OUSD Superintendent Antwan Wilson |
Antwan
Wilson's Idea of Cutting Administration: Pad the Top, Chop From the Bottom
by
Jack Gerson
Grossly
overpay top administrators? CHECK.
Create
high-paying positions for your friends and bring them in from over a thousand
miles away. CHECK.
Pad
the payroll with redundant positions by hiring several,people to do the same
job, and then paying them all exorbitant salaries. CHECK.
Give
nearly all administrators pay hikes from last year's salaries far greater than
the total raise for teachers over the past 12 years. CHECK.
Continue
to outsource at double the state average, and make sure some of your old
buddies from Denver get a cut of the action. CHECK.
Superintendent
Wilson says otherwise. (See http://us4.campaign-archive1.com/?u=fe670bac28a9b16700ef0a4d9&id=b4ab226e52&e=4bb7b6c078).
He claims that “we are directing every new dollar we can to our teachers and
classrooms to better serve our children”. Is that so? He’s clearly overlooked a
few dollars — in fact, he’s overlooked several millions of them. For starters:
---Antwan
Wilson, Superintendent of Schools: salary $280,000 / year ($30,000 / year more
than Gary Yee was paid last year as acting superintendent).
---Allan
Smith, Chief of Schools: Salary $175,000 / year -- brought in by Antwan Wilson
from Denver Public Schools. "Chief of Schools" is a brand new
title created by Wilson for Allan Smith.
---Yana
Smith (spouse of Allan Smith), Chief of Organizational Effectiveness and
Culture: Salary $155,000 / year -- brought in by Antwan Wilson from Denver
Public Schools. "Chief of Organizational Effectiveness and
Culture" is a brand new title created by Wilson for Yana Smith.
We
don't need both a Superintendent of Schools (Antwan Wilson, $280,000 / year)
*and* a Chief of Schools (Allan Smith, $175,000 / year). And we have
absolutely no need to pay $155,000 / year to a "Chief of Organizational
Effectiveness and Culture" (Yana Smith, spouse of "Chief of
Schools" Smith).
But
wait, there's more. Vernon Hal's title used to be "Chief Financial
Officer." Now he's the Deputy Superintendent for Business. We don't
need both a deputy superintendent for business (Vernon Hal, $193,000 / year)
and a Chief Financial Officer (Ruth Alahydoian , $150,000 / year).
Then
there’s Brigitte Marshall. Four years ago, she was in charge of the Adult Ed
program, and presided over its destruction, shutting down 95% of that formerly
vital program. Based on this atrocity, since then her career has taken off and
she has received promotion after promotion and raise after raise. Now her title
is “Chief Talent Officer” (I am not making this up!) and her base salary is
$160,000 / year.
And
let's not overlook two more colleagues Wilson brought in from Denver:
---Bernard
McCune, for whom he created the post of "Deputy Chief, Post Secondary
Readiness", with base salary of $157,500 / year.
---Devin
Dillon, the new Chief Academic Officer, raking in $175,000 / year.
Superintendent
Wilson also displayed his priorities by filling the vacant OUSD Chief of Police
position -- hello Jeffrey Godown, goodbye $150,000 / year plus benefits.
This
is just a sample. The story is similar for the two dozen highest paid
administrators. Indeed, the cumulative base pay for the inner circle (“chiefs”,
deputy and assistant superintendents, etc.) has gone up by nearly $1 million
between last school year and this one — from $2.81 million last year to $3.76
million this year. This increase comes from a combination of generously
increasing salaries and creating five new “chief” titles (including the
above-referenced “Chief of Schools” and “Chief of Organizational
Effectiveness”.}
So
if Wilson is cutting the central administration budget, much of the cuts are
likely coming from the lower paid administrative support. This would be a
repetition of what Randy Ward did in 2003 - 6 when the state came in. He
brought in all kinds of Broad Foundation graduates and residents at the high
end (Troy Christmas; Jonathan Klein; and many others) and promoted some ambitious
locals, while laying waste to central services -- eliminating central copy
services, almost annihilating maintenance (electricians, painters, window
repair, etc.) and thus forcing schools to buy services from the likes of
Kinko's. Randy Ward made other cuts “away from the classroom” — of clerical,
cafeteria, custodial, and other essential school classified staff
positions.
Today,
despite all of Antwan Wilson’s rhetoric, we hear reports that although Oakland
High projects increased enrollment for next year, it is scheduled to lose
several FTEs. So when Antwan Wilson says that he’s “budgeting for the
classroom”, please excuse us for thinking, “Shades of the state takeover. More,
needless, high-level and high-salaried administrators; salary boosts at the
high end; chopping classified staff and low-level administrative support jobs.”
Unacceptable.
If
Antwan Wilson means what he says, here’s what he could do:
(1)
Eliminate high-end bloat. Start by cutting redundant dead wood. No need for a
Chief of Schools — there’s already a Superintendent of Schools. No need for a
Chief Financial Officer — there’s already a Deputy Superintendent for Business.
No need for a “Chief Talent Officer” (I trust no explanation is needed) nor a
“Chief of Organizational Effectiveness”. Eliminating those four positions alone
would save over $800,000 in combined salary and benefits. And that’s just a
start. Other cabinet posts could be eliminated.
(2)
Give up that $280,000 / year base salary. Instead, cap all district salaries at
teacher maximum salary (currently $84,000 / year if annualized to a 12-month
basis). We hear from the board, and from folks like Wilson, about how
important teachers are. But when it comes to compensation, the well’s dry —
virtually no raises since 2002. Why should administrators be paid more than
teachers and staff? Why should we tolerate this gross and widening
inequality? Reducing the salaries of Wilson and his cabinet to teacher
max, combined with cutting redundant cabinet positions, would save close to $3
million / year in salaries and benefits. And beyond the cabinet, there are 200
- 300 additional administrative positions salaried above teacher max -- many of
them $50,000 / year or more higher in base salary alone. My rough
estimate is that capping all salaries at teacher maximum would save in the
neighborhood of $12 million / year.
(3)
Systematically review and reduce outsourcing to private consultants. We've
noticed that Antwan Wilson is not shy about bringing in folks who worked for
him in Denver and either creating high paying district jobs for them, or giving
them lucrative contracts. Nothing new here. For years, OUSD has been even
more generous to private contractors than it has been to its high-paid
administrators -- and that's generous indeed. In fact, five years ago OEA and
CTA presented data to the Public Employee Relations Board's Factfinding Panel
showing conclusively that proportional to its size, OUSD had twice the
administrative overhead and twice the outsourced contracting of the average
California school district. OUSD ought to be able to cut back in this area by
as much as $20 million / year or more -- and where feasible redirect the work
to unionized district employees.
So
adding it up, we’re talking $30 million / year or more. And that ain’t chump
change. Heck, with that, even the inept and malevolent OUSD administration
could probably abide by state law and devote at least 55% of educational
expenses to classroom instruction, providing (at last!) adequate raises to all
schoolworkers, while at the same time preserving and even cutting class size
(by hiring more certificated staff) and increasing support (by hiring more
classified staff).
7 comments:
Richard just texted me to say that he accidentally deleted Sean's comment and my replying comment. So I'm going to try to repeat my comment:
I thanked Sean for his praise of the article. Sean had said that we should try to distribute the article widely, and in reply I noted that it had been reposted on at least two other blogs and looked like it already had more than 1,000 views. And I agreed with Sean's comment that the real task is to try to organize a fight to defeat these attacks.
Are there any references to how similar measures impacted Denver schools? Are they now better or worse?
In response to Anonymous's question about how similar measures impacted Denver: I dealt with this a bit in an article I posted elsewhere in January. Wilson built his career on his purported success at "turning around" Denver's Montebello High when he was its principal (2004 to 2007). But he didn't turn it around at all: Three years later, for example, math proficiency in the Montebello area was 9% (that's right, single digit). Here's a link to that article: http://classroomstruggle.org/2015/01/06/antwan-wilson-wants-5-schools-to-turn-around-and-around-and-around/
And I know others are digging up much more.
Any reason why none of the leadership actually have earned doctorates in education? Moving here from New England, it's uncommon for superintendents to not have doctoral degrees. Turning around a high school and running a "depressed" school district of 30,000+ students is hardly the same thing.
An excellent and well researched piece on fiscal abuse in this district. Apparently avarice and nepotism are alive and doing quite well.
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