Real Educational Reform Measures

I would like to strongly suggest that elected officials look closely at the issue of Educational Administration salaries. At a time when we are looking at ways to reform education the divide between teachers, instructional support staff and Administration salaries looks just like that of Wall Street CEOs and their employees. I want to see my taxpayer’s dollars going to the people who work with student everyday of the year and to improving the technology in the classrooms for those students. Huge Educational Administration salaries are just not realistic in a time of recession and they simple do not add anything to the educational process.

Why should a college president receive an 11% pay increase after just six months on the job when instructional support staff at the same college receives a 1.5% pay decrease due to an increase in payments to their retirement funding? This type of top down reward system was a failure on Wall Street and it could cause the same type of meltdown in our educational system. I would like to suggest that the federal government look at capping educational administration salaries at a percentage above the lowest paid individual in the educational system. This approach would encourage administration to keep salaries at a fair and even market price and that they not hold some individuals well below the national average for a pay rate.

Parents and taxpayers cannot afford to encourage the current system and as far as I can see it has not helped improve the system of education in our state. More money should be place into the system to encourage professional development of educators and instructional support staff and they should be rewarded for increasing their skills that directly relate to their field of instruction. Professional development should be a requirement for all educational employees. K-12 schools, colleges and universities should be required to provide meaningful professional development to all educational employees and not just administration staff.