Memo to Paul Vallas: Lose the broom

“There’s nothing Chicago politicians fear more than this broom." -- Paul Vallas

So here's Paul Vallas, running for mayor of Chicago and carrying around a broom in his TV ads,  a prop designed to portray him as the anti-corruption candidate. Clever, right? He's the one who's going to sweep corruption out the door.

It harkens me back to 2008 when D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee posed holding a broom for the cover of Time Magazine and then  was implicated in one of the country's biggest test cheating scandals. Rhee became the darling of the corporate-style school reformers and school privatizers who poured millions into her Students First organization. Then, after serving as a corporate exec with a fertilizer company, she tried to become Trump's ed secretary but lost out to Betsy DeVos.

Now comes another former big-city school chief with a broom, the guy who was Gary Solomon's mentor. You remember Solomon. The force behind the biggest scam --SUPES -- ever to hit the Chicago Public Schools. Solomon and his partner in crime, former CEO at CPS, Barbara Byrd-Bennett are now doing prison time for that scam. But it was Vallas who taught Solomon the ropes and somehow, he's walking free, carrying a broom, and running for mayor of the country's third largest city.

After leaving CPS, Vallas developed ties with education consultant Solomon during his tenure at the Philadelphia and Louisiana districts. He then named Solomon to run his Synesi consulting company. Solomon had become adept at penetrating school districts from around the country after buying off their top school officials with perks and bribes in exchange for expensive consulting contracts.

According to the Tribune:

When Solomon worked as vice president of sales at The Princeton Review, the Philadelphia district Vallas ran was a client. Solomon later launched an educating consulting firm that touted itself as connected to the “Vallas model” of school reform. Vallas, who had no formal links to Solomon's firm, chastised the consultant for trying to capitalize on Vallas' reputation.

But Vallas got over his annoyance. He took Solomon with him as a consultant when Vallas moved to Louisiana to rebuild a school district battered in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. A few years later, Vallas was recommending to Peoria that it hire another Solomon-run consulting firm, though no contract was signed. Vallas disputed the assertion that he had pitched work specifically for Solomon's firm.

Vallas previously has told the Tribune he stopped working with Solomon in 2010, but has declined to explain why.

My advice to Vallas. Ditch the broom. It doesn't wear well.

As long as they're doing background checks for sexual predators at CPS...

A background check on Gary Solomon -- before throwing $20M no-bid contract his way -- might have averted
the biggest corruption scandal in CPS history. 

Speaking of background checks for possible sexual predators at CPS, Rahm Emanuel and his hand-picked school board, probably should have done one on Gary Solomon before throwing that $20M SUPES contract his way. A check might have kept Solomon's partner in crime Barbara Byrd-Bennett out of prison and prevented the biggest corruption scandal in CPS history.

Solomon, a former dean and teacher at suburban Niles West H.S., was accused by that district of sending sexually explicit e-mail messages to female students. Besides those messages, they said he attended a Cubs game with students during a school day when no field trip was planned. They accused him of keeping a journal on a school computer that described several unprofessional relationships with students.

Finally, Solomon was forced out of Niles Township School District 219 under a cloud after he was accused by his bosses of “immoral and unprofessional” conduct, including allegations he kissed a female student, covered up students’ drug and alcohol use,and sent “sexually suggestive, predatory” emails to students, court records show.

While no criminal charges were ever filed, Solomon was barred from ever teaching in the district again. Solomon resigned from his post as part of a settlement back in 2001 and began a consulting business with former Niles West student Thomas Vranas, one that also included a partnership with former Chicago schools CEO and current Chicago mayoral candidate Paul Vallas.

Vallas contracted with Solomon to work at schools in Philadelphia. When he was recruited to revive the schools in hurricane-battered New Orleans, Vallas sent a series of letters to Louisiana officials who oversaw the New Orleans district, vouching for Synesi Associates, the education consulting firm that had been started by Solomon in Chicago.

Synesi landed two no-bid contracts worth nearly $893,000 in New Orleans during Vallas’ time running the Recovery School District from 2007 to 2011. 

But Vallas points out: “I’m not the one who gave Gary Solomon a $20 million, no-bid contract.” He's got a point there. That would be Rahm. 

Last year, Solomon was sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in the bribery scandal. His SUPES consulting group employed Byrd-Bennett before she took her position as chief executive officer of CPS in 2012. Solomon admitted his role in the scheme to bribe Rahm's hand-picked CEO by offering her a percentage of the contracts she helped secure for SUPES. He also pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud.

This is a man who should have never been allowed anywhere near CPS schools, students or staff. So, as long as they're doing background checks on teachers, coaches, parents and CPS staff, they might want to do them on profit-hungry contractors as well.