Good reads: Testing revolt in Palm Beach. Rising presidential salaries on campus
Two good reads this Monday afternoon:
A Get Schooled reader sent me this interesting link to a Palm Beach Post story about an education reform wunderkind in Florida who ran afoul of parents, teachers and principals with an improvement plan that they called too autocratic, test-driven and demoralizing.
The story is excellent in presenting all sides of the uproar over Palm Beach County innovator Jeffrey Hernandez. If you have time, take a look. The story cites the influence of Facebook in rallying opposition to the frequent testing that undergirded Hernandez’s reform blueprint.
The NYT has a good story off of the Chronicle of Higher Education’s annual executive compensation survey.
Here are two parts of the story with local interest:
For example, among the five highest paid presidents at master’s level institutions are Guy F. Riekeman, the president of Life University, in Marietta, Ga., which is known for its chiropractic program; Charles H. Polk, the president of Mountain State University in Beckley, W. Va., which offers distance learning and branch campuses in several states; and Jerry C. Lee, the president of National University in San Diego, which has dozens of online degree programs and campuses throughout California.
For the first time this year, The Chronicle survey analyzed the “former officer” pay reported on college’s federal tax forms, and found that 85 of the institutions, about one in five, were paying at least one former officer or key employee more than $200,000 in compensation in 2007-8.
Three of them paid a former officer more than $1 million: Stephen J. Trachtenberg, a former president of George Washington University’s, received a package totaling $3,664,569; Oberlin College paid Nancy S. Dye, a former president, $1,460,420; and Emory University paid Michael M. E. Johns, a former executive vice president who now serves as chancellor, $1,006,188.
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10 comments Add your comment
Tony
November 2nd, 2009
11:56 am
In our quest to improve schools, too many have jumped on the bandwagon of testing. The simple fact is that testing is not teaching and overemphasis on a standardized curriculum based on testing is eroding the quality of learning even more than before. There is no perfect answer, but it looks to me like the local control in Palm Beach County worked exactly as it should.
Regarding salaries: Why are educators criticized for having high earnings? I am baffled by this notion. We have no problem with corporate executives earning big bucks. Yet, university presidents, school superintendents, principals and teachers did not sign up for a complete life in poverty. If a person is doing the job they were hired to do and they are doing it well, should they not be compensated highly?
oldtimer
November 2nd, 2009
12:02 pm
Most of us do not have a problem with high educator salaries, but…….there is a limit when taxpayers foot the bill.
catlady
November 2nd, 2009
12:16 pm
College presidents are NOT educators. Money raisers, glad-handers, figureheads, but NOT educators.
mama-mia
November 2nd, 2009
12:22 pm
We have an assistant superintendent a lot like the one in the Palm Beach article. The problem with people like Hernandez is that they can contribute to an unnecessary wholesale change in regime at the school board level which is very disruptive to a school system. They also can undermine confidence in even the most talented superintendent.
People can see through Power Points, and the testing mania (like all fads) seems to be (hopefully) approaching the end of its life. Some testing is necessary to make sure that everyone is on track, particularly for kids that are in danger of being left behind, but too much testing takes away from learning rather than contributing to it and demoralizes teachers, giving them the message that they can’t be trusted to know their own students.
educator???
November 2nd, 2009
3:03 pm
Sorry if this post appears twice. My internet connection seems to be acting up – I don’t think it’s the problem on the AJC side.
catlady, what’s your definition of “educators”?
I might say that so many teachers aren’t educators/teachers since their students arent learning.
Tony
November 2nd, 2009
5:26 pm
Catlady-one of the best college courses I took was taught by the president of the university.
Echo
November 2nd, 2009
6:36 pm
“testing isn’t teaching”? really? So I guess spending hours on redundant paperwork to document what you would be doing if you were teaching instead of filling out documentation is teaching? Mastery documentation…hmmm, remediation…
I have been teaching for 13 years and I have NEVER seen so much garbage paperwork. Something has to give.
catlady
November 2nd, 2009
7:52 pm
Yeah, I have been in college presidents’ classes before, due to my PhD program. I am not saying they cannot teach a course or two, but on the whole they are former educators.
Teachers who are doing their jobs instruct. Students who are doing their jobs learn.
definition of an "educator"
November 2nd, 2009
9:04 pm
“Teaching,” or “instructing,” is something one does to help students learn. If students don’t learn, whatever the person can’t be called “teaching” – it was just an attempt to teach.
Echo
November 2nd, 2009
9:09 pm
If students don’t learn because of their own lack of motivation or intelligence that isn’t because the teacher didn’t teach. Some students just chose to tune out whatever is being presented for whatever reason.