Here is an excellent account of the reasons that a judge in Connecticut ruled that Paul Vallas was not uplifted to serve as superintendent of the Bridgeport public schools. Each of the districts where he previously served is in turmoil or crisis, including Chicago, Philadelphia, and the Recovery School District in Louisiana, which is the lowest performing in the state.
Archives for category: Vallas, Paul
Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis rendered a decision today ousting Bridgeport Superintendent Paul Vallas from his job because he lacked the legal qualifications under state law.
Jon Pelto has the decision on his blog here.
This is a startling turn of events. A group of citizens in Bridgeport sued to oust Bridgeport Superintendent Paul Vallas because he lacked the credentials specified in state law to be a superintendent. Vallas has been superintendent of schools in Chicago, Philadelphia, and the Recovery School District in New Orleans. The mayor of Bridgeport and the school board approved his contract.
But today Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis ruled that Vallas was unqualified and ordered his removal. Presumably, there will be an appeal.
As soon as I get more details, I will post them.
This is a quote from the judge’s decision: “Because Vallas did not complete a school leadership program, he was not entitled to a waiver of certification. The waiver he received on 6/17/13 is invalid. The court orders that Paul Vallas be removed from his office.”
Philadelphia is once again facing catastrophic budget cuts that threaten to gut public education.
Who is killing Philadelphia’s schools, asks journalist Daniel Denvir. Here is the sordid story.
The state has had control of the Philadelphia schools since 2002. It took control because of a budget deficit. The state School Reform Commission made the deficit worse.
Paul Vallas took over as superintendent and launched the nation’s most sweeping privatization plan. It failed. Vallas left the district with an even bigger deficit.
Now the School Reform Commission wants to have another go at privatization, even though a number of the city’s charters are under criminal investigation. The Mayor supports a pro-voucher group that has become increasingly vocal.
Governor Tom Corbett has slashed the state’s support for public schools. The state is threatening more cuts. Will public education survive in Philadelphia?
Does anyone have the nerve to say “it’s all for the kids”?
I posted a few days ago about a panel discussion in New York City where Paul Vallas made this startling statement: “We’re losing the communications game because we don’t have a good message to communicate.”
He spoke bluntly of the “testing industrial complex.”
Here Valerie Strauss briefly reviews Vallas’ role in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New Orleans, where testing and privatization were key elements of his reforms. It is difficult to see any of those districts today as a template for reform of the nation’s schools. Chicago is in dire straits, As is Philadelphia, and the only thing sustaining the myth of New Orleans is a massive disinformation campaign by the funders of privatization.
I know Paul Vallas and there was a time about a decade ago when I thought he was the most promising leader of school reform in the nation. I was impressed by his energy and his quick intellect.
Because he is so smart, I hold out hope that he might be the first of the “reform” A-team to see the light, as I did around 2005.
By his remarks at the forum cited in the links, he recognizes that teacher evaluation by formula is a mess. From his Philadelphia experience he may have learned that privatization is no solution. He inaugurated the nation’s most extensive experiment in privatization a decade ago, and it failed.
Now Vallas has another chance to get it right, this time in Bridgeport, Connecticut, a small district compared to his previous assignments.
Will he lead the way away from the failed status quo? Will he be first to renounce the failed status quo?
At a panel discussion in New York City, Bridgeport Superintendent Paul Vallas made a startling admission. He said that the efforts to develop a teacher evaluation metric was a huge mess and that no one understands it.
He said:
“The Bridgeport, Conn. superintendent — who has served stints in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New Orleans and earned a reputation as a turnaround consultant for struggling districts with big budget gaps — said reforms he backed were at risk of collapsing “under the weight of how complicated we’re making it.”
“We’re working on the evaluation system right now,” Vallas said of Bridgeport. “And I’ll tell you, it is a nightmare.” Vallas went further and said: ““We’re losing the communications game because we don’t have a good message to communicate,” he said. In separate comments, Vallas criticized evaluations as a “testing industrial complex” and “a system where you literally have binders on individual teachers with rubrics that are so complicated … that they’ll just make you suicidal.”
A nightmare, yes. A testing-industrial complex, yes.
Professor Audrey Amrein Beardsley at Arizona State has written extensively about teacher evaluation and in her most recent study–not yet published–she reports the results of a 50-state survey. Not a single state has figured out how to use the value-added data to help teachers, and–get this–in every state the formulae are so complex that no one understands them other than those who created them. And the billions invested in this nutty endeavor are supposed to improve education!
David Coleman, as is his wont, was provocative. “Coleman was perhaps the night’s most outspoken panelist, at one point suggesting that those who believe that poverty is an insurmountable obstacle to improving student achievement should offer to cut teacher salaries and redistribute those funds to the poor.”
Why would he suggest cutting teachers’ salaries to reduce poverty? Why not start with the billionaires? I don’t understand this comment or his logic at all. Do you?
Sarah Darer Littman wonders why some officials are not held accountable.
She points to the example of State Commissioner Stefan Pryor and Bridgeport Superintendent Paul Vallas, both of whom used ingenious ploys to avoid competitive bidding on contracts.
Shouldn’t accountability be applied uniformly for all public officials?
Jonathan Pelto reports that Connecticut State Commissioner Stefan Pryor, Paul Vallas, and the Bridgeport Board of Education are being sued for illegally hiring Superintendent Paul Vallas.
Pelto writes:
“The CTMirror story goes on to report, “State law requires all superintendents in Connecticut to be certified by the State Department of Education, which requires a candidate have a master’s degree plus 30 credits in courses relating to becoming a superintendent and eight years of teaching or administrative experience. These requirements can be waived for up to one year by the state’s education commissioner while the candidate completes an “educational leadership program” approved by the 11-person State Board of Education.”
“However, as Wait, What? readers know, when the five members of the Bridgeport Board of Education loyal to Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch voted to make Vallas the permanent superintendent and give him a three-year contract, Vallas had NOT completed his probationary period AND had NOT completed the mandated training program. In fact, he hadn’t even started the training program. Making matters worse, it appears the State Board of Education hasn’t even approved a training program that Vallas could take.”
Vallas, of course, served as superintendent in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New Orleans. But he does not have the credentials required by state law in Connecticut. He is in his 15th month as Bridgeport’s superintendent. The board voted 5-4 last month too extend his contract at $234,000 a year.
The law says that a board may hire a superintendent for one year who lacks the required credentials but no longer. One if the dissident board members warned that what they were doing was illegal.
Pelto followed up here with additional detail.
Bridgeport has a problem.
Stay tuned.
A report from Bridgeport, Connecticut:
Connecticut Working Families Party
30 Arbor Street, Suite 210, Hartford, CT 06106
(860) 523-1699 http://www.connecticutworkingfamilies.org
For an event occurring on
February 25th, 2013, 4 pm
Advisory – Parents Call on Bridgeport Board of Education not to renew Paul Vallas’ Contract as Superintendent
For more information contact Taylor Leake at (860) 670-1408 or tleake@workingfamilies.org.
Parents of students at schools run by corporate reformer Paul Vallas – including Bridgeport, Connecticut, where he is the current Interim Superintendent, and Chicago, where he was CEO of Public Schools from 1995 to 2001 – will speak out about the negative impact he has had on their children’s education. They will urge the Bridgeport Board of Education not to renew Vallas’ contract, which the Board is scheduled to vote on at the March 11th meeting.
Paul Vallas is paid a quarter-million dollars a year in a city where the average household income is barely an eighth of that – as a part time job. He is also paid exorbitant fees for consulting. He has a $1 million contract with the Illinois state department of Education, and a $18 million contract with the City of Indianapolis. He has awarded $13 million in no-bid contracts to his friends and former coworkers while demanding cuts to the schools. He has cut supply budgets in half, and run up huge legal bills.
** Press Conference to highlight Paul Vallas’ broken promises in Bridgeport **
What:
Parents of students at schools run by corporate reformer Paul Vallas speak out about his failings, and call on the Bridgeport Board of Education not to renew his contract as Interim Superintendent.
Who:
Gloria Warner, parent of Chicago public school student
JoAnn Kenedy, parent of 2 Bridgeport public school students
Former State Senator Ed Gomes
Sauda Baraka, Member of the Board of Education
Where:
Warren Harding High School
1734 Central Ave.
Bridgeport, CT 06610
When:
4 pm, February 25, 2013
###
The recent election in Bridgeport, Connecticut, was a major setback for corporate-style “reform” in that city.
The mayor launched a well-funded campaign to persuade voters to give up their democratic right to elect their school board and to give him control of the public schools.
Miraculously, despite his huge advantage in money and power, the mayor lost. The voters said no. Democracy won.
As Stamford attorney and civil rights advocate Wendy Lecker explains here, the state government has disregarded the message. Governor Dannell Malloy continues with his regime of high-stakes testing, school closings, nullification of local democracy, and privatization, carried out by State Commissioner of Education (and charter advocate) Stefan Pryor.
Diane Ravitch's blog 