Connecticut’s Supreme Court ruled that Bridgeport Superintendent Paul Vallas could stay in his job while appealing a lower court decision that he lacked the qualifications for his job and should leave at once.
The Bridgeport citizens who sued to remove Vallas issued this statement:
STATEMENT OF CARMEN L. LOPEZ & DEBORAH REYES-WILLIAMS
This decision, which was rendered without a hearing or argument, is not
a decision on the merits of our appeal.
We look forward to arguing the merits of the appeal because we believe
that both the law and the facts on our side.
We are confident that Judge Bellis’ decision will be upheld because it
is legally sound, and her findings of fact are supported by the evidence
which was introduced at trial.
Paul Vallas is not qualified under Connecticut law to serve as
Superintendent of Schools.
Nothing said by the Supreme Court today changes that fact.
All the court has done is to reinstate the automatic stay which is
provided by the Rules of Practice.
We still believe that the law should not be applied differently based
upon a party’s political connections or those of his wealthy
supporters.
If the Connecticut Supreme Court ultimately says that the laws that
apply to the rest of us do not apply to the politically well
connected, then it will be a very sad day.
But today is not that day.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Rules and laws are for working people, Vallas and his ilk are under protection of the Broadfather.
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Check this out”
“Vallas flips out!” is the title
BACKGROUND: the last part of the video —
01:07 – 01:49
is actually what happened first in the chronology.
It shows what made Vallas flip out. Someone
questions him and asks what percentage of
students now no longer could walk to school,
and had to be bussed far away—as a result of:
1) Vallas closing all the neighborhood
schools and replacing them with charters;
and
2) that he’s been blocking any and all
funding for construction of new buildings,
or refurbishing existing school buildings,
which would allow kids to attend a school
close enough to walk to.
Having established that, the guy calmly
and repeatedly asks Vallas what
percentage of students are now being
bussed, and Vallas won’t answer.
Finally, Vallas concedes that 90% of the
students now can no longer walk to
school, and have to be bussed.
The guy calmly says, “End of discussion.
No excuse for that.”
That’s when Vallas goes off, and that is
what takes place in the first part of the video:
00:03 – 01:03
Watch it again:
Vallas indeed loses it, screaming like an
egomaniacal banshee about the above
criticisms, “given my record of
accomplishment over the years.” He says
he’s not authorizing any funding because
of the “crappy jobs” (tsk, tsk… potty mouth)
that the architects in New Orleans have
done in the past.
He then lies about having improved
achievement at every level (New Orleans
schools are ranked dead last—70th out of
70 Louisiana school districts).
Vallas says that he people complaining
about Vallas’ not funding the rehabbing
old school buildings, or the building of
new buildings are just “trying to block
that process” of improvement he has
“accomplished.”
Vallas concludes his tirade with: “I’LL
BE DAMNED IF I’M GOING TO ALLOW
ANYONE BLOCK THAT PROCESS!!!!”
And then he storms off like a petulant
child, thereby refusing any other tough
questions he might have been asked.
Gee… after watching this, I can see why
the Mayor and State Ed. Commisioner
are fighting so hard to keep him.
You wouldn’t want to lose someone of
Vallas’ caliber as the head of your school
system.
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Fascinating… when deformers tell principals and teachers “No Excuses,” we’re all supposed to suck it up. But when a deformer is faced with “No Excuses,” there are “REASONS” why they haven’t accomplished their lofty goals. HYPOCRITES!!!!!!
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Hannah: the reformers never meet their lofty goals. The goals are all that matter, see NCLB
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Jack: any wonder why I call the leading lights of the charterite/privatizer movement “edubullies”?
And it’s a very old debate trick: when you find yourself at a disadvantage on a specific topic or topics, change the subject and talk about something—anything—else. Even if you sputter and yell incoherencies.
“Ridicule dishonors a man more than dishonor does.” [Francois de la Rochefoucauld]
Paul Vallas may be a poor excuse of a school district CEO or faux superintendent, but he yields to no one when it comes to ridiculing his own character and conduct.
“If you believe it, you can achieve it.”
Although I don’t think he really wanted to be #1 in the self-caricature department…
🙂
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The statement of the plaintiffs says it all: Paul Vallas is not qualified under state law to serve as Superintendent of any school district in Connecticut. Paul Vallas has shown himself to be unqualified in any district: Chicago, Philadelphia, New Orleans–Recovery District.
I look forward to seeing more investigations into Paul Vallas’s past and into the dire straits into which he has sent every district he has ever “led.”
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Do we have a Connecticut attorney available for a class-action lawsuit for those of us who jump through educational and financial hoops in order to maintain our certification?
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Just in case, all 093 certificate holders, and those still earning, should make plans to lawyer up. Demand a tuition and fee refund (minus one independent study and a phone call) from UConn or any of the state universities.
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Actually, before that happens, I hope the University of Connecticut will be taken to task for this fraud. Since when do individual professors have the ability to determine the qualifications of candidates, or to rubberstamp some sham course work? The trail judge made careful inquiries into the “independent study” course of Vallas, and found it to be wanting. For one thing, a class does not a program make–especially an independent study course, with a few all-nighter-quality papers. This is not what the legislature had in mind when they drafted the law specifying how and when waivers would be granted. In addition, what Vallas and the “professor” Villanova presented to the State Board of Education in April (I believe) was completely different from what Vallas actually did–and this is, fortunately, now a matter of public record (the CT State Board of Education acquiescence in this charade notwithstanding).
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Also, please correct me of I am wrong.
The lawsuit was filed on April 1, 2013 and Vallas passed in his “paper(s)” a week or so later.
It appeared to be a last minute rush job to cover his butt.
Judge Bellis also stated in her ruling that Pryor and Vallas were “less than candid”.
Isn’t that a nice way of saying they lied?
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UConn is DINO Dan’s baby. No one takes UConn to task for anything! They continually get more funding while the four smaller state universities watch their funds dwindle. New buildings are popping up on campus like mushrooms during a rainy summer. Despite drying up the Fenton River one infamous summer, they continue to build more student housing. They are now looking to pipe in water from the Farmington River (!) to meet the water demands of this growing monstrosity, despite the expense of having to lay down all that piping and pump the water to the hills of northeastern CT.
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UConn feels positive about their teacher training as outlined in this recent commentary in the Connecticut Post:
http://www.ctpost.com/opinion/article/Teacher-training-a-demanding-task-4689761.php
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The probable Republican candidate for mayor of New York, Joe Lhota, reportedly favors Vallas and might appoint him as schools chancellor if Lhota gets elected. This grim prospect would be a fluke, given the imbalance of Democrats and Republicans in the City, yet is quite plausible, due to the chaos and internal battles within the majority party. Would that make 4 consecutive non-educators as chancellor? Bloody bizarre.
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My recollection is that actual educators have long been the exception rather than the norm in the Chancellor post.
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Does that make it right or a good thing?
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And a seeming non-sequitur occurs to me. Whoever wins the mayor’s race in NYC also gets control of the NYC public schools – no small thing at all, yes?
And if the disgraced Weiner were applying for a job as a teacher, his deviant internet use would surely preclude his employment, yes?
I think the governance of the NYC public school system a HUGE reason not to vote for that guy…and indeed, restructuring the governance of that city’s schools should be on the list of priorities there.
I mean, it’s not like they’re not the BIGGEST and therefore one of the most consequential public school systems in the United States of America, right?
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For you, Ms. Ravitch:
http://www.wbez.org/news/education/un-asked-examine-chicago-school-closings-human-rights-violations-108159
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Awesome idea! When no one in America will address the violations of children’s human rights, appeal to the UN. More cities and states should try this as well. Love it!
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Thank you so much for this! I hope Philadelphia files one of these, as well. School Reform truly violates the human rights of children because it ignores poverty and allows reformers to experiment on children. It deprives parents of their rights and strips communities of their dignity. And let us not forget the horrific “disciplinary” practices of Achievement First charter school in Connecticut (co-founders Dacia Toll and CT State Commissioner of Education Stefan Pryor), where kindergarten and elementary-aged students are suspended and punished harshly.
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Mr. Vallas could have received the benefits of the $1,000,000 liability insurance provided by the AASA–The School Superintendents Association if he were an active member. Unfortunately that requires the appropriate state certification. Many school systems pay for membership in case dust-ups such as this one occur.
www .aasa.org/content.aspx?id=1326&terms=bylaws
ARTICLE III MEMBERSHIP
SECTION 1
Voting Members
1. Active Member
Active Membership is open to all persons who serve as a school system leader or who are in an administrative position in a:
(a) public or private school system, or
(b) regional, state, or national educational agency or association and who possess a valid license for the position as may be required by law.
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FROM ANOTHER THREAD…
Arizona teacher: “I have seen staffs comprised of high school graduate teachers who bought their degrees online and took not one college level course.”
To the Arizona teacher… destroying the profession of teaching and filling it with unqualified faux teachers is not a bug in the privatizers’ “reform” model, it is a feature.
I just found this from the Connecticut Policy Institute—a “think tank” and “a non-partisan research institute on Connecticut economic policy and education reform” that fronts for for-profit business interests that are trying to profit from the privatization of education. To do this, they put out bogus “studies” and “policy papers” in support of these business interests’ practices and approaches to privatized education:
http://www.ctmirror.org/op-ed/2013/06/30/vallas-certification-debacle-reveals-shortcomings-education-reform-efforts
In this op-ed, Ben Zimmer defends Vallas’ lack of credentialing, but goes one further.
Not only should there be no credential requirement for Superintendents, THERE SHOULD BE NO CREDENTIALING OR EDUCATION REQUIREMENT OF TEACHERS (???!!!) as well as ADMINISTRATORS.
————————————————————–
Ben Zimmer: “With a few exceptions, Connecticut law requires teachers to have a degree in education, meaning many talented people who didn’t decide to become teachers until after completing their educations have difficulty doing so.
“This serves the economic interests of existing teachers and administrators by limiting competition for their jobs, but does not advance the goal of obtaining the highest quality teaching and administration possible.”
————————————————————
Don’t you get it? If the government entity in charge of education requires thing like ohhh… bachelor’s degrees, or even 2-year community college associate degrees… or even one single college course… well, you’re just “serving the economic interest of existing teachers and administrators by limiting competition for their jobs.”
Those teachers who’ve actually achieved these “worthless degrees” will bring along with them accompanying demands for a decent salary, health benefits, retirement, etc…. AND WHO NEEDS THAT when you’re trying to make a profit… err… excuse me… make “transformational change” in education?
Oh, you don’t believe this? Well, Connecticut Policy Institute’s “studies and papers” have “proven” all of this to be true… that you need nothing more than a high school diploma to teach in K-12 schools.
Zimmer goes on:
————————————————————
Ben Zimmer: “As the Connecticut Policy Institute has discussed in our papers on education reform, there is no evidence linking certification regimes to teachers’ or administrators’ effectiveness in increasing student achievement. They simply serve to limit the recruitment pipeline of outstanding educators and keep the antiquated education administration departments of the state university system in business.”
————————————————————–
An organization fronting for business interests that want to profit from the privatization of education—some of them charter school chain CEO”s making $500,000/year or more (Geoffrey Canada)—has its spokesman attacking education departments—some of them Ivy League universities… most of them having turning out quality teachers for 100-150 years or more—as only being “in business” to advance the selfish financial interests of their administrators and professors that work in them. They are deliberately blocking “outstanding educators” from entering the field because they are out for themselves, and not the students’.
Wow! I”m so glad someone’s finally blowing the lid off this!
But then look at this assclown Zimmer’s bio at Connecticut Policy Institute:
http://ctpolicyinstitute.org/about/bio/ben-zimmer/leadership
He proudly touts his own education credentials:
———————————————————————-
“Ben received a J.D. from Yale Law School, where he specialized in business law and economic policy, and a B.A., magna cum laude with highest honors in history, from Harvard College.”
———————————————————————-
But Ben, I thought those high-falutin’ things like degrees didn’t matter. Aren’t those “J.D.’s” and “B.A.s” and “magna cum laude’s” just worthless pieces of paper spit out by “antiquated” entities that are only trying to keep themselves “in business” to pay the undeserved salaries of the folks who work in them?
No, no, no… you see in Ben’s world, rigid requirements like… oh… years of post-secondary education, or even passing a certification test…. those things only matter in OTHER careers or professions. They don’t matter in the realm of K-12 education… as his noble “kids first” organization, Connecticut Policy Institute, has produced studies and papers” have “proven” that.
No, according to Ben, teaching is like working the fry machine at McDonald’s… just let anyone in the door—education and credentials be damned—to have at it and compete for the job, then just keep the ones who do it best. And THAT is how you end up with a staff of what Ben describes as a nation of “outstanding educators.”
Got that?
You see the way to get better teachers in front of kids is just simple… so simple that those antiquated ed departments full of money-motivated hacks have been missing it for over 150 years.
The way to fill our country’s schools with “outstanding educators” is to lower or even eliminate the standards and requirements for becoming one.
That’s it!!!! Why hasn’t anyone thought of that until now?
What’s that, you say? The highest achieving nations like Finland and South Korea don’t operate that way? In those countries, becoming a teacher is as difficult and demanding as becoming a doctor?
Well, that would never work here in the United States.
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When the State of Connecticut unequally applies certification requirements to educators, the system regulating educator certification is questioned. If a certificate is not necessary for a high-profile educator to work as an administrator in the state, why have the requirement at all? If education course work is unnecessary, why should the state’s colleges and universities offer courses at all? And if there is no need for certificates or coursework, why have I paid money to the state to keep my teaching and administration certificates updated?
In Connecticut, the land of steady habits, the unequal application of certification requirements makes the state a little less steady.
Full post:
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Vallas carries himself like Rumpelstiltskin . . .
WHAT a sense of entitlement and an ego bigger than Pauls Dean’s hair, a self image more exaggerated than a Hirshfeld drawing . . .
Vallas needs his own talkshow, not a school system, to express himself.
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Lecker: Vallas saga offers teachable moment on abusing power
Closing:
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, an old friend whom Vallas hired in Chicago, also demonstrated his disdain for Connecticut law. He told The New York Times that opposition to Vallas was “beyond ludicrous.” His press secretary, Daren Briscoe, informed me that Duncan has known Vallas for years and believes he has “obvious qualifications,” based on Vallas’ experience in Chicago, Philadelphia and New Orleans — the school districts he left in ruins.
I asked Mr. Briscoe, in light of a judge’s ruling that Vallas violated a Connecticut state law, what Secretary Duncan’s position on the Vallas matter was. He replied “no comment.”
The Vallas cronies’ disdain for the law is exceeded by their contempt for Bridgeport’s children. Vallas’ departure was predictable. Superintendent turnover is so common today that the head of the American Association of School Administrators calls superintendents “highly paid migrant workers.” Furthermore, from April to the judge’s decision on June 28, the Bridgeport Board of Education or its committees met 28 times. Discussion of a contingency plan in case Vallas was ousted was never on the agenda. In fact, while Vallas was on trial, the board convened a special meeting to appoint him as the permanent superintendent.
Bridgeport officials had ample time to plan a smooth transition from Vallas before school resumes in September, but stubbornly refused. In his appeal, Vallas now claims his departure will result in chaos. If the district cannot run without his presence, he must not be an effective manager. And if there is chaos, it is caused by the board’s unconscionable negligence.
The Vallas saga is the age-old tale of abuse of privilege by the powerful and well-connected. That is the story of American education reform. One can only hope that when the Connecticut Supreme Court hears this case, it will once again remind Bridgeport officials, as it did in 2012, that no one is above the law.
Wendy Lecker is a columnist for Hearst Connecticut Media Group and is senior attorney for the Campaign for Fiscal Equity project at the Education Law Center.
http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Lecker-Vallas-saga-offers-teachable-moment-on-4689763.php
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