It came up in another thread, but the salary gap increase between teachers/upper admin largely tracks with other U.S. professions. The broader U.S. society lack of respect for teachers certainly plays a role as well.

Gilded Age 2.0 coming but instead of labor organizing, the masses are staring at their phones.

Who cares if it is right or wrong? Can people just continue to snoop into the salary of the heads of school at every private school in the area?

Anonymous wrote:Hmm, so you want to cap a school head at something less than 10x what a teacher makes, but we are ok with corporate ceo's making thousands of times what a rank and file worker makes?

That's a for profit entity run by someone that isn't an idiot like your typical head of school.

I love the people arguing that there should be some kind of salary cap for HoS. Just so I'm clear, should that be a federal law? Government should set the limit? Or the Board? And while we're at it, should private sector companies have caps? Should founders be capped?

Hmm, so you want to cap a school head at something less than 10x what a teacher makes, but we are ok with corporate ceo's making thousands of times what a rank and file worker makes?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another way of looking at this is that it requires the tuition of about 10-15 students to pay for the head's salary. I think head salaries should be capped at a maximum of something like $500k. And then yearly bonuses could be awarded based on metrics achieved (or not awarded in the event of poor performance).

Or another way: the HOS makes 10x what a teacher makes for fundraising and growing the organization while teachers just carry out the lessons that determine if your kid learns or not. Why not pay them pennies.

Welcome to our society's priorities. Ditto lawyers and other paper pushers.

Private schools are some of the most anti-labor organizations around- and make no mistake, school administration sees teachers as little different than janitors or cafeteria workers- a non-specialized warm body they can replace on a whim.

Teachers can barely afford insurance and a roof over their head; the top brass needs a 3rd vacation mansion and their future bloodlines to never work real jobs. Same same. Welcome to America have you tried the cheese burgers- you're gonna want healthcare and a regiment of prescriptions to counteract our carcinogenic food stuffs.

It's widely known that the Field School Head of School is overpaid, and underqualified --Field is her first time as a head. Its a tiny school of $20M+ in revenue. On a percent of revenue basis she makes the most in DC--curious since Field school so severely underpays their teachers..they were recruiting a head of the history department recently with a salary range starting at $85k-while she is taking in over $700k -If she was some kind of wunderkind raking in endowment and deeply inspiring her staff with a sophisticated vision--ok maybe it would be justified but EVEN with the most famous philanthropic billionaire in the city being a graduate somehow she manages to flub what any other head would consider to be a lucky starting point. While many heads of schools do get very well paid due to the scarcity of talent, the Field School head of school salary stands as an outlier with respect to gross overpay for a first time head of a small 6-12 school.

This is what someone recently wrote on another thread:



The Field School Head of School pay is simply out of bounds. Base pay was set too high and it was a mistake by the Board.

example:
The uber experienced head of Episcopal in VA--
Highest endowment in the entire region at over $160 million
$460k base salary running a $67M revenue school

Inexperienced first time head of Field School in DC
Lowest endowment in the entire region at under $500k
$477 base salary running a $21M school

The Head of the Field School makes higher base pay than heads at Landon, Holton, WIS, St Andrews -all about twice the size and run by much more experienced heads.

10 timers a teacher.. no head deseves to make 10 tim es. and the reason they need to fund raise is becasue they make 10 times. so you create an endless cycles of beggin righ parrents and rich board to givce the kids good grades instead of actually running a school. i get it you are all coorporate shills.

Anonymous wrote:Another way of looking at this is that it requires the tuition of about 10-15 students to pay for the head's salary. I think head salaries should be capped at a maximum of something like $500k. And then yearly bonuses could be awarded based on metrics achieved (or not awarded in the event of poor performance).

Or another way: the HOS makes 10x what a teacher makes for fundraising and growing the organization while teachers just carry out the lessons that determine if your kid learns or not. Why not pay them pennies.

Welcome to our society's priorities. Ditto lawyers and other paper pushers.

Another way of looking at this is that it requires the tuition of about 10-15 students to pay for the head's salary. I think head salaries should be capped at a maximum of something like $500k. And then yearly bonuses could be awarded based on metrics achieved (or not awarded in the event of poor performance).

Anonymous wrote:So go to public school. If you don't like the way private schools are run and you don't like the tuition costs you can go to public school. It's called a choice. But some of us see the value.

This. It sounds harsh, but I also have to remind myself regularly that we made this choice to send our kid to a great private school for a reason. It is better for our kid that our IB public and he is thriving. The HOS makes a ton of money (way more than our HHI), but the school is great. I mean, my doctors make way more than me but I have found good ones and directly benefit from their services despite crappy health insurance. To me, it isn't that much different. If the school sucked, then I'd change my tune. If my doctors sucked, I'd find different ones.

Anonymous wrote:Heads of Universities make millions. Heads of large non for profits (Red Cross, United Way, American Cancer Society) make similar numbers. Joel Osteen is worth more than hundred million.

Get over it or don’t. A vow to poverty is not required to run a complicated, multi-faceted entity like a school or charity. If you don’t like it, don’t donate, don’t send your kid to a private school, don’t send your kid to a university.

Heads of universities often aren't the highest paid university employees (looking at you, football and basketball coaches).

I think there is a lot of misinformation in private schools. They charge a lot of money, you are surrounded by wealthy families, but the educational outcomes are not clearly better than in public schools in Bethesda or McLean.

A middle quality attorney at a decent firm probably makes similar numbers. I’m largely unimpressed with most of them. The market is what the market is.