Superintendent Salaries In Texas Schools

Here in Texas there is a funding crises for our schools. Even though Texas leads the nation in the percentage of drop-outs (nearly 30%) and is last among states in the amount of money the state provides for education on a per pupil basis, the Republican-dominated legislature wants to slash from $5 to $9 billion from education funds. This would mean that thousands of school employees (especially teachers) would be laid off and classroom sizes would be increased -- insuring a drop in the quality of education that Texas students would receive.

Some Republicans have countered that too much money is spent on school administration and this should be cut. They do have a small point on this, but cutting in this area wouldn't even come anywhere near equaling the amount of money the state wants to cut from education funds. In fact, all school administrators could be fired statewide, and it wouldn't equal the billions in cuts the Republicans want to make.

Having said that, I do think some superintendent salaries are pretty large. After all, these are public jobs -- not jobs in private industry (like corporate CEOs). Here are some of the superintendent base salaries of some of the larger school districts, compiled by the Texas Tribune:

Alief ISD...............$245,000

Arlington ISD...............$235,000

Austin ISD...............$275,000

Beaumont ISD...............$347,834

Cypress Fairbanks ISD...............$250,000

Dallas ISD...............$300,000

El Paso ISD...............$280,314

Fort Bend ISD...............$260,339

Fort Worth ISD...............$315,000

Houston ISD...............$300,000

North East ISD...............$296,105

Northside ISD...............$270,000

Plano ISD...............$291,716

Spring Branch ISD...............$295,000

And these salaries would be increased each year by the same percentage as the raise given a teacher (which would be a much bigger raise than the teacher would get in actual dollars) and includes full benefits (like health insurance).

Now these aren't anywhere near what CEOs in private industry get (multi-millions of dollars), but they are generous for a public employee -- over a quarter of a million a year in most cases. Of course these are the largest districts and many small rural districts don't pay their superintendents anywhere near these salaries.

It wouldn't hurt these districts to cut these salaries a bit before laying off any teachers (and some, like the Dallas superintendent just voluntarily cut his own salary by 5%). Still, all administrative salaries in the state don't add up to the money some Republicans are claiming is wasted on administrative costs. The fact is that the draconian cuts the legislators want to make to education would be very hurtful to the students in this state, and all the crying about administrative waste can't change that.

There is simply no excuse for the cuts being proposed for education in this state. Our schools are already falling behind the education systems of many other countries, and if we expect to keep up in this age where education is becoming more important every day, then we cannot keep cutting education funds and expecting fewer teachers to do more with less funding. It just won't work.