Before the season starts.....this is sickening
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I don't know why folks get all bent out of shape about superintendents. I'm not in that line of work, nor are my kids in the public schools. And the superintendents don't make the schools good or bad, as far as the general 'goodness' or 'badness' of the school, that's all about what type of students you have. They just steer the ship.
It's jobs for the community. I don't see the big issue besides jealousy.
It's jobs for the community. I don't see the big issue besides jealousy.
Biggest mistake ever was appointing superintendents. It's created huge problems in a number of districts.
Steering the ship is a pretty big deal. There's really not a school district in Mississippi affluent enough that its public schools can't be ruined by bad leadership. A good superintendent is easily worth $200k for most school districts. Just think about how expensive it is to pay for a failing public school system. We just have a lot of poorly performing superintendents making a lot of money. But sadly, a lot of the complaints are just about jealousy, not because they are overpaid for poor performance. As bad as our situation is now, capping superintendents are going to limit your talent pretty significantly. Anybody that can do a good job as a superintendent of a decent sized school district can easily make >$150k in the private sector and more than $200k if they're in a decently populated area.
This is the most inexplicably bad take of your I think. Our public schools suck so much in large part because they are treated as jobs programs rather than treating them as a tool for educating children.
You'd rather they be elected? Need to have professionals running schools, not politicians. Granted, if you would elect a bad superintendent, having an elected school board appoint one isn't going to fix that problem in a lot of cases, but often it will.
This is perhaps the dumbest take I’ve ever heard. “Jobs for the community.” Did you even read it?
I would. In rural MS, they're appointing people who aren't professionals. Highly trained people aren't moving to rural MS much and the boards are hiring locals. Some that even lost the election.
That's ridiculous!
The superintendent 100% can make a school good or bad. You said you aren't in that line of work, so maybe you shouldn't share your uneducated opinion. Superintendents hire who is in charge of those students, and those people in charge can easily make a bad school good or a good school bad. I coached at the #1 school in the state and left because of the direction it was headed after some bad hires. I'm at a school now that was never seen as a good school, but is now on the way up because of who the superintendent has hired and has changed the culture entirely.
If they are worth 200K, why are you getting mad that they are being paid 200K?? Or whatever it is?
I don't think you quite understood my point. I agree about good ones and bad ones....but assuming we don't know who is good or bad, why are people mad that they are making good salaries? And don't say because the schools are bad....because you can't just look at a rating and judge a superintendent by that. You have to look at before and after. And we both know no one is doing that.
ETA: All I ever hear is that we need more teachers and less administration. Well you just told that that administration was important. Can't have it both ways?
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We have WAY too many elected positions in MS. With the exception of the MS Supreme Court, every damn judge in this state should be appointed by the Governor then confirmed by the people every 4 years. That’s how they do it in Colorado and it works great.
Good points which can be addressed with candidate required qualifications.
I've seen horrible and good superintendents-- elected and appointed.
I've seen horrible and good superintendents-- elected and appointed.
Exactly, they can make it better or they can make it worse. Perhaps that ultimately ends up 'good' or 'bad' but you can't just look at the ratings and judge the superintendent immediately.
Easier to control them when they have to answer to the state as opposed to the families they serve.
Sir, this is SPS… post something about Margaret Thatcher and see how your first amendment rights work**
The Sup needs to be an employee of the district and held accountable by the School Board. Thats how this all needs to work. The School Board is then elected.
The Sup is supposed to carry out the will/ideas/goals of the School Board so if the Sup is elected, their motivation is to stay elected instead of carry out the will of the School Board.
There are already enough people elected at lower levels that nobody knows enough about- I dont want Sups to then be part of that. People will just vote based on name recognition or party or whatever. The Board needs to hire Sups and Sups need to report to the Board.
...are there actually states where Superintendents are elected? How the 17 does that work for being employed by, and reporting to, the board then?
But that's like saying the people shouldn't have been allowed to vote on the flag. We elect people to handle that. Yet, the people did a better job than the elected officials. It's generally always that way really. But you're a big government guy, so I get it.
Ironic that the conservative group is advocating a top down cap on pay by the state. If the local district wants to pay it’s superintendent or whatever more than the governor…then why should the state restrict that? How is that additional regulation on local authority conservative?
Ignoring the people that are just mad because they are envious, most of the time people are complaining about how many superintendents we have. If you are going to have a tiny school district, the superintendent should be paid more like a principal and the principals should be paid more like Vice principals.
Absolutely some people are doing that. They probably don't advertise it, but good school boards look at the demographics of their school district and their students (which are often not the same depending on how much a foothold private schools have) and comparing performance to similar school districts and to themselves over time. They also look at how they compare across percentiles. (e.g., some boards are ok if their bottom 10% aren't scoring as well as long as their 90th and above percentiles are scoring well because those are the parents they have to keep happy and supporting the public school system). And they look at how the proportion of students going to private school versus public school changes over time.
Thinking we need more teachers and less administration doesn't mean you don't need a chief executive. Even if you have an inefficient number of school districts and should consolidate, somebody still has to be the chief executive of those school districts that should probably be consolidated. There may be other administrative staff that need to be cut, but you are going to have a de facto chief executive even if you call it something other than Superintendent.
The theory was that the Board's could look far and wide to find the best professional available. However, that has not turned out to necessarily be the case. Local boards are hiring friends and next level employees from within the system that have hidden in the system for years and years.
The issue in MS is that the the superintendent has gone to an appointed position (with a primary reason being the local elected superintendent was a powerful political force in each of their communities. State leaders wanted to stop that). But, the board members remain at six year terms. The board members in a lot of cases do not feel accountability to the public at all. Board member terms need to be reduced to four years. Otherwise, there is not nearly enough public accountability. The state legislature has to change that law.
In my local district, the board screwed up their first hire royally when they chose someone from out of state. Turns out that person did not get the proper licensing, so it gave the Board an out. I think the real issue is that the rest of the district employees revolted on this person because they were beginning to make some changes. The board then turned to a career employee/local socialite who has never been anywhere other than in the district in which she resides. It's very easy to hide in the bureaucracy as a second level leader. It is much different to be the primary decision maker with the buck stopping at your door. Very weak soul that is not accountable for anything who very much likes to delegate decisions to all the individuals below - in the circle of avoiding accountability. I think performance of the person is perceived to be high because the district is high performing - primarily because of the strong demographics, not the effectiveness of district leadership. One school in the district is very high performing while the others are just fair to middling. It's a situation where the super is just sort of riding the wave of past successes and the strong demographics in the main school zone of the county.
The deal on salaries is driven by compensation comparisons and consultants. If district A raises its super's salary, then it raises the median and average for all. Then, district B sees that and raises its super's salary. And so on and so forth. District super salaries have exploded faster than inflation the last few years (now with inflation so high, it may slow a little compared to inflation). But, an elected super has a much more difficult time politically going out and getting a salary increase that's outsized compared to other staff within the district.
Another issue besides the superintendent are the assistant superintendents - whoo boy. There are some good people in public education. But, man, there are some that are just extreme wastes of space.
The issue in MS is that the the superintendent has gone to an appointed position (with a primary reason being the local elected superintendent was a powerful political force in each of their communities. State leaders wanted to stop that). But, the board members remain at six year terms. The board members in a lot of cases do not feel accountability to the public at all. Board member terms need to be reduced to four years. Otherwise, there is not nearly enough public accountability. The state legislature has to change that law.
In my local district, the board screwed up their first hire royally when they chose someone from out of state. Turns out that person did not get the proper licensing, so it gave the Board an out. I think the real issue is that the rest of the district employees revolted on this person because they were beginning to make some changes. The board then turned to a career employee/local socialite who has never been anywhere other than in the district in which she resides. It's very easy to hide in the bureaucracy as a second level leader. It is much different to be the primary decision maker with the buck stopping at your door. Very weak soul that is not accountable for anything who very much likes to delegate decisions to all the individuals below - in the circle of avoiding accountability. I think performance of the person is perceived to be high because the district is high performing - primarily because of the strong demographics, not the effectiveness of district leadership. One school in the district is very high performing while the others are just fair to middling. It's a situation where the super is just sort of riding the wave of past successes and the strong demographics in the main school zone of the county.
The deal on salaries is driven by compensation comparisons and consultants. If district A raises its super's salary, then it raises the median and average for all. Then, district B sees that and raises its super's salary. And so on and so forth. District super salaries have exploded faster than inflation the last few years (now with inflation so high, it may slow a little compared to inflation). But, an elected super has a much more difficult time politically going out and getting a salary increase that's outsized compared to other staff within the district.
Another issue besides the superintendent are the assistant superintendents - whoo boy. There are some good people in public education. But, man, there are some that are just extreme wastes of space.
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That makes no sense whatsoever. First of all, the governor got rid of the flag (granted he was under pressure), all the voters voted on was which new flag to use. Voters voted NOT to change it in 2001.
Government NEEDS that additional layer. It can't be solely left to the masses.
mglfrs idea is best here. Electing superintendents is dumb.
The biggest problem I see with elected superintendents is that as far as I know, they always have to be residents of the districts in which they are running. Even if that's not a technical requirement, I can't imagine too many professionals are going to try to run a campaign in a remote location. And to me one of the best practices for finding a good superintendent is to look for a superintendent of a similar, but smaller distric (or that you can poach from for whatever reason) or to look for the #2 of a similar but higher performing district. Basically can't do either of those with elected superintendents.
That's the logical way to run the school district and how it's done in mine. I agree with ou completely!
Why is that weird? I think wanting more of a "republic" set up than something closer to "pure democracy" is generall consistent with the republican party. And it's also dividing political power between different elected board members rather than having one elected executive. I mean, I don't think this is an issue that neatly falls as a democrat or republican issue, but it doesn't see odd that republicans would have fallen this way.
How does electing superintendents fix that? That guarantees you are going to elect a local. I guess if you are stuck with a local that isn't a professional, appointing them as opposed to electing them isn't better. BUt it doesn't seem worse either?
It's a limitation on government spending. So you've got two conservative positions (spending restraint and subsidiarity) in tension. Also, I'm not sure what restrictions there are on the state portion of education funding, but since money is fungible, they are sort advocating how their tax money gets spent, not just interfering with local decisions. Again, don't agree with their argument, but it doesn't seem inconsistent with conservative values.
The school district my kids went to is one of the better ones in the state, but has one of the lower paid Superintendents in the state. We need to consolidate more districts and use the money saved to go to the classroom. Less than 25% of the education money spent goes to the classroom… 75% of it goes to administration/overhead… we need more education and less Administration.
Try to find people willing to move to the rural areas of MS. It's not happening much. I've dealt directly with some of this. It's incredibly difficult to get great educators to a number of area in MS. Also, a board of education hiring a superintendent that lost an election a year before is really backwoods MS politics. Not only that, but counties are lining up people on the school board to take over those jobs. Also have seen politically connected families controlling those supers via their board member. A guy from Oak Grove, isn't going to do the people of Lumberton any favors. Or a guy at FCAHS helping out North Forrest. Lots of agendas in these rural areas.
A one size fits all approach to education is a poor way to do it. What is good and might work in Madison isn't good in Walnut Grove. The people can only vote for one board member in most places, it's not like they can flip the whole board.
Elected superintendents would work in a district with a decent size population (ie Desoto County) but smaller districts would have a tough time finding someone qualified.
Weird in the sense that many folks seem to prefer local control and having an appointed superintendent seems to go in the exact opposite direction— with control being in the hands of someone who isn’t necessarily familiar with the needs of an individual school district.
Most are still appointing the same people who live in those areas. They aren't going "outside the family". They're put a board member as next in line who is also local. At least let people vote on those people. They know them. Now, if the state can find a a way to eliminate that kind of stuff, we can talk.
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