  Their protest is quite consistent with the new normal of disruptive innovation we have come to know under Ackerman’s leadership.

As this public circus plays out, the children of our school district are being put at risk.  A tumultuous start to the school year will not serve them well. They are the ones who will suffer most when a teacher isn’t assigned to their classroom in September.

Rumors abound that the members of the School Reform Commission, along with the mayor, are negotiating with Ackerman in order to reach an agreement on a suitable termination package.  But the potential cost of a $1.5 million buy out of her contract seems to be major stumbling block.  Time is running out; it is time to cut to the chase.

The members of the SRC should either terminate Ackerman for cause or negotiate a buy out of her contract. Though it was a blunder on the part of the SRC to agree to the original terms of her employment contract, what’s done is done.  We need to move forward.  It is time to get past our moral outrage over the contract that Ackerman so shrewdly negotiated for herself.

The cost to taxpayers to end the tenure of Arlene Ackerman will be dear.  But our options in this matter are few.  A lengthy and costly legal battle could be launched in order to terminate her with cause.  This would be a difficult legal case to pursue in light of the satisfactory evaluations bestowed upon Ackerman by the members of the School Reform Commission.  In such a case, hundreds of thousands could be expended on legal fees with a likely end result of her still being paid $1.5million.

We could skip the legal battle and just give Ackerman her hefty buy out regardless of our dismay.  Or the School Reform commissioners could attempt to negotiate a more palatable settlement.  This approach would depend on Ackerman’s willingness to be reasonable.

Whatever course of action is taken, the final bottom line will involve a significant payout of taxpayers’ dollars.  This eventuality is one that we will have to face sooner or later.  So in order to best benefit our children, wouldn’t sooner be the better option to pursue?

Ackerman’s willingness to encourage public protest of her treatment by the School Reform Commission is a bad sign. By doing so she is signaling that she will unleash even more havoc on our beleaguered district as she plays out her endgame. We have suffered enough already from the consequences of her divisive and autocratic management style.  We need to finally put her in check as we deal with the chaos she has inflicted on our school district.

In order to do so, strong leadership will be required from the current members of the SRC. They are the only people who can bring an end to this tumultuous affair. They need to deal with the reality that no matter how they manage to terminate Ackerman, they may still confront a firestorm of public outrage.  So they should just go ahead and do what needs to be done regardless of the fallout.