Am I the only one who remembers the old phrase, "Too many chiefs and not enough Indians"? There may be some current words that express the same sentiment, but I don't bother to keep up with slang and slogans; too much of it is just vulgar, imprecise, illogical and insulting to any reasonable intelligence.
But the latest list of Top Hamilton County School Salaries 2024 clearly exemplifies the meaning of "Too many chiefs and not enough Indians." An alternate wording is, "Too many bosses and not enough workers." Start at the top of the list and read down as far as you can stand it; it's painful. Seriously, when ordinary folks think of 'school workers,' we think of teachers in classrooms, not someone who sits in a secure office far removed, isolated and insulated from students.
That's a long list of high salaries, strangely formatted this year so it can't be copied and pasted elsewhere for easy analysis, and I'm too lazy to count the lines of it on this pleasant holiday. But that long list is obviously top heavy with chiefs, bosses and other bureaucrats. You have to scroll way down before you find any real honest-to-goodness classroom teachers. Some of the titles or duties listed are incomprehensible to me; for example, 'DIR OF STUDENT SEAD SUP' doesn't ring any bells, and 'COORD STD DISCIPLINE & EE EVAL' isn't all that enlightening, either. I'm not certain those titles would be any more informative to most taxpayers or parents even if they were fully spelled out in all their glory.
And I'm really puzzled by the high salaries of JROTC instructors -- they're way above any ordinary teachers' pay levels. Those positions must be awfully valuable to the average Hamilton County student, huh? Who would've thought!
Anyway, it would be useful for many of us to print and save that long, long list of high-paid non-teaching personnel, as a means of remembering and illustrating just why the local school system (a) costs so much, and (b) is so generally ineffective. Think about it: if a typical student at any level in the school system never sees a particular person, is that person really essential to that particular kid's education? The solution to any real or perceived problem with the schools' inefficiency and ineffectiveness is surely not more money for non-teachers; would local students' scholastic achievement improve one iota if every one of those non-teaching positions were paid 10 percent or 25 percent more? Would an extra $50,000 or $100,000 per year spent on DIR OF STUDENT SEAD SUP or COORD STD DISCIPLINE & EE EVAL -- or JROTC -- help little Johnny or little Janey learn to read, or write, or calculate, or think any better?
More to the point, would elimination of half the names, jobs, and salaries on the top of that list cause local students' education to suffer in any way?
So, what might happen if Hamilton County decided to cut the schools' budget by, say, 10 percent? I remember what the federal government did a few years ago during some make-believe budget crisis: Washington immediately shut down the National Parks, closed their gates and doors to all American citizens. No, the National Parks aren't anywhere near the biggest budget item in D.C., and their existence and operation aren't crucial to America's safety and comfort, but the parks are maybe one government-owned-and-controlled place that the average American can visit and enjoy on any given day. So, naturally, we were hit right where they thought it'd hurt us the most the quickest. It was a stupid and petty move, but what else would you expect?
Oh, excuse me; I shouldn't be giving such good ideas to the opposition -- and how else am I to view the local schools and school officials? I'm 81 years old, I've never had a kid in the local school system, but I'm sent a large bill for property taxes every year, and I'm told that the largest portion of that tax bill goes to the Hamilton County schools. The recently published top salaries list certainly shows where a lot of my money goes, but the annual spring and summer reports of student achievement are never encouraging about what all of that money has bought for any of us.
Think about it. Read that long list of exorbitant salaries yourself, then cross out a few dozen lines that don't make any sense to you, and think about what a positive difference might result if we really made that happen.
Larry Cloud
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My late mother was a teacher, principal and administrator in the old City School system. It's obvious Larry Cloud doesn't have the faintest idea what he is talking about with his letter about too many chiefs and Indians in our present school system. Have you compared the HCDE to other peer school systems in our state, Larry? Well here is some info that might enlighten you:
Hamilton is the fourth largest system in the state behind Memphis/Shelby, Metro Davidson, Knox and then us. Here are the per pupil expenditures in these Districts along with their Niche ratings.
Davidson spends an astounding $12, 373 per pupil. What kind of return do they get for this "Investment?" Well there are 132 School districts in Tennessee and Davidson is ranked #76. Really using that money wisely, aren't they?
The Democrat Paradise that is Memphis spends $11,168 per pupil. Where do they rank, well Suhprise, Suhprise, they are ranked #97.
Knox spends $9,394 per pupil and is ranked #25. Apparently they are making good use of their education dollars.
Hamilton spends $10,850 and is ranked #41. Could we do better? Of course. But it appears compared to their peers, our local people are doing a pretty good job working with what they have, and have achieved a good balance of managers and workers(teachers).
It would appear that if any system has too many chiefs and not enough Indians it would be Memphis/Shelby. Perhaps Larry should move to Memphis and write a letter to the Memphis Commercial Appeal.
Thanks to Superintendent Robertson and all the dedicated chiefs and Indians in the HCDE for their dedication and hard work.
Douglas Jones
P.S. Speaking of Superintendent Robertson, he is the CEO of an organization with an annual budget of $663 million and makes $255,000 a year. If anyone is underpaid for the responsibility they have, it is he.