Daley OKs Vallas raise, wants results February 28, 2001 BY FRAN SPIELMAN CITY HALL REPORTER Mayor Daley said Tuesday he has given the go-ahead for a substantial pay raise for Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas, but that doesn't mean he's satisfied with a "quick fix" plan to improve student reading. "You could take a program and run it into a school right away and say, `Forty percent of the kids in this class don't read. We're going to pull you out for two weeks.' That's not the answer. The answer is the system--the evaluation of the child," he said. "How long have reading statistics been like that? Five, 10, 15 years?" the mayor said. "Some of the schools are at 9 percent [grade level], 12 percent, 22 percent or 28 percent. They can read. But 70 percent or 80 percent cannot. It's been going on for too long. So it's the system. It's not a quick fix." Vallas said he and the mayor are in full agreement. "There are no quick fixes. There is no magic bullet. If there was, we would have applied it a long time ago," Vallas said. "What we've seen is five years of steady growth. We expect to see a sixth year of improvement in reading and math scores this year. We'd like to see faster improvement. The mayor is impatient. We're impatient. [But] if someone had asked me five years ago to guarantee five years of improvement in reading and math scores, enrollment and attendance and declining dropout rates, somebody would have had me committed." Two weeks ago, Daley used his annual State of the City address to light a fire under his handpicked school team. The mayor wants Vallas and School Board president Gery Chico to think "outside the box" to improve reading because two-thirds of Chicago students still don't read at grade level. The mayor is promoting two private reading programs--and casting a giant net for opinions from reading experts--in an attempt to improve the fundamental skill most critical to success in school. "We're bringing other people in. We're bringing in the private sector, foundation people, [reading experts from] universities. This is not going to be done next week or the following week. . . . We're talking about a reading system. . . . This is maybe looking at summer schools or next year," the mayor said. Vallas has been openly skeptical about both private reading programs. One of them, Voyager Expanded Learning of Dallas, has produced summer gains no better than those produced in Chicago, he said. The other--the Morningside learning program used with struggling freshmen at Malcolm X College--was tried at Chicago's Manley High School a few years ago and dropped after the percentage of students reading at grade level "never made it out of the single digits," he said. On Tuesday, Daley urged Vallas to open his mind to new ideas to tackle the reading dilemma. "Only stay within the system and don't look outside the system. That is the failure of government. It's the failure of . . . public education," the mayor said. As for the unspecified increase in Vallas' $150,000-a-year salary, Chico first raised the issue on the night Vallas decided not to run for governor. The raise under discussion is reportedly in the $40,000-to-$50,000 range. Vallas, whose salary has been frozen for nearly six years at his own request, said a pay raise is "the furthest thing from my mind. I haven't asked for a raise. No one has offered me one. It's not an issue for me. Right now, I'm focusing on other things." Copyright © The Sun-Times Company All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. -- This is the CPS Science Teacher List. To unsubscribe, send a message to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For more information: <http://home.sprintmail.com/~mikelach/subscribe.html>. To search the archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/science%40lists.csi.cps.k12.il.us/>
