Miami-Dade’s Alberto Carvalho is the new headmaster in LA

Alberto Carvalho, who has headed Miami-Dade County’s public schools since 2008 and is one of the most experienced and admired school district leaders in the country, has been named the next superintendent of the Unified School District of Los Angeles, district officials said Thursday.

The education committee announced this after a special session closed to the public. Over the past few weeks, Board members have interviewed and advised candidates in a series of closed sessions.

Carvalho, 57, is moving to LA Unified, moving from the fourth largest public K-12 school system in the country to the second largest, taking on one of the most high-profile and demanding posts in public education.

“It has been the privilege of my life to serve as superintendent of Miami-Dade County’s public schools,” Carvalho said in a statement released by LA Unified. “For the past three decades I have selflessly devoted my professional career to serving the children of Miami’s diverse community and hope to bring the same passion, compassion, and commitment to the students and families in LA Unified.”

Carvalho is credited in the Miami-Dade district for providing stable leadership, enhanced academic performance, and developing special programs that provide parents with more school choices. In Los Angeles, he would have to deal immediately with a school district where many students struggled for long periods of time and were further set back – academically and emotionally – by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Alberto Carvalho brings the deep experience we need as educators and district leaders to manage LA Unified’s ongoing response and recovery to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Education Committee President Kelly Gonez. “As the longtime superintendent of Miami-Dade, he has drawn up a clear record of positive study results and worked tirelessly towards greater justice for historically underserved communities. I know he will continue this focus in Los Angeles and he is ready for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. “

There were 7 to 0 votes for the start of contract negotiations with Carvalho. Details of the proposed employment contract were not immediately known.

By enticing Carvalho to switch coasts, the Los Angeles Department of Education would achieve something that New York City – the nation’s largest school system – could not. In 2018, Carvalho agreed to take the New York job, then retired on live TV a day later, announcing his decision to stay in Miami.

Carvalho was selected from a field of candidates who sources said were respected insiders with significant leadership experience, particularly interim supt. Megan Reilly, Chief Academic Officer Alison Yoshimoto-Towery, and Regional Administrator Frances Baez. Joan Sullivan, executive director of the nonprofit Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, which operates 19 campuses under a contract with LA Unified, was also seen as part of the group.

Miami-Dade Schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho speaks during a school council meeting in March 2018.

(Joe Raedle / Getty Images)

But it would be hard to compare the résumé or experience of Carvalho, considered a charismatic leader in South Florida, to a trophy case that holds multiple Superintendent of the Year awards from various national and Florida organizations. His district also won the Broad Prize for Urban Education in 2012 – a sign that the late Eli Broad and other critics of traditional school systems had their thumbs up.

The Miami-Dade District’s grade in the state’s accountability system has risen to an A.

One of Carvalho’s accomplishments is that he has been superintendent since 2008 and represents more than a generation of K-12 students. With city superintendents’ tenure of typically three years or less, Carvalho’s run in Miami braved all odds.

Since Roy Romer’s departure in 2006, LA Unified has had eight principals, including interim officers. Former Supt. Austin Beutner resigned in June at the end of his three-year contract, among other things due to exhaustion after the administration of the school system due to a teachers strike and a pandemic. Reilly has been leading the school system since then.

Carvalho’s success stories – and lows – have been repeatedly recorded in Florida newspapers and media.

Born in Portugal, he came to the United States at the age of 17. Carvalho learned English as a young adult and quickly worked his way up from construction and restaurant jobs when he attended Broward Community College. He later won a scholarship from Barry University and enrolled on a premed track. He excelled academically but made a tough turn on his career path when he interviewed for an apprenticeship at Miami Jackson Senior High in his mid-20s. He was offered a job that same day, a 2019 Tampa Bay Times profile reported.

After four years in the classroom – as a physics, chemistry and mathematics teacher – he became the deputy headmaster. The then superintendent was so impressed that he brought Carvalho downtown without being a director. Carvalho oversaw federal programs and later became the district’s chief communications officer. He gained additional experience overseeing grant administration and lobbying government officials.

Under Supt. Rudy Crew, Carvalho, several initiatives started including a parents’ academy and a school improvement zone that focuses on schools with poor academic achievement.

After becoming superintendent, Carvalho eventually filled a void on his resume and served as headmaster. He put himself at the head of a new campus called iPrep Academy, a magnet school from Kindergarten through 12. All students are required to take honorary classes.

His career and personal life also went through lows, including two divorces and one bankruptcy, according to a 2008 Miami Herald profile. And just as Carvalho was beginning his tenure as head of Miami-Dade, embarrassing emails surfaced between him and a Beat reporter with whom he allegedly had a romantic relationship. The emails were from before his election as superintendent.

The new headmaster will take over the LA job at a critical moment. The system is filled with billions of dollars in coronavirus aid, additional federal funding, and rising state tax revenues. But there is mountainous work ahead of us. The isolation and deficits of distance learning was followed by a challenging readjustment of the campus. The district is also plagued by falling enrollments and a long-term structural budget deficit.

“The past 21 months have been devastating for so many families we care for in LA Unified,” Gonez said in a recent interview prior to the selection of Carvalho. “The pandemic has brought an unequal burden of illness, death, job loss and trauma that has disproportionately affected colored communities. Our superintendent will face the profound effects of the pandemic, the uprisings for racial justice and the urgent needs of our students and families. “

More than 90% of parents, community members and staff in a recent district survey said they would like the next school principal to have “experience working in public schools as a teacher and / or administrator”. To an almost equal extent, those who responded also challenged someone with experience “working in and with large, diverse communities” and “managing a very large, changing organization”.

Board member Jackie Goldberg, who described herself as “overjoyed,” said the election was in line with the community’s explicit priorities: “We unanimously selected someone who was a teacher, principal and principal of a large school system.”

Carvalho will also enter as an outsider with a new perspective. He will quickly have to master the operation and personnel of a huge, complex system with an administrative structure very different from that of Florida. LA Unified is the only school system in the country with a full-time paid education committee, with individual members selecting and directing their own staff.

With its decision, the school board took a different path than in 2018, when the members decided with 4-3 votes in a closed meeting for Beutner, a businessman with no experience in education management.

Carvalho will need early help from insiders who have not been selected.

Reilly, the interim superintendent, has management experience both outside and inside education and has a solid understanding of the district’s financial structure. But she was never a teacher or principal in a public school, which helped open the door for other applicants. Yoshimoto-Towery has extensive academic leadership experience and has developed the learning initiatives currently under way.

Baez has been in the district for more than 25 years, rising from teacher to administrator – most recently becoming superintendent for Local District Central, one of six regional branches of LA Unified. Sullivan is well known in the philanthropic community and has experience trying to turn around some of the county’s schools whose students have struggled the most.

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