When Andres Alonso "fell" into teaching after ditching his job as a Wall Street lawyer, he took on a special education class in Newark, N.J., and dedicated himself to serving emotionally disturbed children for more than a decade, eventually becoming the legal guardian of one of his former students.
To those who have watched Alonso's life evolve from those early days as a classroom teacher to a deputy chancellor of New York's behemoth school system, the man who is the new chief executive officer for Baltimore's schools didn't just switch jobs, he found his calling.
"He is the genuine article," said Robert Peterkin, director of the Urban Superintendents Program at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education, from which Alonso received his doctoral degree last year. "He is the type of educator all of our inner cities need. I am excited about him bringing his intellect and his commitment to Baltimore."
Meria Carstarphen, the superintendent of the St. Paul (Minn.) school system and a Harvard classmate of Alonso's, said she has absolute confidence in his abilities as an educator. "Andres is so focused on his constituents - students, teachers and families," Carstarphen said. "Whatever he decides to do in Baltimore, it will be the right thing for the right reason at the right time."
Emigrated from Cuba
There was more praise for Alonso - who emigrated with his family to the United States from Cuba when he was 12 years old - from city school board officials, who introduced Alonso, 50, as the head of the city's 83,000-student school system at an afternoon news conference.
"This is great news," said Brian Morris, chairman of the Baltimore Board of School Commissioners, which has spent the past several months looking for a replacement for former CEO Bonnie S. Copeland, who left the position last year. Charlene Cooper Boston was given the position on an interim basis; her contract expires at the end of the month.
"We think we got our man," said Morris during a meeting with Alonso and The Sun's editorial board a few hours before the news conference. "This selection is as important, if not more important, than who is going to be the next mayor."
Alonso said he decided to take the Baltimore job after he met with board members, despite his strong ties to New York - as a youth he lived in Union City, N.J., across the Hudson River from New York, and later received his bachelor's degree from Columbia University in Manhattan.
