Bad system inflates school salaries
Recently, I received a call from a news reporter asking why school superintendents shouldn't receive salaries as large as leaders in private industry.
To give readers an idea of the salaries these administrators are getting, these are the top five administrator salaries for the 2008 school year, provided by the Illinois State Board of Education: Neil Codell, $411,511, Niles Township District 219 (2 high schools); Laura Murray, $402,331, Homewood Flossmoor District 233 (1 high school); Henry Gmitro, $348,113, Carol Stream District 93, (8 schools K-8); Dennis Kelly, $342,075, Lyons Township District 204 (1 high school, 2 campuses), Eric King, $340,267, Matteson District 159, (5 elementary schools).
This whole subject of salaries and pensions never received much attention until we put the statewide salaries of teachers and administrators on our Internet site eight years ago, and now available at www.championnews.net.
There are many reasons why the salary for the position of superintendent of a district should be far less than that of the leader of a corporation in private industry.
The corporate executive receives a salary from private sources, not from your taxes, in proportion to his success in competition with competitors. He succeeds or is quickly dismissed. Educators are seldom fired no matter how poor the results, nor are they in a position to lead or make changes to overcome obstacles to effective teaching. The very nature of their job is set up in a bureaucratic way that prevents them from implementing change because of laws that apply to this government monopoly industry, and because of the domination by the huge, rich NEA trade union which is far bigger, richer and more powerful than the stultifying autoworkers' union.
School Board members should take back their duty and right to control this sad dysfunctional management. They should not accept the idea that they get better performance by paying exorbitant salaries.
Jack Roeser
Chairman Family Taxpayers Foundation
Carpentersville