The fight over schools, standardization, Vallas
Superintendent Paul Vallas is either saving Bridgeport’s public schools or is unfit to lead, piloting the district on a crash course to disaster. For better or worse, his supporters and detractors can agree on one thing: Vallas is bringing a business sense to managing the troubled school system.
In the last 18 months, Bridgeport Superintendent Paul Vallas has closed the district’s $12 million budget deficit, increased school funding, created plans to open five new schools and purchased laptops and new textbooks. He’s done so without any layoffs.
Vallas said he’s been able to balance the budget primarily by implementing a business-like approach through standardization, streamlining and testing. He’s instituted methods for purchasing in bulk, monitoring employee overtime and adjusting bus pick-up times to save millions of dollars.
Mayor Bill Finch, left, at a recent school-themed security event.
“I make no apologies for bringing modern business practices into the district,” Vallas said. “There were probably a hundred things the district could have been doing more efficiently, costing money and contributing to the inefficiencies of the district.”
The Bridgeport school system has the largest achievement gap in the nation, two thirds of the schools are failing an
