Measley $500 K is Real Money to Educators

By Penney Sanders:

This week President Obama proposed capping executive compensation in corporations that took “bail out” money to $500K/annually.

The hue and cry is most interesting to “school people” who have been on fixed and capped salaries our entire careers. To describe a $500K salary as measly is laughable. For me, it sounds like real money.

According to the talking head experts, limiting executive compensation stifles creativity, is counter to entrepreneurial zeal and limits the risk taking so necessary for successful corporate executives. So why did they need a “bail out”??

Fast forward to the discussions surrounding public school teacher/administrator compensation.

Educators, whose salaries come from public moneys, have historically, been on a standardized, fixed salary scale determined by either the state or a local school board (within state parameters).

In a school district everyone is paid the same, regardless of skill, results, creativity, success or failure.

Concurrently with President Obama’s proposing restrictions on executive compensation, the Washington,D.C. schools chief , Michele Rhee, has proposed decoupling educator compensation from a fixed salary schedule. In exchange for significantly higher salaries (upwards of $130,000 annually), teachers will forfeit tenure. This represents a classic “no risk, no reward” approach to compensation.

While many DC teachers support Rhee’s proposal, the opposition, led by the AFT, has been intense. Opponents describe the tenure for salary exchange as unfair, potentially abusive, and teachers don’t like it.

If it can be argued that fixing CEO compensation is “stiffling and restrictive” isn’t fixing educator compensation equally “stifling”? If limits are too restrictive for CEOs, are they too restrictive for educators from whom we expect leadership, creativity and results?

Has the time come to disengage educators from a fixed salary schedule? Should student progress and classroom results be rewarded? Does a fixed salary schedule reward and therefore, encourage mediocrity?

If fixed, predetermined salary schedules are sufficient for those who do the important work of teaching children, than surely salary caps are good enough for those corporations who had to be bailed out with taxpayers’ money.

Public money is public money.