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Ackerman Speaking Out (of turn)?

by: Rebel - Havertown, PA
started: 08/26/11 11:56 am | updated: 08/26/11 11:56 am

Arlene Ackerman is speaking out in interviews this week with Education Week, Fox 29 and WURD-AM.

On WURD-AM, she said Mayor Nutter forced the SRC to get rid of her after she wouldn't "play politics" on funding for full-day kindergarten.

She also told Education Week that the SRC put her on its hit list when she refused to support an unnamed politician who wanted her to back a bid by Foundations Inc. to run Martin Luther King High School as a charter.

Apparently, the $905,000 she received this week wasn't hush money.

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Martin Luther King High School's parent-led School Advisory Council had voted to have Mosaica Turnaround Partners run the school as a charter. The SRC voted to honor the parents' wishes. SRC Chairman Robert Archie abstained from voting because his law firm had represented Foundations Inc.

But that potential conflict of interest didn't keep Archie from meeting with John Porter of Mosaica, state Rep. Dwight Evans and Deputy Superintendent Leroy Nunery after the vote.

A day later, despite spending thousands of dollars on the application process, Mosaica decided it didn't want the $12 million-a-year contract, clearing the way for Foundations, a firm with close ties to Evans.

Foundations later walked away from the contract when the questionable maneuvers became public. But the whole deal smacked of political favoritism.

A Nutter-administration probe is expected to be made public in two weeks. Ackerman claims someone, again unnamed, told her that her refusal to back Foundations led indirectly to her ouster.

"I was told then that I was making a career decision," she told Education Week.

In her WURD-AM interview, she said she had "been asked to do things that are totally unconscionable."

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