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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Traxion" data-source="post: 489722" data-attributes="member: 983">I’ve got to argue a bit for admin here.  I grew up with a dad in the profession and now a wife.   The shit my wife deals with on a day to day basis is far, far beyond what any teacher deals with.  The behaviors alone are incredible and take up a significant percentage of her time. Add in the daily management of the school, plannning, guiding curriculum direction, assessments, etc are all big tasks.  Finally, directly manage 80 plus staff members, from lunch service staff to teachers, comes with its own challenges.  She makes about 1.4 times what she did as a highly qualified teacher.  Shes getting calls and messages 24/7.  Nothing like a teacher does. Her summer non contract time is flexible but she works plenty.  Given all that, I don’t think most principals are overpaid.   They have much, much more responsibility and really are the top tier that drives instruction in their schools.Being a former teacher, I valued and understood what the principals did, and understood the pay differences.   Superintendents are a bit different, but again are CEO’s of a big outfit.My issue with educational compensation is there is no reward for good performance.   There should be incentive to earn more if your students show growth and proficiency.  It sucks when you work you butt off and you kids do well, but the teacher across the hall does nothing and gets paid the same.  It should be the same for admin too.One other elephant in the room is school consolidation.  Geography dictates some things, but too many schools are close in proximity yet graduate 10 kids each.  At a minimum, one superintendent should service multiple schools.  WY does this same concept.  We can coop with sports but can’t do anything else?   And likely the same people who bitch about education and overpaid admin will be the first to protest the superintendent not living in their town.  Or will raise hell when their little school should be consolidated.  I understand school is part of the community identity.  But, you can’t expect to recruit A team teachers to every po-dunk Dakota small town.  Consolidation makes the odds better you can recruit a higher quality teacher.It’s easy to vilify admin as the problem.  There is some fat there.  But communities and taxpayers need to be realistic and confront some hard realities too.Oh, and my company currently starts our entry level, no education required positions 10k higher than the average teacher salary.  Tough to want to be a teacher when you can do nearly anything else and get paid more.  Stupid FB groups like the one posted will trash school performance.  But nobody is willing to pay more taxes to get quality teachers.  It’s like wanting all the roads to be paved but bitching that taxes need to be lower.  It’s easy to expect better performance from teachers until you’re sitting in the classroom trying to execute it.  It’s why I quit the profession.</blockquote>

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