Closing The Gap: N.O. superintendent has ambitious plan

• By CHARLES LUSSIER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Aug 5, 2007 - Page: 9A

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

Over the past 12 years, Paul Vallas has gained nationwide attention for helping improve public school systems in Chicago and Philadelphia.

Now, as the newly hired superintendent of hurricane-damaged schools in New Orleans, Vallas has laid out an ambitious agenda. He says the plan could finally close the huge gap in classroom performance between black and Hispanic children and white and Asian children.

“You really kind of learn what works and what doesn’t work,” Vallas said. “After 20 years of school reform, it’s pretty obvious what closes the gap and improves student achievement, so we’re going to try to do as many of those things here as we possibly can.”

Vallas is calling for class sizes of no more than 20 students per teacher. School will have extended academic days and years to help struggling students catch up.

That means most schools will have time to offer two-hour reading blocks and 90-minute math blocks as well as traditional classes and electives.

At the same time, Vallas is promising, through outside partnerships, to provide older students with laptop computers and teachers with electronic chalkboards. Most schools would have literacy and math coaches, as well as “climate managers” to help with school discipline.

To recruit teachers for the beleaguered New Orleans schools, Vallas is offering a $5,000 signing bonus, along with another $5,000 bonus for teachers who stay for a second year.

“Class sizes need to be reduced and children need to be in school longer during the day and during the year. It’s absolutely critical,” Vallas said. “And if we get the funding to do that, we’ll do the rest.”

Vallas has not been shy in the past about spending money. He left Philadelphia this spring in deep financial debt, forcing budget cuts. So far, though, Louisiana is paying the freight.

New state Education Superintendent Paul Pastorek, who recruited Vallas for New Orleans, said the city received about $454 million in federal funding after Hurricane Katrina. Pastorek said he’s using that money to help seed Vallas’ educational experiments.

“In the short term, I think we can sustain what we are trying to do,” Pastorek said. “But in the long term, it’s going to be difficult to sustain the gains we’re seeing in New Orleans.”

Pastorek said that if New Orleans shows sufficient improvement, he thinks the next governor will continue the experiment. And success for New Orleans could establish the educational model for all of Louisiana, he said.

Vallas makes a similar point.