I read an editorial in the Wall Street Journal this morning about Bridgeport, Connecticut, where the Connecticut Supreme Court has ordered a special election for the city’s school board.
Read this editorial. What is amazing about it is the palpable fear of an election. The Wall Street Journal says that an election is a “blow” to school reform. It portrays the aspirants for the elected board in a poor light.
The district now has an appointed board (the court said the appointment of the board was illegal). This illegal board hired Paul Vallas. The editorial says that Vallas achieved fame for leading Chicago, Philadelphia, and New Orleans and is now creating a national model for reform in Bridgeport. If what he is doing in Bridgeport is indeed exemplary, why would an elected board stop it from happening?
Why the terror of democracy?
The appointed board has already extended Vallas’ contract for the next year, tying the hands of the elected board. So for a year, the WSJ need not fear.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Vallas, after having boasted of the budget savings gained from firing about 30% of the central office staff, has hired people from out of state for those administrative positions – people with ties to his Vallas Group organization. I do not understand how he and his ilk can do things like this with impunity.
http://jonathanpelto.com/2012/07/30/the-vallas-jobs-program-connecticut-residents-need-not-apply/
“If what he is doing in Bridgeport is indeed exemplary, why would an elected board stop it from happening? Why the terror of democracy?.” And parent trigger laws?
Parent trigger laws are not democracy. They are a ruse to trick parents into handing public schools over to charter corporations. Why do you think the biggest supporters of the parent trigger are charter advocates, not parents?
I agree with you about parent trigger laws, but your argument as to why they are different (democratically speaking) from school board’s falls flat. The same critiques exist of institutionally entrenched, often heavily partisan school boards. They are said to “trick” parents into supporting the status quo which has been failing their kids. Lets make this debate about the issues, and not claim some unearned faithfullness to populism.
Why are the biggest supporters of elected school boards unions, not voters?
Benny,
You are not comparing apples to apples. A parent trigger would essentially allow a little more than 50% of those voting (and not even all the parents) for the trigger to give away, yes give away the schools in perpetuity to a private for profit company that is in no way shape or form accountable to anyone except its stockholders. When the business goes belly up, as it will eventually, who then shoulders the responsibility to bring the public school back to life????
Wherever you got the idea that “unions” are the biggest supporters of elected school boards and not the voters, I’d ask for a refund. Give some concrete examples, otherwise it’s pure nonsense akin to an uninformed opinion.
Imagine if 51% of the tenants in a public housing project decided to take control of their building and give it away to a condo developer. Would the mayors allow that to happen? Or if the passengers on a public bus decided to seize control? Sorry, the public paid for it and the public owns it, not the parents or tenants or riders who are here today.
And there is plenty of anecdotes, data and information that VALLAS was NOT successful in NOLA, Philly and Chicago.
Search Diane’s blog and the Jon Pelto blog:
http://jonathanpelto.com/
I could post link after link..article after article. He has not been successful unless you consider that his traveling circus keeps creating disaster after disaster as he moves from city to city lining his pocket and those of his cronies. They will be packing up their show one year from now and heading out of CT….so USA B E W A R E!
If he was so successful, why are they all presently being re-reformed?
Here is one NOLA parent telling Vallas what she thinks of his reform and choice plan.
When I asked Paul Vallas what made New Orleans such a promising place for educational reform, he told me that it was because he had no “institutional obstacles” — no school board, no collective bargaining agreement, a teachers’ union with very little power. “No one tells me how long my school day should be or my school year should be,” he said. “Nobody tells me who to hire or who not to hire. I can hire the most talented people. I can promote people based on merit and based on performance. I can dismiss people if they’re chronically nonattending or if they’re simply not performing.”
On the latter, a quote from an article Vallas wrote for the aforementioned Manhattan Institute:
We also have flexibility when it comes to work rules, which are decided by the board rather than the state. This has allowed us to do a lot of privatization. Our alternative schools are private schools, as are many of our special-ed schools. Our vocational education programs are also privately run to some extent. And we have contracted out for custodians, lunchroom attendants and the trades. In our system, schools have a choice. If they are not happy with their in-house services, they can privatize them. There’s competition.
We also have flexibility when it comes to work rules, which are decided by the board rather than the state. This has allowed us to do a lot of privatization. Our alternative schools are private schools, as are many of our special-ed schools. Our vocational education programs are also privately run to some extent. And we have contracted out for custodians, lunchroom attendants and the trades. In our system, schools have a choice. If they are not happy with their in-house services, they can privatize them. There’s competition.
Full article:
“There’s competition.” There’s the insanity of his thinking in two words!!
He has created his own kingdom and marketed himself as the savior and he is a destroyer. The sooner he leaves the better, but it will take years to recover.
Check out his company site. It will make you sick.
http://www.vallasturnaround.com/
He also has connections with several companies…textbooks, data systems, etc. Once he invades your system all contracts go to his cronies with no bidding. He determines how all the money is spent. He is sucking us dry and his caravan will be packing up one year from now.
Jon Pelto has conducted extensive research. Search under Vallas:
http://jonathanpelto.com/
One more…disaster as opportunity…Vallas must be BFF’s with Duncan since they willingly share the same slogans:
FOR MOST people, Haiti’s broken school system–now literally buried under tons of rubble–is an incomprehensible horror. But for a few, the earthquake created a big break for business.
“There’s a real opportunity here, I can taste it. That is why I’ve flown [to Haiti] so many times.” Meet Paul Vallas. The 58-year-old Vallas is the former CEO of the Chicago and Philadelphia public school systems and was hired in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as superintendent of the Recovery School District of Louisiana that oversaw the transformation of the New Orleans school system.
Vallas’ legacy in these cities of privatizing schools, reducing public accountability and undermining unions made him a shoo-in to take charge of the Inter-American Development Bank’s (IDB) education initiative in Haiti.
To truly appreciate Vallas’ epic dedication to letting the free market rip Haitian society apart, you have to consider the fact that he had to overcome a severe fear of flying to deliver the laissez-faire gospel to Haiti.
Vallas’ disaster-as-opportunity comment cited above was clearly cribbed from U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who indirectly praised Vallas’ work in New Orleans, saying, “I think the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina.”
http://socialistworker.org/2011/09/08/shock-doctrine-schooling
Look how angry the “reformers” become when they are put on the defensive. Wait until the end for the smack down…..only one minute and 47 seconds.
Imagine if every single teacher were to speak out when his/her reputation is challenged.
He can’t believe anyone would dare question him or his methods!
Bridgeport, CT is mostly African-American, Hispanic, Brazillian, and South Asian.
No nearby majority white community would put up with this.
Fear of democracy is so telling– what is happening to my country?
Ok, I know. Your use of “democracy” was usage within rhetoric. We haven’t a Democracy in America. We have corporate overlords of Big Banks, Big Insurance, and our Congress. This has easily duplicated itself to state levels with the installation of the same oligarchic neoconic class. See: current governors of MI., FL, TX, IN, IL,OH, etc. The same legislators that are pushing anti-abortion laws (including in the case of rape and / or incest) are promoting the privatization of public education. And 17 Democrats in the House voted with the insanity of this GOP attack on women’s rights. They lost a battle in the House of Representatives, but they will not relent. “Stop it” won’t work. Boycott teacher evaluations based upon student scores. The privatization reformers are moneyed and control our top leaders. They won’t stop until they own it all.
Having taught for six years in what was labeled the worst high school in Bridgeport, I am sadly disappointed to see what is happening there. Parents should be up in arms about the appointed board because they have lost their right to have the people they voted for represent their interests. In fact, they should be upset over the fact that Vallas (who should never have been hired since the appointed board was ruled to be illegal) wants their children to be taught by “teachers” from private organizations. These “teachers” have never taught in a classroom, have never studied education, have never student taught, and have no idea about how to plan lessons or reflect on their practice. All they know is the few weeks they “teach” in a charter school classroom over summer vacation. Their lessons are canned; they are required to use materials and lessons found at their organization’s local office. They are expected to teach the same things in the same ways, regardless of student diversity or needs. These two year “teachers” earn more than those teachers who CHOSE to be teachers, CHOSE to be in Bridgeport, and CHOOSE to pay for their post-graduate degrees. These two year “teachers” also can receive free Master’s degrees (depending upon cost) or be reimbursed for over $11,000 worth of “education expenses” (to be used for tuition or student loan repayment) while the rest of the teachers must find ways to make do on their meager salaries. And, yes, the salaries in Bridgeport are extremely low, particularly when factoring in the cost of living and the fact that teachers (not from the two year organization) must pay for everything they need on their own (markers, erasers, paper, crayons, materials, posters, supplemental books for enrichment, etc.). I suggest Paul Vallas take a long look at how many of those “teachers” actually STAY in Bridgeport after their two year contracts are up. The numbers become even more disturbing if he looks at those same “teachers” and sees how few of them are there after three years. Better yet, why doesn’t he take a look at Global Partnership Schools? They were hired to “turnaround” my former place of employment and yet, barely two years later, they have exhausted the $2.1 million dollars they were given, teachers still don’t have new technology, the school has no library (the former librarian was ordered to clear out the books and either throw them away or give them away before the end of the 2010-2011 school year), they educational change consultant they provided has left (not that she was ever in the school because she was forever traveling), and the principal is gone. The school is in worse shape now than it was BEFORE GPS took over. This is just another lesson that for-profit companies are only there until the money runs out. Now, my former students are, once again, in a state of limbo. Who suffers? The students. Who cares? It appears, no one, save for a few current teachers who dare speak up and many former teachers like myself who left because we could no longer tolerate what was being done.