Alberto M. Carvalho

Alberto M. Carvalho is an educator and the superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS), the fourth-largest school district in the United States, with over 346,000 students and 52,000 employees. He was appointed superintendent in September 2008.

In February 2014, the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) named Carvalho the 2014 National Superintendent of the Year.

Carvalho was born in Portugal to a father who worked as a custodian and mother who worked as a seamstress. He was one of six children and the only one to graduate high school. He described growing up there in "pretty dramatic poverty,” living "in a one-room apartment with no running water and no electricity."

He came to the United States after high school in the early 1980s. As an undocumented immigrant, he worked mostly in construction and restaurants (as a dishwasher) and was homeless for a time.

Carvalho attended Broward College and then Barry University, where in 1990 he graduated with a bachelor's degree in Biology.

Carvalho began his career in education as a physics, chemistry, and calculus teacher at Miami Jackson Senior High. He later became an assistant principal at the school. He also worked as principal, chief communications officer, a school district lobbyist, and assistant superintendent before being named superintendent to lead the Miami-Dade Country Public School district in 2008.

At the time of his appointment, the district was reported to have been near bankruptcy. Carvalho worked to cut the budget by $2 billion, firing "massive numbers of administrators" but not one classroom teacher. He has described his approach as "zero-based, moral-values-based" budgeting.

In 2010, Carvalho was appointed the chairman of a taskforce aimed at improving teaching quality throughout Miami. Carvalho "franchised" MAST Academy, opening three new schools based on the original Virginia Key institution.

In 2012, Carvalho served as President of the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents and is currently on the Board of Directors of The Children's Trust.

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