Robert Archie Jr., the chairman of the Philadelphia School Reform Commission, and fellow commissioner Johnny Irizarry stepped down from their posts last week, leaving just two active members of the five-member board that oversees the city’s schools.
Mr. Archie said in announcing his resignation that Mayor Michael Nutter should have a chance to carry out his education programs with a new set of school leaders after the board bought out former district schools chief Arlene Ackerman’s contract for $905,000 in August.
The commission, whose members are appointed by the mayor and the governor, serves in the same management role for the 154,000-student district as a school board. Shortly after the resignations, Mayor Nutter appointed the chancellor of Rutgers University’s campus in Camden, N.J., Wendell Pritchett, as one replacement member.
Mr. Archie was under fire for his role in supporting a charter school operator, to which he had ties, to manage a low-performing high school in the district.
