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The parking lots at my high school in Miami-Dade County in the 1990s served as cultural bookends, metaphors of the region’s changing demographics. At the northeast end of campus sat what was colloquially known as the “Cuban” parking lot. The southwest corner was known as the “American” parking lot.
At a school that was easily three-quarters Latino, where you chose to park or to hang out said less about your family’s cultural background than it did your tenure in the United States. Were you the child of immigrants or an immigrant yourself? I’d again witness this dynamic 10 years later as a reporter while covering the education beat in Santa Clara County, except the identity match was between recently arrived Chinese immigrants and the American-born children of Chinese immigrants.
It’s a shared experience by those of us navigating where we belong in a country when our feet are planted in two distinct cultures.
In Los Angeles, the lessons in cultural nuance that new L.A. Unified Superintendent Alberto Carvalho learned as the head of Miami-Dade public schools for nearly 14 years will serve him well in a county with a similar, albeit larger, demographic profile: A minority-majority district with a sizable student population whose families speak Spanish at home. A comparable proportion of students living at or below the poverty line. A foreign-born population that outpaces the national average.
Carvalho arrived in Los Angeles less than a month ago with promises to usher in a new era for the district, which has seen a steady decline in enrollment and increasing gaps in student achievement. In Miami-Dade, he is credited – by both friends and foes – for transforming its schools and getting more bang (student achievement results) for its educational buck.
Powerful parallels aside, however, politically “you couldn’t think of two more distinct realities that influence education,” Carvalho recently told me during a chat with EdSource. For one, “Florida over-emphasizes testing,” Carvalho explained.
I know what he means. I was a parent of two young children enrolled in Broward County public schools, the neighboring school district to the north of Miami-Dade, when Florida decided to tie teacher pay to performance. Student assessments were incessant from the first week of school. By January, parents at my children’s elementary school were provided with individualized reports that showed how our children performed on specific state standards. Then the school would arrange for after-school enrichment — for both students and parents — to help move the needle on the student’s performance on those end-of-the-year tests.
In Carvalho’s recently released 100-day plan for LAUSD, he mentions reducing overall testing. He also talks about increasing “choice” throughout the district: “Choice is one of the biggest differences between L.A. and Miami … how we treat the issue of parental options.”
Los Angeles in 2022, Carvalho explained, is closer to Miami-Dade in 2008-09 in terms of school choice – only about 25-30% of students take advantage of special curriculums and magnet programs. In Miami today, 75% of students are enrolled in nontraditional programs afforded under school choice.
“I’m less concerned about the dynamic of dialogue that usually separates people into two camps – charter vs. noncharter,” he said. “I’m more interested in programmatic offerings that benefit kids – period.”
My high school, in the heart of a Miami-Dade community known as Westchester, was transformed under Carvalho’s leadership. Almost 30 years ago, the school held the unofficial title as being one of the less desirable destinations in the neighborhood. Ten years ago, its graduation rate was 81%. Last year, it was 94%, the highest in the school’s history. During that time, the school established a banking and finance magnet program, as well as a computer science programming academy, both of which now draw students from all over the district.
As one friend who is now a principal at a Miami-Dade school put it: “You can be in the same neighborhood and kids on the street can be going to six or seven different high schools.”
She and other former classmates of mine who currently work as teachers and administrators in the district describe Carvalho as a strategic thinker who becomes very involved in the community and does an “exceptional job of influencing others and pushes individuals to be able to help them.” He loves data and expects administrators to know who their lowest-performing students are and how the needs of those students are going to be met.
“He’ll call you on the carpet,” the principal said, “… if you don’t know your stuff.”
Carvalho also intimately understands the challenges within communities like Miami or Los Angeles. The only among his siblings in Portugal to graduate from high school, he came to the United States at age 17, not knowing the language, and overstayed his visa. He found his way from New York to Miami, scrubbing pots and couch-surfing to keep alive his dream of a college education. He eventually worked his way up from science teacher to administrator in the district that he would ultimately lead.
In Miami, Carvalho prioritized the needs of homeless students and their families. He established food pantries in schools, with clothing and food available for both students and their parents. He slammed immigration policies in 2017 when the Trump administration ended a temporary protection program that safeguarded Haitians, Nicaraguans and others from war-torn countries or those that have suffered natural disasters.
In Los Angeles, Carvalho, who speaks five languages, says the district needs to do more to help English learners. He also wants to prioritize all students learning a second language.
“Should it not be a right for every student to be able to speak a second language?” he asked EdSource. “Should that not be an indispensable, fundamental right to public education in LAUSD?”
In a district with the Hollywood film and entertainment industry as its backdrop, Carvalho told me he also wants schools to better incorporate arts into education.
“It’s not just about that which we test periodically – math, language arts, science, social studies,” he said. “It’s about building the whole child.”
As one LAUSD watcher told me last week, Carvalho will have about a 12-14 month “honeymoon” period where he can make his mark and clearly demonstrate his intentions. Time – and money – is of the essence, as Covid relief dollars provide the district with a one-time windfall that can be used to overhaul summer school and after-school programs to begin to narrow the achievement gaps.
Many signs point to Carvalho being the right type of superintendent for a district in desperate need of community relationship-building.
“In L.A., he’s going to have no choice but to build relationships with the community,” my friend, the Miami school principal, said. “That’s the only way he’ll get anything done.”
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Fresno City College professor Tom Boroujeni is unable to fulfill his duties as academic senate president while on leave, the latest update reads.
This is a continuing EdSource series on proven innovations in higher education that relate to the problems facing California’s higher education systems.
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Mors Alfabesi Bileklik 1 year ago1 year ago
One thing I learned as an LA Unified teacher for many years is that teachers and administrators see the educational enterprise very differently. Thanks…
death run 3d 2 years ago2 years ago
In an area set with the Hollywood movie and entertainment industries, Carvalho wanted schools to better incorporate the arts into their education. That’s a good idea too.
Kahllid Al-Alim 2 years ago2 years ago
Thanks for this article!
Latanae 2 years ago2 years ago
Notice that in this article there is not one single mention of Mr. Carvalho’s accomplishments in improving academic outcomes in Florida. It mentions his success in providing food pantries and advancement of other non-academic social programs but nothing about academics. Also notice that his first priority is to abolish "tests". Since public education is no longer capable of educating anybody. eliminating "tests" has to be a pre-requisite in order to make the public … Read More
Notice that in this article there is not one single mention of Mr. Carvalho’s accomplishments in improving academic outcomes in Florida. It mentions his success in providing food pantries and advancement of other non-academic social programs but nothing about academics. Also notice that his first priority is to abolish “tests”. Since public education is no longer capable of educating anybody. eliminating “tests” has to be a pre-requisite in order to make the public education system an extension of the welfare state instead.
Replies
Anne Vasquez 2 years ago2 years ago
Thanks for reading and for your input. The column mentions that Carvalho was credited in Miami-Dade, by supporters and critics, for improving student academic outcomes. As one example, the column references my high school’s graduation rate, which dramatically increased during his tenure.
drift hunters 2 years ago2 years ago
LA great man !!!!
Tom O'Malley 2 years ago2 years ago
One thing I learned as an LA Unified teacher for many years is that teachers and administrators see the educational enterprise very differently. The way educational institutions have been set up in America (and I'm sure many other places) is that teachers control instruction and administrators run the school.That's the division of labor. The main problem in LA Unified and other urban public schools relates to instruction, not to administration. Students are not learning. … Read More
One thing I learned as an LA Unified teacher for many years is that teachers and administrators see the educational enterprise very differently. The way educational institutions have been set up in America (and I’m sure many other places) is that teachers control instruction and administrators run the school.That’s the division of labor. The main problem in LA Unified and other urban public schools relates to instruction, not to administration. Students are not learning. That is the problem. School choice, while fine, addresses parents’ unhappiness with their child’s learning progress. It provides them with the relief of having another option, but it doesn’t address the underlying problem.
Doctors and patients have a special relationship that goes back centuries. So do lawyers and their clients, and so do teachers and their students. In the case of young people, education involves much more than training or skill-acquisition. It constitutes the explicit component of our society’s enculturation generally, and that, as you would expect, is premised upon teachers and students having the same common culture or at least the same potential common culture. Without that common culture, the K-12 student-teacher relationship breaks down.
Racism in American in regard to Black and Hispanic people is systemic. While bad enough in itself, it also breaks the fact and possibility of (predominantly White) teachers and their (predominantly Black and Hispanic) students from having a common culture. That is the main problem in urban public education today. That is why, as has often been noted, Black teachers do better with Black students than White teachers do. The solution, practically and morally, is not to give every Black student a Black teacher and every Hispanic student a Hispanic teacher. The solution is to address and solve this underlying conundrum. LA Unified’s new superintendent, for all his passion, dedication, and good will, is an administrator. We need such an administrator, but the problem resides in teacher territory, and that’s what we need to fix.
JOHN PATRICK Maginnis 2 years ago2 years ago
Wonderful man to come to LA now.