Reposted 2:25 a.m. June 16 with links to Tuesday night Board of Education agenda, outline of proposed superintendent’s contract.
NORWALK, Conn. – When Steven Adamowski, PhD, took over as superintendent of Hartford’s public schools in 2006, “His visionary leadership provided the school system with structure. He focused on priorities, such as early literacy, accountability and high expectations and implementing an all-choice system of schools. He also took the lead on becoming the first school district in the state to implement school governance councils to include parents in the decision-making process.”
This is according to then-Hartford PTO Executive President Milly Arciniegas.
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In her letter of July 8, 2011, extolling Adamowski’s performance, she wrote that he took over a system that was dysfunctional, low-performing with no system accountability. Parents lacked trust in the system and parent involvement was “at its lowest.”
That changed, she wrote:
“For the past five years, our children have shown significant gains and everyone is proud of their accomplishments. Because of Adamowski, our children and school system are now on a path to produce extraordinary results.”
The letter paints a different picture of the man the Norwalk Board of Education will vote on at 8 p.m. Tuesday (tonight, Common Council Chambers at City Hall) as its next superintendent than that portrayed on various blogs, some news stories and by some commenters on this site.
Outline of proposed superintendent’s contract
Adamowski would replace Manny Rivera, who cut his stay short after less than two years to take over his hometown New London system – ironically, a system under state control and being run by Special Master Steven Adamowski.
The announcement of Rivera’s hiring two years ago was mostly hailed as the best pick ever to lead NPS. There were a few naysayers, some pointing to Rivera’s flighty employment history, but most of Norwalk was caught up in the thrall of Rivera’s credentials that included being named Superintendent of the Year in Rochester, N.Y., some years earlier.
Adamowski’s impending arrival has elicited a different response, with some of those same naysayers being joined by others, including persistent statewide blogger Jonathan Pelto, whose disdain for Adamowski has fueled many negative comments on this site.
Pelto even called into question the legality of Adamowski’s hiring, and asserted he does not hold the proper credentials, something both Adamowski and Norwalk BoE Chairman Mike Lyons refuted. To read the letter granting Adamowski’s waiver of certification – which carries no expiration date nor any limits of which Connecticut schools can employ him – and the law that enables the waiver, click these links:
We spoke with the BoE’s top pick Monday afternoon and found him to be receptive to questions and, he said, aware of what he is getting into.
“The job description that outlined Norwalk’s strengths, accomplishments and challenges was thoughtfully considered but did not give me ‘pause,’” he said in response to one of our questions. “Resistance to change, political issues of an elected Board and entrenchment of the status quo are not unique to Norwalk. They are encountered in every organizational change process and I have successfully dealt with that before.
“All good leaders learn lessons from past experience, adjust strategy to specific context and changing circumstance while adhering to a set of values, principles and goals in an unrelenting pursuit of better outcomes for those we serve. All the children of Norwalk deserve a great education for the investment the community is making. That will be my leadership priority; I trust that the adult issues will dissipate as we all focus on that.”
So, knowing some of the history, why would a veteran superintendent and current state special master want to make Norwalk a late-career move – aside from the $90,000 annual salary bump, that is ($160,000 in his current position; $250,000 according to the proposed Norwalk contract)?
“My motivation to lead Norwalk’s education system is based on my desire to continue my life’s work of providing better opportunities and outcomes for all students by creating better schools,” he said. “A superintendent leads a school district to do this by empowering the performance of its educators and developing their talent, creating programs and schools robust enough to meet the needs of all children and close achievement gaps, and collaborating with stakeholders to redesign a system that will sustain improvement. The needs and challenges of Norwalk’s education system resonate with me. While an ‘under-performing’ district relative to its assets at the current time, it is one of the few cities in the nation that is not experiencing significant financial problems, it is on a ‘reform trajectory’ initiated by the Board and Dr. Rivera, and there are great people within the education system and at all levels of government and civic life committed to change and improvement. With proper leadership and governance for long enough, I believe Norwalk can become a national model for the highest quality urban education.”
Creating a national model is not a foreign concept to Adamowski, at least as far as former Ohio Gov. Bob Taft was concerned.
“You have advanced the progress of the Cincinnati Schools on every front and set them on a course for further improvement,” Taft wrote in a July 8, 2002, letter acknowledging Adamowski’s resignation. “Your clear strategy for a system of autonomous, competing public schools, and your ability to reconstitute and redesign schools and programs within schools are truly a model for the nation.”
A report dated July 18, 2002, on CityBeat.com questioned why Adamowski was leaving when he did, though, and, while touting his achievements, highlighted a misfire that apparently rankled the local teachers union. The site quoted Tom Mooney, CFT president for 21 years until mid-2000, when he became president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, as saying “Adamowski is getting a lot more credit from the media than he deserves for reforms at CPS. I was sort of appalled by … the way (The Enquirer and The Post) took the propaganda of the school district and published it verbatim,” Mooney said.
Local NFT President Bruce Mellion has expressed some concern with the BoE’s choice, but said he is keeping an open mind and will work with Adamowski if and when he is appointed.
“We do have some strong reservations about what happened in those other locations,” Mellion said Monday. (Check back later for more comments from Mellion.)
A Hartford Courant editorial written some three months after he took the superintendent job in Connecticut’s capital suggested Adamowski’s “bluntness” had ruffled feathers, saying he was not afraid to “step on toes.” The editorial’s penultimate paragraph could have been written here, today, given the reaction to his impending hiring in Norwalk:
“People mired in the traditional glass-half-empty approach to urban education are already second-guessing and undercutting Mr. Adamowski’s single-minded new way of looking at things.”
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