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There was no question that the Harrisburg School District was in chaos in 2000 when former Mayor Stephen Reed convinced the legislature and then-Gov. Tom Ridge to give him control of the city’s schools. The Education Empowerment Act established a Board of Control to help run the district in place of the elected school board. Reed selected the well-respected administrator who had turned around Cambridge, Massachussetts' public schools, Gerald Kohn, to head the system. Looking back at some of the press clippings in the early days of Kohn’s tenure, it’s clear that he had a sense of the enormous hurdles he would face but also high hopes for success.
“The biggest challenge will be changing the culture that’s imbedded in a school district, in this district for maybe the past 30 to 40 years,” Kohn told the online news service ModeWeekly.com in August 2001. “ There seems to be a sense of failure and lack of trust that I’ve observed in all of the adults in the school district, and it’s our job to change that to one of collaboration, collegiality, and team work so that we best serve the kids.”
Harrisburg’s elected school board which is scheduled to take over the schools again when the Education Empowerment Act expires on June 30, never seemed to get behind Kohn or his $235,431 annual salary. As board member Esther Edwards reportedly told the Harrisburg Patriot-News, “the perception of Kohn as an outsider hurt his credibility with the community.”
Nearly 10 years after his arrival, what does Kohn have to show for his efforts? On the plus side, many more children are graduating from high school and going on to college. The new Sci-Tech High and the Math-Science Academy in middle school offer accelerated learning for select students. A Penn State University study shows positive results for a new pre-school program. Millions of dollars in funding from foundations and corporations have poured into the district. Yet, Kohn’s biggest albatross (aside from being hand-picked by Steve Reed) remains those low statewide assessment test scores. Too many students in Harrisburg public schools (45.6% in 2008-09) fail to achieve proficiency. They are “below basic” in reading and math and that is an indictment Mayor Thompson refuses to dismiss.
The Board of Control on Monday night appointed assistant district superintendent Sybil Knight-Burney as acting superintendent until a new one is hired. And there is more controversy as Democratic state Representative Ron Buxton reveals a $17 million budget hole for the district and Kohn promises to sue in order to either keep his job or receive compensation for the full value of his contract. We’ll delve into these issues with former Superintendent Kohn in our conversation on Friday night at 8:30.
Our second segment will explore the intersection of law and technology. The Internet allows for the immediate and widespread dissemination of photos, videos, music and information to a global audience -- calling into questions how laws governing obscenity, free expression, intellectual property and personal rights are affected. Nearly every week there is another story of someone committing a crime based on something they read, saw or did online. Someone posts a picture of you on Facebook that you didn’t authorize. What are your rights to have it rescinded? You own a business and a customer mocks your product on a YouTube video. What can you do to restore your company's good name? And do any of these "remedies" matter once something has gone viral on the Web?
Lots of great issues to debate and discuss and we have a terrific panel to do just that. Mike Dimino, Sr. is an associate professor of law at the Widener University School of Law. He’s a constitutional law expert, faculty advisor to the Widener Law Journal, and helped organize a symposium last month that explored “the legal challenges presented by communication in an age of social media.” Dimino appeared on Radio Start TalkTuesday and told listeners, “It’s made it much more difficult to consider a conversation in anything other than national or international terms,” Dimino said. “The law had treated community values as something that has been significant and we still do that … and so things like obscenity still require us to consider contemporary community values but people are struggling now with whether than makes any sense in a world where an Internet post can be viewed instantaneously by millions or billions of people across the globe.”
The list of questions keeps growing: Can you open and read a co-worker’s, spouse's or child's email? Are Internet tracking devices ever legal to use? What rights does your employer have to inspect what you have stored or viewed on your work computer? Suppose you want to create a music video and then send it to a friend. What do you have to do to ensure your work is copyrighted and that you receive credit and compensation for that artistic creation? What about creating a fictional character or impersonating someone on the Web? And then there’s the whole issue of sexting. The General Assembly is considering a bill to lessen the penalties for young people who sext. To what extent can law enforcement use information and images displayed on the Web against you? Joining our conversation Friday night is Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico who has investigated and prosecuted Web-based crimes. Please join us Friday at 8:30 and send your comments and questions to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
