Annette John-Hall: Getting the King charter story right

I've got two choice words for you, Arlene Ackerman.

My bad.

You insisted over and over again that you were a marked woman. And I didn't believe you.

No way, I thought. The superintendent is just her own worst enemy.

I thought that until last week, that is.

That's when Mayor Nutter finally released the report by the city's chief integrity officer, Joan Markman, that detailed all of the shady shenanigans pulled during the charter school selection process at Martin Luther King High School.

Let's face it, as imperious as you were at times, Queen Arlene, you were no match for the Godfather (State Rep. Dwight Evans) and his consigliere, Robert L. Archie Jr., the former School Reform Commission chair who doubled as your boss.

By now we know the tawdry tale of how Evans and Archie tried to pressure you into rejecting a recommendation by students and parents at Martin Luther King High to award a $50 million contract to Mosaica instead of Foundations Inc. King, you see, was part of Evans' "overarching plan" to create a "Northwest Education Corridor," and he and Foundations were already partners in other schools.

In other words, Foundations had his blessing.

But you did the right thing. You refused to bend. And didn't give in - even as you found a target on your back.

Evans then went over your head and took his case directly to the SRC in a specially arranged private meeting by Archie.

Only to be rejected again. So he took to some knee-shaking, Philly-style arm-twisting, trying to force Mosaica to pull out. Evans himself described his actions at a meeting with Mosaica's CEO as being like a "dog on a bone." Leroy Nunery 2d, your assistant back then and now your temporary replacement, described the meeting as like being a scene from The Godfather.

But Evans wasn't done with you yet. Even after a shaken Mosaica withdrew, Evans tried to force you to recommend Foundations as a replacement.

But you held firm, despite Nutter, the one man powerful enough to squash the madness, turning his back on you when you asked for help.

I applaud Nutter for ordering the investigation of backroom dealing and making it public, but I can't help but wonder what his role was in this mess.

What we do know is that at some point the mayor was too busy cutting his own backroom deal with anonymous donors to pay part of the $905,000 for you to get lost.

More proof that you were right when you said that your refusal to play politics in the King debacle marked "the beginning of the end" for you.

And if you needed even more evidence of malignant Philly politics, the outrageous, ho-hum reaction of some Council members to the jaw-dropping report speaks volumes.

"People had a meeting, and they disagreed. Folks fight for their point of view. What's wrong with that?" asked Marian B. Tasco, as if political strong-arming is as common as Saturday night homicides.

Not only that, what kind of message does it send to public school parents in Philadelphia? How many times do we hear parents criticized for not being actively involved in their child's education - only to get an overarching slap in the face when they are?

"It's disheartening," says Conchevia Washington, chair of King's Student Advisory Council (SAC). "There is no one out there who can ever tell me how to advocate for my child. . . . That so many [politicians] are opposed to the SAC tells us where we are as a city."

What the King report tells us is that we're a city that values the self-serving desires of politicians more than the needs of vulnerable public school students.

It's a sad commentary all right. Sandra Dungee Glenn, president of the American Cities Foundation, a nonprofit that creates programs for children and families, says we'd rather pay attention to petty political personality clashes than to our children.

"Where is the series on the impact of the budget cuts to public education? Let's investigate that," says Glenn, a longtime educator and activist who served on the School Reform Commission from 2002 through 2007.

Dr. Ackerman, you may be gone, but the wound is still wide open. The district is in flux (again).

"The question," says Glenn, "should be, where do we go from here?"