3 candidates have interviewed for Phila. schools CEO

Arlene Ackerman, one of three finalists for the top post in the Philadelphia School District, said she would work early on to involve social services, mental health and other community agencies to make schools better - something she learned in her previous two superintendencies.

"As I think about what I would do differently, it would be to have that kind of coordinated effort at the very beginning," said Ackerman, 61, who formerly ran the public schools in San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

Ackerman spoke at a news conference this afternoon, shortly after meeting in private with a 45-member citizens advisory committee to interview for the job of chief executive officer.

Ackerman and the two other job candidates - Kent McGuire, dean of the College of Education at Temple University, and Leroy D. Nunery II, a former Edison Schools executive - were interviewed today by the advisory committee.

The interviews were being held with the committee at Philadelphia School District headquarters, 440 N. Broad St.

Ackerman answered a round of questions from the reporters and agreed to stay for a second round, spending nearly an hour.

Ackerman said she would focus on improving student achievement for all, as well as trying to close the achievement gap among the races.

Asked why she wanted to come back into public school service, Ackerman, who currently is teaching at Columbia University in New York, responded: "It's a calling. It's my life's work. . . . People like me are always looking for the next challenge."

She said that she was not against privately managed schools, such as those run by Edison Schools Inc., but that they should be held to the same standards and receive the same resources and funding as the regular school system. In Philadelphia, the privately managed schools receive $450 more per student.

To help the lowest performing schools, she would target perennial problems, such as lack of substitutes, inexperienced teachers and low parental involvement.

On the issue of violence, she said she would look at educational reasons why students were misbehaving.

"Good discipline is a result of good teaching," said Ackerman, the daughter of a minister and a former Sunday school teacher.

She said she also would seek to work very closely with Philadelphia's new police commissioner, Charles H. Ramsey, whom she knew when she headed the Washington school system in the late 1990s. They lived in the same apartment building.

On funding, she said she would seek to prove that the school district was spending money wisely. That's what she did in San Francisco, and as a result voters approved two bond issues for a total of $6 million in additional revenue, she said.

Ackerman also said she would move to pay teachers at different rates based on performance and other factors, in addition to raising overall base pay.

"This is controversial, but I'm known for my controversy," she said. "...I think we need to look at incentives that actually differentiate pay for teachers, just as we do for medicine or law."

McGuire, 52, who has spent much of his career in education policy and higher education, said that while Ackerman offers a traditional choice for schools chief, he offers change. He said he has spent his career watching what is happening around the country and testing ideas to figure out what works.

"I don't think there's any candidate that's going to bring everything to the table," said McGuire.

If hired, he said, he would focus in his first year on hiring better teachers, improving instruction for students learning to speak English, and adding more support for education in the classroom.

He would look to hire talent from around the country and bring talent from inside the schools to the central office to improve instruction, he said.

He also said he would try to improve the district's data systems so that trends could be more closely monitored and improvements made.

While he praised the Philadelphia district's standardized curriculum, it hasn't been implemented as well as it should have been, he said. As a result, he said, the district will get "incremental increases" but then "hit a wall."

"To punch through that wall requires powerful teaching, high-quality instruction across many classrooms in many schools," said McGuire, a resident of Moorestown. "I think the issue in Philadelphia as in many school systems, urban and suburban, is execution."

He also said the district's high schools need work, charging that perhaps only 10 of 67 work particularly well.

"The supply of really good high schools is in very short supply, so we have our hands full in terms of coming up with bold, creative, forward thinking," he said.

Nunery, 52, of Wyndmoor, a former Edison Schools executive, emphasized his background in business and education as strengths.

He said that he has run a family business and that, at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a vice president, he ran "20 businesses at one time," he said.

Nunery said he agreed with the School Reform Commission's education goals, spanning safety, academics and other areas.

"What we've got to do is build the on-ramps, the milestones to get there, each and every year have commitment points," he said.

He declined to discuss the reasons he left Edison, where he ran the charter school division, after only two years.

"I'm not at liberty to talk about them. I left on my own," said Nunery, who now heads his own educational consulting business.

He declined to say whether he saw a reduced or expanded role for Edison in the district. Edison currently runs 20 district schools.

"I won't make the call on anything. I will evaluate every partner that we have," he said.

He added: "I think there's a lot of good work being done. The district's half way to the goal. My goal is to get us all the way through, to get us to the Super Bowl. With some outside help? Yes, but not always."

The superintendent selection committee, which conducted today's interviews, includes education advocates, students, parents, and business and union representatives who are trying to find a new leader for the 167,000-student district.

Committee members will provide the School Reform Commission with a written evaluation of each candidate.

The Commission, which received 37 applications for the job, is expected to make a selection by the end of January or early February. The job currently pays $275,000.

District officials said tonight that the commission would meet "as soon as possible" to discuss the candidates."

"We are pleased with the quality of the CEO candidates, and also are happy that we currently are on schedule to conclude this process in a timely manner," said Commission Chair Sandra Dungee Glenn.

The commission launched its search for a new CEO last summer after Paul Vallas left the job to run the New Orleans school system.

Only one of the candidates - Ackerman - has had experience running a large urban school system.

From 2000 to 2006, Ackerman, 61, headed the San Francisco school system; she was superintendent of the Washington system from 1998 to 2000. The San Francisco board and Ackerman declared that they were incompatible in announcing her departure, according to news reports.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that her tenure saw a rise in student achievement and better financial health, but that it was "marred by charges that she was autocratic and excluded parents and teachers from important decisions."

She did not shy away from controversy. Soon after her arrival in San Francisco, she uncovered "widespread corruption in the district's facilities department," according to the Chronicle.

For her work, she drew distinction. She was named superintendent of the year for 2004-05 by the National Association of Black School Educators.

Ackerman started her career as an elementary and middle school teacher.

She currently is an education professor at Columbia University's Teachers College and the superintendent-in-residence of the Broad Superintendents Academy, a California group that trains nontraditional candidates such as military leaders for positions as school superintendents.

Ackerman has a bachelor's degree in elementary education and a master's in educational administration and policy. She also has a master's and a doctorate in education administration, planning and social policy from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.

Nunery, who is in his early 50s, oversaw Edison's New York City-based charter school division and previously held high-level positions with the National Basketball Association and the University of Pennsylvania. Edison, a for-profit education company, currently operates 20 Philadelphia public schools. He left Edison last summer.

He currently is founder and managing director of the Wyndmoor-based PlusUltre L.L.C., a Philadelphia-based education-consulting company that assists charter and other independent schools.

He has a bachelor's in history from Lafayette College, an MBA from the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis, and a doctorate in higher education management from Penn, according to a profile of him in a Lafayette magazine.

He previously worked as a managing director of Global Corporate Investment Bank and as a senior client for BankAmerica Securities LLC, the profile said.

At the NBA, where he worked for four years, he was vice president for business development and human relations. And at Penn, where he worked before Edison, he was vice president for business services.

McGuire, 52, a Michigan native, previously held positions at the Education Commission of the States in Colorado, where he worked on school finance; the University of Colorado, where he was an assistant professor of education; the U.S. Department of Education in the Clinton administration; and several prominent research and charitable institutions.

He joined Temple in July 2003, and he also sits on the Moorestown school board.

McGuire has a bachelor's in economics from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, a master's in education administration from Teachers College at Columbia University, and a doctorate in public administration from the University of Colorado.

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