Yesterday was the official date that Governor Christie's pay caps for New Jersey school superintendents took effect. The caps are based on district enrollment, and range from $125,000 per year to $175,000 per year. Basically, school districts that enroll no more than 250 students cannot pay their superintendent more than $125,000 per year. School districts that have as many as 10,000 students can pay their superintendent as much as $175,000. The only districts not affected by the cap are those that enroll more than 10,000 students. These tend to be urban districts such as Newark and Jersey City, and here the salaries can be negotiated on an individual basis.
Like so many other of Governor Christie's reforms, this one has been hotly debated from the moment it was announced. On one side, you have the taxpayers who are burdened with the highest property taxes in the entire country. The majority of those tax dollars go toward supporting local public schools, thus funding the superintendents' salaries. On the other side, you have the local boards of education and the superintendents themselves. Like teachers, police officers, and firefighters, the school administrators feel they are being singled out unfairly and do not want to accept pay cuts. Local boards of education believe that they alone should have the final say over who they hire to be their superintendent and how much they pay the candidate they select.
As someone who worked in the field of education for fourteen years and earned his doctoral degree in the discipline, I have examined arguments on both sides. I have also drawn from my own experiences, and after forming my own opinion, I find myself firmly entrenched in Governor Christie's camp.
Let there be no doubt that being a superintendent of schools is a tough job. If you're going to do the job right, then you need to put in long hours and find a way to please several stakeholders. You must have skin thick enough to deal with public criticism, and get accustomed to being sued. Even amongst all the chaos, you have to keep your focus on being the educational leader of the school district, the one who is ultimately held accountable for student achievement. You are also responsible for the safety of the students, at least during school hours, as well as the safety of all school personnel. It's stressful. Very stressful.
But as Governor Christie has accurately pointed out, the job is no more stressful or difficult than his job. The governor earns an annual salary of $175,000, so his point is that a superintendent of schools should make no more than that. It's a difficult argument to refute, especially when he's responsible for everything in the entire state (not just education), while a superintendent is responsible for the education of students in just one town.
Yet the superintendents are fighting tooth and nail to block the reform. They have called the salary caps "illegal and unconstitutional," and are suing the State of New Jersey through their organization, the New Jersey Association of School Administrators (NJASA). To me, this isn't about seeking justice. It's about greed. The superintendents have done a masterful job of manipulating the market over the years. They often stay in one district for a short period of time, not nearly long enough to implement any real reforms or demonstrate significant progress. Why? Because when a larger district (or simply one that pays more) opens up, they pounce on the opportunity to make more money. Having experience as a superintendent is like having experience as a manager of a professional baseball team. In many cases, it doesn't matter how many years you were in the job or what your record was. The fact that you have any experience at all in the position stands out, and will more often than not lead to a lucrative contract.
And so they hop around like bunny rabbits from district to district, creating competition amongst themselves to drive up the market price. One look at the numbers shows you that it has worked like a charm. In the 100 school districts that make up Bergen and Passaic Counties, the average salary for superintendents is over $185,000 per year. Several of them are making over $200,000. What really stands out is the fact that many of the districts in Bergen County are smaller in size, and often have no more than one or two schools. Does this really justify such an exorbitant salary? In the district where I used to work (a district with one school and less than 250 students), the superintendent is earning over $220,000 per year in base salary. That does not include benefits and other perks that increase the value of the total package to over a quarter of a million dollars. It's ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.
Granted, Bergen and Passaic Counties represent the high end of the spectrum. But there are still plenty of superintendents in other parts of the state making more than the governor, and often times the salary is unwarranted. There are superintendents who don't put in the hours needed to do the job right, either ignoring certain responsibilities altogether or placing the bulk of the workload on the backs of their assistants. There are those who are mired in corruption, whether it's handing out no-bid contracts, misallocating funds, or flat out stealing. Do the names Robert Paladino or Michael Ritacco mean anything to you? If not, then research them on the internet and see what you find.
Still others look out only for themselves, not for the students or the teachers. They cover their own rear ends by showing the BOE what wonderful programs they're initiating, only to not follow through on those programs once they've secured another 5-year contract. It's not uncommon for schools to accumulate tons of materials that were purchased on new educational initiatives over the years, all with taxpayer dollars. And for what? To sit in a storage room, never to be utilized again?
I firmly believe that the governor is going to win this battle. One legal challenge has already been fended off, that one coming from the Hoboken Board of Education. After awarding Dr. Michael Toback a contract to be their new superintendent, one that paid him well in excess of the caps imposed by the governor, the Hoboken BOE was stunned when the NJDOE refused to sign off on the contract. They filed suit in December, only to have the case dismissed. In the end, Toback accepted the position at a much lower salary, one that complied with the limits set by Governor Christie.
This example supports an ideological position that the governor and I both share. Many superintendents and BOE members throughout New Jersey have sounded the alarm, claiming that top-tier talent will leave the state and that districts will have a very difficult time recruiting qualified candidates to lead their school districts. But like so many other groups of people that cry, "The sky is falling!" when something is taken from them, their claims are absolutely false.
There are plenty of well-qualified candidates out there, people who have doctoral degrees, experience in education, and the certification to do the job, that would be more than willing to work for anywhere from $125,000 to $175,000 per year. I happen to be one of them. The idea that superintendents will decline offers and start flocking to other states is absurd. Dr. Mark Toback certainly didn't, even though his original salary had to be lowered by almost $50,000 per year. In the end, he realized that overseeing a district with just four elementary schools and one high school for $165,000 per year was still a very fair deal.
As always, I have to commend Governor Christie for taking a stand for the taxpayers of New Jersey. It's funny how the left criticizes him for being too friendly toward the rich. Here is a case where he has basically told six-hundred people who are earning six figures that their salaries will have to be capped in order to help ease the burdens placed on local taxpayers. Why are the liberals not praising him for that?
Here's to hoping that the lawsuit filed by NJASA is dismissed just as quickly as the one brought by the BOE in Hoboken. You don't need money to attract good, highly-qualified people who are genuinely interested in improving the quality of education. If they were interested in money, then they would not have gone into education in the first place. Those motivated by the almighty dollar belong in the corporate world. Education is strictly for those who are driven by civil service and the desire to make a difference in people's lives. How ironic is it that those responsible for improving student achievement in our state can't grasp such a simple concept? I guess they'll never learn.
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