Superintendent Arlene Ackerman of the Philadelphia public schools has been named the nation’s top urban school leader and winner of the 2010 Richard R. Green Award, announced late last month by the Council of the Great City Schools.
Michael Casserly, the executive director of the Washington-based group, which represents 65 of the largest districts, pointed to Imagine 2014, Ms. Ackerman’s five-year blueprint for reform. He hailed her strategy of sending more resources to needier schools and expanding school choice. He also noted that under her leadership, half of all Philadelphia schoolchildren met standards on state exams, a first for the district since records have been kept under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
Ms. Ackerman previously led the school systems in San Francisco and Washington. The prize comes with a $10,000 college scholarship that she will give to a student from either Philadelphia or her alma mater in St. Louis.
