Should schools chief have known?
A diversity component for magnet admissions was floated, scuttled. Ackerman? Unaware.
Did Philadelphia Schools Superintendent Arlene Ackerman know her staff was preparing a proposal that would include a controversial "diversity" component in the admissions process for the district's highly competitive magnet schools?
Ackerman, her chief of staff, and her chief operations officer all say no. And they say no emphatically and unequivocally.
But political leaders and educators say there's another equally important question: Should Ackerman have known?
There, the answer is more ambiguous.
In a November report given to Ackerman, a district committee charged by her with shortening the timeline for the admissions process recommended including "a gender and racial balance component" for citywide and special-admission schools, such as Masterman and Central - two of the state's highest performers.
But John Frangipani, the administrator who wrote the report, says now that the language did not refer to a change in admissions criteria.
Ackerman said Saturday that she did not recall that wording in the document or even the document itself.
"The lesson learned here is, I obviously didn't pay enough attention to it," she said. "My big initiatives are in the strategic plan, and that's where I tried to keep my energy."
Chief of staff Tomas Hanna and Frangipani also accepted blame for the miscommunications, which resulted in a proposal to add a diversity component to the high school admission process - which ultimately was squelched by
