Zachary Stalberg: Suspicion Surrounds Ackerman Buyout

This piece comes to us courtesy of Education Nation's The Learning Curve blog. Zachary Stalberg, president and CEO of Philadelphia government watchdog group Committee of Seventy, writes.

Philadelphians of every hue and persuasion have found something to be angry about in the buyout deal for former Superintendent of Schools Arlene Ackerman.

For some, it's the roughly $1 million cost of the buyout.

For others, it's the way her bosses and the pols dealt with her on her way out the door. Or the way she dealt with them.

For still others, it's the idea of a whopping payday for a lightning rod of a superintendent, despite controversies in her three-year tenure ranging from the reliability of test scores to her handling of violence in the schools.

For the non-partisan, non-profit watchdog group, the Committee of Seventy, the issue has been the unusual and probably unprecedented dependence on anonymous private donors to help cover the cost of Dr. Ackerman's parachute.

We certainly were not alone.

In fact, the secrecy surrounding this particular farewell deal might have generated almost as much outrage as the million-dollar buyout itself. As one corporate leader said to me, "This is just the kind of thing that gives Philadelphia a corrupt image." He had just turned down a request to contribute 50,000 smackaroos.

This piece has been truncated. Read the full piece at Education Nation's The Learning Curve.

Comments

[Jasper Mcmillan]

08:36 PM on 09/08/2011

Politicians are all alike.........."you rub my back n I will grease yourn"....what did she do that is worth that kind of payout by the taxpayers???

[TheSheeple]

06:10 PM on 09/10/2011

Paid her union dues

[El Chingaso]

01:06 PM on 09/06/2011

And taxpayers are getting hit "big time"...paying her off. I'd rather $1 mil go to paying off some bonds -- i.e. excessive debt school boards authorize -- than to a super that redefined..."incompetence."

[changing]

12:17 PM on 09/03/2011

It just gets worse and worse-this is a charade-Arne, Rhee, Obama, a whole host of these scamming sups and CEOS-this is not education
This is not about education-this is about money pure and simple

[timbeaux]

01:43 AM on 09/03/2011

This woman should have been kicked out the door with a nickel for gum two and a half years ago.