Last Thursday, the Matthew J. Ryan Center for the Study of Free Institutions and the Public Good hosted politician and policy expert Paul Vallas for a discussion titled “The American Educational Crisis: Is School Choice the Solution?”
Vallas is a lifelong Democrat and has served as superintendent to some of the largest school districts in the nation. He is also the former CEO of both the Chicago and Philadelphia Public Schools and has run for office numerous times. This includes the most recent mayoral election for the city of Chicago, when he lost to Brandon Johnson.
Vallas started off the event by discussing his goals for the night.
“What I’d like to do, really, tonight is kind of give you my sense of the state of education in the country, what’s evolved, what we are facing, the crisis we are facing,” Vallas said. “Then I want to get into some of the solutions or pathways out of that crisis.”
Vallas first discussed the current state of education in the United States, noting that the country’s education ranking and overall test scores continue to plummet.
The United States currently ranks 31st overall in public education, behind both Canada and China.
“The point of education in this country is dismal to say the least,” Vallas said. “We are in trouble, and we have been in trouble.”
Previous executive actions by President Trump in his second term have reignited discourse surrounding the role of the Department of Education, a topic Vallas briefly touched on.
“Since that department has been in effect for 50 years, there has been really no identifiable academic improvement,” Vallas said. “Test scores are pretty much what they were 50 years ago, and there has been no closing of the achievement gap.”
Vallas continued by addressing how the department has repeatedly been used to advance the education agenda of whichever president is currently in office. This has been a general concern regarding the department’s power and its ability to undermine state and local government.
“I would tell people who are critical of the Trump administration and his decision to close the Department of Education, which he has not yet, that if they were really afraid of Trump, they would want him to get rid of the Department of Education,” Vallas said.
Given his extensive experience as a superintendent, Vallas discussed recent trends in education across major cities in the U.S. He noted a sense of frustration over the “inability to make real progress” in improving overall academic performance and closing the achievement gap.
“You are seeing systemically, across the educational horizon, the abandonment of standards, the shifting, the restoration of social promotion, the demonization of testing, et cetera,” Vallas said.
Vallas also discussed the extreme racial and economic disparities across public education in major cities.
“So what you have in the United States today, particularly in urban cities, like Chicago, is you literally have an apartheid school system,” Vallas said. “If you live in Chicago, New York, if you live in cities like LA, the overwhelming mass majority of children who are in those cities are low income, and the overwhelming mass majority of those low income children are Black and Latino.”
Vallas then went on to explain the five types of “DNA” that can be found in top-performing schools.
High performing and rigorous academics alongside robust early childhood programs, data-driven instruction, intervention, strong leadership teams and instructional time on task.
Throughout the discussion, Vallas repeatedly blamed the unions for many of these problems. For the most part, they have become increasingly politicized and ineffective.
“That’s a big struggle in large urban districts, where the union contracts work against supporting what I call the education improvement DNA,” Vallas said.
To help improve this “DNA” and the public education system overall, Vallas looks to the increasing efficiency of artificial intelligence (AI) and technology in general. Vallas lists many ways technology can be used in and outside of the classroom.
“If you have the right technology infrastructure, you can guide the curriculum, you can provide the curriculum instructional materials and you can provide the teachers with the online support so they can deliver the quality of curriculum on the way,” Vallas said.
However, becoming more depedent on technology might not benefit everyone.
Vallas argued that the education establishment will resist the change. He closed by stating why school choice is important.
“School choice is important,” Vallas said. “Traditional public schools are going to resist any sort of real reform.”
Junior Fola Aiyebo thought the dicussion was an informational look at the harsh reality of the U.S. public education system.
“I thought the speaker was really nice,” Aiyebo said. “I like how he was personable, and he kinda, like, didn’t really sugarcoat anything. He got to the deep-rooted issues and gave solutions on how to actually fix them.”
Overall, Vallas gave an informational lecture on the state of education in the U.S., what has made it this way and how it can be improved. By touching on his personal life and work experience, Vallas was able to provide students and staff in attendance a unique perspective on an increasingly relevant topic. Students and staff left with a greater understanding of the American education system.
