“A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death – the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders we are not going to be judged.”
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Most people enter into the education world through a desire to work with children and make a meaningful impact on the world’s future. We are greeted upon entry, by slogans like, “All children matter”, and “Children First.” Groups proliferate the scene with benign names like “Tennesseans for Student Success” and “Student’s First” and such. Lately, a newly founded non-profit with the moniker, Parents Defending Education is gobbling up headlines. Sounds great, until you take a peek behind the curtain and see some familiar faces.
Stay in the game long enough and you start to become a little cynical. You start to realize that serving all kids, translates into serving most kids, or some kids. Which kids fall into the bucket, largely seems to be the ones that generate the most income, both from private donors and federal programs. There is no payday in championing gifted children or those from wealthier families, but an executive director can make a great deal of money attaching their mission statement to an underserved population. For evidence, you just need to look at the salaries for ED’s of non-profits active in Tennessee. Salaries that far eclipse those of teachers and principals.
- John King, Education Trust, made $531,027 in 2018. Many of you know that Acting-US Secretary of Education Ian Rosenblum previously worked for EDuTrusrt but did you know that in 2018 he cleared a salary of $216,788?
- Elisa Villanueva Beard, Teach For America, in 2017 drew an annual salary of $493,836
- Daniel Weisberg, TNTP, in 2018 received $348,779 in compensation.
- David Mansouri, SCORE CEO, and Sharon Roberts, Chief Impact Officer, pulled in $313,295 and 272,808 respectively.
- Brent Easly, TNCAN, the year before he went to work for Governor Lee cleared roughly $170K.
- Candace McQueen, NIET, didn’t take over as Executive Director until last year but in 2018 her predecessor drew a salary of $402K
- Emily Freitag, Instruction Partners, in 2018 cleared $225K, willing to bet it’s a lot higher these days.
The tragic part of all of this is that the very students that are being used as payroll generators are CONTINUE READING: IGNORANCE OR INTENTION – Dad Gone Wild
