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School Leader Who Overhauled Discipline in Long-Troubled Baltimore Looks Back

This story originally appeared in The Seattle Times.

For many, the words “Baltimore schools” will conjure  an image of utter dysfunction. The city hit our popular radar in 2007, through David Simon’s scorching television series “The Wire,” and the show’s depiction of public education there was damning, to put it mildly. By that point, enrollment in Baltimore schools had been dwindling for decades, and fewer than half of all students graduated.

Enter Andres Alonso, a Cuban immigrant with minimal administrative experience and a brassy self-confidence that alienated as many as it inspired.

But in six years, Alonso was able to cut Baltimore’s dropout rate by half and end 26 years of court-ordered oversight in special education. After a rocky start, he eventually found common ground with the teachers union, too. Little surprise that in 2013, Harvard University tapped him to teach about system-reform in urban schools...

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