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It's official: Tommy Chang agrees to contract to become school superintendent; starts work fulltime next month
By adamg on Wed, 03/11/2015 - 8:23pm
The School Committee today approved a contract with Tommy Chang, who will now become Boston's next school superintendent.
Chang, who currently oversees 130 schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District, will earn $257,000 annually, and will be eligible for performance increases of up to 4% based on annual evaluations by the School Committee. Additionally, Dr. Chang will be eligible to receive annual performance increases, between 0 and 4%, based on his evaluation by the School Committee.
Although Chang officially takes over as superintendent on July 1, he says he's planning to be in Boston full time starting mid-April, to work with interim Superintendent John McDonough on the transition - which will likely include working with McDonough on figuring out how to fill a budget hole of up to $50 million for the fiscal year that starts July 1.
In addition to his salary, Chang will get a $500 monthly car allowance and a transition allowance of $2,500 per month for nine months.
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Comments
i think Tommy Chang
is a good choice. He has experience in LA which must be a difficult district to lead. He will need to deal with the Boston's school problems that are as challenging but not the same as LA's.
I wish him success and hope that he will have support in efforts to improve the number of students who graduate able to read, add and subtract.
Who chooses superintendents, Boston School Cmte or someone else?
Communities that have elected school boards choose school board members at the ballot box to represent their interest in matters that go the school committee such as transportation plans, school assignment procedure, discipline policies, school closings, new school building construction, hiring superintendents and much more.
Because members are elected, they are accountable to voters.
That's representative democracy. It's self-governance of our public school system, where authority is aligned by accountability to constituents—citizen taxpayers, voters.
Schools are the biggest part of the city's budget and one of the most important investments we make in the future of our families and our communities. That is why it's important to align the authority—school committee—with the constituency they represent—us. We do not do this in Boston. And a recent vote by the School Committee may be evidence of this misalignment.
Communities that have school boards appointed by the mayor are accountable to the mayor. Communities that have school boards appointed by the mayor are accountable to the mayor even though we're the ones who pay the bills. That is an essential misalignment of authority and accountability.
There may be some good reasons to have the mayor choose school committee members but there is also some extremely negative consequences such as school committee voting for what the mayor wants instead of what they think is best or what they think taxpayers want.
In the hiring of our newest superintendent, there is some question about whether the school committee voted for the candidate who they think is the best fit for Boston Public Schools or whether they voted for the candidate Mayor Walsh wanted. You might expect the mayor to meet with the school committee to hear them talk about the candidates and who they think is best. I am unaware if Marty Walsh met with the school committee. We do know he was going to meet with the search committee
The selection of a superintendent should be about who the school committee chooses because they exist to represent us in matters pertaining to our public schools, and less about who the mayor wants.
There's been some chatter about the people at the Boston Foundation weighing in on the selection of the new superintendent.
Please use the comments below to share what you know about the process and your ideas about how it could work better.
By the way, why are we facing more cuts to our schools?
Ummm, just one question
How does Lerner happen to have the cell phone of the Boston Foundation in his hot little hands? I suspect it would be quite simple to take photos of anyone's phone saying just about anything. Also, why would such a wealthy foundation have only one cell phone? Is there an actual name attached to it?
The way I read it
The way I read it, he's texting with someone who knew which candidate the Boston Foundation favored 7 hours before the vote.
but the olympics!
Marty was too busy making sure John Fish wasn't lacking for anything.
It's not an issue to me anymore than the fact that we don't elect the heads of the BPD or the BFD or any other major Boston entity. I think having a strong mayor system is much preferred to a balkanized system where people have to run public campaigns for every position or we empower some pack of dopes like the City Council. I'm not a huge Walsh fan, but the more decisions he makes instead of Linehan the better. If the city isn't better off at the next election, Walsh will have to defend his record across the board.
Walsh does seem more engaged
Walsh does seem more engaged with Boston 2024 than Boston Schools.
My point is the School Committee exists to represent us, not the mayor. In this last search for a new superintendent there is some question about who they felt accountable to as they cast their vote. I'd like this question to be resolved. It's fundamental to the way our schools are run.
Finally, if it's true that Boston Foundation had an undue influence on the hiring process, taxpayers have the right to know?
But
...the mayor represents us. He's the dominant leader in all aspects of the city which is why it is such an important election.
I wasn't Bush fan, but this is where his accountability moment line applies- we had a choice, we chose Marty Walsh. And here we are. If Walsh didn't want Chang, then someone else would have been picked.
I guess your point is that you don't believe that last statement, but I don't see clear evidence. Good leaders delegate to people all the time - maybe Walsh had faith in his school committee and conferred with them on this.
Walsh appointed four of the seven members, a majority.
Ularte
Robinson
Robinson
Locanto
So one of these people and the other three are in cahoots with some cabal?
Boston has an appointed school board
And even though I, as a resident, knew that, I was just reading about it. The members are appointed by the mayor, but there is another committee, appointed by the governor and mayor, that forwards candidates to the mayor for consideration.
Sorry, Charlie. The voters abolished the elected committee back in the 1980s and confirmed their decision in 1996. For the record, I supported an elected committee, but things have been stable so I may have been wrong.
Also, to say that someone "knew" that Chang was going to be picked is akin to me "knowing" that Kentucky will beat their opponent in the first round of the NCAA Basketball tournament. Now you can claim the game was fixed when they win.
So a guy gets fired from BPS
For being a weed dealer, but they hire as superintendent a guy who went to jail for selling weed paraphernalia?
Oh, wait, Tommy CHANG. Never mind.
Actually...
They were about to fire him because he assaulted a student at the school. Only a few hours after that event he tried to murder another teenager on the street.
I think finding the drug paraphenalia was simply a bit more stink on the turd at that point.
About to fire him
Suuuure they were.
And he was about to turn his life around.
I thought they had already fired him.
Hard to keep the timeline straight.
Hopeful and optimistic
As a BPS parent I believe the district needs powerful leadership and a master plan. Really hope he can be a pioneer in both areas. Very tough district to manage and make change, but I am crossing my fingers he will be up to the job.
Big salary in a small budget
Does anyone else think his salary is kind of big in a school system that has so many budgetary problems, with teachers earning less than they should, and families living on a fraction of his take-home pay? This troubles me no matter what his suitability is for the job.
No
It's a huge organization with a $1b budget. I want to pay someone well to attract talent to the job. I think/hope this guy is going to work hard to improve the BPS. There are plenty of people on the city payroll who make over $100k that you should be mad about before the head of the BPS.
Still, it's a lot
I definitely agree with you on many points, but paying someone well to attract talent to the job should also extend to teachers and to me his 250+ seems over the top. Perhaps all the other recent exorbitant salary news lately (re: 2024) has me jaded.
In line with Dr. Johnson
Dr. Carol Johnson made $267,000 per year, so it's in line with that.
Different role
BPS teachers get paid very well to be teachers (top 40 in the state) at an average of $79k. I don't think the issue with BPS is the standard level of teacher talent where our kids are only getting second rate educators.*
This guy is making 'only' four times as much to take responsibility to run the biggest district in the state with huge challenges. This isn't like the CEO of company X making 1000 more than the average employee.
* obv. there are tons of crap teachers in BPS - it's a huge district. I'm referring to the average BPS teacher.
Nice analysis
Considering that the least well-paid full time worker in BPS likely isn't much south of $25K, the ratio is vastly better than most CEO-least paid worker ratios.
Consider as well that an executive in private industry or even academic management for a university leading a similarly-sized organization would command considerably more money.
For added fun: there is a shortage of superintendent-level administrators both regionally and nationally. In other words, competition drives up prices. Some of the wealthier but much smaller districts are shelling out the same order of magnitude of $$$.
It's not a lot
Is $250K a lot of money for a salary? Yes
Is $250K a lot of money to pay a superintendent for Boston schools? Nope.
When kids fresh out of college can pull more than $100k, I don't think paying someone $250k to manage a huge organization, manage a huge budget, and deal with the huge responsibilities of being superintendent is a lot of money. Going rate out here in the burbs seems to be just south of $200K.
As budget conscious as I am
I would agree - I was actually surprised at how low the salary was. I thought these big district administrators made north of $300k. He's effectively the COO of a $1 billion organization serving 54,000 "customers" (or more if you include the parents) with about 8000 employees.
If he's good at his job - this is a relative bargain - if he's bad - well that's the cost of entry. I would bet there are superintendents in much smaller, cushier suburban districts making this much money.
Keep in mind though - a lot of the compensation for these jobs is not in salary - health care, pensions, accumulated vacation and sick pay that you'll never see in the private sector. Those are probably worth easily $25-$50k. Plus the potential bonus probably adds 10-20% to his comp.
Best of luck Superintendent Chang.
And how much would you take
To captain the Titanic?
This district has so many deep, entrenched, intractable problems that if Chang can improve it at all he deserves a quarter mill. It's institutional development in hell.
I can make that much doing a much easier job. There is no way in hell I'd take his job.
Even if he does a crap job like the last n supers, he deserves it for trying. Here's hoping he succeeds.
Great Analogy
That makes charter schools the lifeboats for many - and like the Titanic there aren't enough!
Charter Schools as lifeboats?
Really?
If so, they appear to be very expensive, poorly maintained and infrequently inspected on the whole.
You're obviously not familiar with the concept
At least in Boston - where they are doing very well. You seem to confuse some legitimate complaints about charters in the rest of the country with the ones that we have here in Mass, and especially Boston. The waiting lists may not be as long as publicized, but you still can't get into one without a lottery.
I'd say three things we do/did very well in Mass - Romneycare (early verdict on conversion to Obamacare not so much - but I'm willing to be more patient), MCAS (which sounds like it could get diluted with the national standards) and charters (which hopefully we can keep doing what we are doing).
Interesting that there are some major programs we seemed to get right here - before the rest of the country decided to inflict their pain on us. Looks like it should be the other way around.
Your Analogy, However, is Terrible
But let's go with it for the moment. So the charters are life boats for a sinking ship? Try to instead picture each school as a life boat. Some are old and leaky, others are brand new. The charters are the brand new boats, and the regular BPS schools are the old and leaky boats. So here's where it gets interesting -- the ropes, the flotation devices, and even the bailing buckets from the old boats are taken and given to the new boats. The new boats also get only the strongest passengers to crew them, and anybody who doesn't move his oar quickly enough, or dip it in the water at the right angle is tossed off of the boat, because they are dead weight. The sleek, light, well crewed charter life boats surprise nobody when they arrive on shore first.
There's your analogy.
Much better analogy
+100
Not really
Brooke Roslindale is in a former Catholic school building which is probably 50 years old, so as always, there are no apples to apples comparisons to be made.
Seriously, what's a specific thing, other than money allocated per student, which is being given to that school?
Teachers - not hired away from BPS
Building - not part of the BPS inventory
Resources - not getting free paper or whatever from BPS
They get the money allocated per student based on the weighted funding formula. If say, the Irving has more SPED students, then the Irving is getting more money for each one of those SPED students.
The only sleek, well crewed life boat in Roslindale is the Haley because some kids are just more equal than others.
And which boat do you want YOUR children on
Drops mic
.
I want to fix the old boats
Make them serviceable, then add new boats as needed.
What should teachers earn?
The average teacher's salary in Boston is approximately $79k. Add in the massive benefits they get from the BTU and that brings total compensation for the year to about six figures. Just my opinion: That is not the definition of underpaid.
Higher
I've seen this $79k number a few times in this discussion and I remember it being much higher. I found a number of $88k here.
Seniority
The BPS hired huge numbers of teachers in the 60's and 70's to staff up for the baby boomers. A huge older "cohort" of teachers hired in that period retired about 10 years ago so BPS staff on the whole is relatively younger so the average pay has gone down. Also - of the teachers we have hired - we have a much larger percentage of PreK to accommodate the roughly 1500 new students in the past 10 years - which I believe are paid a lot less than say a high school teacher further pushing down the averages.
To really get apples to apples you need to compare, for example, a 6th grade teacher with 9 years of experience to other 6th grade teachers statewide with similar experience. Goes back to a comment I made on a previous thread - while there is incentive to keep your job, there is little or no systemic incentive to be excellent.
Data
I got $79k from this from 2012 set of data - http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/state_report/teachersalaries.aspx?mode=&yea...
The $88k say compensation package, meaning they are counting benefits beyond pay.
Now I'm not sure what it says
Looking at my link again, I'm not sure how to read it:
It's confusing at best. I saw the phrase "with an average teacher salary of $88,000", and figured that was it.
If the average salary were $79k, the total compensation would be well beyond $88k.
Pick a number, I guess.