Dr. Arlene Ackerman has died at 66 in Albuquerque of pancreatic cancer.  Ackerman, who called herself “a warrior for children,” was raised in our town and graduated from what is now Harris-Stowe.  She won raves as schools superintendent in Washington, San Francisco and Philadelphia as a “bulldozing manager” in fighting to improve the performance of disadvantaged students by allocating more resources and attention to lower-performing schools and replaced the worst with charter schools.  She improved test scores in the most severely underperforming schools.  She said she was unwilling to play politics and told the Philadelphia Inquirer, “Is it a crime to stand up for children instead of stooping down in the political sandbox and selling our children for a politician’s campaign victory?”

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