One of the biggest red herrings in public education is money.

Consider this: The education establishment is pushing for a new $10 billion federal appropriation for teacher salaries. Simultaneously, President Obama is being criticized for Race to the Top, a program that has opened up unprecedented funding for states, with the caveat that the dollars awarded will go to innovative, data-driven programs that actually improve student performance.

In a nutshell, it’s a desire for funding, but a rejection of funding that would require states to show that their programs improved student performance. If the teacher bill passes, those billions will not not be tied to supporting teachers who are effective, or programs that can be measured to show students are improving.

In Missouri, the Show-Me Institute recently found that Superintendent salaries were not linked to student performance. From the Missourinet article:

[Spokeswoman Audrey] Spalding says the study shows urban areas pay their superintendents an average of 12 percent more than rural districts.

The highest paid superintendent salary is in St. Louis City at 225 thousand dollars. The lowest paid is in Gasconade County at 55 thousand. Spalding says some pay much less than that simply because it’s not a full time position.

She says Missourians spend nearly $50 million on school superintendents each year, not counting costs other than salary, such as health benefits, annuities, and car allowances.

She says in the survey of superintendent contracts, out of more than 500 districts throughout the state, more than 450 responded. They got the salary information from the Department of Elementary and Secondary education.

“Though the paper digs into the specifics of certain superintendents’ compensation, the findings are general, and apply to all Missouri public school districts,” Spalding said. “School superintendents act as the CEOs of their districts, and are extremely influential. In fact, according to a national survey, nearly 90 percent of superintendents reported that their school boards accepted their recommendations 90 percent to 100 percent of the time. Meanwhile, one of the main tasks for school board members is to hire and manage the school superintendent. One of the documents that indicates how a school board is managing its superintendent is the superintendent’s employment contract. There, the school board lays out the responsibilities, compensation, and future expectations of the superintendent.”

The study shows 12 percent of school boards appear to award future salary amounts to superintendents automatically.

“That is, superintendent contracts can include not only the salary for the current year, but also often stipulate future substantial salary increases,” she said. “Another 10 percent receive salary increases based on the district’s teacher salary schedule. It is telling that school boards are awarding pay increases to superintendents with no knowledge of their district’s future budget situation or their superintendent’s future performance.”

Additionally, Spalding added, superintendents oversee school district budgets, which together total more than $8 billion (the total of public school expenditures in Missouri in 2009, not including charter schools).

“We should take an interest in how these managers are paid, and how school boards manage them,” she said. “For example, many superintendents were awarded the exact same percentage raise as that awarded to teachers. Thinking about the incentives, we would expect higher salary expenditures in a school district managed by a leader who knew his raise was tied to whatever raise was awarded to the employees he managed. Is this really the best way for a school board to reward its superintendent?”

As you look at the very difficult funding issues that face many schools this year, be careful to look beyond the surface of the request: whether it’s for salary, new facilities, it will be important to ask: how does this improve student performance? How much of our education dollars are being spent on things we want because we’ve always had them, and how much is being spent on activities, programs, people who move a child to a higher reading level, or help a child grasp fractions?