Hartford’s Adamowski Delivers Results
Rick Green had an interesting article about the Hartford School System. The opening salvo:
In Hartford, student test scores are up. More children are learning to read. New schools and innovative programs have opened across the city.
Why is Hartford’s cranky superintendent of schools fighting with so many people?
Steve Adamowski hit the trifecta the other day, sticking a finger in the eyes of top legislators, Commissioner of Education Mark McQuillan and other superintendents with his threat to abruptly shut down transportation for suburban children attending city schools unless he got more funding.
Significantly, Adamowski won the standoff. The state coughed up $3 million — after saying there was no more money.
“He’s just created another chapter of drama,” said state Rep. Andrew Fleischmann, co-chairman of the General Assembly’s education committee. “I’m tired of it. Defenders of the superintendent and his style have run out of explanations at this point. How do you explain a guy jumping up and stamping his feet, again.”
You explain it with the fact that Adamowski — in a city where it has been OK for poor children to fail to learn to read — delivers.
Much as I’d like to, I can’t argue with this.
“We don’t go around picking fights. Every one of these is meaningful,” Adamowski told me Monday during a conversation in his sparsely furnished office. We talked about the difficulty of bringing change to a school district that, when he arrived in 2006, spent $400 million a year to get the worst student achievement in the state.
“You have to judge us by the results,” Adamowski said. “How long do you want to live with an achievement gap which is the greatest in the nation?”
So what does this say about Norwalk’s Superintendent search? With the new BOE, there rests the opportunity to go for results oriented leadership in the superintendent position. Not someone sitting on the sidelines of Norwalk’s current administration. Read Green’s whole article, there’s some interesting stuff regarding unions in there.
source: Courant, Despite Conflicts, Adamowski Is Reforming Hartford Schools By Rick Green, November 24, 2009
