Its a Hard Knock Life « City School Stories

Its a Hard Knock Life « City School Stories:

Its a Hard Knock Life

by fmurphy

You’ve Got To Be Kidding
Submitted by Frank Murphy on December 13, 2011

In a post I published last week, I jokingly wondered, whether Dr. Evil was Arlene Ackerman’s financial advisor. I didn’t expect to make a reference to this humorous embodiment of the bumbling mastermind of worldwide domination again so soon after my last “You’ve Got to Be Kidding” entry. But here he is once more.

I couldn’t help but bring Dr. Evil back for an encore performance. I decided to do so after reading our former school chief’s response to the resignation of Estelle Mathews, published in last Sunday’s edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Ackerman expressed shock and dismay over the allegations that Matthews had demonstrated favoritism and nepotism while discharging her duties as a district employee.

The results of an internal school district investigation revealed a number of troubling findings concerning Matthews’s management of the School District’s personnel office. She had hired her son for two different school