PAT Strike Day 1: More Math

The superintendent of Portland public schools makes $330,000 year (not counting benefits, and expenses such as gadding about at conferences). This is roughly $110,000 more than the next highest paid executive at PPS. There are roughly 10 executives who make in the neighborhood of 200,000 a year, and 40 or 50 who make in the $150–180k range. (I am not talking about HS principals who are at the bottom of that range)

I am not someone who looks at highly compensated bureaucrats and automatically smells bullshit. In the eyes of some I’m close enough to a highly compensated bureaucrat myself to make no nevermind. But also, having spent my career in large bureaucracies, I know first hand that professional administrators serve an important purpose.

(Opinions my own. Etc etc)

A large, complex institution needs people who prepare and administer budgets, purchase and monitor insurance, draft policies, prevent malware attacks, and keep the lights on. Visceral disdain for administrative competence and professional administration is childish and naive. In my particular profession I have ample opportunity to observe ways where skilled lawyers attempting to manage other lawyers is a terrible, no good, very bad idea. First of all, the things that make one a good lawyer do not make one a good manager. In fact the opposite is often true. Second, it’s not good for an organization to divert some of the most skilled professionals into leadership when they’re really just better off staying in their lane screaming profanities and maniacally arguing with people. I suspect medicine and education are similar.

So, the fact a system with a $700MM budget and 8000 employees has a shit ton of people with titles like senior executive director does not immediately make me squirm, although I do get curious about titles that seem too jargony and duplicative. But I sure as hell am not sitting out here thinking a school district runs itself on the dedication of professional educators alone. You can’t have a school system without the hard work and sacrifice of educators, but you want them educating, not administering.

What does make me cranky is the sleazy talking points about teachers’ salary position juxtaposed with vulnerable constituencies in PPS, as though teachers are demanding more than their share of a limited pie that has to be shared with custodians, occupational therapists, and others who are obviously competing for scarce resources. I have literally seen this talking point out there as the justification for PPS position: “they just can’t agree to PAT’s demands because that wouldn’t leave enough money for other bargaining units or critical needs”. Then the Oregonian turns around and says something gratuitously biased like the teachers have “spurned” the District’s “offer”. The O might once have been a respectable member of the 4th estate, but it’s now a corporate asset that uses its remaining credibility to parrot the corporate line.

I get it, public money is finite. But who has to sacrifice to account for Oregon and Portland’s generally abysmal public funding? Why does the scarcity model (borne of a complex array of poor policy choices and economic conditions) force the sacrifice onto teachers?

If the difference between Gaudelupe Guerrero’s salary and the next highest paid person in the district was the same dollar difference as that between a high school principal and an area director, that would free up about $100,000. That’s two brand new teachers. (At low salary in the current contract). If the 10 or so people making 200K got 10% less, that’s 4 more new teachers, and so on down the line.

And is it a good look for the system’s top executive to be getting $330,000 of taxpayer money when a Supreme Court Justice gets $270,000 (we won’t get into fishing trips, real estate, and probably lap dances for SCOTUS who vote the way their handlers demand).

I haven’t sat down with a red pen and looked at the districts budget and how much they’re spending on new furniture for the district office, or union busting consultants, or legal fees, or fancy acronym-laden corporate management fads. I also don’t know how much they’re spending on classroom aides, restroom maintenance (I know half the restrooms at my kids’ high school are always locked), school nurses, or social workers. What I do know is the money they are spending for things in the first bucket exceeds zero by quite a bit, and whatever they are spending on the second bucket doesn’t meet the need by a long shot.

So, why should the teachers be the ones who have to sacrifice? Why should the people making 50, 60, or 70,000 a year have to bear the burden of scarcity? There is no possible way they are working less hard than the people the district is compensating at $180,000 a year.