"Executives Get Richer, Bosses Gone Wild"--in the Saint Louis Public Schools

Credit is due the Post-Dispatch this week. It has covered well the subject of executive's, CEOs, and Bosses' salary increases. It all began Sunday, the first day of the week, in the Business Section. The title was bolder than usual: "EXECUTIVES GET RICHER?AND THE GAP GROWS WIDER." That was the article written by Jerri Stroud. One page over in Tim McGuire's column, "Compare your corporate culture to Enron's," McGuire bares some of the corporate sins signaling the corruption and demise of Enron. We'll return to those sins and signals in a moment. Today, Friday, the first blaring editorial headline reads: "Executive Pay, Bosses gone wild." Again in bold letters centered on the page is "Compensation for the corner-office has been growing faster than the worker's paycheck for decades."

Patience will be rewarded soon as to the connection between corporate greed enriching the executives, CEOs, and bosses and what is transpiring in urban public school education here in St. Louis.

First, back to Tim McGuire's column relating to comparing one's corporate culture to Enron's. He begins by recommending a book to all business executives, managers, accountants?educators?lawyers, government regulators, and politicians. The book is Conspiracy of Fools by Kurt Eichenwald. Mcguire writes "A culture of arrogance seemed to permeate Enron?As early as 1987, it became obvious the company culture tolerated wrongdoers?Everybody notices when people get away with the bad stuff, and it becomes embedded in the culture?In such a culture, potential whistleblowers become prey to bullying?Enron had an easily manipulated compensation system that reinforced the flashy and degraded the practitioners of sound business. The people who made the trains run on time and did crucial functions were ignored at compensation time and clearly devalued?Take a hard look at your own organization to see if the people who do the nuts-and-bolts stuff well are properly rewarded."

Today's Post-Dispatch editorial asks the question after reviewing corporate greed in the private sector: "Why should we care? After all, executive pay comes from private company profits, not the taxpayers' till." It answers: "We care because it contributes to disturbing trends in society. It adds to the gap between the rich and everyone else."

S T O P! Did you also see those words "not the taxpayers' till ?" Your patience is about to be rewarded. Remember my alluding to the connection between corporate greed enriching the executives, CEOs, and bosses and what is transpiring in urban public school education here in St. Louis?

The "taxpayers' till" is being hit big time right here in our city school district. The salary and perks for the superintendent have perhaps more than doubled since Cleveland Hammond's retirement. Many chiefs, e.g., Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Academic Officer, etc. have been added along with an enlarged and extravagantly paid bureaucracy. What once was a comfortable and modestly paid public service has become an arrogant, overpaid, elitist group. Remember what McGuire inferred? "Enron had an easily manipulated compensation system that reinforced the flashy and degraded the practitioners?The people who made the trains run on time and did crucial functions were ignored at compensation time and clearly devalued."

Aren't the teachers and support staff ignored and devalued at compensation time? And let's not even mention all the employees who were terminated so private companies could get rich at the "taxpayers' till." It is reported most at the top received significantly large raises. One person reports the current headquarters culture is one of royalty and peons. The horsemen (excuse me, I mean the security officers) drive over a couple of blocks to pick up the superintendent and drive him back and forth each day. What a perk and entitlement! Most of us remember Dr. Hammonds driving himself back and forth to work and everywhere else. What modesty and humility compared to the present. Where is Mayor Slay when we need him to point out "drunken sailor" spending?

The Saint Louis Public Schools may continue to face deficits and debt, but along with corporate greed in the private sector, a few "executives are getting richer, and the gap grows wider. " Educators and taxpayers would do well to "Compare your (district's) corporate culture to Enron's." And lastly, the school district fits perfectly with today's editorial, "Executive Pay, Bosses gone wild."

In such a culture, can public service and modesty ever be restored to its former place of common decency and honor? It will take great effort on the part of the community, educators, local leaders, and a groundswell of the taxpayers.

"Executives Get Richer, Bosses Gone Wild-not just in Enron or the private sector; it has come to a Public Sector and Public Service near you. The latest word is that some of the poorest paid employees have just been terminated. Go Figure.

Helen Louise Herndon
Hloherndon@cs.com

Typical. Report of student achievement, punctuated by irrelevant rejoinder from disgruntled former employee.

continuing the typical: Richard Callow can't resist his paid sucker-punch.

Blame it on the Stones

I whole heartedly agree with publiceye on this one. This was not a cheap shot on his part. In some kind of strange diatribe Helen decides to castigate CEOs and make some weak link to the SLPS on a posting about the most dramatic acheivement this district has made in decades when it comes to student acheivement.

I have a news flash for Helen and like minded individuals: SLPS is not a job factory for inept workers, it is a school system that educates children. When you understand that, you may understand why you don't have jobs anymore, and what you may need to do to get them back: actually care about teaching children.

I have heard many teachers complain about how bad the kids were and how they are uncontrollable, etc... Well, what the hell happened last year when the Board cleaned house and put in a curiculum that makes sense? I will tell you. Children learned, on the third grade level the achievement gap between white kids and black kids was gone. That has never happened in St. Louis and to my knowledge never happened anywhere. Turns out those kids may not be that bad after all, turns out that poor black boys and girls CAN learn after all, despite what all those teachers said.

Now I know what your thinking, what about the middle and high school? Not much different, and thats true. It is also true it takes longer to turn around kids who have been cheated out of a quality education for a longer period of time. And the work has to continue and it will not be easy, or magically happen over night.

But I say Kudos to Creg Williams, Lynn Spampanato, Darnetta Clinkscale, Vince Schoehmel, Bob Archibald, Ronald Jackson, and Mayor Slay, for engineering a hostile takeover of a system that was an asylum run by the inmates, and they did it for the education of the children of St. Louis.

Dear Southsider,

First, it would be bordering on the transparent if you gave your name along with yur comments.

Perhaps my remarks didn't belong with the previous posting, but don't kid yourself. It is about jobs--high paying jobs. If you went into the schools and asked how they are getting along, you will find those who are willing to be straightforward and honest admitting that employees who performed basic services are missed, and it is adding to the pressure and stress on people who should be focusing on instruction and the children.

Your communication smacks of politics and flattery. But one day, mark my words and that of the Father of Arab Nationalism, "History never sleeps." The truth will come to light, and the pillaging and greed that have overtaken urban public school education and public service will surface as it did in The Public and the Schools, Shaping the St. Louis System, Selyn K. Troen, University of Missouri Press.

Those of us who are not political can see perhaps more clearly than someone with obviious political ties. Your posting drips with politics and flattery. Do you have a job in City Hall or are you wanting one? Identify yourself for all.

Helen Louise Herndon