Stone In Love With Leader Ackerman; Stone At War With Inquirer’s “Ringside” By Van Stone vspfoundation@yahoo.com (215) 469-1902

Stone In Love With Leader Ackerman; Stone At War With Inquirer’s “Ringside” By Van Stone vspfoundation@yahoo.com (215) 469-1902

Here is Arlene C. Ackerman (Center) with supporters who
love her leadership.

“I'm Stone in Love with You” with a male as a leader on the song, appears on the album “The Best of the Stylistics”. But this is my song with my women leaders in Philadelphia, PA. The song is a classic. And since this is Black History Month I felt that a woman, Philadelphia School District Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, deserves to be recognized just like any great man often has been recognized. “But if I could, I'd give the world to you.”

The lyrics about giving the world, truly is appropriate for Superintendent Ackerman because she has proven without a doubt that the public trusts her as a skilled fixture for school success. In 2010 chief Ackerman was named modern humanity’s top urban school leader. On Thursday, October 21, 2010 the Council of Great City Schools announced at a conference in Florida that Arlene was the winner of the Richard R. Green Award.

She was chosen from a pool of nine finalists collected from 65 of the political body’s largest school districts. Speaking about the trust for her to do the right thing for a big city, Michael Casserly, executive director of the council said, "Arlene Ackerman is one of the best big-city school superintendents in the country, and is most worthy of the nation's highest individual award in urban education." Superintendent Ackerman has reached the hero stature of being nominated once before she came to Philadelphia but winning on her second nomination. "She is smart, dedicated, innovative, effective, and completely committed to our urban schoolchildren," said Casserly.

Still, just two months later, on Sunday, December 5, 2010 Paul Davies, Deputy Editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial Page and “Ringside” Columnist had written a biased and unfair editorial about Philadelphia Schools Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, an African-American woman leader, as the person responsible for making sure that the school system of activity worked improperly and is unsuccessful. After learning about this cruel attack I was thinking that the lyrics of my song would go like this: If she were a business woman, she’d sit behind a desk. Ackerman would be so successful; she’d scare Davies to death.

As a columnist myself, I took Davies “Don’t trust public officials? Why Not?” editorial as war of aggression on the part of the political/editor board alliance and its invisible friends. Therefore, I know what political ringside looks like. Davies used the power of the pen to go at someone who’s not at the ringside. I’m there and at war with Ringside.