Paul Vallas, the former chief executive of Chicago Public Schools and currently a Democratic contender for Illinois governor, visited Kingsley Elementary School on Thursday to test out his recently announced education plan with local school officials.
Vallas met with Evanston/Skokie School District 65 Superintendent Hardy Ray Murphy, Kingsley Principal Michael Martin and District 202 school board member Elizabeth Tisdahl. Tisdahl attended the meeting as a supporter of Vallas’ campaign.
The keystone of Vallas’ education plan, which he announced Wednesday, is to increase state funding to schools by as much as 5 percent per student every year.
Instead of increasing taxes, Vallas said he would use state revenue growth – which he said averaged $1.2 billion annually in the past six years – to fund schools. But he has not yet announced which parts of the state budget he would cut in order to set aside revenue growth for schools.
Murphy praised Vallas for his education program.
“He’s an accomplished educator,” Murphy said. “It’s encouraging for a candidate to put forward creative solutions.”
Martin echoed Murphy’s enthusiasm for Vallas, citing the candidate’s positions on accountability, testing, funding, technology and reforms to the state board of education. Martin said such issues are of great importance to educators across the state.
“All of his topics are really vital to educators as a community,” Martin said.
In addition to his funding proposals, Vallas said he would like for the Illinois State Board of Education to become a more active partner with school districts. The state board could be a clearinghouse for strategies to improve school performance, he said.
“Let the state board become the R&D center,” he said. “Let them make the best models (for teaching) available to schools.”
Vallas also spoke to D65 officials about state-mandated testing, saying he would halt it until the state overhauled its system. Illinois currently uses the Illinois Standards Achievement Test, which Vallas said is ineffective and fails to diagnose the causes of low scores.
For example, many of Chicago’s low-scoring schools actually show sizable improvements every year but are designated “failing” by the state, he said.
Vallas said he would send groups of retired teachers and principals to low-scoring schools to analyze problems and suggest solutions – “so you have a team helping the school that is not that far-removed from the classroom itself.”
Vallas also said he would encourage programs to link new teachers with mentors and strengthen requirements for further training of veteran teachers, which was a problem in Chicago Public Schools.
“Our biggest problem was that there are 20-year teachers who just resist professional development,” he said.
Vallas started his career as a teacher in the 1970s, moving on to hold various positions in state politics and government. He rejoined the education system in 1995 when Mayor Richard M. Daley appointed him to the newly created position of chief executive of Chicago Public Schools.
His charge: Rescue the notoriously failing school system.
In his six years as chief executive of the school district – the third-largest in the nation – Vallas initiated top-down reforms in areas ranging from curriculum to teaching methods to school funding. During his tenure the district balanced its budget and raised more than $3 billion for school construction without raising property taxes, Vallas said.
Vallas resigned from his post in June. His departure came after the release of several negative reports for the district – including declining high school and elementary test scores and a report from Northwestern Prof. Alfred Hess issued in March that showed teaching in Chicago’s lowest-performing high schools had not improved since 1997.
