George Schmidt Rakes Over Paul Vallas: Liar, Crook, Racist

It may have been that the truth got shelved for Vallas's lies (and of course the bigger lies of corporate reform that went to Washington with Barack Obama and Arne Duncan) for a time, but the facts don't change over time despite the massive work of the liars.

Vallas had publicly compared himself and his talents to Michael Jordan and then trashed Rahm Emanual. Anyone who wants to know why the ruling class dumped Vallas in Chicago in 2001 can see from this the WHY.

Corporate America then put the Vallas show on the road, and Philadelphia and New Orleans suffered as a result..... George Schmidt 

Due mostly to the work of George Schmidt in Substance, Ed Notes (modeld on Substance) has been reporting on Paul Vallas for well over a decade most recently the other day (Drive-by Superintendent Paul Vallas, YOU'RE OUT!!!!!!!!) .

Vallas fired George, had him banned from teaching in Chicago and sued him for a million dollars for publishing and ridiculing the CASE standardized tests. George beat the law suit but not the banning. Well, he had more time for publishing Substance and organizing groups like CORE.

Substance published an article yesterday on the racist aspects of Vallas' reign in Chicago (followed by Philly, New Orleans and Bridgeport, where he seems to have met his Waterloo.

VALLAS FACTS: Paul Vallas began to purge of Black teachers, administrators, and other staff from Chicago's public schools as part of corporate 'school reform'... The Paul Vallas I knew, by Dr. Grady C. Jordan

This morning George sent out a missive to Substance staff. Here is the section on Vallas.

PAUL VALLAS OPENS THE FLOODGATES. As most veteran Substance staff members know, we have always operated on some of the thinnest threads financially... we had to shift our Web site from www.substancenews.com to www.substancenews.net in 2007.... it has now sustained daily -- yes, DAILY -- news and analysis coverage since June 2007, and as a result we are one of the more sustained placed to get news and analysis about Chicago's public schools and about corporate "school reform" in general.

One result of this, over time and with patience, is that we are often the first in Chicago to be contacted about Chicago-related nonsense taking place across the country. Recently, the ruling by a Connecticut court that Paul G. Vallas was ineligible to serve as a school administrators in Bridgeport has roiled the world of corporate "school reform."

As usual, Vallas's ego splashed in the way of some of the more sober people trying to sustain corporate reform. Within a few days, Vallas had publicly compared himself and his talents to Michael Jordan and then trashed Rahm Emanual. Anyone who wants to know why the ruling class dumped Vallas in Chicago in 2001 can see from this the WHY. By the time Vallas assured Richard M. Daley that Tom Reece and the UPC were a shoo-in for re-election to head the CTU against Debbie Lynch and PACT, Daley already knew that Vallas had been making fun of Daley behind Daley's back. The CTU upheaval (which turned out to be more hope than we should have put into it, given Debbie's version of school reforms) gave the pretext for the end of Vallas. But the following year, he tried to get the nomination for Governor from the Democrats, but thanks to Roland Burris failed (Vallas would, like Rahm, have gotten a large part of the "Black Vote" in 2002...). Corporate America then put the Vallas show on the road, and Philadelphia and New Orleans suffered as a result.

At each point where Vallas was caught lying, while his friends were caught stealing, someone surfed the Web carefully enough to get in touch with Substance. We were there, thanks to being on the Web, publishing accurate criticism, and indexing extensively, for people to locate and read the truth about the various miracle workers who were oozing out of Chicago and into the bloodstream of American public schools. Philadelphia officials contacted us when they realized Vallas was a fraud, and Grady and I spent a great deal of time briefing them on the details of how the Vallas frauds operated. After Philadelphia got rid of Vallas, he landed in New Orleans, where he helped destroy the largest and most powerful Black union (UTNO) in the USA and create the largest expansion of charter schools in any major city. Before "Race To The Top."

The past couple of years, as Chicago administrators have taken the Vallas road and gotten out of town, we have heard from people in school boards and unions across the USA who wanted to know the details about CPS bureaucrats who were vying for big jobs, usually based on their version of the "Chicago Miracle." With Arne Duncan in D.C., it was hard for the facts to get out, and a lot of districts (Broward County and Sarasota Florida; Glochester Massachusetts; Madison Wisconsin) are now suffering the penalty of believing the corporate reform hype and hiring one of those Chicago "rock star" administrators who've been bailing out from Chicago quickly of late.

Vallas was also called a "Rock Star" by some Board of Education people in Bridgeport when they were hiring him.

What this means about out responsibility is simple: Substance published the facts first, and we report clearly and with sources. As a result, when someone looks for an alternative analysis about Bob Runcie, Rick Mills, Hosannah Mahaly, Steve Zrike, Jennifer Cheatham -- or Paul G. Vallas -- the best place to get information is at substancenews.net. 

2002 AND SUBSTANCE TODAY. As you have noticed, we are re-printing in 2013 Substance articles about Paul Vallas and Chicago's version of "School Reform" from 2002. As the Vallas story gives people a renewed interest in the lies that have been pushed across the USA for the past 20 or 30 years, our reporting has always had an edge. But I was rarely so proud as I was after someone asked us about what we have on Vallas before he left Chicago, and I could resurrect what we reported the month (March 2002) when we first went on the Web. It may have been that the truth got shelved for Vallas's lies (and of course the bigger lies of corporate reform that went to Washington with Barack Obama and Arne Duncan) for a time, but the facts don't change over time despite the massive work of the liars. I am proud that we can be reprinting the stories we first published about Vallas's frauds and lies a decade ago, and look forward to continuing updating them in the age of Barbara Byrd Bennett and Rahm Emanuel, Arne Duncan and Barack Obama.

Afterburn
Is there a better lesson than Substance, publishing since the 70s, for staying the course and being persistent? George is one of the founders of CORE, works for the Chicago Teachers Union and has been a force in Chicago teacher union politics for almost 4 decades.  So every day when I feel like calling it quits I think of George, who I beg to set me free to laze around on a beach chair.