The state’s schools chief has requested salary increases for 23 senior Department of Education administrators, citing the need to keep pay competitive and appropriate for top-of-the-
ladder jobs.
While in general that seems a reasonable aim, the state Board of Education (BOE) correctly believes that should be the beginning of the discussion, not the end of it.
Following its meeting on Tuesday, the BOE Human Resources Committee postponed making any recommendation on the recommended raises that schools Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi proposes to pay across the board.
Matayoshi’s request is for a
4.5 percent bump for her top executives, including the department’s deputy superintendent, six assistant superintendents and 15 complex-area superintendents.
The raises would cost a total $143,250 annually, which doesn’t figure prominently in a large department budget, so the raw number is not what should give pause.
One can reasonably object, on principle, to granting across-the-board raises at the top managerial level without further assessment. That was the point raised by member Kenneth Uemura, who observed that “some may warrant a bigger increase and some may warrant less increase.”
Matayoshi defended all as meriting the increase, but Uemura was right to suggest that individual evaluations should figure into the calculation to some extent. And performance isn’t the only factor: The responsibilities of some positions may have increased by necessity with the education reforms being planned and implemented over the past few years.
The board likely must consider some measure of salary adjustments for the near term, but the issues of pay and changing school responsibilities provide reasons for a broader rethinking of the way schools are staffed and administered.
The impetus for such a discussion appeared last December, when President Barack Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). As a reauthorization of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, ESSA replaces what was best known as No Child Left Behind.
Among the primary advantages being touted is that the new law offers states greater flexibility in how they can meet federal requirements. Individual school districts across the country —
including Hawaii’s statewide, single school district — now will have more power in setting educational policy.
A lot of discussion is underway now, with Gov. David Ige convening a task force to ready public schools for the implementation of ESSA in the 2017-18 school year. Principals and complex area superintendents are involved in developing the plan that will be submitted to the U.S. Department of Education in March.
How decisions get made, and by whom, is sure to change. The new plan will redefine where staffing is needed most. Some restructuring of personnel must be the result if the state is to deploy its resources most effectively.
Ultimately top administrative jobs will need to change — and soon. A more thorough reordering of positions and salaries will be needed for the long term.
The superintendent said after Tuesday’s meeting that the Education Department in the past has instituted across-the-board increases roughly in parallel with increases set through collective bargaining for unionized faculty, staff and principals.
Top administrator salaries may indeed be out of sync since arbitration two years ago yielded a
4.5 percent raise for the unions. Without the raises, she said, top administrators can earn less than some of the more senior DOE employees they supervise.
Certainly that’s a less-than-optimal arrangement: Pay parity is one criterion for increases. But in an educational landscape that’s as fluid as it is in Hawaii, it should not be the only one. The BOE should think more comprehensively about the question, and the fact that it has taken this pause is encouraging.
