Who Said There's Not Money in Education?

Apparently I've been on the wrong career path...instead of collecting all of these master's degrees to become a better teacher and educator, I should be trying to become superintendent! Dallas ISD just hired a new superintendent and I've been reading the news stories that outline the details of his contract. This guy just came from a district in Colorado Springs of 11,000 students. He is coming to Dallas which is home to 157,000 students. His starting salary is going to be $300,000 per year. If he stays 5 years, that will be bumped up to $350,000 a year. His official start date is July 1, but he is already unofficially on the job and the district is paying him $1000 per day until his contract begins. He is also getting $10,000 to cover moving expenses (as if he can't afford to pay his own moving expenses making $30,000 per month), $2100 a month to cover renting an apartment until he can get fully moved, and even gets a car and phone allowance every month (once again, what is the $30,000 a month for if you can't pay your own rent, car, and phone bill?). On top of all of this, the guy can get two bonuses a year...$75,000 for meeting performance goals (whatever those are) and $125,000 if the district meets student achievement goals. Meanwhile, the district has done away with performance pay for teachers next year...but the superintendent still gets paid for student achievement? Wait a minute...aren't TEACHERS the ones who are most directly involved with student achievement? Aren't TEACHERS the ones who are coming in early and staying late tutoring kids, developing new interventions, figuring out ways to help struggling students, meeting with parents, delivering instruction, and coming out of our own pockets to buy the supplies and resources we need?? But Mr. Miles is going to be the one to reap the rewards for all of that? There are no bonuses for teachers, the ones in the trenches. We haven't even had a raise in 4 years. The reward for getting my master's degree? A whopping $30 increase on my monthly pay check. Last year, teachers didn't even get their step increase, much less a percentage raise. But this guy can walk in the door with the chance to make almost half a million dollars a year. The superintendent of NYC schools (with 1.1 million students) only makes $211,000 a year! I don't even know what a superintendent does. WHAT DOES HE DO?? I've worked in this district for almost 7 years and really don't even know what the superintendent does that is worth being paid that much every year. His job can't be harder than what your average classroom teachers deals with on a daily basis. I don't care what anyone says...classroom teaching in an urban district like Dallas is one of the hardest jobs there is. There is no amount of money that could adequately compensate for some of the things classroom teachers have to deal with every day. Yet we can't even get a 1 or 2 percent raise while they are extending our workday by another 45 minutes, but suddenly we can find the money to make this guy the highest paid public school administrator in the nation. (Even the NYC superintendent who oversees a district of 1.1 million students only makes $211,000 per year!). This is just leaving a pretty sour taste in my mouth and it's going to be hard to respect a leader who is more than willing to take such a large piece of a meager pie without doing a darn thing to earn it yet. If he came to my school and taught in one of these classes for one day....just one...and dealt with some of the things we face every day, then maybe, just maybe, he may have earned it. But as long as he's sitting in a plush office looking important and signing a bunch of paperwork and driving around in a Benz to act like he knows what to do to fix education....I can't respect it. There is plenty of money in education after all...you just have to be in the right place. And that place is most definitely NOT the classroom.