I will protect your pensions. Nothing about your pension is going to change when I am governor. - Chris Christie, "An Open Letter to the Teachers of NJ" October, 2009

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Just Smell That Charter School Money!

Mmm, mmm, good!
TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie today made good on his plans to introduce rules limiting how much school superintendents are paid — an action that would shave $9.8 million off the salaries from about 360 school executives when their contracts expire.
[...]
Under the plan, superintendents would earn no more than $125,000 in districts with no more than 250 students. Salaries would increase incrementally, based on district size, to a pay limit of $175,000 in a district with 6,501 to 10,000 students. The state education commissioner could allow a higher salary in districts with more than 10,000 students.
A recent Star-Ledger review found 235 school administrators earned more than $175,000 in the 2008-09 school year. 
[...]
The rules would not apply to charter school superintendents or executives who run private schools for disabled students funded by public dollars.
No wonder Wall Street LOVES the charter movement.

I wonder what the superintendent of the new Haliburton/Facebook Charter School will make?

1 comment:

thinker said...

How can the general public look at this and not be screaming in outrage? Are our citizens really that apathetic? Even for those who clearly could care less about schools/teacher quality, or those who are uninformed enough to actually think Christie's reforms will improve education, this should raise a red flag. I realize that there is a segment of the population in NJ for whom the main issue is lowering property taxes come what may as far as schools and services go, but even for them this is bad news because TAX DOLLARS PAY FOR CHARTERS, including the salary of their superintendants! Thus, it makes absolutely no sense to cap public school superintendent salaries in the interest of saving tax dollars, and yet exempt another group ALSO BEING PAID WITH TAX DOLLARS.

Ok, am I the only one seeing this? Because I don't hear anyone else complaining. On the contrary, jerseyans seem to be a-ok with this despite the fact that giving the government, any government, the power to cap ANYONE'S salary kind of makes me uncomfortable as I don't trust politicans of either party. Nonetheless, if you are going to go for caps, at least be consistent. How can no one see the blatant agenda here?