Heart of education lies far from the 'million-dollar hallway'
By Gregg Weinlein
Published 12:01 a.m., Sunday, March 6, 2011
USA Today writer Craig Wilson's Feb. 9 commentary in the Times Union, "Find the words to tell teachers they mattered," succinctly captured the essence of education: the special relationship between teacher and student, and knowledge and learning.
Today, unfortunately, that priceless and sacred relationship is clouded over by an ever-increasing bureaucracy that has taken over our public schools. Granted, state and federal departments of education will always operate in their inherent bureaucratic fashion. But to see our public schools become similar bureaucracies, with constantly expanding levels of management, is disheartening and counterproductive to the mission of a school. Both the students and the school community lose whenever the delivery of educational services is more about administering and monitoring than what takes place in the classroom.
I am hopeful that Gov. Andrew Cuomo's educational vision recognizes the need to recapture the essence of education: what takes place within the classroom. Certainly he hints at such in his criticism of the juiced-up salaries of some superintendents as symbolic of an absurd vacuum that sucks up taxpayer and government monies.
What Cuomo did not mention, however, is that school districts are not only burdened by high-salaried superintendents, but also by the number of assistant superintendents who sponge up significant portions of a district budget.
The reality is many public school districts not only have a superintendent with a compensation package that easily climbs over $200,000 annually, but also three or four assistant superintendents whose salary, with benefits and bonuses, are well beyond $160,000 annually.
In my school district, a typical suburban one, offices for the superintendent and three assistant superintendents have been constructed in a small hallway in an elementary school. District officials call this hallway the administration center.
Educators, who sense the layers and layers of an educational bureaucracy that exists primarily to administer and monitor, have a different name for it. So do community members, disgruntled by an increasingly heavy tax burden imposed annually by district bureaucrats who continue to take away from the children.
After totaling the compensation packages and additional perks for the top administrators, they sarcastically call it "the million-dollar hallway."
Bureaucratic growth within our public schools has moved the design and delivery of educational services further and further away from the classroom. If our schools are to turn around, we must accept that the essence of education is what takes place in the classroom.
Over the years, teachers have been shackled by political agendas, district initiatives and government mandates. These policies are spun into place at a whirlwind speed in what Yeats would see as another "widening gyre" disguised as a public school bureaucracy. Talk about too many officials and policy makers in the wrong place.
Craig Wilson wrote his heartfelt piece to reminisce about a high school teacher who influenced his writing career. We all have heard these stories of teacher stories from relatives and friends. We have read them in books and seen them in movies. The stories have a common theme: A teacher changed a life. Funny, I can't recall any stories about how a district administrator changed a life.
The news of school aid cuts has become an annual ritual. We always assume the announcement of cuts means teachers and programs will be reduced or eliminated. We have been correct in that assumption. Already, my school district is threatening to cut the length of our kindergarten program. Granted, in a few districts, top administrators are taking salary freezes or administrative posts are being cut.
Let's hope that the governor is able to carry out his vision for appropriate distribution of education monies and that cuts and reductions will finally take place in areas far, far away from the classroom and our children.
Gregg Weinlein is a Capital Region writer and retired teacher. His e-mail address is greggw97@aol.com.