The Christian Science Monitor delivers an interesting story on how local school districts are paying huge salaries for school superintendents, especially those who have a track record of turning around broken systems. There is a national shortage of these folks, which is driving up their pay:
Increased accountability standards required by the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act have put a growing focus on these turnaround
artists, education experts say.
Some aren't concerned because they see hiring such superstars as a stop-gap measure while compensation and skill requirements
adjust to new expectations for school leadership.
Others
say it is forcing school boards to pay high premiums for short-lived
tenures -- and gains. "To come in and ask for that kind of money knowing
they won't last more than a year and a half, it's nothing but a big
scam -- almost racketeering," says John Trotter, head of the Metro
Association of Classroom Educators, a for-profit Georgia teachers
union.
The pipeline is drying up even as the number of
U.S. school districts, because of consolidation, has dropped from 35,000
in 1965 to 13,000 today. Some 20 percent of school districts are
actively looking for a superintendent, according to the American
Association of School Administrators (AASA).
That's because principals and central office staff who would typically fill the superintendent job say accountability standards
and politicized school boards mean it's not worth the hassle.
Minority
districts that want to hire a black or Hispanic superintendent are in
even worse straits: The number of educators coming out of black
colleges has dropped by 70 percent in the past 20 years, according to
the National Association of Black Educators in Washington.
