Jonathan Pelto reports that Paul Vallas and his allies are determined to fight the court ruling that ousted him from his job as superintendent of schools in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Ironically, the law he violated was written to make it easier to gain approval for him, despite his lack of the legally required qualifications.

As Pelto writes:

“The facts are simple enough;

Thanks to Governor Malloy, Commissioner Pryor and the Connecticut General Assembly, on July 1, 2012 Connecticut’s law concerning when the Commissioner of Education can waive a person’s need to be certified, in order to hold the title of superintendent of schools, was changed to make it easier for Paul Vallas to stay as Bridgeport’s superintendent of schools.

“The original law had been written to accommodate Steven Adamowski, who in 2007 had wanted to serve as Hartford’s superintendent of schools despite not having the necessary certification. At the time, a law was written to allow the state’s commissioner of education to waive the need for a superintendent to have certification if the individual was a certified superintendent in another state and met various other requirements.

“But Paul Vallas was never certified to hold any education position, in any state, so the Malloy administration proposed changing the law to allow the commissioner to waive Vallas’ certification requirement if he served for one year as an acting superintendent and successfully completed a “school leadership program” at a Connecticut institution of higher education.”

Vallas ignored these minimal requirements and patched together a quickie course. This proved unacceptable to the judge.

We will watch to see what happens on appeal.