How To Get Rich In Public Education

David L. Brewer, the just-appointed superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, has shown us a proven method for making a "shipload of money" in public education:

1. Spend several decades in the U.S. Navy rising to the rank of rear-admiral; don't go anywhere near a public school so you won't have any public education experience whatsoever and therefore not be "contaminated" by a poor track-record the "system."

2. Next, retire from the navy, and start your second career at the top of the nation's second largest public school system with a beginning annual salary of $300,000, an annual housing allowance of $36,000; a slush fund annual expense account of $45,000; a car, and an "extensive benefits package."

3. Be sure that you sign a four-year contract that requires a multi-year "buy-out" should the district become unhappy with your performance at the helm, therefore insulating yourself by making it extremely expensive for your governing board to "get rid of you."

4. Since you don't have the administrative credential required by state guidelines, (to go along with your complete lack of actual experience administering a public school) make sure that your contract includes a "waiver" from this somewhat inconvenient requirement.

5. And lastly, (but certainly not leastly) negotiate a contract that doesn't base your pay on the performance of yourself or your organization but does allow for annual increases in your salary based upon conversations held in a closed-door meeting between yourself and the governing board that hired you in the first place.

That's how to get rich in public education! -------------------------------See our latest EduPosts here this date's Extra Credit Reading here, and today's Carnival of Education there.