This is a very good time to be looking for a job as a school superintendent. The demand for qualified applicants is high and the supply is low, so if you are an experienced superintendent with a good track record, you can expect some very attractive offers if you enter the job market.
Of course, the reason for this favorable supply-and-demand equation is that this is a particularly challenging time to be a school superintendent. You're under constant scrutiny, you're expected to be accessible 24/7 and you'll probably have to look for a new job-and relocate-in five to six years. ?
If you're a senior central office administrator-a deputy or assistant superintendent-your situation is more stable. You're probably earning 80 percent to 90 percent of what your boss makes, but your job is a lot safer. If you're in your 50s, you can look forward to an attractive pension, or you could cap off your career by applying for one of those many open superintendent jobs.
The applicant pool today is so shallow that those superintendents who are successful and experienced can pretty much name their own price.-Joan Raymond
Whether you're job hunting or not, it's always valuable to see how you're salary stacks up against the national averages. According to the Educational Research Service, a nonprofit organization in Alexandria, Va., the national average salary for superintendents is just over $134,000, up about 43 percent from a decade ago. Average salaries for central office managers range from about $72,000 for subject area supervisors to $122,000 for deputy superintendents, according to ERS.
The charts and tables that accompany this article tell more of the story. But to get an inside look at what's really happening with district-level compensation trends, we assembled a panel of experts and asked them for their insight. Our panelists include current and retired superintendents, K-12 management recruiters and leaders at industry associations. They were interviewed separately; their comments have been aggregated here to create a virtual roundtable.
What's behind the ongoing rise in superintendent salaries?
What do superintendents earn?
National average salary, 2005-2006: $134,436
In 1995-1996: $94,229
Percent change: 42.7
Average for districts with 25,000+ students: $189,201
For districts with fewer than 2,500students: $101,400
Average for districts with per-pupil expenditures of $9,000 or more: $134,864
For districts with per-pupil expenditures of $6,000 or less: $126,014
Geographic region with highest average salary: Southwest ($145,431)
Region with lowest: Rocky Mountain ($118,114)
Community type with highest average salary: Large urban ($187,924)
Type with lowest: Rural ($91,606)
Source: Educational Research Service
Benjamin Canada: Salaries in the recent past have been undervalued, so it's natural for them to begin catching up to the responsibilities that the superintendent/CEO has been addressing for years. Plus, we are seeing a dwindling supply of qualified applicants for these jobs.
Joan Raymond: When I applied for the job in South Bend, they had 18 or 20 applications. I was shocked because at one point it would have been several times that. When I left, they had five applicants. The applicant pool today is so shallow that those superintendents who are successful and experienced can pretty much name their own price.
Charles Fowler: Over the last 10 to 15 years in the New York area we've seen a decrease of 70 percent in the number of people who express interest in a superintendent job. A district that advertised an attractive job in a nice community might have gotten 125 or 130 applications, more than half from existing superintendents. Today that number is 30 to 35, and over half the applicants are not superintendents-sometimes they're not even professional educators.
Why so few applicants?
Bruce Hunter: The age at which people become superintendents is rising. It used to be that people became superintendents in their late 30s and stayed in the position for 25 to 30 years. Now the typical age of becoming a superintendent is in the 50s. Educators stay in other careers until their kids are in college or their home is paid off. Then, if they're offered a superintendent's job with a three- to five-year contract they'll take it, because they have the time in to collect a pension and they're just putting a cherry on their career. Of course, if you take a superintendent job at 50 or 52, you're not going to stay more than six or eight years.
Charles Fowler: People who went into an educational leadership position with a strong desire to influence the nature of teaching and learning find that is not what they get to spend their time doing. They get to spend the vast majority of their time putting out political and financial fires, dealing with issues of school violence and school security, facility problems, voter rejection of budgets. The job has moved so far away from what happens in the classroom that it has decreased interest in the position.
