By J.D. LaRock
July 14, 2003

Over the past 25 years, the city of Harrisburg has undergone a dramatic transformation. The Pennsylvania capital — once labeled the second most distressed city in the United States — now displays many signs of a remarkable rebirth. The city center, once largely abandoned, bustles with new businesses, restaurants, and a cultural center. City Island, a small patch of land on the Susquehanna River, is the site of a gleaming ballpark, home to the minor-league Harrisburg Senators. And in pockets across town, the city's dilapidated housing is steadily being rebuilt. "You can't imagine what Harrisburg looked like years ago," says Mayor Stephen Reed, who was elected mayor in 1981 at age 33. "It's totally different."

For all the progress Harrisburg has made, as recently as a few years ago a key element of its renaissance was missing: the public schools were a complete disaster. So the mayor, backed by powerful state politicians and key members of the city's civic community, moved to take control over the Harrisburg school district.

Mayoral takeovers of school systems are not new. In the past 15 years, mayors in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, and most recently New York City, have accepted authority from the state transferring the responsibility for public education from their school boards to city hall. However, Harrisburg's experience is unique. It is the only smaller city in America where the mayor has been involved in such a takeover. Reed's experience with mayoral control over education shows that it is a viable option for mayors from similarly-sized cities who are concerned not just about education, but the overall health of their cities. "It's not for the faint of heart," Reed says. "But it's the best form of community and neighborhood revitalization there is."

What Led to the Takeover

As Harrisburg's revenues started to decline in the 1970's, the city's schools were going downhill with it. Over time, student enrollment plummeted from 17,000 to just 7,400, as middle-class families moved to surrounding suburbs. The city's school buildings were quickly crumbling. But the worst part was the quality of the school district's leadership.

The elected school board was fraught with incompetence, patronage, and outright corruption. In an oft-cited example, officials recall an episode when the school board authorized the demolition of a middle school in order to build a new recreational complex. Right before the building was to be torn down, however, a board member's friend was hired to repaint the school. In order to circumvent the competitive bidding process, the board authorized 52 separate contracts of $9,999 for the job.

Exacerbating matters, a revolving door of superintendents hired by the elected board made a series of destructive decisions. For example, youth officers from the city's police department were ejected from the schools, leading to rampant discipline and security problems. The "last straw" occurred when the school board voted in the early 1990s to eliminate the city's popular kindergarten program, which the then'superintendent decried as "babysitting."

By the end of the 1990s, the Harrisburg schools were at an all-time low. The IRS fined the district $2.8 million for persistent misreporting of employee tax data. The school board approved tax hike after tax hike, with little improvement. On standardized tests, the district ranked dead last out of Pennsylvania's 501 school districts. In one year, only 186 students out of 750 graduated; 204 students were in prison.

Many urged the mayor to take action. But initially, Reed was reluctant to pursue a full'scale takeover. "I was concerned whether I had the time to do it," he says. "Running the schools and being the mayor is like having two full-time jobs." At first, Reed tried to become more involved by promoting candidates for school board elections. When those efforts proved ineffective, he was convinced to go further.

Pennsylvania's Education Empowerment Act of 2000

As Harrisburg's schools were at their nadir, state officials were becoming increasingly concerned about the quality of public education across Pennsylvania. In 2000, then-Governor Tom Ridge crafted an Education Empowerment Act, a large'scale legislative effort to improve low-performing school districts across the state. Under the plan, school districts identified as "empowerment districts" by the state would receive extra funds to promote student achievement. If these schools did not show improvement in a short period of time, they would be taken over by the state.

In the Pennsylvania State Senate, the legislation's primary sponsor was Education Committee Chairman Jeffrey Piccola, whose electoral district also included Harrisburg. Working closely with the mayor, Piccola introduced the "Reed Amendment" in the Empowerment Act. Unlike other troubled school districts, Harrisburg would be authorized for takeover immediately for a five-year period. In this case, the mayor, not the state, would administer control. The elected school board would be stripped of its powers and replaced with a Board of Control appointed by the mayor. (Due to a quirk in the state constitution, the elected board would still meet once a year to approve tax plans.) Most importantly, selection of the schools superintendent would be placed squarely in the mayor's hands. "The school board was a joke," Piccola said. "We needed a more accountable system."

Although the Empowerment Act proved controversial due to its wide-ranging scope, legislators clearly realized the need for the dramatic action it prescribed. "Legislators saw, in the end, that we were all paying for the failure of the Harrisburg schools," Piccola said. In late 2000, the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed the Empowerment Act, signed into law by Governor Ridge.

The Mayoral Takeover in Action

Mayor Reed immediately began exercising his new authority. He appointed a five-member control board made up of civic leaders and experienced government officials. These new board members had solid backgrounds in education. And after a nation-wide search, Dr. Gerald Kohn, a Harvard-trained educator credited with turning low-performing school districts in New Jersey and elsewhere, became superintendent in 2001.

Working as a team, the mayor, the superintendent, and the Board of Control soon devised a sweeping strategy to correct the school district's instructional and structural problems. Officials drafted a 100-page reform plan that meticulously outlined standards and objectives for the district office and for each of Harrisburg's 16 schools. To re-establish order and discipline, police officers were let back into school buildings. A new alternative school program was established to remove violent and disruptive students from the classroom. It now serves 500 students. And new textbooks, which the previous board hadn-t ordered for years, were delivered to every school.

To boost student achievement, Kohn introduced a "balanced literacy" curriculum, a new math curriculum, and standardized lessons so that students who transferred schools during the middle of the year would not lose ground. The district secured a multi-million dollar grant to establish academically oriented after-school programs. Finally, the district re-instituted full-day kindergarten, and supplemented it with pre-kindergarten classes. "We went from a system that was spending 70 percent of its money on non-academic things, to one that spends 70 percent on academics," said Reed.

Why the Takeover Works

Reed is clear: none of these changes would have been possible without changing the governance structure of the Harrisburg public schools. "No half-measures," he states bluntly. Reed and Kohn acknowledge that the mayoral takeover of the school system only works because the two men generally see eye to eye. "I have someone who's qualified, and who I'm comfortable with," Reed said.

Kohn appreciates the fact that the mayor generally stays out of instructional matters, choosing instead to set broad priorities for the school district. "If we don't agree at the start, he's willing to listen, and so am I," says Kohn. "He trusts, and is clear that he is here to help." Reed does insist on being fully informed of Kohn's plans and initiatives: the superintendent meets with the mayor at least twice a week, and the two often speak daily.

Another key factor in the takeover's success is that state leaders have maintained support for their efforts. For instance, Piccola helped the school district secure a $13 million state aid increase at a time when the district was grappling with a severe budget shortfall left by the previous elected board. "We knew that [Mayor Reed] would need a network to support him — political support, legislative support, and educational support," said Piccola. "You can't Lone Ranger something like this."

Still, there have been growing pains. While not wanting to return to the elected school board's meddlesome and micromanaging ways, some Board of Control members assert that their role in school district affairs has diminished too much. Some observers note that recent Board of Control meetings have been brief. They worry whether the new governance structure affords parents and the public sufficient opportunities to comment on school district proposals.

If Reed has a complaint, it is that the change is not happening fast enough, though he expected from the start that it would take 3 to 5 years to inculcate a new culture in the district. Still, initial progress is encouraging. Since the takeover, the school district's enrollment has increased from 7400 to 8600 students, and is expected to grow to 10,000. In the same period, achievement levels have improved. For example, the district has seen a 5 percentage point increase in writing scores, and 11th grade reading scores have gone up 9 percentage points.

New initiatives are also on the way. In the fall, the school district plans to open the Polytechnic Preparatory School, a new high school focused on advanced mathematics and science training. It will be tied to the Harrisburg Polytechnic Institute, a technology-oriented university currently being developed. The mayor recently announced a comprehensive school modernization effort that will rehabilitate all of the district's buildings. Reed and Kohn hope to open a number of school health clinics in the near future. Much of this is music to the ears of state officials such as Piccola, who says he hopes to make Harrisburg's school governance changes permanent when the Education Empowerment Act is up for renewal in 2005.

Thoughts for Mayors

Although officials agree it's too early to make any firm conclusions about the success of the Harrisburg school takeover, they offer some advice for other smaller-city mayors who may be thinking of doing the same. "Have a game plan," offers Senator Piccola. "To gain the support of the legislature and the public, you need to be clear about your ideas, and about what you want to do." Mayors need to understand education, says Superintendent Kohn. The takeover works in Harrisburg, "because Mayor Reed already had a good understanding of organizational matters, and he took the time to learn about educational matters," Kohn said. Reed noted that taking over a school system takes great political courage. "But, if you-re given the opportunity to improve the system and you turn it down, then you have no right to complain about how bad things are," Reed added.