Salary Compensation for Educational Administrators: An Examination of Adequate Remuneration and Their Current Earnings

New Survey Reveals School and District Leaders Believe They Are Underpaid

A new survey conducted by the EdWeek Research Center on behalf of Allovue has found that school and district leaders across the United States believe they are underpaid. The survey, which was administered from February to April, comes at a time when districts are grappling with the end of federal COVID-19 aid and budget cuts.

According to the survey, teachers, on average, asked for a 25% increase in their salaries, while approximately 20% of district and school leaders indicated that a 20% salary increase would be appropriate for their work. The median desired salary for principals was $120,000, while superintendents sought a median salary of $150,000. Assistant principals had a median desired salary of $112,500.

However, when the survey asked teachers what they would consider a fair salary, the median response was $85,000, about 25% higher than the actual median salary of $68,000. This suggests that teachers may underestimate the cost of benefits like health care, pensions, and time off relative to their salaries. In contrast, school and district leaders were more likely to underestimate the cost of these benefits.

Jess Gartner, Allovue's founder, stated that claims of overstaffing in districts' central offices oversimplify complex questions about education spending and do not help solve real issues about meeting students' needs and properly compensating staff. To meaningfully increase teacher salaries, Gartner suggested that lawmakers should consider increasing revenue to schools, improving health care policy, and reforming teacher-pension programs to reduce their burden on districts.

The survey also revealed that 55% of respondents, including teachers, said their district is worse off financially than it was three years ago. In North Carolina, a bill was debated this year that would require districts to publish the job titles and salaries of all district administrators for greater public accountability; the bill remains in committee. A 2024 New Hampshire law, effective in 2026, requires districts to publish information about average teacher salaries, average administrator salaries, and per-pupil costs over the previous 10 years, as well as the salaries of the four highest-paid administrators.

In some cases, teachers expressed concern about the distribution of funds within their districts. For example, a California high school teacher wrote in an open-ended response that their district spends too much of the budget on salaries and positions at the district office, with less money for teacher salaries. Similarly, an elementary school principal in North Carolina wrote that their district is receiving less funding, but student need continues to grow higher.

In response to these concerns, Oklahoma state Superintendent Ryan Walters demanded that districts cover the cost of school meals, suggesting they could do so by redirecting money from administrators' paychecks. However, superintendents refuted this claim, stating that it would be impossible to cover the cost of school meals by redirecting administrative costs alone.

Gartner serves on the board of trustees for Editorial Projects in Education, the nonprofit publisher of Education Week. She emphasized the need for a comprehensive approach to addressing education funding and staff compensation, rather than focusing on simplistic solutions like targeting administrative costs.

Despite these challenges, the survey findings suggest a growing recognition among school and district leaders of the need for increased compensation. As budgets continue to tighten and the demands on educators and administrators increase, finding a sustainable solution to this issue will be crucial for the future of education in the United States.