Rethinking Catholic Elementary School Principal Salaries

We often hear people say we need to increase our teacher's salaries. I agree, and have worked the better part of my professional career trying to be creative in doing so (here, here and here). Even if our teachers are committed to our mission, if our competition is paying $10,000 to $15,000 more than we are, there are bills to pay and mouths to feed. In the long run, we're going to lose out.


As true as that is, an even more compelling case can be made to increase the salaries of our elementary school principals, whose salaries lag even further behind our public and private school counter-parts. Consider the latest data published by the National Association of Independent Schools : 

• In NAIS schools, the median “head” of school salary is $255,000.
• The median “lower school” principal salary is $113,400.
• The median “middle school” principal is $114,900.
• The median “upper school” principal is $125,000.

OK, I know what you're thinking. These schools charge way more for tuition than we do, and so of course they can afford to pay their principals more. You'd be right-- but do you know HOW right? Here are the stunning facts: 

• The median tuition for an NAIS elementary school, grade 6, is $25,575.
• The median tuition for an NAIS high school is $29,745.

When I first saw those tuition numbers, I was almost certain that they were a mistake, so I looked back through earlier years of data as published by NAIS. No mistake! For comparison purposes, in the southeastern United States, I estimate the median tuition for Catholic elementary schools is about $4500/year  and $8800 for high schools. If that's a correct estimate, tuition at NAIS schools is LITERALLY 5 times more than southeastern Catholic K-8 schools and LITERALLY three times more than our 9-12 schools. 

So is the NAIS data irrelevant for a discussion of our salaries? In one way, absolutely. It would be pointless to argue that we should try and offer "matching" salaries. But that's not what I am arguing! Instead, I am interested in how NAIS schools prioritize principal salaries relative to other salaries. 

Given the massive tuition differences, what would you expect the median salary of an NAIS teacher to be? Happily, they give us that number:

Median salary, NAIS teachers, 2018-19: $57,521

Hmmm. That's pretty good, but not overwhelmingly so, and not even closely proportionate to their tuitions.  Though it's an estimate, as Catholic schools do not publish median teacher salaries, I am guessing the median salary for southeastern Catholic school teachers is somewhere around  40-45 K. At 45K, our teachers make roughly 79% of what an NAIS teacher makes.

But what of our principals? Again, we don't publish salaries, but I estimate $60,000 is close to the median for Catholic elementary principals in the south. But compared to NAIS, that equates to just 53% of our lower school counterparts or 52% of our middle school peers. In other words, as much as we may be trailing our competitors with teacher salaries, we're even further behind with principal salaries.

NAIS schools place a much higher premium on principal salaries than we do. One way to measure that is to compare principal and teacher salaries with each other.   NAIS schools pay their lower school principals 1.97 times what they pay their teachers (113.4 K to 57.5K), 2.0 times what they pay their teachers in middle school (114.9K vs. 57.5K) and 2.17 times in high school (125K to 57.5K). And for their "heads" of school, they pay a whopping 4.4 times their teachers (255K vs. 57.5K). The Boards of Trustees who run NAIS schools believe the quickest, most direct way they can positively impact a school is to secure the best leader. When they do, they pay him or her handsomely. 

And us? If my two estimates are correct, we pay our principals just 1.33 times what we pay our teachers (60K vs. 45K). I don't think that's a winning formula for attracting and sustaining young talent, given our competition. 

So what should we be paying principals? Well, that's a pretty complex question with a lot of variables,  but here's one way to look at it, using NAIS figures:  If Catholic schools pay their teachers roughly 79% of what NAIS schools pay theirs, then what is 79% of their principal salaries? Looking at their "lower school" principal salaries (not counting the head!) about $90,000/year (113,400 times .79). That strikes me as in the ballpark--about twice as much as the median teacher salary, or $30,000 more than the current median. In simplest terms possible: if “x” represents a school’s average teacher salary, then we should aim to pay our principals “2x.”

OK, OK, I know that we can't pull $30,000 out of the hat! So here are a few things I think we need to do to begin seriously addressing the issue: 

• Change mindset—Unwittingly, dating back to the heroic sacrifice of the nuns, people believe that Catholic schools are “supposed” to be the cheapest tuitions in town. But the sisters are no longer with us, and instead, we’re staffed by lay people who must make ends meet. We must be willing to pass these costs onto our parents and Church. In addition, price drives perception of quality. Being the “lowest price in town” no longer serves us in the marketplace, but suggests, instead, that we are the “K-Mart” of educational options.

• Increase tuitions, especially in elementary schools— Relative to NAIS schools, our Catholic elementary schools are severely under-priced ($4,500 vs. $25,575), literally 20% of the cost. Our schools must devise bolder plans to raise both costs and services for our families. Our high schools are a bit less underpriced relative to NAIS schools ($8800 vs $29745), or literally 30% of the cost, but should not be shy in raising rates and services either. 

• While increasing tuitions, Catholic schools should simultaneously increase financial aid for their more vulnerable families. This allows our schools to collect the additional revenue from those who can afford tuition increases while protecting those who cannot meet the higher costs. This is, in effect, what NAIS schools and colleges have been doing with tuition and scholarships for several decades.

• Develop an endowment for “Excellence in Leadership."  In order to assist schools that cannot fully fund these principal initiatives, we should build endowment funds in our dioceses for the purpose of augmenting principal salaries. Business folks and donors  instantly "get" that successful organizations must have top people. The corporate world works this way, too. Giving to something like this satisfies donors' persistent concern: that their donations go into the "black hole" of  the school's operations, without any long term or transformational effect (see my thoughts on this important principle here).  They want to know that their gift "teaches us how to fish," rather than simply  "gives us fish."  The application process for receiving funds from this endowment should be competitive, and aimed at filtering out innovative, bold and committed leaders. Such a fund would be a huge draw to a diocese for young, bold prospects. Each year, applicants must re-apply, encouraging them to continue to experiment with new ideas.

• Recognize that the quality of the school's leader is the greatest single variable for a school's success. Though in Catholic sensibilities it may seem "unjust" to pay our principals twice what we pay our teachers, our NAIS counterparts have no problem doing so, because they recognize this truth. Look, good schools have a lot going for them: talented, committed teachers, strong families, good kids. But the right or wrong school leader may account for 10-20 families enrolling or not leaving us each year. If we don't have the right principal, there's very little hope of having a robust enough budget to attract and sustain good teachers. The right principal is a necessary precondition. 

Particularly if dioceses are committed to the parochial model--each parish school on its own, without presidents, or without regional directors of a group of schools--we must have charismatic, confident, smart leaders in our schools!