35 reasons why democrats who care about justice in the public schools should vote for …

Anybody but Vallas

By Sharon Schmidt
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Before casting their ballots for the Democratic candidate for governor on March 19, Illinois voters ought to consider what Paul G. Vallas actually did for the Chicago public schools.
The following are examples of some of the damage that Vallas did during the six years he was “Chief Executive Officer” of Chicago’s public schools.

1. Union busting. Vallas cut Board of Education union jobs by privatizing as many board services as possible. Instead of continuing to pay board employees — custodians, lunchroom workers and tradesmen — for routine work, expensive private contractors and consultants were hired instead. Vallas also privatized after school programs by contracting with outside companies instead of paying teachers their hourly wages for test prep classes and other programs. Ashley’s Cleaning Service, Kinkos printing and Kaplan Test Prep, among many others, reaped lucrative contracts. Over 1,000 board employees were fired. The wages and benefits of the private companies’ employees were cut for doing the same job as the former board employees, even where union workers were still used.

2. Oracle fiasco. Vallas dumped an old, but viable, in-house computer system and software package and replaced them with new programs, machines, and personnel supplied by Oracle Corporation. More than six years and $100 million later, the new system is still largely inoperative and staff morale has sunk to rock bottom among both computer staff and the would-be users.

3. Arthur Andersen no-bid contracts. Vallas allowed Arthur Andersen to replace in-house printers, budget analysts, auditors, and numerous other board personnel via non-competitively bid consultant contracts that were costly and ineffectual. The total cost is over $10 million.

4. The closing of the Board of Education’s print shop. Vallas closed a full-service, in-house printing plant at the former board headquarters. Since the privatization of the board’s printing, millions of dollars have been spent on outside, private, non-union companies for day to day printing (to Kinko's and Andersen, for example) that could have been done more cheaply and quickly by the Board. Vallas gave away the print shop equipment, which included preprinters, binders, and a 25-inch Heidelberg press to various city agencies. High schools with print shops were denied the equipment. As a result of privatization, 12 highly-skilled union workers (printers, binders and typographers) were laid off.

5. Unnecessary move of school system’s central office headquarters. Vallas moved the Chicago public schools’ central office from one location at 1819 W. Pershing Road to eight sites that stretch from the Loop to Julian High School. In spite of the large number of sites, many office spaces are cramped and overcrowded, especially 125 S. Clark St., because Vallas increased the bureaucracy more rapidly than he acquired the property to house the administrators. The moves cost taxpayers over $100 million when time lost, repairs and modifications to the new sites are added to the cost of the properties.

6. Inequitable spending on capital developments. Vallas rewarded wealthy, white neighborhoods on the Northside and in the Gold Coast and South Loop with new, expensive school buildings and community recreation centers. Many poorer, minority neighborhoods with severely overcrowded classrooms and dilapidated school buildings are still waiting for relief. The $3 billion capital development program was the most mismanaged and corrupt in the history of Chicago’s public schools.

7. Wasteful spending on unnecessary and ugly wrought iron fences. Vallas neglected hundreds of schools’ serious capital development needs, such as overcrowding and leaking roofs, and spent millions on unnecessary and ugly wrought iron fences.

8. Bloated bureaucracy. Vallas increased the school system’s central office bureaucracy. Vallas doubled the number of lawyers in the law department. He increased the budget of the “Office of Communications” from approximately $500,000 per year to $4 million, but reduced the amount of public information available to the press and public. Vallas and his lieutenants invented the offices of “Accountability” and “School and Community Relations.” Both of these enormously expensive offices are used to house large patronage armies, including relatives of prominent politicians. Finally, the Vallas administration sprinkled unqualified political appointees from City Hall throughout the school system in patronage jobs that pay between $50,000 and $125,000 per year. Chicago now has more political patronage in its school system than at any time in its history — including the scandalous days during the 1930s and 1940s when the system almost lost its accreditation because of patronage and corruption.

9. Taxpayer money spent on “bonuses” for public employees. Vallas awarded $1,500 to $5,000 bonuses to 19 of the highest paid administrators in the schools’ central office, in late 1996. In the years that followed, hundreds of administrators received extra payments which Vallas covered up in violation of Illinois Freedom of Information laws.

10. Wasteful spending on consultants. Vallas awarded millions of dollars in contracts to universities, private corporations and individuals to be “external partners” to schools Vallas placed on academic probation. Probation was due solely to schools’ Iowa and TAP scores. The money spent on these patronage programs came out of the same funds that could have been used to lower class size, raise teacher pay, provide schools with additional security and safety, or improve early childhood education.

11. Misuse and overuse of standardized tests. Vallas used the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (elementary schools) and TAP tests (high schools) for “accountability” of the teaching and learning of the curriculum. Nationally normed tests such as the TAP and Iowa are not supposed to be used for these purposes, according the tests’ publishers and the most prestigious academic leaders in the United States, men and women who study and comment on testing as part of their lifelong professional work.

12. Grade retention and summer school based solely on test scores. Vallas used Iowa test scores on reading and math to retain students in grade, regardless of many students’ passing grades, good attendance and teacher recommendations. This policy, which was condemned by national testing experts, undermined the authority of the teachers and local schools and led to the era of “teacher bashing” which is still going on.

13. Harmful educational practices. Vallas flunked over 50,000 Chicago students. Research shows that retention leads to greater academic failure, higher levels of dropping out, greater behavioral difficulties, poor attendance, negative attitudes toward school and feelings of shame and depression.

14. Discrimination. Vallas discriminated against African Americans and Hispanics. His testing and retention policy had “a negative disparate impact on minority students,” according the U.S. Dept. of Education Office of Civil Rights.

15. Sacrifice of low scoring students to show rise in test scores. Vallas removed students from elementary and high school because of low test scores and warehoused them in separate and unequal “academic preparatory centers” (known from ’96 to ’99 as “transition centers”). One study showed that Chicago high schools had 10,000 fewer students by 2000 than would have happened had the retention policies not created a generation of junior high dropouts. Chicago now has children dropping out of school between 6th, 7th and 8th grade because of the Vallas policies.

16. The scapegoating of educators and the increase in what became known as “teacher bashing.” Vallas blamed teachers and principals in (non-magnet, non-wealthy, racially segregated) neighborhood schools for their “below average” student test scores. These schools were then placed on “probation,” “reconstitution,” “intervention” and “re-engineering.” Vallas’ appointees removed six principals and 188 teachers from their schools in 1997 under “reconstitution.” Vallas removed five more principals under “intervention” in 2000. Other principals and other administrators with long and distinguished careers of service to Chicago’s children were driven into early retirement by Vallas’s personal attacks on them. Vallas punished teachers and principals who chose to work with the neediest and lowest scoring children.

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