Think your local schools are staffed by too many administrators who make too much money despite the fact they don’t really contribute anything useful? I mean there’s an assistant superintendent of this, director of that — when you have principals, teachers, and custodians, what else do you need, right?
It’s been a few years since I first saw the statistics, and I haven’t seen an update. At that time, Indiana school districts were ranked 49th nationally in the ratio of administrators to classroom teachers. The only state that employed fewer administrators than ours was Arizona, and public education there makes Indiana look like a leader by comparison.
Compare the organization charts for any of Hendricks County’s school districts to those of similarly sized private-sector businesses, and you’ll notice something right away. The school districts’ charts are much flatter. There are far fewer levels of management and supervision.
The real issue goes back to the perceived value of the roles those administrators provide. I’ve written before about the dangers of nostalgia, and most of what we think about administrators’ jobs is based on our perception of what we believed the principal did when we were in school. In fact, if I ask you what a principal’s primary responsibility is, I know what your answer will be. I’ve polled enough people to know it’s discipline. When we were kids, principals were those terrifying enforcers … skilled with a paddle in my era.
Most of Plainfield’s principals told me that disciplining students took up about three percent of their time. What did they do during the other 97 percent? Within schools, administrators are expected to serve as educational leaders, encouraging and training teachers to become even better at helping students learn. State law requires administrators to perform several lengthy observations of each teacher every school year, then prepare and present detailed evaluations. That requirement alone consumes the largest chunk of their time. Most work through summer vacation, too.
The most effective school administrators don’t spend much time behind their desks. They’re constantly stepping into classrooms for a quick check on what’s happening, checking up on a handful of students whose families are undergoing crises, helping the nurse contend with the current stomach bug, mediating employee conflicts, making sure students aren’t wandering the hallways, and talking with the head custodian about those lingering odors by Door 3. Plus, they run the business part of the school, managing budgets and a staggering amount of student data.
Society has changed tremendously since you sat in a classroom, whether that was five years ago or fifty. Schools have changed tremendously, too. At first blush, you might see administrator salaries as excessive, but when you put them against comparable positions in private industry, they’re usually lower, given the nature of the work and experience. Their positions require specialized degrees and licensing, and they subject administrators to far greater regulatory and public scrutiny than the average private sector leader.
Just like compensation outside public education, what principals and other administrators earn is largely determined by the marketplace. If you could hire a top-quality school principal for $50,000, why would anyone pay more? But you can’t, so districts pay what the market dictates.