By Antonio D. French
Filed Wednesday, March 8 at 8:30 AM
Dr. Arlene Ackerman's return to St. Louis has generated controversy even before the dust has settled from the larger controversy she is leaving behind in San Francisco.
Yesterday, the St. Louis City school board voted to give Ackerman a $75,000 part-time job as an adviser to Superintendent Creg Williams, responsible for raising student achievement. Some board members voiced concern over Williams selection of Ackerman, who Williams said has served as his mentor over the past year.
But the small controversy over Ackerman's new well-paying part-time job barely compares to that of the even better paying full-time job she recently left in California.
Ackerman, who used to work in the University City School District, was effectively relieved of her duties as superintendent of the San Francisco schools after questions arose regarding her use of the district's credit card.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported on Feb. 6, that someone in the district's central office apparently told one of the school board members that the district should look into Ackerman's use of a school credit card. "Suddenly there was talk at a closed session about wanting to see Ackerman's receipts," the paper said.
"It all came to a head [in February] when Ackerman learned, out of the blue, that a reporter had asked the district for copies of her credit card receipts as well," the paper reported.
"Obviously, someone had leaked the credit card request to the press," said Waukeen McCoy, an attorney for Ackerman. "We felt it was a harassment tactic in an effort by some board members to further ridicule her."
"If she were not an African American woman, she wouldn't be going through this," McCoy said.
But even before the credit card incident, Ackerman's relationship with the board was strained. After she announced on Sept. 6, 2005 that she would be resigning her position effective June 30, 2006, calls began for her to decline the huge severance package stipulated in her contract.
In a private meeting the same day of her retirement announcement, the school board and Ackerman agreed that they were "incompatible." This triggered a "compatibility clause" in Ackerman's contract, allowing her to walk away with severance pay of $375,000, plus a $50,000 per year pension. She will also continue to receive her $250,000 annual salary through June.
In January, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a resolution requesting Ackerman not accept the generous severance package. According to local news reports, some board members pointed out that it was the previous "lame duck" board that granted her the severance package when it renewed her contract in Nov. 2004.
Some board members say her severance package is inappropriate when the district had just been forced to close, merge, and relocate 14 schools. Sound familiar?
"$375,000 is approximately what it would take to keep one school open for a year," said one board member. Another member pointed out that that money could almost pay for ten teachers for an entire year.
To her credit, many have called Ackerman a very effective educator. The San Francisco Chronicle said her tenure in that city was "noted for rising student achievement and renewed fiscal health in the public school system." But the paper also said her time was "marred by charges that she was autocratic and excluded parents and teachers from important decisions."
Ackerman holds a doctorate in Administration, Planning and Social Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Urban Superintendents Program. She also holds a Master of Arts in Education from Harvard University, a Master of Arts in Educational Administration and Policy from Washington University and a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education from Harris Stowe Teachers College.
She is the former principal of Brittany Woods Middle School in University City and has received numerous honors and awards, including Uniquely University City Award for Outstanding Service, Apple for the Teacher Award (Iota Lambda Sorority), Distinguished Alumni Award (Harris Stowe Teachers College), and the McDonnell Douglas Fellow (Harvard Urban Superintendents Program).
Click here to learn more about Arlene Ackerman.
UPDATE: School board member Bill Purdy sent us the following message:
It is incorrect to report that Arlene Ackerman is being employed to advise either Creg Williams or the city school board on anything.
The agreement between the city board and the plaintiffs in the desegregation case defines the role of that position as to gather data and report to the plaintiffs (Liddell plaintiffs, US Justice Department, State of Missouri, NAACP) on the progress or lack thereof of the city district in efforts to improve academic achievement, reach accreditation and meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind.
Although the school district is to pay for this service from the general operating budget the report is to be made to the plaintiffs and the plaintiffs must formerly approve of the person who fills that position. As far as I know, the plaintiffs have not yet approved the appointment of Dr. Ackerman. The previous person who filled that position has resigned.
There are other requirements in that agreement including conducting regular public meetings with the plaintiffs to discuss the issues of academic achievement, accreditation and NCLB.
25 Comments:
$375,000 severance package.
$250,000 through the end of 2006.
$50,000 a year starting in 2007.
$75,000 a year for part-time work starting now.
Ackerman is playing our public schools to make her fortune!
8:06 AM, March 08, 2006
It looks like "our public schools" are only paying her $75,000 of that. Second, if she really did improve academics in San Francisco I think she would be a welcome addition to "our public schools". She appears to be worth much more, since that's what she was getting.
8:40 AM, March 08, 2006
George Bush gets the president's salary...
8:45 AM, March 08, 2006
--The San Francisco Chronicle said her tenure in that city was "noted for rising student achievement and renewed fiscal health in the public school system."
Sounds like something St. Louis needs. The salary thing, pennies for the return on investment of a generation of children with quality education.
So some whining parents, who think they know how to run a district were left out of the loop, I bet they didn't have credentials like this:
"Ackerman holds a doctorate in Administration, Planning and Social Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Urban Superintendents Program. She also holds a Master of Arts in Education from Harvard University, a Master of Arts in Educational Administration and Policy from Washington University and a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education from Harris Stowe Teachers College.
She is the former principal of Brittany Woods Middle School in University City and has received numerous honors and awards, including Uniquely University City Award for Outstanding Service, Apple for the Teacher Award (Iota Lambda Sorority), Distinguished Alumni Award (Harris Stowe Teachers College), and the McDonnell Douglas Fellow (Harvard Urban Superintendents Program)."
8:46 AM, March 08, 2006
She strikes me as a very qualified person. Our children deserve to have quality people running the district. I say "pay her".
All of these people how blast the district and the current superintendant are focused on sustaining a culture of failure that employs sub-par teachers and produces sub-par products.
We need rapid change. And for those who don't like it... you can have the outrageous drop-out rates and failing schools. I for one do not want to waste yet another generation of children to the Purdy-O'Brien-Downs nay-sayers. I support this superintendant
9:18 AM, March 08, 2006
Southsider, doncha think that many SLPS parents wouldn't mind getting those credentials but just cannot afford the high price of college degrees? Or maybe they were not interested, or have other qualifications in other areas that Ackerman could not even compete in. C'mon. Your rationalizations for exclusion and segregation are staggering.
10:51 AM, March 08, 2006
Condo Puppy, I don't know about anyone segregating anyone, but sometimes listening to everyone isn't the best way to fix a problem. Sometimes quick action and decisive decision making is. If San Francisco was as bad as St. Louis I am sure that including everyone in the decision wasn't possible or feasible. I think she will end up being an asset to our district.
12:04 PM, March 08, 2006
It's about time that an intelligent, achieving woman gets paid for what she is worth! You go girl!
5:52 PM, March 08, 2006
Has she been on Oprah yet?
5:55 PM, March 08, 2006
You can't listen to everyone, but you should listen to actual parents, teachers and students first. How else can you fix things? Everyone talks about people who saw the SLPS as a jobs mill -- those were the downtowners, some of whom actually got promotions under Billy-Boy Roberti. A downtown (and maybe principals) purge was needed. There are good people on the frontlines who are being blamed for the BS higher-ups engaged in -- as usual. Welcome to Cheney's America, right?
Quick decision making may be too quick -- and deadly. Is that the State of Missouri I see coming to seize control of SLPS? I do believe so.
2:55 PM, March 09, 2006
I'm a San Francisco public-school parent, volunteer and advocate, currently in my 17th kid-year as an SFUSD parent. I'm also a journalist who is deeply involved in community discussion and debate over education issues.
In my view, Arlene Ackerman was an asset to our school district, and I'm very sorry to see her go.
Your implication that she was dismissed over questions about her credit card use is entirely, 100% inaccurate. Here's the real story, and remember, this is coming from "on the ground" in San Francisco: Ackerman left because she had increasing difficulty getting along with a particular faction of our divided, factionalized school board. The faction that opposed her is based around the Green Party in San Francisco, though not all of its members or supporters are actually registered Greens. (This being San Francisco, the factions break down to Greens -- far left -- vs. liberals -- fairly left.)
Because Ackerman is widely viewed as a highly successful superintendent here and her departure is seen as a loss by many, the interpretation that "the Greens hounded a successful superintendent out of town" was a PR problem for the Greens. So a Green school board member fabricated a claim that a school district staffer had called Ackerman's credit card bills into question. This was AFTER Ackerman had already given notice and was well on her way out of town.
In fact, the big debate over what was found on Ackerman's credit-card bills was whether her taste in restaurants and hotels that were legitimate school district business expenses was overpriced. The debate has been whether she should have been doing district business over lunch at China Wok or Regent Thai rather than Absinthe or the Hayes Street Grill. There was no implication that she misused the credit card in terms of personal use or other wrongdoing -- the debate was entirely over whether she should have been more frugal in doing district business.
I blog too -- www.sfschools.org -- but WOW. This is a great example of the reasons mainstream journalists view blogs as unreliable. Your report is completely inaccurate, with just enough whiff of "truthiness" to carry credibility with the uninformed. You need to do your homework next time and employ some scruples, ethics and concern for accuracy. You discredit yourself if you don't correct your own item. Now that you know this, it transforms your item from an error into a deliberate lie.
11:04 AM, March 11, 2006
As a SFUSD parent, all I can say is good riddance. Please take Ackerman before she soaks our district for any more money.
12:16 PM, March 11, 2006
I too am a parent in the SFUSD, and I can tell you that we are going to sorely miss Arlene Ackerman here. It was politics that drove her out, plain and simple, and not anything to do with a credit card. Ackerman's focus was first, second, and third on the students and their academic achievement. She refused to be distracted by the side issues pushed by a small faction of the school board - the faction that wanted to take high school kids out of school for a day and bus them to Berkeley to attend an anti-war rally; that wanted to ban irradiated meat, even though irradiated meat was never sold or served in district cafeterias; that wanted the district to refuse to administer federal and state-required standardized tests, even though failure to do so would have cost our cash-strapped district millions of dollars. Those same test scores rose every year Ackerman was in her job here, giving San Francisco the highest scores of any urban district in the state - no small feat considering that over half of our kids qualify for free lunch and about 30% are classified as limited or non-English speaking.
But none of this mattered to the infamous "Gang of Three", Green and Green-sympathizing BOE members who were more concerned with forwarding their own political agenda than with the achievement of our students.
If you folks are smart, you will listen to what Arlene Ackerman has to say. This woman knows her stuff!
12:43 PM, March 11, 2006
As an SFUSD parent, I want to also bring to your attention the fact that Dr. Ackerman's called in the FBI to investigate where millions of misappropriated dollars went during the administration prior to hers. As a result, the district got some of the money back, and--just as more importantly--the culprits are in jail.
2:44 PM, March 11, 2006
Caroline, I'm sorry that you feel my report was inaccurate. But I'm not sure what part you see as false.
Is it not a fact that Ackerman was "effectively relieved of her duties as superintendent of the San Francisco schools after questions arose regarding her use of the district's credit card?"
Is it not a fact that Ackerman's relationship with the board was strained "even before the credit card incident?"
Is it not a fact that board members did ask Ackerman not to accept the generous severance package?
At no point in my story did I speak to the political reasons board members did what they did, or the reasons Ackerman did (or did not) do what was reported.
As a parent and a San Francisco resident, I'll defer to your knowledge of the local political landscape and thank you for your insights. But as a professed journalist, I would expect you to recognize facts when you see them.
I am also a journalist (one that actually uses my last name) and I take offense with your characterization of my post. I said Ackerman was "effectively relieved of her duties" and that "even before the credit card incident, Ackerman's relationship with the board was strained."
If you think that is incorrect, don't blame me (or bloggers in general). Blame Phillip Matier, of The San Francisco Chronicle, Andrew Ross, also of The San Francisco Chronicle, Matt Palmquist, of SF Weekly, Heather Knight, again from The SF Chronicle, Tali Woodward, of The San Francisco Bay Guardian, and several reporters from your local television news stations. Because these "mainstream journalists," whose opinions you seem to revere so much, also reported the same fact: Ackerman WAS relieved of her duties after questions arose regarding her use of the district's credit card!
Yes, she announced her retirement before that. But she was still the paid superintendent of the district until her replacement took over. Her school board (for whatever political reason you claim) took those duties away from her.
It's nice to see that you appreciate Dr. Ackerman's work in your town. Maybe we too will appreciate her in the same manner very soon.
But don't let your warm and fuzzy feelings obscure your vision of facts. That doesn't bode well for a journalist, or a parent.
3:18 PM, March 11, 2006
antonio... brock estes here (although it was quicker just to post as anonymous)
caroline has informed us on sf schools as to how she has responded to you...
she did not, however, inform us that you had responded to her response and stuck to your reporting...
in fact, she rather left the impression that she had "set you straight" (my quotation marks based solely on my own perception of her posting)...
caroline gives us all a bad name when she allows her kneejerk reaction of what she percieves of as an attack upon someone who was berry berry good to her, to color the truth...
it is a fact that a commissioner of the board of education who is a member of the green party said that they had been advised by a central staffer to look into the lavish charges on dr. ackerman's district issued credit card...
it is NOT a fact that, as caroline said, there was no such central staffer... it is a matter of faith whether anonymous sources exist or not (although we now know that deep throat was no "composite")...
my opinion, having just recieved some information about the district's finances that came from a central staffer and is anything but what the "official" line has been, concerning the "surplus/deficit" issue, is that there ARE people in central staff who, now that the fear factor has been removed, are saying what they have seen that they find irregular...
it IS true that the superintendent who preceeded dr. ackerman was found to be, in dr. ackerman's own words, "a crook"...
that information however, did not make it's way to general knowledge until after HE "resigned" and the fear factor dropped perceptibly...
the commissioner who responded to the central staffer's suggestion, by the way, is up for reelection in november and has decided not to run...
so i am not sure why caroline slanders either her or her party (she is a green and caroline never hesitates to share her opinion that greens are "using" school board offices to "party build" - ms. lipson's decision not to run for what would be a virtually assured seat seems to belie that)...
i think that caroline's only possible smidgen of a legitimate gripe would be that she reads your article as saying that dr. ackerman was removed BECAUSE of the credit card flap... as you pointed out, you said that she was removed AFTER the credit card flap...
i think caroline believes that you are implying linkage...
in point of fact, no one knows what went on in that closed door session at which the superintendent agreed to change her job title from "superintendent" to "superintendent emeritus"...
it IS true that after that, a new superintendent was in day to day control...
it is simply not known what motivated all to agree on such a change...
but it IS known that a change was made that was not contemplated when dr. ackerman first announced she would leave after june 30...
and, in fact, she still has not left, but continues to be paid for sick days and vacation days and has a new "title"...
whether the credit card flap played any part in that is not known - i would suggest that it played SOME role, but was not the SOLE reason for her change...
however, your defense is credible in that you simply said that she was removed after the credit card flap (although my understanding is that she agreed to the removal in some sort of compromise - initially she retained an attorney to perhaps sue the district or the board and really, this is part of her m.o)...
it is also true that far from caroline's benign assessment of dr. ackerman's credit card charges, the fact is that when the previous superintendent was first discovered to be something other than what the public perception had been, that is when someone first let a little light in, it was the san francisco chronicle, about seven years ago, in a long front page story, who pointed out that mr. rojas had been out of the district for nine weeks in (i believe) 1998 and that he had run up credit card bills of $21,000+...
at that time, that was thought to be both newsworthy (front page newsworthy) and flagrant...
dr. ackerman is revealed to have spent $45,000+ in 2005 and the time she was out of the district has not been reported, although enough individual trips have been cited to suggest the same kind of globetrotting...
we will certainly keep an eye on what happens in st. louis, as we have some questions about possible double dipping... we found it interesting to read that dr. ackerman MADE two trips to st. louis in this past year...
and far from being run out of town, dr. ackerman is percieved by many as having taken US for the ride... more of a "take the money and run" kind of thing...
she stayed exactly long enough to be retirement vested at $50,000 annually forever... she got her salary raised 10% by a lame duck board two months before she told us we were in a fiscal crisis and had to shut schools as the teachers went a fourth year without a raise... she got that same lame duck board (in a special meeting called with less than 24 hours notice on the friday after a thursday holiday - veterans day - in 2004) to craft a $375,000 giveaway severance package when she already had a foot out the door and was about to tell us we were in a fiscal crisis...
and now we see that she is involved in one of two things in st. louis... either she is being paid district funds to "mentor" an old friend, or she is being paid to supervise a desegregation plan by the school district, but reporting to the naacp among others...
we note in response to the second possibility that dr. ackerman lost much of her credibility here when the reverend amos brown, local windbag but somehow head of the san francisco branch of the naacp, repeatedly came to board meetings and interrupted the proceedings to call commissioners "racists" with the superintendent sitting impassively and then meeting with him and his followers afterwards...
my guess is that amos brown would have recommended her highly to the naacp (who i believe had to approve of the selection)... what are friends for?...
and regarding the charges of cronyism, i imagine that one of the questions that will be asked here in light of what seems, for lack of a better word to be some kind of pyramid scheme, will be just how much money our district paid HER mentor, lorraine monroe of new york city...
as you might gather, i became a non supporter of dr. ackerman... but i began as a huge fan... in her earliest days here, i saw someone with an enormous heart... at her last board meeting, i was pleased to be able to recount a selfless act on her part that has played a huge part in helping at least 50 young african american ladies to attend college who otherwise might never have had the chance... i knew about it and a few others did, but she never tried to take credit... somehow though, she was walled off by those who posed as her "friends and protectors"... she lost touch with the average people like the woman who runs that mentoring program who she assisted so graciously... she wound up in the world of church politics (google "sf weekly amos brown moon" for the amazing story of the new alliance between black churches and sun myung moon's unification church), right wing luncheons and huge restaurant tabs...
she simply lost her way... maybe it is a sign of the times, as graft in governement seems as commonplace as during the roaring twenties... everyone is out for themselves and the public is just one big sucker...
let's hope she reconnects with her humanity, but in the meantime, keep your eye on the ball... bce
6:22 PM, March 11, 2006
Antonio says:
Is it not a fact that Ackerman was "effectively relieved of her duties as superintendent of the San Francisco schools after questions arose regarding her use of the district's credit card?"
...
Ackerman was easing out of those duties in any case, and yes, that happened AFTER "questions arose." But that doesn't mean BECAUSE questions arose. Your original article conveys the clear impression that Ackerman was removed because of improprieties with her credit-card use, and that's inaccurate. Ethical journalists strive not to convey inaccurate impressions, and correct their errors.
Yes, Ackerman's relationship with a faction of the board was strained before the "credit-card incident," which was a manufactured event orchestrated by the faction that dislikes her. That point is not something I disputed in your article.
There have been a lot of grumblings in the community about Ackerman's severance package. I don't know that any Board of Education members asked her not to accept it, but others have. That isn't an area I disputed in your article.
Your error was to convey the misleading and inaccurate impression that Ackerman was removed from her post in SFUSD because of improprieties with her credit-card use. That's flat-out inaccurate and needs to be corrected, period, paragraph.
I appreciate that you defer to my involvement and knowledge of Ackerman and SFUSD, but it's insulting and patronizing to imply that I've been misled by my "warm and fuzzy" feelings. I've been an SFUSD parent and very involved in district politics for more than 10 years, and I am perfectly able to make clear-eyed judgments, thank you very much.
By the way, I have a longstanding blogger identity that uses my first name, as many bloggers do, and would have to take the trouble to create a new one to add my last name. The implication that I'm trying to hide by not using it is also a misleading diversion.
Those are side issues. The point is, yur original item is inaccurate and calls for a correction.
8:37 AM, March 12, 2006
A clear case of the "post hoc fallacy" (post hoc ergo propter hoc - after the thing, therefore because of the thing.)
http://skepdic.com/posthoc.html
9:20 AM, March 12, 2006
antonio: brock estes again...
caroline usually doesn't leave these things alone - she has been telling us on sf schools that she has been aggressively upbraiding the sf bay guardian journalist who first printed the story about the credit card flap, saying basically the same thing, that the journalist is "implying" that there is something untoward about $45,000 in credit card expenses...
(the fact is, there IS something VERY questionable about $45,000+ in credit card expenses in one year - when the previous superintendent spent $21,000+ in 1998, it was front page in the chronicle... the chronicle now is a bit of a lap dog so the bay guardian went with the story)...
as i understand it, the journalist at the guardian has responded by saying that she is simply printing the information and letting people make up their own minds...
caroline never takes no for an answer...
like tali woodward of the bay guardian, you could repeat your defense and she would act like you never said it, forcing you to constantly respond to the same thing over and over...
don't bother...
your explanation is entirely credible... she WAS removed after the credit card flap...
caroline's protestations aside, we do NOT know what part the credit card revelations played in dr. ackerman's stepping down... i contend that they certainly played SOME role...
i would say that yes, relations were already strained between dr. ackerman and 3 of the 7 board members...
3 others were staunch supporters and the 7th, who has been elected president after only one year on the board simply BECAUSE he has the 4th vote either way (and was the commissioner who SHOULD have been voting on the severance package, except that in a very devious way, the outgoing board president who had just lost his solid fourth vote in the 2004 election, used that fourth vote to lame duck the raise and severance package through - i say "devious" also because the superintendent surely knew that we were on the brink of announcing radical school closures/mergers to counteract a then not fully realized, except by dr. ackerman, fiscal crisis... that commissioner, now board president, refused to vote to actually get rid of her entirely back in september...
because of that, there was only an agreement that she would leave at the end of the school year, rather than immediately (in september 2005)...
we can only conclude that SOMETHING made commissioner yee change his mind and the most recent headline concerning dr. ackerman was the revelation about her spending habits (and it wasn't just the money - it was also the fact that certain commissioners were sharing expensive lunches with her repeatedly and some none at all, as reflected in the 3-3 standoff pro/anti dr. ackerman)...
no one knows exactly WHY she was compelled to step down... she certainly knew something was up after the credit card revelations... the first thing she did was hire an attorney and threaten to sue the district after the revelations (because the revelations were the result of a request from a commissioner after being advised of the irregularities by a central staffer)...
our best guess is that not just the revelations, but also her response in hiring an attorney and threatening to sue (which is a traditional dr. ackerman tactic) and then the actions BY the attorney, going to the press and saying, "this is only because she is african-american", convinced that fourth vote (who now had acceded to the board presidency) that the situation simply had to change...
it was a closed door meeting, but i would surmise that she was told she was out but agreed not to sue if she got a "superintendent emeritus" title and a promise she could still "play tourist" while she collected through june...
so, although you did not SAY quid pro quo, i think it is perfectly fair to say that was the straw that broke the camel's back...
certainly the timeline suggests that...
that meeting would have been the perfect time to inform the board that she was thinking of taking on a second consulting job WHILE she collected from our district...
from what we hear, neither she nor her attorney did so... most likely, her 3 supporters were told and said they would watch her back and the others were not told...
this was s.o.p for dr. ackerman during her tenure here...
perhaps she thought that we would not find out about the st. louis job (after all, we had no idea she had been to st. louis twice in the past year and we still don't know if she did that on our dime or took vacation days)...
as it turns out, we have a former special education teacher (both here and in st. louis) turned political commentator who is from st. louis and was there during then principal ackerman's first go-round...
he is beginning to talk about some of her tactics for showing "improvement" which may leave her reputation down at the level of the previous superintendent...
in the meantime, i apologize for caroline... she has an agenda and you just happened to disrupt it so you catch the flack... you're not the first, so don't sweat it...
and, of course, her explanation for why she only used her first name sounds reasonable - heck, i didn't feel like registering for the one time i will likely post here, so i used "anonymous", but as i noted previously, there is nothing that stops me from using my first and last names WITHIN the post, like this: brock estes...
good reporting...
5:29 PM, March 12, 2006
It's not accurate that I objected to the San Francisco Bay Guardian's reporting on Ackerman's credit card charges.
8:31 AM, March 13, 2006
"The debate has been whether she should have been doing district business over lunch at China Wok or Regent Thai rather than Absinthe or the Hayes Street Grill."
That is not a small debate, though. If the money could be saved, it would go toward education -- the reason Ackerman supposedly does the things she does. Her extravagance is glaring, and while not a reason for being fired surely a reason St. Louis should be worried.
10:22 AM, March 13, 2006
Sure, it's a valid debate. But it doesn't change the fact that the report here was flat-out inaccurate, which is why I initially responded. Debate the choice of restaurants all you like, but my point is that the report was incorrect.
Again, here are the facts:
1. Ackerman was not fired from SFUSD, and did not leave because questions were raised about her credit-card use. This is the misstatement that I originally posted here to correct.
2. The questions were not raised about her credit-card use until she was already on her way out. The questions were clearly raised as a political ploy, by those who were being blamed for her departure and taking heat for it.
3. When the questions were raised about the credit card and the records were examined, the records showed nothing that could be viewed as wrongdoing or misuse. The judgment involved in the choice of restaurants was the extent of it. Most San Franciscans who didn't already have a beef with Ackerman basically viewed that as "chickens***," as one fellow parent said to me.
The "buts..." and the side issues are not the point. The point is that the report was inaccurate.
The fact that these reports are being repeated and misrepresented in St. Louis would appear to bolster her charge that she's being harassed.
BTW, Ackerman is from St. Louis and her family lives there. This is well known, so insinuations that travel to St. Louis is somehow suspect also demonstrate the degree of harassment this woman has been receiving.
11:08 AM, March 13, 2006
Are her lunch and travel expenses a reason why St Louis should be worried? Well, I guess it depends on whether the amount she spends is more or less than the amount she brings in for the district.
From San Francisco, she traveled to Washington to attend the Broad Foundation awards, and came home with $125,000 in scholarships for San Francisco students. She also fought for and won two settlements from companies which had defrauded the San Francisco school district under a previous Superintendent, bringing in $43.1 million from Strategic Resource Systems, and another $3.3 million for "blowing the whistle on NEC Business Network Solutions, Inc., a Texas firm that defrauded a federal program meant to bring the Internet to disadvantaged kids" (according to the SF Chronicle.)
So, on her own she was able to recoup over $46 million for the district, plus thanks to her leadership the district won $125,000 in scholarships for kids. I say buy that woman a steak!
2:46 PM, March 13, 2006
it's hard to know where to begin when wading through the tall grass...
may i take the last part first?:
the last part comes from "anonymous"... out here in mayberry, when claraline gets on the party line, it's usually with aunt d...
concerning ackerman's recouping of money for the sf school district:
it was all fine to point at the crook and his accomplice (i believe a north carolina company) and say, "they stole our $43 million dollars"... WHOEVER got in there and looked at rojas' books and took a look at the people he left behind (usally as "consultants") was going to find this rather gaping wound...
had rojas been able to stay on, no one would have found it - because the superintendent controls the books...
once he left, the spit was going to hit the fan...
however, this was money that was going to come back to us no matter what - it was clear fraud...
and it was money that was supposed to be used for heating systems in the facilities...
the amount was something around $43 million...
but the superintendent decided to hire an outside law firm (we have four attorneys on salary and access to the sf city attorney who just recovered $19 million from a crooked construction firm) to do a pretty easy recovery job and THEY wound up with something like $12 million of that money...
nice work if you can get it...
out there in saint louis, do keep your eyes on the lawyers...
arlene likes to use hogan/harston a lot (i mean a LOT)...
this was john roberts' old firm and they are rather a high priced firm to be doing school business, which is more middle class in terms of stakeholders...
and for god's sake, if there is any ada compliance to be dealt with, don't let her anywhere near it...
one of the defining aspects of her superintendency was what we refer to as the "lopez settlement"...
it was an ada suit brought by a number of attorneys right about when ackerman arrived in s.f....
the decision was made to stonewall, despite the fact that we KNEW we were not in compliance and were going to have to be so eventually...
in the end, last year i think, we not only have to spend many hundreds of millions over the next few years to be ada compliant, but because we stalled, a judge ruled we had to pay the OPPONENT'S lawyer's fees ($7 million - half of which was covered by a lloyds of london policy, the other half which has to come out of our general fund on july 1)...
stalling is part of ackerman's m.o. (that and threatening to sue the district she is working for)...
during her five years here, we lost 800-1000 students each year, yet she never put forward a plan for school consolidation until her fifth year, and then only a couple of months after she secured an outrageous severance package and just six months before she announced she was leaving...
and now, to address caroline's crapola:
1)she uses the word "fired" as though the author used it... this is a typical caroline parlor trick... she attributes a word to someone that they never used, then excorciates them for it... here is what the author actually said:
"Ackerman, who used to work in the University City School District, was effectively relieved of her duties as superintendent of the San Francisco schools after questions arose regarding her use of the district's credit card."
that is a true and correct statement...
the author does not say or even imply "fired"... in fact, by adding the word "effectively" the author allows for the fact that she was not "directly" removed from her duties - which is correct... her attorney threatened to sue after SHE threatened to sue after the credit card charges were revealed and a settlement was reached where she was "effectively relieved of her duties... after questions arose regarding her use of the district's credit card"...
that definitely was the straw that broke the came's back...
2)it's true that no one felt free to speak until the superintendent's last few months in san francisco... matter of fact, many central staffers were under a "gag order" where they were not allowed to speak to the press directly, but were supposed to refer all questions to the superintendent's p.r. spin machine, which doubled in size and cost under her superintendency, mostly to publicize her...
3) i repeat again, $45,000 for expenses (her rent and car are already paid - is she going to bank every penny of her salary? - again, nice work if you can get it) in one calendar year is excessive... the previous superintendent began to lose his luster in 1996 when the chronicle reported in a front page story that he spent $21,000 similarly in the prior year...
as to caroline's contention that
"It's not accurate that I objected to the San Francisco Bay Guardian's reporting on Ackerman's credit card charges."
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...
she not only objected, but tried to do the same thing as she did here - demand a correction of the paper...
didn't happen here either...
and just for the record, that "fellow parent" who called it "chickens**t", well, she was being as honest as always... it was a fellow and it was a parent...
it was her husband...
an unbiased source...
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha... brock
11:34 PM, March 13, 2006
You can tell that the last "anonymous" posting was Brock, because of his overuse of three dots (a good way to get around punctuation rules) and his eschewing of capital letters.
As usual, my eyes started glazing over halfway through the (always) lengthy post.
In San Francisco, we're learning to just ignore the rantings of someone whose mental state is obviously questionable.
You might consider doing the same.
Good luck with Ackerman!
6:55 PM, March 15, 2006
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