The lesson he learned is that he needs to leave sooner, before his budget fantasies turn into budget realities. He hasn't learned that he needs to be a more realistic and responsible steward of a budget.
The Baton Rouge people got their pants charmed off and won't provide the guidance and oversight to force Vallas be a responsible CEO.
"The first two years you literally get to do just about anything you want."
They will, however, happily stonewall the city of New Orleans three years from now when we have a multi-million dollar school budget shortfall and look to the state capital for a bailout. Baton Rouge might hate New Orleans more than Harrisburg hates Philadelphia. Vallas won't have to worry though, because he'll be on a plane to another city giving interviews for puff pieces in that town's local papers, Time magazine, and the New York Times. Vallas won't have to worry about "all those people walking around pissed off because he's getting the credit," he'll be long-gone. "Three years tops."
e, in perhaps a more hopeful tone than I generally use, expresses some of the concerns I've had about Vallas since his arrival but have neglected to address here probably because Blakely is funnier. The public schools in New Orleans, now the subject of a bizarre charter school privatization scheme and administered via an impenetrable bureaucratic multi-verse, are in even worse shape today than they have been in recent memory. The fact that resume-building "demolition experts" like Vallas and Blakely always seem to show up during such times is hardly a cause for comfort.
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