"I don't see any evidence of superintendents playing musical chairs for financial gain. Certainly, our current superintendent has outlived most expectations or "survival rates" of other superintendents. So I question the relevance of the comment to the current discussion."
Oh please. The fact that the average tenure of these people is 2-3 years isn't relevant? When they leave, where do they go? The private sector? Of course not. They go to another superintendent's job, for what, less money? Are we paying Ms. Harvey less money or more money than her predecessor? Are we paying Ms. Harvey more money or less money than she received in her previous job? And since all this "incentive" to keep her around is coming out of my pocket, I'd say it's relevant.
And please don't try to make the worn-out comparison with executives in the private sector. If I don't like the compensation package Best Buy is paying for their director of training (with 90,000 employees, a comparable position in the private sector, believe me), I can express my displeasure by not shopping there or selling my stock. They don't have the power to confiscate my money to pay for their personnel mistakes.
But you're right. This is just my opinion, but it seems to me that when you have to teach 40,000 people and get $10,000 each to do it, the results should be dramatic. Give me 30 kids and $300,000 and I'd give you 30 kids who could at least read, write and make change at MacDonalds.
Dennis Tester Mac-Groveland
----- Original Message ----- From: "Tim Erickson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Dennis Tester" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "St. Paul Issues Forum" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, December 20, 2004 9:38 AM
Subject: Re: [StPaul] Superintendent's Compensation
>What a racket. This musical chairs game being played by a handfull of >small city school superintendents, where every couple of years they leave >for a better deal, creating an opening for another one of their ilk to >milk the locals for an even bigger sweatheart contract, is one of the >reasons taxpayers have such low regard for the entire public education >fiasco. My 2 cents.
This may be your opinion. But, I don't see this.
I don't see any evidence of superintendents playing musical chairs for financial gain. Certainly, our current superintendent has outlived most expectations or "survival rates" of other superintendents. So I question the relevance of the comment to the current discussion.
This sounds to me, like a canned gripe that doesn't take any of the current facts into consideration.
If this is a sweetheart deal - then please provide examples of supervisors/executives with the kinds of responsibilities of the SPPS superintendent, that work for lessor contracts.
I can guarantee, that any private sector executive with similar responsibilities would be making a salary many times greater than our superintendent (not to mention stock options and other corporate perks).
Now, I'm not against taking a hard look at the contract and holding it up to public scrutiny. BUT, blanket statements about superintendents playing musical chairs - ADDS nothing to the conversation or debate.
I challenge the poster to provide details about how he feels that the St. Paul School District is being mismanaged or how the current St. Paul contract is out of line with the specific responsibilities of the job.
That would be helpful to a public discussion.
Best wishes,
Tim Erickson Hamline Midway [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Tim Erickson http://www.politalk.com St. Paul, MN - USA 651-643-0722
[EMAIL PROTECTED] iChat/AIM: stpaultim
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