Article: Vallas Work Ethic Faces a New Test

Mary Vallas still remembers her thin-as-a-rail son doing 1,000 pushups a day in a furious attempt to add the muscle needed to make the varsity football team at Carl Sandburg High.

That's the kind of dogged determination that Paul Vallas, city budget director and Mayor Daley's choice to become chief executive officer of the Board of Education, will bring to the biggest challenge of his 16-year career in government.

His mom knows he'll need it.

"I pray for his strength. I pray to God that he finds the secret," said Mary Vallas of the $2.7 billion bureaucracy that has devoured many a chief executive.

"But, if you're looking for a workaholic who gives 200 percent, that's Paul. When he ...

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