Superintendent Carvalho’s leaving for Los Angeles is a terrible loss for Miami | Opinion
His story, the rise from homeless immigrant teen to Miami-Dade Public Schools superintendent, was vintage Miami — and it served Alberto Carvalho well on the job.
He placed children’s interests first.
He walked with ease the tightly wound rope of Miami politics as an independent. He was inspirational across communities.
And, most notably, he was a constant presence where Miamians needed him most, in the neighborhoods where children were the victims of horrific gun violence.
He consoled. He genuinely cared. He spoke up.
“Community violence persists as long as we accept neglect, hopelessness and apathy,” an exasperated Carvalho said in 2017, after a spate of drive-by shootings left a toll of innocents caught in the crossfire.
“Reclaiming our streets begins with reclaiming our homes,” he said. “Community violence is a consequence. True solutions lie with identifying and addressing the cause. Together, as a community, for [the] children.”
Leaving for L.A.
Carvalho’s leaving to run Los Angeles’ Unified School District is a terrible loss for Miami-Dade — and for all of Florida, where the insufferable state of politics calls for more Carvalhos on the job to stand up to authoritarians running roughshod over public education, not one less-brave executive.
Who can blame Carvalho, 57, for leaving us for Democrat-run California, where he will surely face other challenges but at least not extreme, Trumpist right-wing politics?
By electing a governor and lawmakers intent on violating the sacred principle of academic freedom, Florida voters have spoken loudly.
They prefer segregating their children in private schools paid for by Florida taxpayers. And public-school systems are suffering as a result of drained coffers, money often used without public scrutiny or enough accountability.
It is a sorry state of affairs. We lose the good and the bad entrenches itself.
Carvalho’s role in the pandemic
Not even when a life-threatening coronavirus pandemic came, could Floridians agree on school safety.
We were only better off than many counties because we had Carvalho at the helm.
He didn’t mince words about what he would do: follow the science, even if it meant standing up to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ threats to punish administrators actually looking out for our children’s well-being.
There was no parental revolt in Miami-Dade, despite the divisive politics around masking and vaccines, because he also didn’t antagonize when he spoke about them, a Mr. Switzerland of sorts.
I suspect Carvalho’s leaving is only the beginning of brain drain from Florida’s public-education system, under siege by Republican ideologues. He will take with him good people. Good for all of them. Voters should get what they vote for. In Florida’s case, demagoguery and mediocrity.
When New York City almost hired Carvalho away from us in 2018, I breathed a sigh of relief when he decided to stay. Good thing, I said. Miami needed his uncommon political courage.
We didn’t get lucky twice. We’ve lost the best superintendent this school district, the nation’s fourth largest, has ever had.
The Los Angeles job, Carvalho said at a press conference Thursday, is “my goal, my decision, as I open my heart to L.A., never to close my heart to Miami. This has been my home. For 30 years, I’ve been an educator in this community.”
But, enough with the mourning.
All there’s left to say is: Thank you, Superintendent Carvalho, for the extraordinary work you’ve done here in more than a decade at the helm.
Miami will miss you.
This story was originally published December 9, 2021 at 2:41 PM.
