Schools Chiefs Lead The Way in Pay Trends

By Catherine Gewertz

New data from a survey of more than 500 school districts show the average salary of their superintendents has risen by more than 12 percent over the past decade in inflation-adjusted dollars, and that of their high school principals by more than 4 percent, while the average teacher salary declined by nearly 2 percent.

The salary survey of employees in precollegiate public schools also shows that the gap between teachers’ and superintendents’ salaries grew a bit wider in the same period. In 1993-94, the superintendents were paid on average 2.4 times as much as teachers. By 2003-04, the difference was 2.75 times.

The data come from the National Survey of Salaries and Wages in Public Schools and were released to Education Week this month by Educational Research Service as part...