Skyrocketing Executive Pay and the Educational Salary Gap

Superintendent Fat Cat?

Despite the passage of California’s Proposition 30, which holds the state’s education funding steady at 2011-2012 levels, none of the $20 billion that has been slashed from K-12 funding over the past 4 years will be restored. Consequently, school districts will continue to operate on austere budgets, with overcrowded classrooms, reduced course offerings, and reduced numbers of teachers, librarians, nurses and counselors. This has led to a record 188 state school districts at risk of financial collapse. Yet, like the bailed out banks and automobile industry, many districts have managed to find the money to offer their top executives lavish raises.

Perhaps the most notable example is Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD)—the nation’s second largest school district—which has struggled with a $2.8 billion deficit over the past five years, while laying off 10,000 teachers. At the same time as LAUSD has cut teachers and services, it has boosted Superintendent John Deasy’s salary from $275,000 to $330,000 (according to the Bay Citizen)—roughly five times the average teacher’s salary. Since 2009, LAUSD has increased its superintendent’s salary 32%.

California Watch has investigated 40 of the largest districts on the state’s financial watch list (those at risk of financial insolvency) and found that more than half have raised their superintendents’ salaries since 2009. For example, Riverside Unified School District raised Superintendent Richard Miller’s pay from $267,208 to $314,963, despite having cut $100 million from its budget since 2008-09. The Lynwood Unified School District raised its superintendent’s pay by roughly 23%, from $200,000 to $245,000, two years ago, even though it has had ongoing budget deficits, including its current deficit of $6.8 million.

While the primary cause of California’s education budget problems has been the declining business, property and income tax rates, overly generous executive pay has added to the problem. In New Jersey, Governor Chris Christie capped superintendent salaries and New York is considering similar legislation, the Bay Citizen reported. A superintendent pay cap is not currently under consideration in California.

Proponents of high superintendent pay argue that superintendents are charged with much bigger and more important responsibilities (i.e., protecting and nurturing the “innocents”) than are corporate executives, yet they are paid only a fraction of what CEO’s of similar sized companies are paid. On the other hand, CEO pay has been skyrocketing over the past few decades and is now at its highest level ever relative to the median pay of their employees, contributing to the growing wealth and income gap and declining working and living standards for the majority of Americans.

It is also complete nonsense that executives need or deserve to earn 1,000 times, 100 times or even 2 times more than their employees. This argument is based on the fallacious notion that responsibility for large budgets and large numbers of employees is tougher and more valuable than other occupations. Yet it is the employees who do all the really difficult work. It is the employees who create the profits in private business and the bosses who pocket the difference between the wealth they create and their salaries. Though superintendents do not earn profits from their teachers’ labor, they have far more control over their own working conditions (and consequently less stress) than teachers. It is the teachers who have the most direct influence over the safety and success of the “innocents.” It is the teachers who design creative and engaging curriculum; create positive, nurturing classroom environments; and who communicate with parents about their children’s wellbeing and needs. So if it’s really all about the children, then it is the teachers, not the superintendents, who should be getting the six-figure salaries and 20-30% raises. 

What Kind of Union Asks for 10 Furlough Days?—UTLA Does

There is no question that Los Angeles Unified School District is facing a serious financial crisis. They are millions of dollars in the hole and trying to recoup that money on the backs of teachers. In a particularly audacious attack, they demanded that United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) accept 20 furlough days next year (see 4LAKids Blog), which amount to the loss of nearly a month’s pay or an 8% pay cut.

It is easy to appreciate UTLA’s desire to protect its members’ jobs. However, in order to do so, UTLA actually asked for (and got) 10 furlough days, which I suspect most members will find unacceptable.

UTLA has stated that its priority is to restore jobs, save educational programs and protect class size.

If this is true, then UTLA cannot seriously be considered a union. Indeed, what kind of union asks the boss for 4% pay cut?

The goals of protecting positions, programs and class sizes are all great goals, particularly for students, but they are just a tiny part of teachers’ working conditions and remuneration. A real fighting union starts with the assumption that the workers and the bosses have an adversarial relationship (even if they treat each other nicely) in which the bosses try to extract more work for less money from the workers. The union’s role is to fight for better remuneration and working conditions for their constituents, (i.e., the teachers), NOT their clients (i.e., students).

California Judge Rules in Favor of Seniority

The current wave of Ed Deform is breathtaking for the diversity and quantity of ill-conceived and destructive demands being made by its proponents. Despite the fact that these reforms contribute to the demoralization of teachers and potential flight from the profession at a time of teacher shortages, while also deteriorating safety and learning conditions for students, it seems like legislators and the courts are perfectly content to support and promote the madness.

However, in a breath of fresh air, administrative law judges recently ruled that San Francisco Unified and Sacramento City Unified did not have the authority to ignore state seniority laws in their attempts to keep veteran teachers at low-performing schools. While state law allows for few exceptions to seniority-based layoffs, administrative law judges recently ruled that San Francisco Unified had not made a compelling case for ignoring seniority, while Sacramento City had done so only partially, according to Thoughts on Public Education, (TOPED).

Unfortunately for veteran Sacramento teachers, the rulings of administrative law judges are not binding and the Sac City school board voted unanimously to ignore the judge and exempt all teachers at all seven of the district’s “Priority Schools.” The consequence will be that many inexperienced teachers will have jobs next year, while many experienced veterans will not. The SFUSD board decided not to contest Administrative Law Judge Melissa Crowell’s decision,   according to TOPED.

Fensterwald wrote that state law emphatically requires teacher layoffs to be based on seniority, but allows for two exceptions. The first is pretty obvious: a newer teacher with specific expertise cannot be bumped by a more senior colleague who lacks that expertise. For example, a 5-year veteran English teacher cannot replace a physics teacher with only 2 years of experience (unless that English teacher also has a physic credential).

The other exception, which allows districts to ignore seniority in order to protect students’ right to equal educational opportunity, is more open to interpretation and abuse. Districts like LAUSD have successfully argued (with the aid of the ACLU) that seniority causes low performing, low income schools to lose a disproportionate percentage of their teachers during layoffs.

There are numerous problems with this argument that have unfortunately been ignored or discounted by judges. First, layoffs hurt students at all schools, regardless of students’ socioeconomic backgrounds and their schools’ test scores. This is because layoffs lead to increases in class sizes and teacher workloads district-wide. This in turn decreases their ability to assign and grade meaningful assignments, monitor student safety, facilitate extracurricular activities and provide one-on-one attention. It also leads to declining course offerings.

It is also important to understand why low performing schools tend to have higher percentages of novice teachers in the first place and to critique the fairness of this for lower income students. The fact is that lower performing schools typically have a disproportionate percentage of lower income students. They also are among the most difficult schools to work in because of higher rates of absences and discipline problems and, more significantly, the burdensome punishments imposed by NCLB as a result of their lower test scores. In short, teachers at lower income schools are expected to work a lot harder and longer for the same pay as their colleagues at more affluent schools.

If we want to talk about equal educational opportunity and bias within the educational system, we need to end the Apartheid-like system that allows some schools to have as many as 80-90% of their students on free or reduced-cost lunch, while others in the same city or district may have fewer than 5%. Likewise, as long as we continue to allow a significantly more challenging workload for teachers at certain schools, those schools will continue to see an exodus of their more experienced teachers and a higher percentage of novice teachers.

Layoffs should also be recognized as an artifact of the class war being waged by the rich against the rest of us, in which the wealthy contribute less and less in taxes and rob the state of revenue for education. In other words, if the rich were paying more in taxes—possibly only what they were paying prior to the Reagan era—there would be no need for layoffs.

However, this dynamic hurts students’ educational opportunities in far deeper ways than increased class sizes and losses of popular teachers. The declining tax base also results in shrinking public health, nutritional and other services that benefit low income families, thus exacerbating many of the effects of poverty like higher rates of learning disabilities, cognitive impairment and absenteeism.

RIF is Gonna to Git Yo Mama

The 4LAKids Blog suggests that a new term has taken hold in California schools: "the RIFing season," which refers to the time of the year in which "reduction in force" letters are sent out notifying teachers they may be laid off at the end of the school year.

Lately the numbers have grown ridiculously high. In March, 20,000 RIF letters went out to California teachers. Yet in the previous three years, only 25% of those receiving RIFs actually lost their jobs. While this is still a large number of layoffs (11% of the state’s entire teacher workforce) and it is certainly anxiety-provoking for those who receive RIFs, it seems excessive, cruel and unnecessary to send out layoff notices to 3 times more teachers than will actually be laid off.

The layoff notices destroy teacher morale and create uncertainty in school communities that negatively impacts students. The process is also costly to schools, costing around $700 per noticed teacher ($14 million for the 20,000 RIFfed teachers), when one factors in the expenses of having to send RIF notices by certified mail and the appeal hearings before administrative law judges.

To make matters worse, some districts may be using the fear and uncertainty of the RIF process to pressure teachers into accepting furloughs, pay cuts and other concessions and it is regularly brought up by Ed Deformers as justification for doing away with seniority and even tenure.

Of course the most immediate and logical solution to the problem is to increase revenue by increasing taxes on the wealthy and their corporations, something Jerry Brown and the CTA hope to do in November with their “Millionaires Tax Initiative.” However, this tax increase will barely maintain the status quo and restore virtually none of the $20 billion that has been looted from California K-12 public education over the past 4 years. There are also attempts in the works to create legislation that would delay the RIFfing season by a few months.

Detroit: Fire ‘Em All & Let God Sort It Out Later

Over 4,100 Detroit Public Schools teachers received layoff notices this month, according to the Detroit affiliate of NPR. They will each have to reapply next month in order to have a chance at a job in the district next year. Furthermore, new state law now prohibits Michigan school districts from rehiring or laying off teachers based solely on seniority. In Detroit, the decision will be based on evaluations.

Such mass firings are not uncommon in school districts and have become even more prevalent with the budget crises of the past few years. Ed Codes generally require districts to send out pink slips toward the end of spring semester, even though revenues are uncertain until the following fall. Thus, school districts typically send out far more layoff notices than necessary and have to scramble to rehire some of the laid off teachers in the fall.

Detroit Public Schools (DPS) has the added problem of declining enrollment due to a shrinking city population and growing number of charter schools. Despite these factors, DPS still saw an enrollment spike last September, forcing the district to hire back all but 400 teachers and will likely face a similar scenario this coming fall.

Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT) President Keith Johnson said "they are doing this again like they did last year and it's going to be chaos again in September... I'm preparing for battle." Of course, coming from Johnson, who has repeatedly maintained a collaborationist relationship with DPS (see here, here and here), Detroit teachers should be very nervous. Johnson’s approach to battle will likely involve some gentle pleading and followed by concessions that will trade pink slips for increased class sizes, longer working hours, and wage and benefits cuts.