Ex-Chicago schools chief still challenging the system

As chief executive officer of Chicago Public Schools, Paul Vallas developed a reputation as an unabashed reformer, unafraid to ruffle feathers.

Vallas, now superintendent of the Recovery School District of New Orleans, hasn't lost his penchant for speaking truth to power, or at least public school power, as he demonstrated during a recent speech in DeKalb sponsored by Northern Illinois University's College of Education.

Addressing a room full of education majors, Vallas said public schools "really needed to push alternative certification … . We've got to expand the pool of talent."

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That is, he told students working toward their teaching degrees that the degree shouldn't be a prerequisite to teach -- an idea that is anathema to most teachers unions and teaching schools.

Vallas followed that jab with a school reform double-punch, touting the teacher corps program Teach for America, which targets students from elite colleges to teach in the country's most challenging schools. Teach for America doesn't recruit education majors and doesn't recruit from teaching colleges on the premise that content mastery is more important than learning education theory.

Teaching colleges are among the program's harshest critics. But Vallas has relied heavily on Teach for America to beef up New Orleans' depleted teaching ranks.

Teach for America recruits "come in with content mastery, energy and work ethic," Vallas said. "I'm not saying old teachers don't have that, but we want new teachers coming in with an optimism about their ability to help educate inner-city kids."

Vallas has long been willing to take on the education establishment, though he emphasizes he's no corporate reformer bent on busting up public institutions. He began his career as a teacher, later serving as policy director for the Illinois Senate and then budget director for the city of Chicago.

Vallas earned accolades -- and plenty of enemies -- for reforms he instituted in Chicago and Philadelphia, where he was superintendent of schools for six years before being recruited to New Orleans.

In New Orleans, Vallas faces a wholly different challenge, as Hurricane Katrina largely decimated an already broken school system.

That's the bad news -- and the good news, he said.

"The hurricane destroyed all of the institutional obstacles," Vallas said. "We can build a district from the ground up #8230; and build it right."

Post-Katrina, New Orleans schools were left without a set curriculum or administration -- or a collective bargaining agreement.

With that freedom, Vallas added an hour to the school day, decreased class sizes, bumped teacher pay and increased academic rigor.

He tested and evaluated returning teachers, and replaced those who didn't make the grade.

"We gave all teachers a test that was equivalent to a sixth- or seventh-grade test," Vallas said. "Believe me when I say a lot of individuals who tested did not pass that test."

Vallas has turned to the private sector to meet many of the district's needs, a controversial strategy he also employed in Philadelphia and to a lesser extent, Chicago.

Charter schools now make up about 25 percent of public schools in New Orleans. Charters are public schools, yet exempt from many state and local laws, and run by private organizations.

Vallas plans to enlist the KIPP Foundation, which runs a national network of charter schools, to provide leadership training for New Orleans principals.

The goal, he said, is for all schools to operate like charters, which can experiment and adapt to student needs because they work outside the traditional system.

A district's central office should take a hands-off approach and focus primarily on accountability, professional development and curriculum, Vallas said.

"I want to give schools free latitude for everything else," he said.

Principals will have the power to select their own staff, lengthen the school day or year, establish programs for struggling students, and make day-to-day operating decisions, Vallas said.

Few local principals have the freedom Vallas envisions for school leaders in New Orleans.

But other Vallas initiatives mirror changes taking place in school districts across the suburbs.

"After 20 years of reform, there's not much new under the sun," he said.

Like Vallas, suburban school officials have increased emphasis on early childhood education, parent involvement, data-driven instruction and standards-based curriculum.

The biggest challenge, Vallas said, is keeping up with a fast-changing world -- a world that asks more and more of schools.

"We're training students for an economy that we have not yet lived in," Vallas said. "The challenge is really to make adjustments."