HARTFORD, Conn. -- Early last week, Anthony S. Amato resigned under pressure as superintendent of schools in this state capital. His stormy tenure lasted only 3 1/2 years, but that was enough for Mayor Eddie A. Perez and a growing body of critics who had had enough of the 55-year-old Amato.

Baltimore and Hartford are two peas in a pod.

Both have the highest dropout rate and lowest test scores in their states. Both systems are mired in poverty. Both desperately -- and unsuccessfully -- turned schools over to a private contractor in the mid-1990s.

Amato and Baltimore schools chief Carmen V. Russo even have similar backgrounds -- both graduated from New York City high schools and eventually earned their administrative stripes in the tough schools of New York.

So the Amato case may be instructive to Russo, 66, who is just past the halfway point of a four-year contract. There are a couple of lessons:

The first one is that raising test scores and straightening out the financial mess aren't enough.

Amato did manage to raise scores and to untangle school finances in Hartford. He cut the city's dropout rate in half. And replacing Hartford's mishmash of reading programs with the Towson-based Success for All more than doubled the proportion of elementary kids reading at grade level -- from 29 percent to 61 percent.

But Amato had promised much more. At a session with Baltimore principals two years ago, he boldly promised that "100 percent of Hartford kids will be at grade level in reading and math" by June 2002. If that didn't happen, he said, the superintendent "should pay the price."

I was in the audience, and I saw the principals looking at each other and shaking their heads in disbelief. "I had it put in my contract," Amato plunged on. "You've got to be bold."

By most accounts, Amato employed this brash style in running the Hartford school system. Only he knew what was best. Colleagues and subordinates who disagreed paid the price.

He alienated many. Most important, he angered his boss, Mayor Perez.

The second lesson: It's not helpful to give the impression that you want to be anywhere else but where they pay you almost $200,000 a year to do your job.

As columnist Denis Horgan observed last week in the Hartford Courant, one of the first things Amato must have done upon signing his contract in 1999 was "program his speed dial with the AAA TripTik hotline."

The superintendent openly sought top school jobs in Portland, Ore., Philadelphia, San Francisco and New York (twice). He also maintained a heavy out-of-town speaking schedule, lest folks in districts more glamorous than Hartford forget his availability.

This was understandably a blow to the civic ego of Hartford, a city that shares with Baltimore a mammoth inferiority complex.

Amato's rejection during the summer by Philadelphia was the last straw.

He was warned by school board Chairman Thomas Ritter that he had to change his ways. The superintendent said he realized Hartford felt betrayed, and he said he would look for a home in the city. It wasn't enough.

Russo is not quite in the same category. She hasn't even acknowledged that she's looking for a new post. But she never denied she was on the short list for New York superintendent, and she's a finalist for a new job as chancellor -- something equivalent to state schools superintendent -- in Florida.

That job (which might not be created if Gov. Jeb Bush loses his bid for re-election Tuesday) would be an "extraordinary opportunity," Russo says.

Russo can raise all the scores she wants, but a quick exit leaves people with a heavy feeling of business undone. And damaging a city's already fragile ego is a cardinal sin.

France bestows high honor upon Hopkins' Baldwin

It's not often that a Johns Hopkins University professor -- any professor, for that matter -- receives the highest award bestowed by the French government.

But that happened Oct. 24 when historian John Baldwin received the French Legion of Honor for his 50 years of studying the French medieval period.

The Legion of Honor, created in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte, rarely goes to academics, said Stephen Nichols, chairman of Hopkins' department of Romance languages. When it does, it's bestowed only on the most prestigious professors in France.