Cherelle Parker signs order aimed at removing college degree requirements for some city jobs

In one of her first official acts, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker signed an executive order Tuesday that is aimed at removing college degree requirements for certain city jobs as part of a broader effort to diversify the city workforce.

“It is essential to provide economic opportunity for every resident of the city of Philadelphia,” Parker said at the signing.

The new mayor made the move just hours after her inauguration to underscore her goal of creating economic opportunities in America’s poorest large city — including by using the city’s more than 25,000 jobs as a means of lifting people up. Just less than 34% of Philly’s adult population has a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to U.S. Census Bureau data from 2018-2022.

“We will continue to remove college degree requirements for many city of Philadelphia jobs where it is unnecessary and spread the word about current job opportunities in city government — opening the door for more Philadelphians to access good-paying jobs,” Parker said in her 100-day action plan.

Parker said at the signing that the executive order was just a first step toward changing city workforce rules. In what would be a major shift in how the municipal government works, Parker said she also has a goal of eliminating written examinations from the civil service system after a “robust exploration” of the idea.

She noted that Ivy League schools, including Harvard University, have stopped requiring that applicants take standardized tests such as the SATs.

Tuesday’s order requires the chief administrative officer and Office of Human Resources to identify positions that could have alternative qualifications for applicants. Any changes to union jobs will have to be approved by the Civil Service Commission.

The plan also involves strengthening public outreach about available city positions.

Parker gave a shoutout to former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who got rid of four-year degree requirements for thousands of state jobs in 2022 before Colorado and Utah followed suit. Gov. Josh Shapiro’s first executive action similarly removed college degree requirements for thousands of state government jobs, which pleased business owners and Republican lawmakers.

Changing city workforce rules for the purpose of opening up the hiring and promotion processes to more diverse pools of applicants has been a passion project of Parker’s for years.

As majority leader on Council, she championed getting rid of the “rule of two” — a 1950s anti-corruption policy that required managers to choose between two job candidates with the highest exam scores. But Parker and other city leaders argued that standardized testing has been found to be biased against members of racial minority groups, making it difficult for nonwhite city employees to be promoted and limiting the diversity of the municipal workforce. Voters approved changing the rule in 2021.

The rule was part of a sweeping reform movement to end the political patronage system that had dominated city hiring in the first half of the 20th century. Black city workers, who had limited employment opportunities with the city and were routinely denied promotions, played a critical role in building political support for the movement, which resulted in the adoption of the current city Home Rule Charter.

Back then, reform meant moving away from more subjective methods of evaluating applicants that lent themselves to favoritism. Today, however, requirements such as written exams and degree credentials are seen as impediments to diversity because they exclude people who had limited educational opportunities.

Parker said she was not concerned that her planned changes to the city’s hiring rules will result in political influence returning to the city workforce.

”Will you have to prove proficiency? Absolutely,” Parker said. “But a standardized test should not be the sole indicator of whether or not you can perform in a particular job here in municipal government.”

Political patronage still exists in parts of local government that are not covered by the civil service system, such as the Philadelphia Parking Authority and the court system.

Parker also signed two other executive orders on Tuesday afternoon: one declaring a citywide public safety emergency and another to make local government “more visible, responsive, and effective in how it delivers services to citizens and constituents.”

Parker said her effort to reduce barriers to employment relates to her public safety order.

“Because if you want to reduce violence, eliminate violence in the city of Philadelphia, I would argue, if we put people on a path to self-sufficiency and give them access to an opportunity where they can earn a living wage, health care and retirement security, and be self sufficient to take care of themselves, this will help a great deal in accomplishing that,” she said Tuesday.