Half Empty: How Queen Arlene missed her chance

Philadelphia School District Superintendent Arlene Ackerman has a resumé as good as it gets. Since it causes me considerable pain to say anything good about anybody, that last sentence came with heightened anguish. But it is true. Mostly. Well, maybe. Actually who really knows at this point since it is still so early in her tenure?

But armed with a doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and previous leadership roles in Washington and San Francisco, Ackerman is known for setting fire to the tired manuals of moribund tradition. She is not afraid to criticize teachers and principals she is convinced are not performing. She is not afraid to reassign them.

Based on some of her actions of the past year, it is also abundantly clear Queen Arlene is autocratic, imperious, and paranoid about challenges to her power. When she feels remotely threatened, her apparent rejoinder is "I don't need this job." It is the same response my friend Jono Gumport had when a bunch of us were 12-year-olds playing baseball and he responded to a call he didn't like by taking all the equipment away, including home plate.

But Queen Arlene inherited a school system that has basically been a mess for 50 years, and she came with a mandate to blow it up. She is doing that, although if she showed a little less Thatcheresque swagger and a little more decency toward those she works with outside the sycophancy of baby-face worshipers from Harvard and Columbia, she would have likely gotten more done in her first year than she did.

Still, there were results in what may be the country's biggest bureaucratic glacier. In a modern miracle, the system had virtually no teacher vacancies this year. There are more counselors in the schools, and class sizes in the lower grades have been reduced. It's not a revolution, and it may never be given that the average tenure of urban school superintendents is roughly three years before they leave or get fired (and still end up someplace else).

But it is a start.

So it was shocking to me that someone as savvy as Queen Arlene would blow perhaps the best opportunity she has had for change since she took over in June 2008. I am referring of course to the very excellent decision she and Mayor Nutter made to let Tony Danza teach at Northeast High School this fall as part of a reality series for the Arts and Entertainment Network. Given the attitude she throws off that most Philadelphia teachers and school administrators are worthless, this was a marvelous opportunity to populate Northeast High not simply with Danza but other celebrities who can't even score a good table at McDonald's. Instead she showed an uncharacteristic failure of imagination. Fortunately like all journalists, I am here to help:

Principal, Bob Denver. Denver is no longer with us, but based on what Queen Arlene thinks of the city's principals in general, someone gone would surely be better in her estimation than many of the ones still here. Denver's status is not without complication, but just look at the Republicans in Harrisburg, brain-dead years ago yet still claiming to function. There can be no debate that everybody would still be stuck on Gilligan's Island were it not for Denver's plucky optimism, so handy during those moments when you discover a student masturbating in class or walk into the school bathroom and find feces stuffed into the sink. Given his dealings with the emotionally unhinged Skipper, he also has skill with volatile personalities.

Vice Principal for Testing, George W. Bush. The former president is an excellent liar, so fudging test results here and there will be no problem. Bush can also give students inspirational advice on the value of education by using his own example, in particular how he spent most of his time at Yale hanging from a goalpost at Princeton.

Vice Principal for School Services, Andrew Dice Clay. Clay's profane-laced riffs on teachers who don't do exactly what he tells them will undoubtedly bring a private smile to Queen Arlene's lips. It is a hostile stance on her part perhaps, but her sentiment about the utter unevenness of teaching, in particular because of the hideous strictures of seniority, has definite merit. And Clay will be the perfect enforcer.

Security, Dennis Franz. Forever cemented as NYPD Blue's Andy Sipowicz, Franz will effectively beat the pulp out of any teacher inquiring about such superficialities as sufficient pencils and books and chairs. In keeping with Queen Arlene's style, he will order any congregation of three or more teachers in the hallway to immediately disperse. Franz will also be in charge of attendance during the morning school-wide prayer in front of a wall-size banner of Queen Arlene with her riding crop and stilettos.

Athletic Director, Ed Marinaro. Remember Ed Marinaro's acting career after he quit playing pro football? Not even he does. Marinaro portrayed officer Joe Coffey in Hill Street Blues from 1981 to 1986. And that was pretty much it. Since Danza is a former boxer, perhaps the two can cage fight each other in the cafeteria. It's just the kind of thing A&E is looking for, although it may be at some variance with Queen Arlene's own assessment that the show will "illuminate the joy, rewards and challenges" of being a first-year teacher.

Drama Coach, Mr. T. Mr. T will teach students that the trick in life is to go as long as you can and as far as you can before you are discovered for what you always were - a putz even without the Mohawk. Mr. T will guide students on the complex physics of wearing heavy jewelry. In addition he and Danza will hold a mini-filmathon at the school in which they show their finest movies and then dissect them afterward. For Mr. Danza, it is a clear toss-up between Going Ape, in which he takes care of three orangutans for reasons really not worth going into, or the subtly titled The Garbage Picking Field Goal Kicking Philadelphia Phenomenon. For Mr. T, the recently released Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is said to be a contender for the inaugural Fishtown Film Festival.

School Spokesman, Heidi Ramirez. Although not your typical celebrity, Ramirez rose to the fore for naively thinking that the role of the School Reform Commission was to ask questions of Queen Arlene and her staff and actually oversee schools and reform. This was a terrible miscalculation, and Queen Arlene was right to basically convey to Ramirez that if you are interested in the democratic right of dissent, paint your face green, wear one of those hats that feeds beer into every open pore, and go sit in the 700 level.

Mayor Nutter and Queen Arlene. They will play themselves in at least one episode. The mayor will come to Northeast High and exhort to students the irreplaceable value of an education, until Queen Arlene tells him to sit down and shut up since he is invading her space.

Which the mayor will do if he values his continued safety.

Buzz Bissinger joins the Currents section today as a monthly columnist specializing in local issues. He is the author of A Prayer for the City, an insider's account of the first mayoral term of the Rendell administration. Before that he worked at The Inquirer, where he covered politics and won a Pulitzer Prize with two other reporters for an  investigation of the Philadelphia court system. He is the author of Friday Night Lights and the newly released Shooting Stars, co-written with LeBron James.