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28 Apr 2006 - 22:58
arrgh
speaking of administrators
A word on Vin Beni. We liked the guy. He was superintendent when we first moved here, and he'd come over from BOCES, so he knew his way around special ed. He was brought in, as far as we can tell, to build the new middle school. He built it, and it was finished on time. But it cost more than it was supposed to cost and the place is already falling down. At board meetings he never missed a chance to tell us how strongly he opposed state tests & state standards, and how great the pro-tax activists who'd hired him were. (Apparently there had been an anti-tax revolt that was squashed by one of our neighbors, who's been on the school board ever since.) Vin was a hotshot. It was said that if Al Gore became president Vin would be going with him. That didn't happen, and Vin left in disgrace when a female superintendent over on the east side of the County had him arrested for stalking. Vin was a married guy. Christopher came out of his school one day to find news cameras in front interviewing parents. He thought the cameras were there because his school was so good. I spent the rest of the day racing to turn off Channel 12 every time they replayed the Vin Beni stalker story. The charges were dropped eventually, but I find the whole thing pretty hard to forgive.
hostile parents
You bet. This is one hostile environment, here in Irvington. We are paying these people a bloody fortune and we've got a middle school clobbering our kids with punitive grades and Discovery Algebra. Somehow, when I pay $18,000 a year in property taxes, I don't expect to have the assistant superintendent tell tales about me to our PTSA president behind closed doors. I don't know why.
it's always worse than you think
I had no idea administrators were required by state law to be certified teachers. On second thought, given the antics of Bloomberg and Joel Klein (constructivism from the top down) I can't see that it matters.
Top Pay for Top Jobs The shading of each school district is based on its concentration of high-salaried administrators, meaning any superintendents, assistant and deputy superintendents, principals, assistant principals and department heads whose annual salary and benefits exceed $104,000. State law requires all non-city school districts to report information about such employees, but some do not.
-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Apr 2006 Back to main page.
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superintendentpay superintendentpaywestchester -- CatherineJohnson - 04 Aug 2006
Our county Board of Supervisors just fired out superintendent. She will still get her $136K plus benefits for the remaining 48 weeks of the fiscal year. I visited a teacher friend of mine, she's a reading specialist actually. She showed me pictures of herself and other reading specialists visiting a poor neighborhood and handing out donated books to the neighborhood children. She was very excited to show me one of our just-fired superintendent reading to a neighborhood child. She said "how could they fire that woman, LOOK at her! The teachers loved her! She was so hands-on! Who else would go out and do that (referring to her picture)?" I replied "well, that's nice that she connects so well with children, perhaps she should have stayed in the classroom." I was just waiting for her to respond with some "it's for the children" slogan. This superintendent wouldn't provide the board of supervisors with "real" budget numbers, refused to prioritize funding, and threatened to charge parents for their children's bus rides if the board didn't give her what she asked for. BUT, she was a NICE lady and the teacher's really loved her (and their 7% raise that she protected). I just wish the board of supervisors would have fired her before the beginning of the fiscal year and saved the taxpayers 136K PLUS. -- NicksMama - 04 Aug 2006
Correction. The School Board fired her on a 5-2 vote. -- NicksMama - 04 Aug 2006
Our superintendent makes $278,100 per year, but that's only about $1.35 per student. -- GoogleMaster - 04 Aug 2006
I don't think we even know what our superintendent makes. Our district gives us budgets for the superintendent's entire office. Her office is in the 300,000s. We're also given figures for "lines." They average together all staff salaries & benefits at all levels, then give us that figure. -- CatherineJohnson - 12 Aug 2006
oh wow That's Houston. Here in Westchester superintendents are making as much as $400,000 for supervising towns. And the more money tiny, rich districts spend on administration, the more neoprogressivism they bring in. There are possibly no school board members who are aware of this. When you have a tiny little district, and then you hire 2 or 3 top superintendents - we have a Superintendent & an Assistant Superintendent for a school district with 2000 students - they have a huge amount of time and resources to spend on differentiated instruction and data warehousing. -- CatherineJohnson - 12 Aug 2006
Ed discovered last week that when we moved here the district superintendent was the high school principal. Our neighbor, who was elected to the school board, had organized and run a pro-tax campaign that defeated the tax revolt that was going on before we got here. She won her pro-tax war and the result is phenomenally high taxes, a superintendent and an assistant superintendent, a town only the super rich can move in to, and a wholesale shift to neoprogressive curriculum and pedagogy. Too much money. -- CatherineJohnson - 12 Aug 2006
NYC Educator strikes again
arrgh
speaking of administrators
WESTCHESTER: Poorer School Districts Practice Higher Math to Pay Leaders OSSINING is one of the poorer school districts in Westchester, and its students' achievement levels are average. But in one category, it is competitive with the best districts in the state: Its administrators are well paid. Superintendent Robert J. Roelle is one of a small but growing group of superintendents who make more than $300,000 in salary and benefits, according to information compiled by the State Education Department. And with 26 assistant superintendents, principals and department chairmen and women making at least $104,000, Ossining has one of the largest contingents of six-figure executives in the state: about 6 per 1,000 students, a level rivaled only by a few other districts in Westchester and Long Island. "It's more than the governor makes," Irwin Kavy, the school board president, said of Dr. Roelle's salary. "It's extremely high." Across suburban New York, salaries of school administrators are testing new heights. Districts, competing to give the children of their affluent residents every advantage, have helped create a seller's market for management talent that has pushed some superintendents into the thin air of the $300,000 salary-and-benefit package. Meanwhile, the $200,000 milestone — effectively the floor for superintendent pay now — has become increasingly common among deputy and assistant superintendents. Fifty-six school administrators in Westchester now make more than $200,000 in total compensation, and 19 of them are assistants or deputies. [snip] The median increase in total compensation of superintendents in the county was 8.6 percent last year, according to data reported to the Education Department. Inflation advanced just 3.3 percent in that time. [snip] Demand has increased because a cohort of teachers hired in the late 1960's, who became administrators in the 1980's and 1990's, is now retiring. Boards are looking to replace about 80 of the state's approximately 750 superintendents each year, instead of the usual 40 or 45, according to Thomas Rogers, executive director of the New York State Council of School Superintendents. But supply has dwindled, officials contend, because administrative jobs have become less attractive. "The job has become incredibly complex," said Vincent T. Beni, a recruiter and former superintendent in Irvington. "Fiscal constraints are imposed from outside, and they drive a lot of the decisions. The imposition of mandates from state and federal government are not funded, and require you to go out and ask people to raise their taxes to pay for them. When I first started, we were education leaders of the community. Now, you've become a fund-raiser."
A word on Vin Beni. We liked the guy. He was superintendent when we first moved here, and he'd come over from BOCES, so he knew his way around special ed. He was brought in, as far as we can tell, to build the new middle school. He built it, and it was finished on time. But it cost more than it was supposed to cost and the place is already falling down. At board meetings he never missed a chance to tell us how strongly he opposed state tests & state standards, and how great the pro-tax activists who'd hired him were. (Apparently there had been an anti-tax revolt that was squashed by one of our neighbors, who's been on the school board ever since.) Vin was a hotshot. It was said that if Al Gore became president Vin would be going with him. That didn't happen, and Vin left in disgrace when a female superintendent over on the east side of the County had him arrested for stalking. Vin was a married guy. Christopher came out of his school one day to find news cameras in front interviewing parents. He thought the cameras were there because his school was so good. I spent the rest of the day racing to turn off Channel 12 every time they replayed the Vin Beni stalker story. The charges were dropped eventually, but I find the whole thing pretty hard to forgive.
hostile parents
The job is hard, especially in the small districts where residents expect a lot and costs are soaring. "The environment is more hostile," he said. "The tension has never been greater because the demand has never been greater and the costs have never been greater."
You bet. This is one hostile environment, here in Irvington. We are paying these people a bloody fortune and we've got a middle school clobbering our kids with punitive grades and Discovery Algebra. Somehow, when I pay $18,000 a year in property taxes, I don't expect to have the assistant superintendent tell tales about me to our PTSA president behind closed doors. I don't know why.
it's always worse than you think
Joseph Auricchio, an Edgemont businessman who opposes hefty school taxes, says superintendents in suburban districts are not only overpaid but also, in some cases, not qualified. "Superintendents are teachers plucked out of the classroom to do a C.E.O.'s job totally unprepared and inexperienced," he said in an e-mail exchange. Mr. Kavy echoed those sentiments. He favors changing the state requirement that administrators be certified teachers, which he believes has contributed to the problems. Because of the requirement, he said, "someone with a great deal of experience in managing, but was never a teacher, can't fill those positions, so there's a shortage of administrators out there.
I had no idea administrators were required by state law to be certified teachers. On second thought, given the antics of Bloomberg and Joel Klein (constructivism from the top down) I can't see that it matters.
Top Pay for Top Jobs The shading of each school district is based on its concentration of high-salaried administrators, meaning any superintendents, assistant and deputy superintendents, principals, assistant principals and department heads whose annual salary and benefits exceed $104,000. State law requires all non-city school districts to report information about such employees, but some do not.
-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Apr 2006 Back to main page.
Comments
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Look here for syntax help.
superintendentpay superintendentpaywestchester -- CatherineJohnson - 04 Aug 2006
Our county Board of Supervisors just fired out superintendent. She will still get her $136K plus benefits for the remaining 48 weeks of the fiscal year. I visited a teacher friend of mine, she's a reading specialist actually. She showed me pictures of herself and other reading specialists visiting a poor neighborhood and handing out donated books to the neighborhood children. She was very excited to show me one of our just-fired superintendent reading to a neighborhood child. She said "how could they fire that woman, LOOK at her! The teachers loved her! She was so hands-on! Who else would go out and do that (referring to her picture)?" I replied "well, that's nice that she connects so well with children, perhaps she should have stayed in the classroom." I was just waiting for her to respond with some "it's for the children" slogan. This superintendent wouldn't provide the board of supervisors with "real" budget numbers, refused to prioritize funding, and threatened to charge parents for their children's bus rides if the board didn't give her what she asked for. BUT, she was a NICE lady and the teacher's really loved her (and their 7% raise that she protected). I just wish the board of supervisors would have fired her before the beginning of the fiscal year and saved the taxpayers 136K PLUS. -- NicksMama - 04 Aug 2006
Correction. The School Board fired her on a 5-2 vote. -- NicksMama - 04 Aug 2006
Our superintendent makes $278,100 per year, but that's only about $1.35 per student. -- GoogleMaster - 04 Aug 2006
I don't think we even know what our superintendent makes. Our district gives us budgets for the superintendent's entire office. Her office is in the 300,000s. We're also given figures for "lines." They average together all staff salaries & benefits at all levels, then give us that figure. -- CatherineJohnson - 12 Aug 2006
oh wow That's Houston. Here in Westchester superintendents are making as much as $400,000 for supervising towns. And the more money tiny, rich districts spend on administration, the more neoprogressivism they bring in. There are possibly no school board members who are aware of this. When you have a tiny little district, and then you hire 2 or 3 top superintendents - we have a Superintendent & an Assistant Superintendent for a school district with 2000 students - they have a huge amount of time and resources to spend on differentiated instruction and data warehousing. -- CatherineJohnson - 12 Aug 2006
Ed discovered last week that when we moved here the district superintendent was the high school principal. Our neighbor, who was elected to the school board, had organized and run a pro-tax campaign that defeated the tax revolt that was going on before we got here. She won her pro-tax war and the result is phenomenally high taxes, a superintendent and an assistant superintendent, a town only the super rich can move in to, and a wholesale shift to neoprogressive curriculum and pedagogy. Too much money. -- CatherineJohnson - 12 Aug 2006
| WebLogForm | |
|---|---|
| Title: | NYC Educator strikes again |
| TopicType: | WebLog |
| SubjectArea: | SchoolFunding, TeachersTeachingKids |
| LogDate: | 200604281857 |