EDITORIAL: Src, Turn Down Heat On Vallas

By Philadelphia Daily News

Feb. 14–OF COURSE WE think a school district should be fiscally sound and managed well. And a budget deficit of any kind should not be taken lightly.

But frankly, the more hot water school district Chief Executive Paul Vallas gets in over the budget, the more we think he’s thelastperson who should lose his job.

The latest boiling cauldron was lit when SRC member James Gallagher released a statement about a looming deficit for 2008 of $100 million or more, and a call for Vallas to step down.

None of the other members of the SRC has commented; in fact, in their silence, you can practically hear their muscles straining as they lean as far away as possible, from either Gallagher and his statement, or from the need to make any statements of their own.

And it is this lack of unity on the four-member board that has us more disturbed than any pending deficit:

What does it say about a board with only four sitting members (a final vacant seat is not yet occupied) who can’t find agreement on their CEO?

Or about how the board releases information about a deficit before a full budget has even been done? Or plays out in public its disagreements with its chief?

Or worst of all, how it manages to suggest that any budget shortfall is the sole responsibility of Vallas, without acknowledging its own role in fiscal oversight: That is, the SRC must vote on any expenditure exceeding $25,000. In our minds, that means the fiscal buck must stop with the SRC, as well as with Vallas.

But more disturbing in the reckless call for Vallas to step down is the looming vacuum of his replacement, and what we might lose in the interim.

To be sure, Vallas is not without faults, but his track record for spurring academic achievement was reconfirmed again just two weeks ago with a report by the Rand Corp. saying that the district schools and the privately run Educational Management Organizations were performing at the same levels, and that academic gains since the state takeover have been "substantial."

Is that an accomplishment we can afford to dismiss? Can we afford to erode it or slow down the momentum while a new person is sought and installed in Vallas’ place?

The chaos and despair that marked the School District of Philadelphia prior to state takeover, prior to the SRC and, yes, prior to Paul Vallas is a hellish picture that we hope to never have to look at again.

Even before Vallas’ tenure, we understood just how challenging and complex a job it was to turn around a large urban school system; the one thing Vallas has delivered, at least to our minds, is the belief that it’s not impossible.

As CEO hired by the SRC, Vallas does report to that board, and serves at its pleasure, but everyone in this city is a stakeholder in the school district’s leadership. The city owes a lot to both Vallas and the SRC. We hope they remember, as they play out their public psychodramas, that the only thing that matters is the strength of the system they build together — and who suffers when it’s torn apart.

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Copyright (c) 2007, Philadelphia Daily News

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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