Ackerman: I was threatened over the King charter deal

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Arlene Ackerman, Philadelphia's recently departed superintendent of schools, claims she was threatened last spring with disclosure of embarrassing information about her personal finances if she did not help a politically connected bidder, Foundations Inc., land a lucrative charter contract for Martin Luther King Jr. high school.

"I was told by someone that if I didn't get my mind right about this Foundations situation, that something would be leaked about my finances," Ackerman said in an interview this week.

Ackerman said that conversation took place just days before Fox29 News reported that she owed $20,000 in back taxes. The Fox report aired on April 12, during the heat of a behind-the-scenes battle for King's charter, a five-year contract worth an estimated $12 million a year.

Ackerman said she recounted this claim to the investigator charged by Mayor Michael Nutter with probing the King controversy, Chief Integrity Officer Joan Markman. She said she also told Markman about a number of other ways she said she felt pressured to support Foundations, a New Jersey-based nonprofit with ties to both state Rep. Dwight Evans (D., Philadelphia) and School Reform Commission Chair Robert Archie.

more . . . http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/homepage-feature/item/26717-ackerman-i-was-threatened-over-king-charter-deal&Itemid=1

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