GUEST BLOG: Suspicion Surrounds Ackerman Buyout
Zachary Stalberg //Sep. 2, 2011 // 9:24 AM
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