Washington Policy Center 2011 Education Breakfast

Description

Improving Learning through Fair Student Funding: What We Can Learn from Baltimore City Schools

Featuring Baltimore City Public Schools C.E.O. Andrés A. Alonso

Please join Washington Policy Center for our 2011 Education Breakfast. This year's event will show how Fair Student Funding gives school principals the freedom to improve an existing program or turn around a failing school. The event will feature a keynote address by Andrés A. Alonso, Ed.D., Chief Executive Officer, Baltimore City Public Schools.

Read about Alonso's work in this 12/1/10 New York Times article "A Mission to Transform Baltimore’s Beaten Schools."

• Dr. Andrés Alonso has turned around one of the worst school systems in the country by changing the culture of the schools, streamlining the district to serve the schools, giving flexibility and budget authority to great school principals and teachers, and increasing parent choice.

Andrés Alonso emigrated at age 12 to the U.S. from Cuba. He attended public schools in New Jersey, earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School, practiced law and changed careers to become an educator. He earned a Doctorate in Education from Harvard University. After working with emotionally-disturbed special education adolescents and English language learners, he worked in the New York City Department of Education and ultimately became a Deputy to Chancellor Joel Klein, as they implemented fundamental reforms to the largest school district in the nation.

In July 2007, Dr. Alonso was named C.E.O. of Baltimore City Public Schools and immediately launched a series of innovative programs based on putting great principals in charge and moving resources to the classroom. In the first two years of his tenure, Baltimore City students reached their highest outcomes in state exams, across all categories of students. More students are graduating for the first time in many years, and the system has gained students instead of losing them.

In a speech on December 1st in Washington D.C., U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan commended Baltimore City’s new teachers contract, which creates a new teacher pay model based on performance, not seniority, and gives teachers more say in the day-to-day operations of their schools. Dr. Alonso has received numerous awards for his courageous leadership. In addition, Baltimore City Schools won the 2010 Council of Urban Boards of Education (CUBE) Annual Award for Urban School Board Excellence.