EdVANTAGE Blog

Last Sunday’s Albany Times-Union carried a column by Caroline Mason, the retired head of the former Albany Academy and Albany Academy for Girls.  Ms. Mason’s column was filled with loose and inaccurate statements about the extent of school district spending on administration.

Today’s paper includes a response by our Executive Director, Tom Rogers:

Caroline Mason’s Feb. 1 Perspective article, “A lesson in school spending,” misled readers about the number of administrators in public schools.

Ms. Mason suggested reductions in “administrators and their myriad assistants” is the answer to school fiscal woes. Ms. Mason is entitled to her own opinions, but Times Union readers are entitled to facts.

Public schools are quite lean in the administrative ranks. On average, there is one manager for every 15.2 employees in school systems, one manager to 11.7 employees in health care, one to 6.5 in construction, one to 5.6 in manufacturing and one to 4.4 in other government services.

In schools outside of New York City, instructional expenses account for 77 percent of total school spending; operations, maintenance and transportation account for 12 percent; debt service is 6 percent; central administration and school board operations are scarcely 2 percent. A typical elementary school has dozens of people working as classroom and special subject teachers, aides, a librarian, a nurse and custodial and food service workers, most often managed by one administrator – the principal.

School leaders cut services to students only as a last resort. But the fact is that reducing school spending by $2.5 billion this year won’t occur without major sacrifices, whatever one’s opinions.

Thomas L. Rogers

Executive Director

NYS Council of School Superintendents