Teachers aren''t the only ones who think they are underpaid.

"The school district has gotten cheap labor for a long time in this position," said Orange School Superintendent Ron Blocker, who thinks he is being shortchanged, too.

Blocker pulls down $298,756 a year, when his salary and extras including an annuity and expense account are tallied. That''s more than six times what the average teacher makes.

Gov. Charlie Crist earns only $132,932 a year under a state pay scale that provides considerably stingier benefits than local school boards heap on superintendents.

School superintendents across the region get a good dollar, compared with earnings for the average Joe -- or even the average Joe college graduate with an advanced degree similar to one a superintendent might have.

U.S. Census Bureau statistics for 2007 indicate that just under 8 percent of Florida workers earned more than $100,000 a year.

The average wage earner with an advanced degree made $56,542. The average salary for a teacher in Central Florida is between $42,000 and $49,000.

But the school superintendents, who make four or five times as much, say they are worth every penny.