Wednesday, 09 April 2008
-
Admin & Teacher Bonus Pay Made Public
Today the information concerning Houston ISD's Admin/teacher bonuses was made public. The local newspaper, The Houston Chronicle, requested the information be provided to them for publication based on a "public information request." Last year when this information was made public it became a disaster within the district. This year it is much the same but in a different place; The disaster is in the public arena instead of "The Teachers' Lounge".
The front page story on the Chronicle website is over our superintendent's 300k base salary and 75k bonus pay. (link) Many have expressed frustration describing his pay as outrageous and offensive. The overall feeling is that there is no way that an administrator should make this much money when the teachers are doing all of the hard work.
I had to think about this for a minute; 300k + bonus pay does sound like a lot of money but what about this? The Chronicle writes, "As chief of one of the largest districts in the country, Saavedra oversees a $1.5 billion budget, about 30,000 employees and 200,000 students." Doesn't he have a major responsibility? Don't we want those entrusted with training, managing, and leading our teachers to be of the highest quality? Perhaps, one doesn't agree with the decisions that he has made or how the district is ran; The fact is that the position he holds is an extremely important part of the school system. He is the one who guides and directs our resources to educate our students in the best way possible. I disagree with thos who say that this salary is anything but fair. In comparison to the responsibility that he has and what other executives are paid in other fields he is grossly underpaid.
Maybe I'm wrong but I think that as long as Dr. Saavedra has fulfilled his end of the contract, the salary he is being paid is relative to the responsibility that he has.
Do you think that the salary/bonus pay is fair?
Brian
*edited for clarity and length!
-
recommend
- recs 0
-
share
-
email
- sent 0
Post a Comment
- Back to TheTeachersLounge's Xanga Site!
- Note: your comment will appear in TheTeachersLounge's local time zone: GMT -06:00 (Central Standard - US, Canada)
Comments (4)
I agree with you, I'm sure he is way underpaid compared to other CEO's with similar numbers of employees! (even if you don't count the students at all) I like the idea of bonuses, we definitely don't have any. Obviously we all know teachers are underpaid, and I think this is a great way to give them a little extra. (though the method is not perfect, it is better than nothing) There are a number of teachers at our school who make more since they have been there longer, but probably do half (or less) of the work than a lot of the teachers, that is one thing that bothers me. In a lot of other professions, if you don't perform well, you are gone, that doesn't usually happen in teaching, you have to do something pretty bad to get fired... Well, I could go on all day, so I'll stop now...
@snowchic23 - I've found that the veterans are the ones with fewer students and 1 lesson plan; Perhaps they deserve it. I'm glad that our "new" principal (he's not really new anymore) is really concerned about assigning each teacher a fair load. The principal before him would assign people whatever she could get away with giving to a person even if it was enough work for 4 people, as long as she saved money for the budget.
Eww...that would not be fun! That's good that the "new" one tries to play it fair. It is really not fair to give the veterans the easy way out, and give the newbies the hard load...and people wonder why a good majority of beginning teachers quit within the first 5 years! Last year which was my first year (though I started in January) I got really lucky and had an extra planning period every other day (we have block scheduling) and that helped soooo much, plus I was only teaching one subject, I think all first year teachers should get such a great schedule, because I loved it! I still stayed till probably 4:30 most days, but not much later like most days this year. In SC we also have an "induction program" that is a pain in the butt. Basically I just studied four years in education for them to tell me everything over again (not much this year was new or that helpful). Next year, the second year (again, since I started in January, this was my first full year to start induction), is the year that they expect you to be perfect, they take off for every little mistake, like mispelling on your powerpoints or handouts, etc...yeah, like anyone is going to be perfect your second year!?! Basically it adds a lot more stress to a job that is stressful enough. I don't mind the observations, but more help/suggestions and less harsh critique would be a lot less stressful. Ok, again, I could go on forever... (in case you haven't realized I have a lot of time this week to reply because I'm on Spring Break, so don't expect these all the time, haha!)
@snowchic23 - We're still working out the details of our schedules for next year. I've been praying that I'll get a good one.
Hope you enjoyed your Spring break!