INQUIRER: Arlene Ackerman is out as superintendent of the Philadelphia School District. An announcement will be made later today, multiple sources say. Her departure has been rumored for months but as my colleagues and I wrote in Sunday’s paper, it became clear last week that the end of Ackerman’s superintendency was imminent. The money to buy out Ackerman’s contract, which runs through 2014, will come from both the district and private sources, as The Inquirer previously reported. Sources say the district will pay about $500,000 and some amount – exactly how much isn’t yet clear – will come from the private sources. MORE
UPDATE: Ackerman will be paid more than $900,000 to hang up her hat as Philadelphia’s school chief. MORE
PHAWKER: Sure wish somebody would fire our ass, and give us a million dollars for doing a shitty job. And this business about her generously donating the final three years of salary on her contract to ‘the children’? Please. If she really cared about the children, she would give back the million dollars to a school district staggering under the weight of the $629 million dollar budget deficit she leaves behind, and collect unemployment like everybody else.
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PREVIOUSLY: HOW I LEARNED NOT TO CALL ARLENE ACKERMAN AT HOME
PREVIOUSLY: Meanwhile School Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, who presides over this Lord Of The Flies re-enactment we call a school district, seems unable or unwilling to stop to the madness. And yet, she recently sicked the police on a reporter who had the unmitigated gall to call her at home. The reporter, Dwight Ott, dialed up Ackerman at home to vet a rumor that her car and house had been vandalized. She declined to respond and told him he could interview her in person the following day. A few minutes after hanging up with Ackerman, the police called and wanted to know if he had threatened Ackerman’s life. He told them there must have been a misunderstanding and explained the situation. The next day, two plainclothes detectives from the Philadelphia Police Department came to his house in South Jersey and interviewed him about the incident for the better part of an hour. They even asked to check his computer’s hard drive. All because he called the School Superintendent at home to ask a question. That sounds more like a monarch than a public employee. In another time it would be OFF WITH HIS HEAD. MORE