Alonso and some short notes.

I didn't get a lot of actual work done yesterday, but it was still very long and very productive. For a week or so I had been entertaining the idea of being placed at Margaret Brent instead of Barclay, my original top choice. I finally went over to the school with Sofia, the departing VISTA, and it clicked with me -- the school had a good energy and I feel good about the principal, who also happens to have the same first name as I do (albeit using the Kennedy-style spelling). For all my compulsive need to be 100% informed on every situation lest I make one misstep, most of my big decisions are made by instinct. My entire decision to join AmeriCorps in the first place began during the alternative spring break trip to Massachusetts: I just sat in the dark sanctuary of the church we were sleeping at and prayed for an answer to my lack of direction, and this is what I got. Now, rather than be ridiculously concerned, I just said "this feels right."

There will be more later, though. I can't let such a routine event overshadow the most important part of the day.

Yesterday evening I had the privilege of attending one of the new CEO's (aka superintendent) "community conversations." This was a time for the community to be introduced to Dr. Alonso and also for him to be introduced to them and their concerns.

By the end I was sorry this hadn't taken place a couple weeks later, when the other VISTAs will be in town. Though he struck me as a bit soft-spoken at first, Alonso is in Baltimore as a guy who is going to get things done, to turn the entire school system around. He exudes the quiet confidence of someone who has done this before, yet he is not afraid to tell people "hold me accountable, but don't forget you have a part in this."

Hopefully I'll have a lot more opportunity to talk about Dr. Alonso. I'm not going to go on at length here because this was my first introduction, and I know better than to presume some kind of comprehensive understanding has come out of that.

What I can say is I heard Alonso -- the former #2 guy from the NYC school system -- described as a "breath of fresh air" in a city that desperately needed to bring someone in from the outside. I also heard him challenged by parents, community members, and school employees. They've heard a lot of talk, now they want something in writing, they want to see a change.

This man has not failed to impress me, but I identify more with that sense of tentative optimism. You sound like a great man, Dr. Alonso, but I won't quite believe it until I see it. Overall, last night was totally inspiring. The parents' and teachers' words broke my heart. They are angry about middle schools with no libraries, computers, science labs, algebra, gyms, or adequate cafeterias. They are angry about the myriad ways the Baltimore City Public Schools have failed them. But in their words I could hear a stirring of the winds of change. People are tired.

These beginnings of an uprising, of reform, are also what give me caution. The feeling in my chest last night was the same one I felt three years ago, the year of the last election. I rode in a hot car and sat in traffic for a half hour on Route 22 to get to the John Kerry rally at the Allentown Fairgrounds. In the heart of what used to be the steel industry, now sometimes called the "rust belt," here was a man who preached passionately to the working class. I was swallowed up in an amphitheater full of people clapping, cheering in affirmation, and full of hope -- hope that the good, middle-class jobs would return to the Lehigh Valley, hope that their children wouldn't be sent to war, hope that the hard-working, middle-class brand of success at the foundations of our nation would be returned to them. This was a working class that was tired of being stepped on and tired of being used and forgotten. I could feel a big change coming, a shift in our nation. There was a lot of electricity in the air. People were tired.

We all know how that story ends. Right now I'm praying for Dr. Alonso, and praying that he will be steadfast enough to "turn this ship around" (as he put it). He said to us afterward, "if I get half of it done, a quarter of it done, a tenth of it done, we are moving forward. It is going to be so hard. Baltimore City is, like a lot of industrial Mid-Atlantic cities (ahem, Philadelphia?) is marvelous but broken in a lot of ways. There are many problems, hundreds of wrong ways to fix them, and probably only one right way. I hope everyone can learn to trust this Alonso guy. He seems absolutely dedicated, and he really knows his stuff. The last piece of the puzzle is getting the people behind him, proving he respects them, and making a public point of addressing some of the worst emergencies in the schools quickly and completely.