Editorial: Justify bonuses

People in the real world don't expect to get a pay bonus just for doing their jobs. But the practice has become common among high-salaried administrators in public education.

Philadelphia Superintendent Arlene Ackerman is getting a hefty $65,000 bonus for meeting "performance goals." The extra pay and other perks will boost her base salary from $325,000 a year to more than $500,000, similar to what her predecessor, Paul Vallas, received for running the eighth-largest school district.

These deals have become typical in public education, but they shouldn't be.

Nationally, the average annual superintendent's salary in a small district is about $103,000, and more than $200,00 in most larger urban districts. But that's just the starting point for their pay.

Rather than negotiate a contract with a high up-front salary and run the risk of raising public ire, school districts have resorted to padding administrators' pay with hidden extras. Some superintendents take home bigger paychecks than most state governors' or President Obama's.

Sometimes, the criteria for bonuses leads to bogus moves to justify the extra pay. Former Camden school Superintendent Annette Knox was forced to resign after giving herself $17,690 in performance bonuses based on rigged test scores.

Besides a six-figure salary, superintendents' perks typically include fringe benefits such as life insurance, a pension, a car allowance, a cell phone, and a laptop.

If Ackerman stays on the job through June 2011, she will get an additional $100,000 retention bonus. She also gets raises whenever teachers get pay hikes.

The School Reform Commission says Ackerman earned her bonus by exceeding 21 benchmarks during her nearly two-year tenure.

"In short, she is doing what we hired her to do and what the citizens of Philadelphia expect her to do," said SRC chairman Robert Archie.

But if she's just doing the expected, why the bonus?

The public might better understand the SRC's reasoning if it would disclose the benchmarks it used to evaluate Ackerman. But it has refused to release the information.

That's just wrong. The public has every right to know how its tax dollars are spent.

Ackerman said she deferred a bonus last year. To her credit, she says she will use part of the bonus to fund five scholarships and give $1,000 to the district's Widener Memorial School for disabled children. But she won't give up the bonus. "I absolutely believe I deserve it, and I don't apologize for it," Ackerman said to The Inquirer editorial board.

She has launched a strategic plan, reduced class sizes, boosted test scores, and implemented a zero-tolerance violence policy. But that was what she was hired to do. Good superintendents deserve good pay. But bonuses should be for doing more than what was expected.