File it

In a recent comment thread, I remarked that "it's kind of difficult to gauge Pastorek's relationship with BESE. At times I've heard that there was a rift but I haven't seen any substantive evidence of that."

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A reader passed along this interesting article from Monroe that may be significant or insignificant. Paul Pastorek has called for a criminal investigation into Monroe's Mayor and School Board, but BESE is backing off hard.

Correct Me If I'm Wrong

Late last week, Paul Vallas wrote a letter to the editor of the Times-Picayune defending the Recovery School District's controversial school facilities master plan. In it, Mr. Vallas pushes back on recent reports by the Cowen Institute and the Bureau of Governmental Research that criticize the master plan's financial underpinning.

In short, because funding is concrete for only phase 1 of the facilities master plan, the independent groups argue that shortfalls made more likely by the financial crisis could lead to vast discrepancies in the quality of educational facilities in New Orleans with polar haves and have-nots.

In his letter to the T-P, Vallas addressed the uncertain funding structure after Phase 1 ends in 2013:

Phase 1 is funded by federal disaster recovery dollars that must be spent on building schools. While we're sure that we will be able to fund much of Phase 2, we know that in the years to come, the city and state will have to step up to the plate to raise capital funds to fully implement the plan. That is not surprising, or unusual.

In a sense, Paul Vallas is correct. Local and state governments do often have to share the costs of major projects such as the one the RSD is currently proposing. What I'm not sure of, is how usual it is for a project to begin without a plan to win funding. For instance, when a baseball team wants to hold taxpayers ransom for a new publicly-financed stadium, what they do is draw up a blueprint for their new digs and negotiate with the state and city for a plan to share the cost of stadium construction, land acquisitions, and related infrastructure improvements. That sounds similar to what the RSD is proposing but it really isn't. In this example, the team secures whatever legislation they need from the state and from the local city council and then begins construction. What they certainly do not do, is start digging holes into the ground with only enough money to build a third of the stadium. Here, the RSD wants to start construction without any concrete mechanisms to bankroll the later phases of the plan. Phase 1 alone insufficiently meets the needs of our district by concentrating precious dollars into just a few buildings without having evaluated the efficacy of spreading those dollars more prudently into targeted renovations.

The other thing I'd point out in this case is Paul Vallas' record from his time in Philadelphia. I wrote a three part series about this last year. Recall that Mr. Vallas was fired by Philadelphia's School Reform Commission after running unpredicted budget deficits running over $100 million. He seemed to have established a pattern. Mr. Vallas would spend furiously to implement certain aspects of his academic program and when he was forced to go to the state capital or to city council to defend a "surprise" deficit, it Vallas that would apply the pressure, goading lawmakers to "step up to the plate" to make up for his lack of fiscal restraint. To a certain extent, this is admirable because urban school districts are so badly underfunded. In practice, however, it provides for very short-term incremental progress. Vallas was successful once or twice in squeezing out a little bit extra to make up for the over-spending but it is never too long before lawmakers get tired of the act. Of course, in Philadelphia, contributing to Vallas' budget woes were huge increases in the number and value of no-bid contracts and unethical benefits paid out to Vallas consultants.

Here, Mr. Vallas has followed the Philadelphia pattern in an exaggerated sense, having already been raked by BESE for poorly formulated budgets and busted by the T-P and I for inappropriately large consultant contracts - including one to a woman forced to resign after unethical reimbursements paid by the Philly school district.

Also, let us consider Vallas' record in terms of spending on facilities from his time in Philadelphia. This passage is from something I wrote as part of the three part series:

In an op-ed to the Philadelphia Inquirer after Vallas had come to New Orleans, City Controller Alan Butkovitz wrote: (it has become archived, sorry I can't give a real link)

Right from the start we encountered resistance from the former CEO Paul Vallas when we questioned the insufficient progress and costs related to his $1.5 billion capital building program. It had a balance of $469 million - but little to show for it in the way of school construction. Vallas' original plan called for at least 20 schools to be built. At this time, we can only identify seven new schools that have been completed.

Ground broke on some construction way back in 2004. That there wouldn't be a clear accounting of what was built and when and for how much is shocking to me and should raise immediate red flags for everyone here in New Orleans given that the RSD is promising such a massive rebuilding program.

I called Harvey Rice, the First Deputy City Controller of the City of Philadelphia, to get more information about the capital improvement program. This is some of what he told me:

"There were two criticisms. One, we wanted to know what he did with the money. What did he build? No one has gotten that. We haven't gotten it. I don't even know if they have it in a document where they can succinctly sit down with you or anyone and say 'this is what we did'." - "We tried to do it on our own, spent a lot of hours going through newspaper articles, press statements, other statements that he made and trying to piece it all together... it's just been a difficult task." - "The other criticism was... that the school district wasn't spending it. They still have about half a billion dollars left... If you're not spending it, each year, material and labor costs increase, especially in Philadelphia, which is a union town. We thought if you're not spending it now, that sometime later you're not going to get the bang for your buck."
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I called the Philadelphia School District directly and asked for information related to the capital improvement program. Nobody got back to me. (I'm a nobody though)

Mr. Vallas has been adamant about the need to move quickly to begin schools construction on the master plan, threatening that federal funding could be lost if more time is taken to review the proposed spending. This is an interesting argument given his failure to spend money he was granted in Philadelphia.

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Lastly

This is the issue I wanted to raise when I titled the post.

My understanding throughout this entire process was that Mr. Vallas was not particularly involved in the master plan. Rather, the sense I've always gotten was that this was the other Paul's brainchild. Pastorek hired Parsons-Concordia to create the master plan before Paul Vallas was brought to New Orleans. It was Paul Pastorek and RSD Director of Facilities Planning Constance Caruso who worked with the hired firm to craft the document. It was Paul Pastorek who rejected a draft of the document in May that forced the delay of the release of the plan until late August.

From what I've gathered, Mr. Vallas's role in crafting the master plan had been limited to academic programming - the negotiation of different curricular themes for different schools. His job with the RSD is as an administrator of the schools themselves and it is my belief that this is what his responsibility was vis-a-vis the master plan.

So to me, it is very interesting to see Mr. Vallas being put up front to defend the plan. Where is Paul Pastorek? Where is Constance Caruso?

I hadn't planned on refreshing myself on Vallas' record in Philly as it pertained to the master plan because my understanding had long been that Vallas had very little to do with the SFMPOP.

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Here is this post's musical accompaniment.

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Expect news of a contract extension for Paul Vallas to percolate soon.

Independent Groups' Concerns Over Master Plan Increase as Vallas and RSD Play the Fear Card

....This just in from the Times Picayune:

Two independent groups raised red flags about the long-term financing behind the city's ambitious and unprecedented school construction plan, and probed school officials for more details about the costs of individual projects at a meeting of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education Wednesday.

Representatives of Tulane University's Cowen Institute and the Bureau of Governmental Research argued that if money can not be found for later phases of the plan - which they agreed is a likely scenario -- it would exacerbate existing inequities in a city where children have long had unequal access to quality school programs and buildings.

Specifically, they said it would lead to a situation where some students attend school in state-of-the-art buildings while others remain in decrepit, outdated buildings.

There seems to be a developing consensus that this school facilities master plan is unacceptable. Wanna know why?

It's because people are using their skills of observation and logic to inform a factual reality.

And the reality is that this master plan is seriously deficient.

We close more schools than we build. The financing beyond phase 1 is nonexistent and increasingly unlikely to ever materialize. We concentrate limited resources into masturbatory wonders for the architectural class instead when the times call for a prudent allocation of resources that will get our kids into sustainable facilities as soon as possible.

But I want to discuss Paul Vallas' current talking point to the media. The company line is that we need to improve this plan as soon as possible and that any problems in the document can be fixed after the fact. Why can't the changes be made BEFORE we have to vote on the thing?

Vallas says it's because delays could result in our already-pledged funds being pulled.

"At some point we have got to start building," said RSD Superintendent Paul Vallas.

Unfortunately, I can't find a direct quote in a mainstream source but Mr. Vallas has explicitly explained that master plan approval delays could result in the loss of already-pledged monies. He made this point at the master plan public hearing at City Council.

A few points about this argument.

First, it is a typical post-K line we've all heard before about why we need to approve poorly contrived pet projects without question or debate. "WE'LL LOSE THE MONEY/REIMBURSEMENT COMPLETELY WE HAVE BUILD NOW WE HAVE TO KNOCK IT DOWN NOW SPEND NOW NOW NOW."

Second, if indeed there's a risk we might lose funding, guess who's fault it is?

The community has had this plan for less than sixty days. The RSD has been working on it since June of 2007. It was supposed to have been released last spring, then early last summer. It was finally presented to the public the week Gustav hit.

So don't feed us this BS about the delays caused by community concerns. How about the RSD planning team? How about the fact that when Pastorek saw his preliminary draft last May, he had to send the team back to the drawing board? How about the fact that even after that, Concordia-Parsons ultimately produced a document that is being widely criticized for a broad swath of structural and ideological flaws?

It ain't us that have been holding up this process - it's been them!

Third, and I think this is the real reason Paul Vallas is in such a hurry - not this empty lost funding threat - is that the deeper we get into this inevitable economic recession, the less realistic the master plan becomes. If we don't approve this thing right now, the master plan will go from being perceived as misguided, flawed, and unrealistic to being perceived as a parody of a fantasy.

This to me all seems like a bunch of 'let's move money around' horse crap. It's like how Vallas spends millions of dollars on high-tech Promethean boards for RSD classrooms when children aren't being provided with the basics, you know, like TEXTBOOKS TO TAKE HOME.

When Paul Vallas runs for governor of Illinois in 2010, as rumored, he'll get to say sexy little things in his commercials and pamphlets like:

"Spent x million dollars on state of the art classroom technology for New Orleans."
"Spent x million dollars on brand new school facilities."

Because he won't ever have to actually describe what we didn't get for expenditures that were, in reality, wasteful, premature, mis-prioritized, or worse.

Never mind that the economic crisis ensures incredible disparities in our public school system should we adopt a master plan crafted in an imagined economic vacuum. Never mind what happens when New Orleans is stuck in 2013 with what I compelled them approve in 2008.

JUST SPEND THE MONEY SPEND SPEND SPEND NOW NOW NOW NOW. YOU'LL LOSE IT IF YOU DON'T APPROVE. DON'T RISK IT. NOW OR NEVER! YOUR CONCERNS ARE UNWARRANTED. WE'LL FIX 'EM. I KNOW HOW TO FIX 'EM. JUST TRUST US. APPROVE NOW NOW NOW.

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The Carver High School alumni association has issued a statement condemning the master plan.

Schools Master Plan Hearing at City Council

According to Councilwoman Hedge-Morrell, today's crowd was likely the largest to have ever attended an council education committee hearing. There was indeed pretty substantial turnout, considering the relative lack of attention called to the event and the fact that it was called at 10 AM on a Wednesday.

Comment was 100% in opposition of the master plan and came from groups representing schools from all over the city. Councilwomen Head and Hedge-Morrell each expressed pointed criticisms of their own.

State Senator Cheryl Gray came to speak out against the closure of schools in her district. Our BESE representative Louella Givens came to speak out as well, and introduced her BESE colleague who was also in attendance. This other person mostly stood awkwardly on the side of the room. His name is James Garvey and he recently refused to condemn LaBruzzo's eugenics bill to the Times-Picayune. (Just so you know)

Unfortunately, the public was grouped by school affiliation so educational advocates wishing to express concerns with the very structure of the master plan, including OPSB candidates Percy Marchand and Amy LaFont had to wait until the end of the hearing, by which point the room was largely empty.

The deadline for the public comment period remains midnight tonight. OPSB President Torin Sanders went on the record pledging to introduce a motion at tomorrow's OPSB meeting that would allow for more public comment, but he is under no legal or political obligation to do so, as he is not running for reelection.

Paul Vallas was there today and repeatedly made the ridiculous claim that Congress would pull funding for New Orleans schools if this were not approved quickly. But remember that the master plan was delayed for months by the consultant planners themselves.

(Also, I'd always thought that Vallas was not really involved in the master planning process, that this was Pastorek's thing. Pastorek was not present. Steven Bingler, the man hired to put together the master plan did not speak.)

Ultimately, there was no resolution of any particular grievance - either with the master plan or with the voting timeline.

So it appears as though the rubber stamp freight train remains on schedule.

That's sad. This is a bad document.

Save Our Schools

As predicted, the RSD Facilities Master Plan will indeed shrink the future capacity of our public school system to educate increased numbers of children.

Billed as a 'radical' change for our schools, I think it is more accurate to characterize what is going on as reactionary.

The whole plan is contingent on people not returning.

But without schools for people to return to, they might get their wish.

I'll talk more later today or tomorrow.

Recovery School District and Consultant Expansion

Though Paul Pastorek and Paul Vallas will laud this as a measure that will reduce "red tape," I think it is quite troubling.

The Senate Committee on Finance amended House Bill 891 to allow Pastorek to hire educational consultants without taking bids on contracts for the work.

He would be able to hire a consultant for a year’s worth of work beginning July 1 at no more than $250,000.

Currently, consultants who are paid more than $50,000 must be hired through a competitively bid contract.

Thus, the Recovery School District has reduced oversight on academic consultant contracts, quintupling the amount of money they can dole out in a single purchase without a price comparison. Upon hearing of this story, two things popped into my memory:

1. Paul Vallas got into trouble in Philadelphia for increases in the number of no-bid consultant contracts awarded over the course of his administration.

2. Some of the consultant contracts already awarded here in Louisiana by Mr. Vallas have already come under the scrutiny of the Times-Picayune.

I think this gives Mr. Pastorek and Mr. Vallas an awful lot of leeway...