He's bold, camera ready and loves Twitter, but has LA's schools chief uplifted students?
LOS ANGELES — Exhilarated, he proclaimed "I love LAUSD" in sign language during a 125-mph skydive in a Twitter video. He posed on horseback in Topanga Canyon because connecting with nature is "indispensable to the holistic education of our students." He has stood alongside Dr. Dre, George Clooney, Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore and Mayor Karen Bass. He's also been seen alongside first graders, holding their hands, and with high schoolers, demonstrating how to extract DNA from a strawberry.
Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho has curated a camera-ready persona and omnipresent social media profile as he completes his first year in charge of the nation's second-largest school district, presenting a high-voltage style and bold agenda that evokes both applause and a few eye rolls.
Although it's too soon to gauge progress, supporters are optimistic that Carvalho's dizzying array of initiatives will begin to raise achievement for some 423,000 students, following the brutal pandemic years. Since arriving from Miami-Dade, a district he led for some 13 years, he has earned generally high marks from key education and community leaders, some advocacy organizations and retains strong school board support.
Confronted in the fall with showing that five years of gains were wiped away during the pandemic, he pledged to two years of lost ground this year and the remainder in the following two. The target is aggressive at one level, but still would leave lagging student achievement no better than it was before the pandemic. He's also predicted that — which threatens to weaken programs and close schools — will begin to rise under his leadership, despite what demographers have forecast.
