Vallas’ claims about providing eyeglasses for
poor children brazenly rewrite history
By Sharon Schmidt
 A melodramatic radio
ad that began airing at the end of January rewrites the historical record
about Paul Vallas’ relationship with the Chicago Board of Education’s
vision testing and eyeglasses programs. The commercial claims:
“Vallas did things differently. One idea was to get every failing
student an eye exam. 30% failed. If a child can’t see the blackboard
how can we expect them to learn? Yet before Paul Vallas, no one thought
to check.”
Vallas fabricated this
story to promote his campaign. For generations, hearing and vision testers
have worked for the Chicago Public Schools. And the Chicago Teachers Union
and charitable groups have raised funds for eyeglasses for low-income
students since the Great Depression.
In fact, Vallas actually
cut the staff devoted to vision testing by 25 percent. When Vallas became
CEO in 1995, there were 69 Vision Screening and Audiometric Technicians
working for the school board. Within two years, he cut that number to
52.
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