[Forgive the posting of the headline with no text. I am at NY1, our local all-news station. No sooner did I put in the headline when I was called in to be interviewed by Sam Roberts of the New York Times. I closed my iPad, and the blank post flew into cyberspace. ]
The Atlantic has a comprehensive article about the education wars in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
The Democratic machine was shocked by the victory of the insurgent slate, which made clear that they are not fans of Paul Vallas. Of course, there is a fascinating backstory, and the article represents it fairly.
Most fascinating is that the article speculates that the Bridgeport election may indicate that the tide is turning against the corporate style of testing-accountability-privatization-teacher-bashing. Not just in Bridgeport. The public is catching on.
When the public catches on and demands change, the politicians follow.
With the election of Bill de Blasio in New York City, the discrediting of the grading system in Indiana, the resignation of Tony Bennett, the defeat of the deceptive parent trigger in Florida twice by Florida parents, the voter rejection of vouchers last fall in Florida, the indictment of the biggest virtual charter operator in Pennsylvania, the rejection of the Luna laws in Idaho……drip, drip, drip, drip.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The pieces of the puzzle are going into place to take control away from the billionaire corporate privatizeers. We are going to have a public process for the replacement of Jaime Aquino, Superintendent of Instruction at LAUSD, by a public transparent process as with Ruben Zacarias in 1997. After that the billionaires said “No More of that Messy Public Process which we do not totally control.” Thereafter, we have had to deal with terrible superintendents and other high district officials brought in by the billionaires to rob us blind as LAUSD also has a $27 billion bond program and they are constructing at 2-3 time the normal average for schools in L.A. County.
All we have to do is what is happening and that is more public decision making in the public’s schools. The billionaires do not know how to handle them not being in total control. Therefore, they will be finished.
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Unless the public resumes being as uninformed and feckless as they were when President Obama was running. The CONCEPT of public schools is a wonderful one, but the proof of their failure is that the young electorate educated in them put the President in office to begin with, and then reelected him. Granted the alternatives were pretty weak. Nevertheless, it’s still fair to ask How is that Hope and Change working for you?
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On the contrary, the most intelligent and the best educated people I know voted for President Obama. Just because you were not one of them does not mean you are “less than.” You are still valuable as a human being, even if you are ________.
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Ignorance is bliss, Linda.
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Linda Johnson,
Don’t berate Harlan. Don’t you know that he is forever full of I, me, and my, and he is always right about everything, beginning with the “proof of their failure”. . . .
I too hate Obama, just as much as Harlan does, but from perhaps a different angle.
Harlan can be quite a __________________, but he’s right that electing Obama was a foolish thing to do, yet what other choice did we have with Paul Ryan wanting to eliminate the social security that Harlan is, in part, living off of.
Obama is one of the most anti-public education presidents next to GW Bush we’ve ever had. He is virulent.
Harlan loves righteousness. Too bad he does not always know the difference between right, righteousness, right-wing, and righteous indignation.
He tries, though. He should get an A+ for effort and verve and an F- for _____________.
Harlan, you will always have a fan base here.
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Honestly, Harlan, you’ll get no argument from me as to the question in your last sentence! NOT working well at all. And–I add–
I HOPE that the CHANGE reiterated in Diane’s post continues, DESPITE the Obama Administration’s continued and accelerated assault on public education.
(RTTT cannot be blamed on George W.)
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http://www.networkforpubliceducation.org/news/west-palm-beach-charter-school-terminated-over-daily-field-trips-south-florida-sun-sentinel-com/
This is what the reform movement is all about. Fly by night, get rich quick schemes run by people that have no business getting near a school. Why don’t people who do this go to jail? I’m sure the people in Bridgeport have realized the “reformers” are all in it for money.
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I knew this was going to happen. It was just a matter of time. Once parents in more “wealthy” school districts realized that education deform was coming to their school the jig was up. The problem that the ed-deformers can’t deal with is that you can’t just destroy schools in the inner city. Ed-deform policies are a statewide issue. Once parents in the suburbs found out that their kids are starting to hate school and are getting physically sick from the overtesting, parents will make a stand. The ed-deform goons will soon be moving off to the next industry to destroy. I have a feeling it will be the prison system and the military. We are already seeing an uptick in the privateization of prisons and the rise of private military contractors.
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And if they DO win? You know what’s next — fire and police.
Sweet dreams.
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Encouraging. But on the Common [sic] Core [sic] State [sic] Standards [front], no progress.
In fact, every English teacher in the U.S. is getting his or her trainings (Sit up. Roll over. Fetch. Stay. Good boy.) on the Philistine, amateurish, backward, uninformed, ignorant, crude new standards [sic] in ELA right now.
Those are pretty much a done deal.
Well, there was no DEAL. Teachers were never at the table.
There was just a top-down, totalitarian imposition on teachers and schools,
one whereby a small group of appointed amateurs with, clearly, little understanding of best practices in the teaching of English and no knowledge whatsoever of what we have learned about language acquisition in the past 40 years or so
overruled every teacher, curriculum coordinator, and curriculum designer in the country with regard to
what outcomes are worth measuring in the various domains that the standards [sic] cover and, more importantly, with regard to how those standards should be conceived for the various ELA domains.
And a few years from now, everyone will be talking about how terrible those standards [sic] were as if he or she knew that and opposed them all along.
I don’t get it. If some group of amateurs had presumed to write “standards” this ridiculously bad for, say, the practice of medicine, they would already have been hooted off the stage. They would have been met with a resounding chorus of derision.
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Robert, I am always amused when I read or hear people trashing NCLB as though it was obvious from the start that it was a turd — especially when they are the very same people who applauded NCLB when it first rolled out. Some of them are pro-privatizers who have realized that NCLB is something they are best off distancing themselves from, others are simply career climbers who applaud for anything they think applauding for will get them up the next rung on the ladder, and still others were frightened to speak their minds but have realized that it is now safe to do so regarding NCLB.
I was vocally opposed to NCLB years ago, when it first rolled out, and was shot down by some of the very same people calling it a turd today. Guess what? It was ALWAYS a turd. Even when they were clapping about it.
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Not in my private school, they aren’t getting trained in the CCSS. We don’t even call it ELA there, but just “English.”
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Harlan, that’s wonderful. I love that!
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I despise the 1st grade ELA CCSS! They are not developmentally appropriate for my 1st graders!
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Wait until you get evaulated based on the ELA CCSS . . . .
Fasten your seatbelt. . . . .
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Robert, at our faculty meeting Monday, our Common Core “Literacy Coordinator” suddenly presented our new focus for content area literacy training. I just want to get it on your radar.
She called it the “Assessment Vocabulary”, which will be used to frame the writing prompts themselves. It includes no content vocabulary. The high school resource base she flashed up on the Smartboard is written at a “grade 13” accessibility level.
I can’t find it online. Here’s the grade 2-5 version, though. It’s suddenly everywhere.
http://seenmagazine.us/articles/article-detail/articleid/2879/introducing-students-to-the-general-academic-vocabulary-of-the-common-core-state-standards.aspx
Our professional development goal in literacy is to integrate into our daily teaching (of chemistry!) this vocabulary specific to the writing prompts in the CC assessments themselves. The specialized definitions we are supposed to teach and practice in our disciplines are directed at maximizing student scores on the CC machine-graded essays that will now comprise “District Determined Metrics” by which subject area teachers will now be evaluated.
Keep in mind, I’m a teacher of chemistry. There are no chemistry terms in this vocabulary, instead our aim is to train students to respond “precisely” to a list of specific terms in the writing prompts.
I’m so sleepy. Thank God you’re all here to pick this stuff up.
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Take, it to heart, chemtchr, you’ve just been common cored like so any others. The best inoculation to being cored to death is to take a book, an electronic reading devise or your cell phone (hey, I’ve finally found a legitimate reason to get a cell phone) and read those. It worked for me the last time so much so when the Common Crap “expert” came over and literally leaned on me (you know the ol proximity trick) during one of those “now discuss this with your neighbors at your table” I totally ignored her (she was just a mere flea leaning on this bear both physically and intellectually).
But we need to discover the vaccine that will prevent common coring and I believe we need to look along the lines of breaking up the GAGAG*, those sheeple who refuse to stand up against these nefarious educational malpractices to who refuse to do what’s right for the students.
*Go Along to Get Along Group
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Duane:
Still waiting for you to describe what that looks like, possibly–the standing up to GAGAG
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I think (without consulting sources) that it was Churchill (regarding the struggles against another tyranny rooted in eugenics and similar trash “science”) who said, “This may not be the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning.” As historians know, these things lurch. But Bridgeport certainly is good news.
The outpourings for democracy are growing, not only here in the USA but elsewhere. One year ago, we hosted the Chicago Teachers Strike of 2012 here, a different kind of teachers’ strike for a new generation of teachers in a new century. This year, it’s sounding more and more like “we” (those working for democracy and against tyranny) will be moving on multiple fronts — political, economic, historical, polemical, etc. — against this tyranny.
And with all of us participating (and a big boost from Reign of Error) towards a program of more democracy and equity. Another one of those quotes deals with the imperfections of democracy. It may not yield a “Common Core” and “CEO” rule, but it’s been a better way of doing things than the alternatives, from the Pharaohs to the Gateses and Broads and Emanuels and Obamas…
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Well said, George.
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Unfortunately, the antithesis of tyranny is not democracy. Democracy is just another kind of tyranny but at the other end of the spectrum. The non-tyrannical middle between them is “rule of law.” Proof? The ACA was passed by democratic process even though it was unconstitutional, but Roberts voted with the liberal wing of the court to MAKE it constitutional by arguing that an unconstitutional penalty was really a tax. He decided that the matter should be decided politically rather than having the court dragged through the mud. Democracy is no guarantee against tyranny, the tyranny of the mob and emotion. Often it is the tyranny of ignorance, but better that, clearly, than tyranny of one man rule and the gun or mullah rule, which is just another form of the democracy of ignorance, passion, and superstition.
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That’s why an educated electorate is important. We haven’t been doing the best of jobs with that lately, but that doesn’t mean we quit trying. Human beings are strange (but interesting) creatures.
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It is, clearly, unconstitutional. And in time, this ruling will be overturned.
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Common Core nonsense is gaining ground in university Ed. departments, unfortunately. Look at what the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages is peddling: http://www.actfl.org/news/press-releases/linking-the-standards-learning-languages-the-common-core-state-standards-english
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Not that I think or want to think that Diane is wrong here — she mentioned Tony Bennett. Was he not recently “exonerated” by some sort of “investigation”?
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Thought-criminal!
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Good point Ron. Your post also reminded me that the “potential” cheating scandal under Ms. Rhee’s rule was barely investigated.
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My hope, concernedmom, is that someone has the answer of what to do when the corporate reformers throw up this exoneration as a shield. Bennett’s resignation was horribly embarrassing for these people — I suspect that this exoneration may not have been completely above board, but until there is some proof otherwise, any invocation of his resignation simply invites the corporate reformers to gleefully throw up their shield. “He was exonerated! You’re spreading misinformation — and by extension everything you say is ALL A PACK OF LIES!!!”
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For more good news…from Illinois! Read Fred Klonsky’s Blog post 9/91/13, “Breaking: ISBE Head Withdraws Special Ed. Class Cap. From Today’s Meeting Agenda. A Win for the Good Guys. Don’t Stop Now.” All in many days work of calling and writing the IL State Board of Education–parents, teachers, community members,social workers writing testimony, calling, testifying at hearings, all overwhelmingly opposing the proposed elimination of special ed. class size restrictions (as well as lifting the 70/30% limit on number of sp.ed. students placed in a gen.ed. class). Of, by and for the people. Yes, WE can…and we WILL!
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Yes! That is a significant victory here in Illinois.
But as I’ve just finished reviewing Diane’s book, I’ve been reminded of the importance of historical perspective and the math (as Karen says in the jacket blurb, “DATA!” on our side), let me add some back story:
May 17.
Eighty percent.
Intense organization and organizing.
The full story on the decision by the Illinois State Board is not likely to come out, but much of it — were it to become part of “history” — would involve serious discussions from the leaders of the Chicago Teachers Union.
At this point in history, Karen Lewis and the other elected (love that democracy, even if it’s not the antonym for “tyranny” at least in some minds) leaders of the CTU are able to have these conversations, both publicly and otherwise as necessary, with those who make the decisions (or the “recommendations”). The broad movement to critique the proposed special education changes helped, but it was part of the overall campaign. There was also some quiet lobbying.
One of the most important days of democracy in Chicago in recent months was May 17, 2013. That’s when the members of the Chicago Teachers Union voted to re-elect CORE and Karen to another three-year term by a vote of 80 percent. That is now a fact of history that virtually all serious political leaders in Chicago and Illinois are aware of.
Not so easily understood as history is the fact that CORE’s candidates campaigned “Chicago-style” for that victory. Everyone in CORE worked incredibly hard to build the organization and get out the vote. We were taking nothing for granted and working to GOTV school by school (in CTU elections, the schools are the “precincts”). Since the election was being overseen by the American Arbitration Association, at least we didn’t have to worry about the integrity of the voting, but we faced 600 precincts and some interesting adversaries.
The campaign was carefully organized. Details are available but not necessary, except for one or two.
A week before the voting, for example, we dropped a truckload of campaign materials at a CTU House of Delegates meeting. Those materials were distributed by a team of CORE members, including my wife Sharon, from a table in front of the meeting. (A sidewalk of democracy that is open to all during our union’s monthly meetings by the way). By the end of that meeting, all of those materials (which included among other things those delightful now collectable “Rahm Emanuel” palm cards, which totalled about 50,000) were heading towards the voters in all those 600 precincts.
After that effort, CORE hosted a pizza party for about 150 people at Connie’s pizza a block from the union meeting. I didn’t get a full count because I was in charge of the door table and making sure the pizzas didn’t run out. Karen and the candidates made the rounds shaking hands. (There were no babies to kiss at Connie’s that night; but there had been at other times…).
So, what we had was an American style exercise in democracy.
Except that the corporate media was pushing a vote for the other side. That’s democracy, too, although its similar to the need we all have to oppose the ALEC nonsense using people power across the USA. Corporate Chicago had candidates in the May 2013 CTU election, and they were not the incumbents. They wanted Karen and CORE out of office, and they had precedent for hoping it would happen.
As some here may remember, the teachers who ran against Karen and CORE had the support of the Chicago Tribune and some of the other corporate media in Chicago, as well as Chicago’s local chapter of the Billionaire Boys Club (most notably, Bruce Rauner). When the “Coalition to Save Our Union” announced their intention to run against CORE, the Tribune ran the story as “news” on the front page. About ten days before the election, the Tribune gave two-thirds of its Op Ed page to the anti-CORE candidate, and without fact checking any of the things Tonya Sanders Wolff put into that attack. When some people asked about it, the Trib’s excuse for all the factual errors was that the main editor who usually does that stuff with Op Ed pieces, Bruce Dold, wasn’t around that day. (As many people reading this know, the major newspapers fact check op eds and even letters to the editor before they put them in print). At no time did the Tribune give CORE nearly the same space as it gave the “Coalition to Save Our Union” (honest: that was the name they used on the ballot).
All of us worked hard right up until the last votes were counted, then we celebrated.
One of the immediate results of that victory is the victory for special needs children reported in this thread. Many of the ruling class people who run Illinois had been led to believe that Karen Lewis and CORE — like the last “reform” caucus to run the union, Debbie Lynch’s PACT — were going to be ousted after one three-year term.
It took them a little while to digest that 80 percent victory on May 17, but if there is one thing Chicago and Illinois politicians know how to do, it’s count. If you have votes or dollars, they know how to count. So… Some people, speaking for Chicago’s teachers and other union members, have a stronger voice (I don’t say louder, because in some cases it’s barely a whisper) than one year ago, when we were leading that strike everyone still talks about this week, on its first anniversary.
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George – what was the turnout %? I checked some pdf on CTU’s site and saw there were over 18,000 who voted.
I’m curious because the election for Seattle Education Association SEA President etc in March of 2012 had appx. 75% of appx 5000 members NOT vote! When I went to the annual WEA meeting in April, appx 1100/82000 got to vote for state President – NOT my definition of consent of the governed. I think both elections count as Apathy of the Sheep, Ennui of the Battered, Oblivion of the Beaten.
Oh well. (PST! anyone who tells ME to fix it … I could spend paragraphs and paragraphs explaining non Spoonful of Sugar reality, but, I won’t cuz the bottom line is going to be ‘stick it’. I’m doing what I can. I already have a job.)
Prior to this summer’s devastation from Rahm, I had found on the google that Chicago had appx 100 charters with appx. 50,000 kids in them. That is the size of Seattle Public Schools.
NOT to take anything away from the great stuff you guys have done, but, when will more Seattle’s and Washington’s teachers get off their butts? When 1/4 of our states kids are in BMGF-Walton-Kopp-Kipp Charters? I’m feeling like when I was 20 in 1980 and all these working stiff union members voted for Ronnie Raygun – HELLO! When the hell do people wake up?
While I’m delighted about Bridgeport, that Atlantic piece was a call to arms for all the deformers and their lies.
google “the atlantic teacher evaluation” and you’ll see what that DLC Arne loving rag is all about.
rmm.
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More coverage of the Vallas fiasco: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324492604579087212199599936.html
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The author of the Atlantic article writes “Vallas says that in Bridgeport, he has not closed a single school, opened a single charter, or laid off a single teacher.” The author does not present evidence that the statement is untrue.
So how is this a referendum on charter public schools?
Sounds like it is more a vote against Vallas – who has been controversial everywhere he has been.
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So, why then did people vote against Vallas/so-called reform, if not because of his extensive history of closing schools, opening charters and laying off teachers?
More failed misdirection, Joe.
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Referring to the three successful candidates, a Connecticut paper reported the following:
“Their campaign manager, Marilyn Moore, said she felt Finch’s failed quest for a mayoral-appointed board led to the challengers’ victory.”
http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Challengers-win-school-board-primary-4803511.php
At least according to their campaign manager, it was a protest against the idea of a mayor appointed, rather than a direct elected school board.
I’ve found a number of out of town journalists (like the Atlantic writer) often miss what’s happening in a community, or try to project their own views on what others do.
Since I worked closely for 7 years with the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers on their terrific effort, along with the district, to close the AFrican-American – white high school graduation gap, I was surprised a recent article published in the Atlantic give not give the CFT a lot of credit. Turns out the person who wrote the Atlantic article had not visited Cincy.
Since I don’t live in Bridgeport, I don’t have any additional information. Do you?
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And what does a mayoral-appointed school board represent, if not the predictable, destructive policies of charter expansion, public school closings and attacks on teachers that are so dear to your funder’s hearts and wallets?
On a more positive note, it’s a delicious irony to see a so-called reformer complain about unfair media coverage, since public school educators have had to withstand many years of slander and libel by your masters and their media loudspeakers.
Ah, but now the pendulum is starting to swing back, and panic is starting to well up among the education privateers, who increasingly can no longer sustain their lies.
That’s the problem with lies, Joe: once you start telling them, it’s impossible to keep track of them all, and their contradictions begin to make the gears of the machine seize up.
By all means, keep on flailing: while your investors may not be getting their money’s worth, it’s a spectacle some of us public school educators and supporters enjoy watching.
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Like you, just seeking accurate coverage.
Returning to the original thrust of this thread, the local paper quotes the successful campaign manager as saying this election was primarily about the issue of the mayor appointing a school board.
Spinning things is one of the criticism that is sometimes made of people trying to improve schools.
Every day parents and educators ask for our help. I was at a local (district) public school 2 nights ago at their request – and caught a district administrator in a mis-statement of the truth. The educators and parents at the meeting thought this was useful.
Some of us have had many frustrating battles with central office administrators. My sense is that if I understand it, you are a union leader. So perhaps also you have encountered frustrations to district administrators.
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Indeed, my colleagues and I have experienced much frustration with district leadership, in recent years because of their slavish, often sadistic adherence to so-called reformers’ mandates, pushed by your funders and their ilk.
Part of the Big Lie of so-called education reform is that those who oppose the hostile takeover of public education do not seek to address the many real shortcomings in the public schools. But real reform is the kind long spoken of by Diane and others: smaller classes, an enriched curriculum, expanded social and medical services, and changes in the labor markets that would allow everyone to earn a living wage.
Precisely the things so-called reformers have tried to banish from the discourse with their “No Excuses” authoritarianism.
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As noted, Michael, there is a lot of agreement in the solutions suggested about smaller class sizes, teacher empowerment, sharing facilities with social service agencies, etc. This is part, for example of what empowered teachers have done in Boston (district) pilot schools, New Vision (district) public schools, including the 8 small schools in the NYC Julia Richman complex and in many charter public schools.
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If Joe Nathan were as ready as Diane to review old ideas that didn’t work, it would be nice. The word “sadistic” is a nice way of describing the whole school closing then opening a charter attack on communities. Here in Chicago, I have seen a lot of tears — and children begging for a little consideration — now that the charter hoax has escalated into an all-out attack on the real public schools and the communities we served through them. (I say “we” because during my 28 years in Chicago teaching, those are the schools I taught in and the communities I worked to serve…).
I remember when Joe came to Chicago with a trunkload of “Free to Teach” and we talked. That was 20 years ago, when it was possible he had a small but good idea about charters. By the end of the 20th Century, however, the idea was a cynical — indeed sadistic — attack on the children and our schools.
Year after year, as I covered the hearings on school closings (and the slick marketing packages leading to charter openings in the same community, but excluding the hardest kids and families, as Diane has written and all of us have exposed) I heard children get up and promise to “study harder” and “do better” but…
please don’t close my school and fire my teachers…
Sadistic is the only word that applies.
Those who still promote charters not only owe all of us — and in Chicago that’s thousands of teachers and kids — an apology, but a career change to work to end the Hoax of the charter alternative as it actually exists in 2013.
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What’s happening in Chicago is unfortunately a continuation of the tragedy that’s been going on with Chicago public schools for literally decades – well before the charter public school movement started.
Yes, George and I talked and he shared his deep frustration with the district – as did many other teachers and parents – well before the charter movement began. Our first conversation was almost 10 years before the first charter law was approved.
George may not know this but I’ve strongly promoted the Boston (district) Pilot schools program and the NYC New Visions schools, both great example of teacher empowerment with existing school districts (not charters).
The charter movement has played out in a variety of places. Some well, some badly.
In some places, the charter movement has given classroom teachers the chance to create schools where teachers are a majority of members of the board of directors. There’s a network of such schools, some district, some charter.
http://www.edvisions.com/custom/SplashPage.asp
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He is setting certain highs schools up for failure, so they can be taken over. He was supposed to have state control first. That’s why he came in, but that fell through. The next play was mayoral control and that fell through, even with a special appearance of the second Mr. Kevin Rhee, the one with a liking for teen girls. They tried for control of the BOE with handpicked mayoral stooges, and that fell through.
They moved the furniture from the high school mentioned above to new magnet school planned well before he came, but it opened this year. Students in this high school cafeteria were siting on the floor for lunch since they took all their tables and chairs. He has reduced guidance counselors for high schools. People resign all the time and he doesn’t replace them. The positions are gone. He hired many, many TFA’s this year and teachers who graduated from state universities with education certification were passed over. One principal even told a candidate he would like to hire her, but they are being told they must hire the temporary scabs, not his words, but mine. He turned one “failing” school over to a charter management chain. Of course, they they had oodles of money and extra staff and up to date supplies and technology. Before they had very little….in CT you get “saved” if you let the charter brigade take over.
He is the master of spin. He takes credit for everything he can twist as positive; he blames teachers and unions for his own failures. He didn’t need to open a charter; he just has them managed by charters and calls them turnarounds. It’s all a word game.
One way or another the edufrauds days are numbered. Read here and then the full post by Hugh Bailey.
I will post below so it doesn’t run in a narrow column. He’s the real deal when it comes to the shysters of Ed deform. Don’t be fooled Joe.
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And by the way, Joe, just because Vallas says it, doesn’t make if true.
He would take responsibility for the sun rising and setting if you let him. Don’t be so naive.
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One of the reasons why this Bridgeport and Vallas thing is important is that Vallas is almost a metaphor for much of the corruption and craziness of corporate school reform going all the way back to the birthing of it here in Chicago before Barack Obama was even a cleverly ambitious Illinois State Senator.
One of the crazier things about Paul Vallas (and the guy is crazy, as anyone who had to deal with him for any time learned) is that he makes up “facts.” And he does it faster than anyone in past years could challenge them. (Today, even Rahm Emanuel has trouble with that trick, since anyone can get to the Internet quickly via a phone). So as Vallas pioneered corporate “school reform” in Chicago after 1995, there was still some room for a lot of creativity.
Lots of tales emerged quickly about how Vallas acted when he had power over people. He was doing this “Watch me fire somebody…” stuff long before Michelle Rhee reveled in it for John Merrow. It was part of the CEO thingy.
Like a lot of Donald Trump types, Vallas was also nasty to underlings while slavishly courting overlings.
Once he had the power to humiliate his underlings in Chicago by “F – bombing” some of the most modest among them, or cleaning his toes during a meeting with his staff, he slowly became more and more bold and self-aggrandizing.
Even the people who were committed to the same program with Vallas had to be careful when around him. During the Vallas years, Gery Chico and Vallas used to host a monthly press briefing at Chico’s law office overlooking downtown Chicago. One time, Vallas was lying about how “everybody knows” that before Vallas, Chico and mayoral control CPS was graduating “valedictorians who couldn’t read…” When we challenged that for sourcing, they said, “Well Ros [Rossi] reported it in the Sun-Times”. Ros, who was sitting there, said I DID NOT!
So they went on to the next “everybody knows…” nonsense, until we stopped them and demanded the sourcing for that claim about the “failure” of CPS before the advent of mayoral control and corporate reform. They finally referred us to Vallas’s aide Cozette (at the time “Chief of Staff”) and she eventually supplied us with propaganda from three of the most corrupt examples of “journalism” in Chicago — John Kass, Jacqueline Heard, and the Chicago Tribune editorial board.
The way it hit was this. The Tribune ran a story when a kid went to Malcolm X College and complained to reporters (who were looking for further proof that Chicago’s schools were “America’s Worst” following that verdict form William Bennett) that she had to take remedial courses. The child, who was a very special special needs child, told the reporters that she had graduated from Orr High School with “honors” a few years earlier. That was just one of many examples of how we got sucker punched by those on the attack against real public schools.
For a few years, as some remember, many of us were providing extra positive reinforcement to kids in EMH and TMH classes. So there would two “graduations” with honors. The EMH kids could get a special ed diploma that said “Honors.”
When Vallas blindsided us with that nonsense we finally got the sourcing from Cozette. Kass and Heard had reported, based on the kid’s family’s version of the graduation, that she had been an “honors” student. Maybe someone even said “valedictorian.” The Tribune reported it as another example of the collapse of standards in Chicago’s (“Worst In America”) public schools.
But the guess what was this.
The principal of Orr High School (a friend of mine at the time) contacted the reporters and told them the truth, asking only that the story be corrected with some sensitivity for the family (which really didn’t get how special those “honors” were).
Instead of reporting the story in context, Kass, Heard, and the Tribune’s editorial board pushed the story way beyond its original telling, even going so far as to editorialize about the scandal.
Without ever mentioning the truth.
Vallas was a master of the oversimplification and the silly one liner. When challenged for facts, he would make something up and then try to get away — he’s always VERY VERY BUSY…
It worked for a time in Chicago, as we reported. Eventually, though, his ego grew so large that he began not only humiliating his underlings (he seemed to take special pleasure in talking pseudo-tough around church ladies who worked under him) but making fun of the guy who had created the whole Vallas Show: Richard M. Daley, our mayor.
By early 2001, the word had gotten back to Daley that Vallas was mocking him behind his back. Daley was easy in some ways to parody, but he was also a very astute politician who knew how to count votes and dollars and who also knew that he had friends (thanks to his own stuff and his family) in every ward (and possible on every block) in Chicago.
By April 2001, Vallas was mocking Daley behind his back and lying to him to his face. In April 2001, Vallas told Daley that the opposition candidate in the Chicago Teachers Union election had “no chance.” Then Vallas doubled down and told Crain’s Chicago Business that he was supporting the incumbent in the union election, Tom Reece.
When the votes were counted, Reece was out of office and the CTU, as of July 1, 2001, had a new president, the “reformer” Deborah Walsh (who quickly changed her name to Lynch).
The same day Lynch took office, Vallas was out of office. Aren Duncan replaced him as CEO, by appointment of Daley.
Vallas had already been planning his political future, but told the press that he needed some rest after six years of leading “reform” and that maybe he’d play some ball with his sons and all that family values stuff. (I told people at the time that I hoped his kids didn’t get out the gloves and the hopes to see more of their egomaniacal Daddy…).
No sooner had that summer ended than Vallas got the “call” to run for Governor of Illinois. But that required that Vallas first win the Democratic Party primary. Which is when he made up all that stuff for his resume that we investigated and proved false in early 2002.
After Vallas was crushed in Illinois politics, his national sponsors in the corporate media and right wing political circles took up his cause. First, he got to undermine Philadelphia, thanks to Tom whats his name, the governor who first foisted corporate reform on Philly. When Vallas’s lies and corruptions there became too much, they handed him New Orleans, fresh from the destruction of the United Teachers of New Orleans, the largest and most powerful union of mostly black members in Louisiana. The plutocracy has taken care of him from Haiti to Chile and now to Bridgeport. But the guy’s craziness hasn’t changed. Once he told people his favorite movie was “Patton,” about another crazy CEO type. But the difference between the World War II general and Paul Vallas was that Patton actually had to prove his worth in battle, whereas Vallas was always a fraud. But sometimes when I’d go to cover the Vallas shows, I’d hum the “Patton” theme tune just for fun.
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Thank you for the background that those of us in the Chicago area (I) didn’t even know.
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The author of the Atlantic article may not have gotten everything correct, but overall, the article is accurate. Vallas, who lies constantly and constitutionally (just ask George Schmidt about Vallas’s phony claims to having been a teacher), might state that he has not “closed a single public school, [nor] opened a single charter”–but through a devil’s deal with the CT state Commissioner of education, Stefan Pryor, Vallas has handed over–without the legally mandated School Governance Council input–at least one school to a charter school management company… & more are in the pipeline. Vallas may not have “laid off a single teacher”, but teachers have either left in droves or retired prematurely to avoid the evisceration of public education.
It was not merely a vote against Vallas–Vallas represents the state takeover (deemed unconstitutional by the CT Supreme court), privatization, and other neo-liberal assaults on public education.
So, Joe Nathan, you are bragging about Cincinnati? The district that the uber-reformer, Chester-Finn-following Steven Adamowski helped to ruin? Were you part of that?
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It will come as considerable surprise to the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, a number of AFrican American Ministers and others that Cincinnati was “ruined.” In fact it has been widely hailed by a variety of people who don’t like the charter idea as an example of what a public school district can do.
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Do you mean after Cincinnati was put back on Academic Emergency status 5 months after Adamowski left? Or after the worst school, an Appalachian charter school (leave it to Adamowski to think up ever new ways to segregate) was finally shut down?
I don’t have to look at the Cincinnati miracle, especially a miracle that touted higher HS graduation rates–because we in Connecticut have seen how Adamowski did THAT sleight of hand in Hartford (the Cincinnati rates collapsed under a new definition, not that I think that urban schools, with high student mobility, should be held to the exact definition of graduation rate that stable suburban school systems manage; nor should students be held responsible for being uprooted and living in uncertainty and poverty). Credit recovery programs, handily online, are a boon to the mercenary school administrator who knows that the students can use their phone or open a tab and get all the answers to the tests–then pass and graduate–slam dunk!
But, as long as there are ed reformers selling their snake oil and enforcers like Vallas and Adamowski forcing them on underfunded, distressed school districts, we will have the dual–and dueling–versions of success and failure.
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Actually, the progress in Cincinnati continued long after Adamowski left – thanks to great work by teachers, families, students, teacher union leaders and members, business and community groups.
Here’s a brief summary by a liberal think tank in Minnesota.
http://www.growthandjustice.org/facts.fixes/education/success/cincinnati
We worked with the district from 2000-2008 – there were three supts after Adamowski while I was there – but the teachers and principals in schools, as well as other partners, did not let that bother them – they kept at it.
It’s true that after ODE developed a new formula, the graduation rate declined.
But I’m in favor of giving credit to people like the Cincinnati Federation of Teacher leadership, many great community members and district teachers, some high school principals and most important – the students.
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Adamowski and his sales pitch: This school shall improve, results guaranteed or your money back! http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20111016/EDIT01/110160362/A-school-reform-experiment-went-too-long
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Where oh where did Joe go?
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I believe it was Vallas who did not have the minimum qualifications for this position in CT. I know if lived in Bridgeport, that would be a major factor in how I would vote.
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He is also big into teacher evaluation and school accountability by test scores.
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It’s all about saving Paul and preserving his reputation. The kids are props to bolster his ego and protect his image: CT post oped:
The votes against entrenched powers in the city were about much more than the superintendent. Still, the special treatment afforded him to get around certification laws makes an easy stand-in for the kind of cronyism voters are tired of.
The day Vallas leaves is the last day most Bridgeport residents will ever think about him, because the city will still have the same underfunded school district and social problems it had before he got here. That’s been the story with miracle-working school reformers from the beginning.
Vallas, meanwhile, will almost certainly find some other well-paying job. But he’d rather leave on his own terms than be fired or ruled ineligible.
His supporters know he’s leaving — or should, if they’re listening to him. And yet the city is spending tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to defend him at the Supreme Court, all for the sake of what will likely amount to another few months on the job.
The more factors that mount against him, and the greater lengths to which the city goes in ensuring he exits on his own terms, the more it looks like it’s the pride and reputation of Paul Vallas on the line rather than the well-being of Bridgeport students.
The sooner he leaves, the sooner the city can get to work on finding someone committed, long term, to doing the job.
http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Hugh-Bailey-School-leader-s-time-is-running-short-4830931.php?cmpid=twitter
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From Diane Ravitch….get the book Joe, check the library:
“Genuine school reform must be built on hope, not fear; on encouragement, not threats; on inspiration, not compulsion; on trust, not carrots and sticks; on belief in the dignity of the human person, not a slavish devotion to data; on support and mutual respect, not a regime of punishment and blame. To be lasting, school reform must rely on collaboration and teamwork among students, parents, teachers, principals, administrators and local communities.”
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It must also reflect serious societal committment by funding the schools with enough tax dollars rather than using them to fund wars and non-trickle down tax breaks for corporate America employers, such as WalMart, etc.
It must also involve the reduction of poverty OUTSIDE the school system, AND it must reform teacher education to be more rigorous, intellecutal, scholarly, and one with a much longer practicum. . . . .
I think these measures long with Diane’s position make for completion in true, virtuous reform . . . .
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Agree 100%
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