Donald Rappaport, 84, education official

Donald Rappaport, 84, a Pennsylvania education official in the 1970s and a federal education official in the 1990s, died of cancer Friday, Aug. 12, at his home in the Georgetown section of Washington. A former Chestnut Hill resident, he moved to Washington in 1983.

Mr. Rappaport was chief financial officer and chief information officer for the U.S. Department of Education under President Bill Clinton from 1997 through 1999, his daughter Laura said.

He was budget director for the 1988 presidential campaign of Michael Dukakis, she said.

And, she said, at 80 he was the oldest competitor in the 2007 Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run in Washington.

Mr. Rappaport began a six-year term on the Pennsylvania Board of Education in 1972, and Gov. Milton J. Shapp appointed him chairman of the 17-member board in 1974.

A newspaper report stated at the time that it was the body "that establishes policy for Pennsylvania public schools from kindergarten through college."

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Mr. Rappaport graduated from Montclair (N.J.) Academy and earned a bachelor's degree in economics at Yale University in 1947. He earned master's degrees in economics in 1948 and in business administration in 1949, both at the University of Pennsylvania.

After joining Price Waterhouse & Co. in 1949, he served in the Navy from 1950 to 1952 as a destroyer officer, for a time off the coast of Korea during the war. He became a partner in the accounting firm in 1963.

A 1965 newspaper report stated that he was chairman of a budget task force for the Philadelphia Board of Education.

In 1967 and 1968 he was the board's deputy superintendent for administration, according to a 1981 newspaper report.

The report stated that he had been a financial consultant to school systems in Detroit; Oakland, Calif.; Portland, Ore.; and Washington.

When Pennsylvania Hospital named him to its board of managers in 1977, the announcement stated that he had been chairman of the National Committee for Citizens in Education and a board member of the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic and of the Greater Philadelphia Partnership.

Mr. Rappaport was national director for small-business services at Price Waterhouse and, his daughter said, in 1983 Mayor William J. Green gave him a mayor's citation for such work.

In Philadelphia, he was a finance committee member at Germantown Friends School.

In Washington, he was a founding board member of Friends of Change in Urban Schools and Meridian Public Charter School.

He was coauthor, with David Bushnell, of Planned Change in Education: A Systems Approach, published in 1971.

The Martha's Vineyard Times reported that, as a resident of Vineyard Haven, he was a member of the Vineyard Haven Yacht Club and competed as a runner and a sailboat racer during summers there.

Besides his daughter Laura, Mr. Rappaport is survived by his wife of 53 years, Susan; daughters Nina and Julie; and five grandchildren.

A funeral was held Monday, Aug. 15. A memorial is being planned.