August 26-September 1, 2004

cover story

Lesson Plans

Schools CEO Paul Vallas will announce a sweeping new education-reform package next week. But are his goals realistic?

by Amy L. Webb

Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Philadelphia is a city of declaratives. Thomas Jefferson drafted his famous manifesto here, declaring independence from Britain. In 2002, a global conference of doctors and lawyers meeting at Penn declared their support of Africans living with HIV/AIDS and wrote a public document on reform. And when a national magazine named Philly the country's fattest metropolis five years ago, Mayor John Street declared a new diet policy, complete with mandates, goals and a new weight-loss initiative.

The latest Philadelphia declaration affects public schools, during a time when national education policy is being debated by presidential candidates and test scores everywhere are failing to pass muster. The charge is being led by school district CEO Paul Vallas and the School Reform Commission (SRC), who argue that now is the time for radical change.

Many in the district say they trust Vallas to bring Philly schools success. He thwarted privatization in 2002, just as Edison Schools Inc., a private education firm, was about to take control. He balanced the budget for the first time in seven years and put into effect a series of five-year plans to guarantee money for textbooks and computers. And Vallas' standardized-test goals brought district numbers up by more than 10 percent last year after nearly a decade of declining scores.

But some argue that Vallas' grand experiments have moved ahead too quickly, without taking into account potential consequences. They cite the 60,000 kids — nearly a third of all public school students — who spent their vacations in summer school and the 38 kindergartners who were suspended for disruptive behavior. Teachers are unhappy with a new policy to allow principals to select their own teaching staffs, effectively ending a long tradition of seniority promotions. For students who fail their classes, their only options now are to bring their scores up — or repeat the entire academic year until they make the grade.

Next week, Vallas and the SRC will lead a rally to declare a new mega-reform package, one that will enforce strict academic standards, require safe schools, mandate better-qualified teachers and involve parents in their children's educations, like it or not.

"Kids have multiple problems that need to be addressed," Vallas says. "You've got to do everything you can to level the playing field. Some people will say we should concentrate on one or two things only, that we're pushing too many reforms at once. No. You need to be able to work on multiple fronts at the same time. And I have high expectations for Philadelphia."

While everyone else was down the shore, Vallas and the SRC drafted their "Declaration of Education," arguably the most ambitious reform package in the city's history. On Mon., Aug. 30, teachers, administrators, parents and their children will march, before national news media, from the school district building on the Parkway to Eakins Oval, where they'll make like America's founders and sign a document that promises freedom from the tyranny of an oppressive ruler — in this case, an ever-failing public education system.

The declaration acknowledges the school district's inadequacies: Philly children are far behind their peers on high school graduation rates, standardized tests and discipline. For years the district lost money, and still today many classrooms lack basic teaching equipment such as calculators and current maps. District teachers could be better trained with higher qualifications, but in the past it was difficult just to find teachers to work in this city. Many of the schools are not safe, and students face violence inside their classrooms almost every day.

It also lists five main beliefs:

• All children, regardless of their backgrounds, can learn at high levels

• All children can achieve their own learning potentials

• Schools have an enormous impact on children's lives

• Schools can and should be safe environments

• District administration can reach high-performing levels

Late last month, Vallas and the SRC chairman, James Nevels, sent a letter to parents, teachers and businesses that announced the plan and the rally. Acknowledging that it is attempting "the impossible," both men vowed to turn "the troubled Philadelphia school system into a national model of academic achievement and efficiency; a shining beacon of critical thought and learning that produces daring leaders and deep thinkers. The promise of a thorough and efficient education means that every child must be given every tool to achieve their highest potential — no exceptions and no excuses."

HEAD OF THE CLASS: Before the end of last school year, Vallas talked to two students from the Meade School about the state of the school district. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

To that end, Philadelphia students will be required to meet very strict academic standards, many of which follow the controversial No Child Left Behind Act, which was instituted by President George W. Bush in 2001. During this election campaign, NCLB has been criticized by the Democrats for requiring schools to enact sweeping changes without enough federal money, while Republicans say that never before has a president attempted to fix America's broken schools.

But even before the election, NCLB was under review by teachers and legal scholars — teachers argue that they can't dramatically improve test scores overnight, while lawyers say that the act has no teeth because it's up to each individual state to determine the specific standards. As it happens, Pennsylvania has chosen to set those standards very, very high.

To Vallas, it's not a question of how to implement the act, but what to do with all the new data sets. "The fundamental component of the No Child Left Behind Act is the disaggregation of data," which means that it's now possible to pinpoint every child's scores by age, gender and race, Vallas says. This helps administrators better tailor curriculum and teaching methods. "You can't argue with that," Vallas says. "This way you get strong accountability and schools improve every year."

From now on, the entire district must meet the state and federal standards for NCLB — right now, only 22 percent are in compliance — and at least 80 percent of all students must perform at or above their grade level in math and science. Currently, more than 70 percent are below grade level for both. At least 85 percent of all students entering kindergarten will have participated in a formal preschool and at least 80 percent of all third-graders must be able to read at their grade level or above — right now, less than 45 percent do. The declaration promises a jump in the high school graduation rate, from 60 percent to 85 percent by 2008.

To some extent, Vallas and Nevels think that restructuring the city's education system can effect some of the change. For example, all public elementary and middle schools will be converted to K-8 schools over the next four years. This will involve the closure of at least 14 schools (to be named later) and affect several hundred students, though Vallas says that nearly three-quarters of the city's public schools are currently underpopulated. When he was chief of Chicago's schools, Vallas instituted a similar program to cut class sizes and insulate younger students.

"Middle schools don't work because kids aren't ready," Vallas says. "In the large urban areas, middle schools are fed by too many elementary schools. Kids aren't ready to leave after fifth grade. Suddenly, they move from the tranquillity of an elementary school to a four-story building with new people who are entering puberty. Suddenly the defense mechanisms take over. With a K-8 model, they know the teachers and the teachers know the kids. The role models are eighth-graders. Younger kids don't have to compete to survive."

The declaration promises safe schools, arguing that the eradication of discipline problems will help kids to learn. The district and the SRC therefore plan to institute a new Safe School Audit that every school in the district must pass annually. The district also plans survey people working in and attending schools, with the goal of at least 95 percent of those polled reporting that they feel safe. To that end, there will be 2,000 parents stationed at schools throughout the district every weekday, manning help desks and added support to staff.

Vallas wants to assign a police officer to every one of the district's 276 public schools. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson has said in the past that it was not prudent to place a police officer in every school. He now says he has not committed any officers to the school district.

Vallas also lacks the backing of Mayor Street, but he hopes city officials will eventually accept his plan. "Security is a fact of life," he says. "In 1995 when I became CEO of Chicago Public Schools, there were 22,000 guns confiscated. I am an advocate for having uniformed police officers in every school. You don't have them patrolling the hallways, but having that police car outside the school is a detractor. They have a stabilizing effect. Obviously, there is objection to this. I understand the mayor's reservations. You just have to take precautions. You can do so in a way that doesn't turn the school into a fortress."

Vallas also wants to push through a new initiative to allow principals to handpick the teachers for their schools. Now, the city's worst schools tend to get teachers with the least amount of experience because those with seniority can choose their school — and they tend to select better areas of town.

"I think that principals should be able to pick teachers, but that schools should have education committees that help the selection process," he says. "I'm not talking about a principal being able to move someone at will. I think that people have some right to job security, particularly if you're doing a good job. This way, we'll have good teachers in all schools." But that doesn't free principals to just hire all their friends — Vallas has removed 71 principals since he started.

That Vallas wants to radically transform education policy in Philadelphia may not come as a surprise — he's spent the past 25 years trying to fix failing schools.

Vallas never saw himself as the CEO of a school system. The son of a Greek restaurateur, Vallas grew up in the far-west Chicago suburb of Rosemont. He went to high school and attended Greek religious school at night to learn about his heritage and the Greek language. He's always been a numbers man — Vallas loves baseball (the White Sox, not the Cubs) because of the statistics. Eventually, Vallas wanted do analysis for the government as a policy wonk.

In 1979, he started working for the Illinois state legislature, and he was immediately assigned to finance and secondary-education committees. "We were always working on Chicago public schools," Vallas says. "They had a financial crisis every year, and there were always work stoppages. Chicago always went to the legislature for bailouts. Here I was, living in Springfield constantly dealing with the Chicago public school financial crisis."

In 1995, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley made Vallas CEO of the school district and asked him to fix the system. A year later, Vallas had implemented a system of academic standards and probation — for the schools and their administrators. Using state-sanctioned rules, Vallas devised formulas to judge the percentage of students scoring at grade level or above on national achievement tests — and put on probation schools where the majority of students were not making high enough levels. The first year, 109 Chicago schools were on a list with mandates to improve scores. If they didn't, schools could be assigned business managers to allow principals to work on improving test scores, the district's central administration office could legally dismiss principals and teachers, and in some cases schools could be shut down and reopened with an entirely new staff.

During his six years, Vallas extended the school day to 6 p.m. for most students, built 76 schools and rehabilitated 500 more, and solved a $1 billion school district deficit, leaving behind $355 million in reserves and a structured budget. Student test scores increased to meet national averages and, for each year, elementary reading scores improved.

Today, some of Chicago's public schools are still struggling. In June, Daley announced a plan to close 60 poor-performance schools and reopen them as charter or contract schools run by groups outside of the school district. The city will open 100 new schools over the next six years under a new plan called Renaissance 2010. Daley did not publicly blame Vallas for the schools' closure.

But while Vallas' theories on education reform are quoted — often — in every major media outlet, not everybody sees his Chicago experience as heroic.

When Vallas launched his "parental checklist" program in 2000 — one similar to the program he has enacted in Philadelphia — parents criticized the proposition of being evaluated by teachers who had little interaction with them. The National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education also spoke out against the checklist, arguing that the forms alienated parents and discouraged them from interacting with their children's teachers.

Designs for Change, a Chicago-based educational research and reform organization, found that that that city's mandatory summer and retention programs did not necessarily help students learn more. Rather than gaining study skills, students were required only to repeat a class or grade so when they did finally advance to the next level, they were unprepared for new lessons.

"The retention program was harmful rather than helpful," says Donald Moore, the group's executive director. "Some groups of students who were retained actually did worse the second time. They were more likely to end up in special-ed classes and much more likely to drop out of school. [Vallas] instituted programs like this that sounded good — they had a "get tough' flavor — but in the end they didn't raise student achievements."

Still, many in Philadelphia were anxiously awaiting Vallas' arrival in 2002, a year that the local school system was making national headlines. State Rep. John Perzel had engineered a takeover of the district, and the state claimed control. Edison would take over most of the city's schools. Reading and math test scores were in the bottom 25 percent compared with students elsewhere in the country. Administrators were facing a multimillion-dollar deficit. And in some schools, about one out of every 12 high school girls had been infected with a sexually transmitted disease.

Vallas, who was budget director under Daley, brought some of his staff from Chicago. His budget director is the former chief financial officer of Chicago's district. His capital plan director is his former budget director. He wanted to surround himself with people who knew budgets and who could help him plan. Why all the number crunchers? Vallas refers to his "No Dollar Left Behind" philosophy. "Money fuels better education because it frees resources," he says. Every penny must now be accounted for. Drivers for the district or anyone who uses a school car must write down exact mileage — and they can't go over a set amount. Maintenance workers had been using district-issued Nextel phones, but those have been removed. And in some cases, reports showed that a smaller workforce could accomplish the same tasks for less.

"Budgeting helps reform initiatives," Vallas says. "I know that Joseph Stalin gave five-year plans a bad name, but believe me, they work. Every one dollar of savings is five dollars. Every one dollar of expenditure reduction is five dollars. Every one dollar of expanded base adjustment is five dollars. A big thing for me is financial stability. And you also have to prioritize all of your spending to ask the question, How does every dollar contribute to academic improvement, either directly or indirectly? If it doesn't contribute, then it's an unnecessary expense."

This has meant finding cheaper ways to do business in the district. Immediately after starting, Vallas told all of the contractors working with the school system to reduce their prices by 10 percent or he'd look elsewhere. Most made the adjustments. Vallas negotiated with Scientific Learning, a company that manufactures a computer-aided reading tool called Fast ForWord, to give the district a discount. Fast ForWord helps bring failing students up to grade level in a very short amount of time — but it's expensive. Before, it cost the city $2 million to administer the program in 50 schools; Vallas negotiated a long-term finance plan to get it in 236 Philly schools for just $700,000 more a year, which means that more kids will gain access to advanced training in literacy.

Vallas, along with the National Education Association, says that the link between managing budgets and higher student achievement is undeniable. When a school district has money to spend, it can implement smaller class sizes, offer training programs for teachers, give students access to high-tech education tools and provide everyone with a better learning environment.

"We know what works," Vallas says. "It takes money to implement those ideas."

BY THE NUMBERS: Vallas' passion for statisics has translated into a love of baseball. Just don't ask him about the Cubs. He's a diehard White Sox fan. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

While Vallas' track record in academic reform may show success, not everyone is happy with his strict measures and the prospect of the even tougher Declaration of Education.

"The declaration started out as a set of goals that seemed attainable," says one North Philadelphia high school teacher, who requested anonymity citing potential backlash from the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers union. "Over the summer, they kept adding provisions and requirements. I'll tell you that there is no feasible way to meet every one of the objectives they have. I can't do it, and if there was some superhero teacher out there, she couldn't do it. They've set us up to fail, but the district and the SRC are being applauded for getting tough on education. Four years from now, this city is going to blame us teachers for not meeting those standards. In the end, this pressure isn't going to help our students any, I promise you that."

The union has criticized the time frame and academic standards before, but President Ted Kirsch said that he did not want to comment for this story.

Some parents also fear that their children may be forced to meet the high standards too fast and fail in the process. "If you have a child who has, for eight academic years, performed well below his or her level, how can you suddenly expect that child to meet national averages?" asks Debbie Connors, whose daughter attends a local elementary school. "You have to retrain that child to learn and break bad habits. You have to teach that child study skills and the discipline to work hard every single day. And don't forget, that child may now be in high school, when he or she has adolescence to deal with and maybe a part-time job, too. It's great to have high goals, but they should be grounded in some form of reality."

Continued budget cuts are also causing some concern from those who work within the schools. One maintenance supervisor in South Philly says that reorganization hurt his department when those working five-hour shifts were laid off and everyone was switched to a full eight-hour day. "You can have fewer people working the same overall number of hours, but that doesn't mean that you're being more efficient," says the supervisor, who requested anonymity citing union pressure. "Vallas wants to have all of this stuff written down in some giant balance sheet. But in reality, you need a certain amount of people in every school, but only for five hours a day to do cleaning. Now, they're sitting around on their butts for an extra three hours doing nothing."

For all the savings, letters are still being sent to parents in North Philadelphia, Port Richmond and Fishtown asking for donations — there's not enough money for schools to purchase supplies such as glue and crayons. "They ordered new books, and for a year they sat in unopened boxes," says a woman who works in a Port Richmond elementary school. She also asked that her name not be used, fearing backlash from her managers. "There were a dozen boxes full of books. One day, I was asked to help throw them away. I don't know the arrangement [the school district] made with the publisher, but how could they go begging for crayons when they're throwing away books? That seems so wasteful."

At the same time, there has been some criticism that, like many of the system's teachers and administrators, Vallas' three sons attend Christian schools outside of the county rather than public schools in the city. "My kids are in religious school, that was part of us getting married," Vallas says, referring to his wife, who is Dutch Reformed. "She is a firm believer in religious immersion in the schools, the Bible, prayer, the church being affiliated with the school. It was part of my education experience, too. I can't argue with that."

Still, it's difficult to find many school reform experts, education activists or anyone on the Home and School Council or the SRC — a school chief's traditional foes — to make complaints. In an interview earlier this year, Patricia Raymond, president of the Philadelphia Home and School Council, an umbrella group for local parent associations, said that Vallas has transformed education here. "I have heard just a few complaints about his health-screening programs," she said. "When he instituted citywide chlamydia testing, we got one angry letter — but it turns out that the parent was just confused about the procedure. We're lucky to have him."

Since Vallas arrived, the percentage of Philadelphia students who performed at or above the national average on standardized tests has increased by 2.6 percent in reading, 7.1 percent in language and 9.2 percent in math. Although Philadelphia is still far behind overall averages and not making the percentages outlined by the state's interpretation of NCLB, students here are making progress — for the first time in a decade.

Part of this is due to a new curriculum to help transient students. Some schools now start every school year with as many as 40 percent new kids, which in the past meant that they would likely fall behind their peers. The new system involves using the same basic lessons and materials districtwide so that kids who are forced to move from school to school won't begin the academic year at a disadvantage.

He's also managed to garner support from the state legislature rather than disdain. Perzel is now an advocate of Philadelphia schools, which has meant a boost in funding. "When you begin having success, it puts you in a position to ask for more," Vallas says. He cites three rules: Don't ask for anything they can't afford to give you; don't ask for anything that other people aren't asking for; don't ask for things that you don't deserve. "When you're being aggressive about implementing state mandates, when you have balanced budgets and rising test scores, you'd be amazed at how willing the legislature is to support you."

Once the declaration is signed and put into effect, Vallas thinks that this city could be the next archetype for urban education reform. So far, many think he's got a winning chance. Hundreds of local parents are expected to attend the rally to find out more about how the declaration will affect their children. National education experts are monitoring Vallas' Philadelphia experiment. School administrators in cities throughout the country and paying attention, too, looking for a new model to follow.

As for the declaration and the start of the 2004-2005 school year?

"I know we are being ambitious," Vallas says. "But if those goals are reached, we will have accomplished our mission here."