I’m really jealous of Hartford’s new school superintendent, Steven J. Adamowski.
It’s not just the big bucks and the big staff and the champagne fountain in his office that make me wish that I were him.
No, the really cool thing was that he received an exemption from having to take the state-required competency exam to make sure that he could read and write and spell and add and subtract and stuff.
You just can’t waltz into town and be a school superintendent in Connecticut. If you can’t spell “pedagogy” and prove that you can increase an annual school budget with a double-digit percentage that you can figure out on the back of an envelope, you don’t get the job.
So, this guy Adamowski rides into town without so much as a number-two pencil to fill in the test answers — and the city panics. What if the guy can’t pass the test?
So, the General Assembly gave him a pass, for a job that he is not really certified, notarized or sanitized to hold. No testing for Superintendent Adamowski.
I’m not really worried about the school system being led by someone who might not be able to read academic research on education. No one can read that stuff — and it’s a good thing.
No, I’m simply jealous. Do you have any idea what you have to go through to be a columnist at the Hartford Business Journal? No free pass from the Board of Directors of the Business Journal Holding Co. of the Cayman Islands. No special dispensation from a friendly state legislator. Nope, if you want to be a columnist here, you have to pass the test.
As you might expect, the test has a “spelling” section, which goes a long way toward explaining why there aren’t more columnists in the Hartford Business Journal. A few examples:
Q: How do you spell the name of Hartford’s famous art museum — the oldest art museum in American that no one has ever spelled correctly?
A: No one really knows. You have to drive by the place and stare at the sign. It’s “Anthaneuuumh” or something like that.
Q: How do you spell the name of the graduate school campus in Hartford that is affiliated with a well-known engineering school in New York, with sort of the same name?
A: Isn’t this an English-language paper? I don’t know; it’s some sort of Dutch thing. Maybe, like, “Rensuleahr.”
Q: Hartford has a “Landing.” How do you spell the name of the Landing?
A: Well, why don’t we just move to The Netherlands and wear wooden shoes and stuff? Her name is “Aeeedrionne” or something.
There is also a geography quiz on the test. For instance, here is one question from the “true-false” section:
Q: True or False – If Bloomfield Avenue takes you to Bloomfield, Conn.; and Wethersfield Avenue takes you to Wethersfield, Conn.; then does Franklin Avenue take you to Franklin, Conn.?
A: That’s a trick question. Franklin Avenue is in Italy.
In the rare instance that the test thus far hasn’t disqualified everyone but Cohen from being a Business Journal columnist, there is a math section guaranteed to trip up most writers who, if they knew any math, would calculate their hourly wage and choose instead to be a school superintendent.
Q: If the Hartford parking meters charge 25 cents for 10 minutes of parking; and you are a suburbanite conditioned to assume that parking is sort of free, how many bags of quarters will you need to spend a little time in the city?
A: I don’t know. I’m in Manchester, parking for free at one of the 873 shopping malls.
And finally, there is a “biology” chapter of the exam. You might think that peculiar for a business newspaper, but that’s the point: The editor is screening out whiners and crybabies.
Q: If the Convention Center bone is connected to the Front Street development bone; and the Front Street bone is connected to the science museum bone, and the museum bone is connected to the vacant apartment and condo bone, do you still hear the word of the Lord?
A: You hear the word of the marketplace, saying “stop it, stop it, stop it.”
Laurence D. Cohen is a freelance writer.
