New at Reason

David Weigel | April 10, 2006

Lisa Snell interviews Arlene Ackerman for more insight on how to fix our schools.

Comments

|4.10.06 @ 1:47PM|#

And here I was, thinking Ms. Ackerman represented everything that was flat-out wrong with the public school system (and government in general).

The woman took a $225,000 a year salary, PLUS a car (she chose a $30,000 model), PLUS a "housing allowance" of something like $1,000-$1,500 a month. When she quit this year, she did so with a $350,000 bonus (I don't know if it's called a "bonus" in her contract, but it's an extra payment, a way of saying, "Thanks for nothing!")

Of course, I can't blame Ms. Ackerman. If the school board is so obtuse that they can't tell a public servant from a self servant (hint: a public servant doesn't demand five times the national average salary from a cash strapped system which is supposed to serve children), if they actually think paying that much more means finding someone more qualified, despite all the evidence to the contrary, Ms. Ackerman can't be faulted for taking advantage of their stupidity. Or maybe she can. Sure, let's blame her. Taking advantage of government stupidity to weaken the resources necessary to educate children is actually worse than stupidity, I suppose.

The San Francisco school system is a mess, a wreck. It was that way when she got there and it was that way when she left. The "choices" parents have involve what kind of inefficient, substandard education their children will receive.

That Ms. Ackerman says she's proud of her "work," says everything.

Being for school choice shouldn't mean you get a pass on your actual job performance. I expect better from Reason.

|4.10.06 @ 1:52PM|#

Public schools have needed competition for a long time. The fact that teachers' unions are so vehemently against it only solidifies its importance. These people bring the claws out at the mere suggestion of having their performance measured and compared to that of others. Doesn't that, all by itself, tell us something?

Here's a problem with our culture, and I'm sure it's true of many cultures: we give some things a free pass and place them above criticism. Teaching and religion are two that come to mind. In America, all teachers are saints, period. We see evidence of this whenever a teacher stands up in the crowd on Leno or Letterman, for some audience participation game. The minute they say they're a teacher, the host says, "Oh, bless you, that's great," and the crowd applauds like crazy. Everyone leaps to the assumption that this person is a GREAT teacher, when it's very likely they're not.

We've made a huge error in logic here: because the job of teaching is so important to our society, we've put the people who do it above scrutiny. It should be just the opposite. The more important a job is, the stricter the standards should be for those who do it. (Anyone want to offer tenure to doctors or airline pilots?) Teachers may not hold lives in their hands, but they do hold futures in their hands.

Great teachers aren't afraid of a little competition. The ones who are should not be doing that job.

|4.10.06 @ 3:14PM|#

I don't know the woman, but her compensation package as a superintendent of schools for a large urban area isn't hugely out of line with the national average.

|4.10.06 @ 3:39PM|#

I don't know the woman, but her compensation package as a superintendent of schools for a large urban area isn't hugely out of line with the national average.

But certainly that doesn't make it moral. Certainly it doesn't mean that if one has the opportunity to legally take money from a cash-strapped educational system, even if most people shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, that's just how it is," that it's a moral or responsible thing to do. It's neither and it's, as much or more than the behavior of unions, a fundamental reason why our schools perform so poorly.

Obviously, it's normal for school administrators to takes obscene amounts of money for perpetuating incompetent education systems, but the reason that it's normal is because we've accepted it.

I would have really appreciated it if Ms. Snell could have actually taken a look at the San Francisco public school system so she could judge if the person she interviewed, the person who is "proud" of that system, has anything at all to say worth listening to.

|4.10.06 @ 5:45PM|#

I don't see what's immoral about a package worth $267,000 a year to perform a high-pressure, highly scrutinized job, even if it is in the public service. It just doesn't seem excessive to me. Yeah, it might be nice if people at the top voluntarily made visible sacrifices, but one could say the same thing about people who choose to work in other sectors.

|4.10.06 @ 5:55PM|#

It was a job. She was offered it. Perhaps there was some back-and-forth regarding compensation. In the end, the City and Ms. Ackerman reached an agreement.

Why are you so mad at her? The City could have said no. "Sorry, that's too much." "We can't afford that in our budget." "We have another excellent candidate who will do the job for $xxxxxx less."

She could have said no, too. "This will be a high-stress job for me. I want $yyyyyy". "I have another offer that is very attractive." "I think I'm worth more than that."

Both parties may have made similar statements during their negotiations. In any case, neither party was held at gunpoint. Perhaps after reflecting on this fact, your feelings will be a little more sophisticated than indicated by your original responses.

If so, that'd be great. Then you might go on to consider why your first reaction was as it was.

|4.10.06 @ 6:07PM|#

I don't see what's immoral about a package worth $267,000 a year to perform a high-pressure, highly scrutinized job, even if it is in the public service.

What, exactly, makes you think that the school superintendent's job is 5-6 times more "high-pressure" than a special-ed teacher, for instance? What super-specialized skills do you think the average school superintendent possesses? What does doing a "highly scrutinized" job have to do with pay rate? You should get paid more because more people are watching to make sure to do your job effectively? I don't understand.

It's absolutely not immoral to accept these packages in the private sector, because those are private decisions with private funds. But this is not the private sector.

These are public funds that are taken from the citizens' paychecks for the sake of children. If, for your own enrichment, for your own interest, you're reducing the limited resources necessary to efficiently teach children, and if you're doing this with the money earned by the parents of the children you're supposed to be educating, how is that NOT immoral? And, on top of that, to do almost nothing to fix a system you were overpaid to fix in the first place?

How is it moral to sell yourself as a public servant, when you're not? How is it moral to claim to have done a good job helping children, when it's evident that you haven't done anything?

Sorry, that's a lot of questions making the same point. But you get my drift. Public servants should be servants to the public, not to themselves.

That doesn't mean a superintendent (or any other government official) shouldn't make a decent living. He/She should. But these packages are the very definition of obscene.

|4.10.06 @ 6:18PM|#

It was a job. She was offered it. Perhaps there was some back-and-forth regarding compensation. In the end, the City and Ms. Ackerman reached an agreement.

It was a job paid for by tax dollars intended to educate children who are getting terrible educations.

Why are you so mad at her? The City could have said no. "Sorry, that's too much." "We can't afford that in our budget." "We have another excellent candidate who will do the job for $xxxxxx less."

I'm mad at both of them. I'm mad at the City for thinking that they need to pay someone that much to do a good job (i.e. the right thing). I'm mad at her for pretending that she cares about the education of the children, when, all things considered (i.e. the education budget and how much of it is devoted to her luxerious lifestyle), is not compatible with the facts.

She could have said no, too. "This will be a high-stress job for me. I want $yyyyyy". "I have another offer that is very attractive." "I think I'm worth more than that."

You mean she could have asked for EVEN MORE? How is this an argument? A person who does something wrong isn't so wrong because they could have done worse?

Both parties may have made similar statements during their negotiations. In any case, neither party was held at gunpoint.

Had they been held at gunpoint, I would understand why they made their decisions. Since they weren't, then I'm forced to conclude that the City made it's decisions based on poor thinking and she made her decisions based on greed. Nothing wrong with greed, as long as it's not being satisfied with tax dollars at the expense of education.

Perhaps after reflecting on this fact, your feelings will be a little more sophisticated than indicated by your original responses.

Look, when you defend someone who's happily and greedily and needlessly decreasing the resources used to educate children with, "She could have taken more," you need to reflect on the sophistication of your own arguments.

|4.10.06 @ 6:22PM|#

And I'll just repeat that the school system in San Francisco is a wreck. Why shouldn't a person, a tax-payer, interested in the quality of education and how to increase it, be upset when the the overseer of such a broken system is rewarded so handsomely with tax dollars?

|4.10.06 @ 8:10PM|#

Les, whoa.

Just what do you imagine the depth is of the talent pool for large-district superintendents?

I imagine the skill-set required for the job (ie, negotiating hardball-style in union collective bargaining; other people-skills to lead a multi-thousand person organziation; navigating a dicey and open political situation with a school board and other government officials; and the financial chops to manage a billion-dollar budget) would require a similar background in terms of management training and experience to a Fortune 500 VP or general manager.

The cohort of people with the skills that can fulfill this role is both limited and also in demand in the private sector.

Here's a theoretical cost-benefit analysis for you: if the top manager has the skills to engage in a hardball union contract process and can hold a new contract to an annual 3% COLA raise instead of 3.5%, for a 2500 person * $40K payroll, thats $500,000 per year.

|4.10.06 @ 8:32PM|#

keith, dude.

Those are good points, but I will attempt to poop all over them! (I'm usually such a mellow, agreeable fellow, really.)

The skill-set you describe is generally accurate. It's a good thing they have at least 2 or 3 highly-paid assistants to help them with it.

And what makes you think it's harder to do those things well (which Ms. Ackerman did not, by most accounts) than it is to be a dedicated and effective teacher in the environment provided?

If her financial worth can be determined by how little teachers' pay increases, how is she supposed to be a "leader?" If that's her main worth, then what she becomes is an adversary. Especially, when she's working for so, so much more money.

And the bottom line is, it just doesn't work. If Ackerman had actually improved the schools in San Francisco, if she had actually made a good-will effort at managing the budget while providing all the resources necessary to educate the kids, there might be a legitimate argument for paying her 5-6 times what the teachers make.

The argument that you have to pay well to get the best public servants, whether it's school superintendents or congressmen, becomes evidently wrong when you look at the results of their work. When you pay public-servants large wages, start to attract self-servants. Ben Franklin tried to make this point in the last years of his life, but he was generally ignored.

The best public servants (and worst, mind you) I've ever met were teachers. The real-time multi-tasking necessary to be an effective teacher, especially in special-ed, puts administrative jobs to shame. I suspect that most administrators would soil themselves in panic halfway through your average special-educator's work day. But that's just me.

|4.11.06 @ 12:01AM|#

Despite my ranting and raving, I do want to take back one thing I said out of frustration.

I would have really appreciated it if Ms. Snell could have actually taken a look at the San Francisco public school system so she could judge if the person she interviewed, the person who is "proud" of that system, has anything at all to say worth listening to.

It's very obvious from today's article that Ms. Snell did take a look at the school system and that Ms. Ackerman did attempt to do new things in the hopes of improving the system.

But while there has been some improvement in some areas (and steady declines in others), the schools are still god-awful. There is nothing to be "proud" of for getting paid huge sums for an unfinished job with uncertain results.

|4.11.06 @ 12:37AM|#

Sorry Lester, my "grammar" suffers from wordprocessoritis, but don't worry, your impressions are of no significance.

A Chief Administrator of what should be a major school system who manages thousands of humans is easily worth what she got. This is in a world where a good software engineer is getting $115k and manages nobody. Of course, you could volunteer to do the job out of the kindness of your public servant heart for nothing.

Until Ms. Ackerman's reforms, the SFUSD system was going downhill. Latest stats indicate that performance is up. I suggest it'll be heading back down soon. Time will tell.

|4.11.06 @ 10:31AM|#

People who think that Ackerman did a good job are the primary reason our school system is a joke. They're the same kind of people who think that teachers' unions care about the children.
I think it's a joke because that's what it is: a joke. Other than the baby-sitting function, it's largely extraneous.

When people are satisfied with a system that describes a less than 50% proficiency in English as rated "8 out of 10," well, they get what they deserve.

Ever try researching "school performance"? The school systems are masters of obfuscation, and Ackerman gives a great example in the interview:

"The board is very split on whether or not race should be used as one of the guidelines for choice. I think they are going to adjust the diversity index [part of the formula for determining who can attend popular schools], and one of the new factors might be race."

The "diversity index" is already nothing but race; why lie about it?