Paul Vallas

Paul Gust Vallas Sr. (born June 10, 1953) is an American politician and former education superintendent.

He served as the superintendent of the Bridgeport Public Schools and the Recovery School District of Louisiana, the CEO of both the School District of Philadelphia and the Chicago Public Schools, and a budget director for the city of Chicago.

As a school superintendent, Vallas was noted for his embrace of privatization and charter schools.

A member of the Democratic Party, Vallas has unsuccessfully sought elected office several times.

From 1985 until 1990, Vallas led the Illinois Economic and Fiscal Commission.

From 1990 until 1993, Vallas served as Chicago's municipal budget director under Mayor Richard M. Daley.

Vallas served as superintendent of school districts in four United States cities.

Mitch Smith of The New York Times retrospectively wrote that in these positions, Vallas "cultivated a reputation as a crisis manager and charter school supporter willing to take on hard jobs and implement sweeping changes, an approach that garnered a mix of praise and criticism".

Vallas served as CEO of the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) from 1995 to 2001.

The position of CEO of the Chicago Public School system had been created by Mayor Richard M. Daley after he convinced the Illinois State Legislature to place CPS under mayoral control.

During his tenure at CPS, Vallas led an effort to reform the school system.

President Bill Clinton cited his work for raising test scores,

balancing the budget, instituting several new programs, including mandatory summer school, and after-school programs, and expanding alternative, charter, and magnet schools.

Under Vallas's leadership, the use of standardized testing increased.

Vallas instated zero-tolerance discipline policies.

He also expanded the number of non-neighborhood schools, which included selective enrollment high schools, charter schools, and some of the city's first public military schools.

He also launched thirteen International Baccalaureate programs in the city's public high schools.

In 1995, CPS faced a projected 1999 deficit of $1.4 billion.

To address that deficit, Vallas submitted a plan that he claimed would save $162 million by reducing 1,700 central office staffers, raising cash by selling 20 surplus properties, and eliminating a program, described as "elaborate", to network the district's computers.

The plan also reallocated money earmarked for teacher pensions into a general operating budget.

This reallocation was implemented.

In later years, in tandem, a decrease in returns from the stock market and an increasing number of retirees would cause the CPS to be unable to make their full payments on time.

This has been identified as an inciting incident for the subsequent $1 billion budget crisis, attributed largely to spiking pension payments in later years.

$666 million in capital bonds that the district took out under Vallas's leadership are anticipated, as of 2023, to ultimately cost the city $1.5 billion when interest is factored in.

In June 2001, Vallas announced his resignation.

His departure came two weeks after Gery Chico's resignation, the Chicago Board of Education's president.

Both of their resignations came soon after several failing standardized testing scores eliminated the improvements to test scores that had been experienced over the previous two years.

This loss of progress in test scores had angered Mayor Daley.

Vallas's six-year tenure was greater than two-times the average tenure at the time for school superintendents in large U.S. cities.

Many praised Vallas's tenure, crediting him with improving the school district's performance.

Vallas was the runner-up in the Democratic primary of the 2002 Illinois gubernatorial election.

In a 2009 article in the Education Next academic journal, Dale Mezzacappa wrote of Vallas's leadership style in his Chicago and Philadelphia superintendencies "His energy level is boundless, his temper legendary, his gangly charm equally so. His style of leadership, the 'Vallas treatment,' is by now well established. Do things big, do them fast, and do them all at once."

He ran as the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in the 2014 Illinois gubernatorial election.

Vallas was a candidate in the 2019 Chicago mayoral election.

He was also most recently the runner-up in the 2023 Chicago mayoral election.

After finishing first in the initial round of that election without securing a majority, Vallas faced Brandon Johnson in a runoff election and was defeated.

Multiple media outlets had referred to him as a perennial candidate.

The grandson of Greek immigrants, Vallas grew up in the Roseland neighborhood on Chicago's South Side.

He spent his teen years living in Palos Heights.

He graduated from Carl Sandburg High School and attended Moraine Valley Community College and then Western Illinois University, where he received a bachelor's degree in history and political science, a master's degree in political science, and a teaching certificate.