If pay was based on performance, some school officials in the city of Baltimore would see a negative mark next to their names.
But in a school district that seems to have failed its students, seen shrinking enrollment, high truancy, and poor graduation rates, 1,307 school employees are making more than $100,000 a year.
Of those, 316 are teachers, more than double the number of six-figure teachers counted in 2018. Last year, the highest-paid teacher in Baltimore made $156,601. The median teacher salary was $73,592, while the average income was $29,843, according to the U.S. Census.
The district’s highest-paid employee, Baltimore City Schools CEO Dr. Sonja Santelises, is raking in $339,000 a year, which is up $22,000 in just three years.
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“Everyone wants to give teachers the benefit of the doubt, and they are in a thankless profession, but the numbers don’t make sense,” resident Rudrajit Gupta told the Washington Examiner.
The outrage over pay follows a report from Project Baltimore that showed how one school in west Baltimore, the Augusta Fells Savage Institute of Visual Arts, promoted hundreds of students who failed nearly all of their classes and barely showed up to school.
One of the students profiled in the piece was Tiffany France’s son. In four years, the 17-year-old passed just three classes and earned a grade point average of 0.13. Yet, his transcripts show his class rank is 62 of 120, meaning 58 students in his class have a 0.13 GPA or lower.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan has demanded a full investigation into the school and called on leaders to address what happened and why so many students fell through the cracks.
“This is completely unacceptable,” Hogan said. “It’s worse than anything I’ve heard in the whole time that I’ve been governor. The fact that this particular school in Baltimore City School system is failing that many kids is just outrageous.”
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott has blamed the problem on underfunding, but critics say it’s an easy out that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
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Among America’s 100 largest school systems, Baltimore is fifth in per-student spending. In fact, Baltimore spends more on education than Chicago, Milwaukee, and Detroit. The city spends $6,000 more per student than Houston, which has a similar demographic. Houston also outscores Baltimore on English and math proficiencies, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
At Augusta Fells, only two students in the entire school tested “proficient” in math and English in 2019, and the school’s graduation rate is 48%. The principal gets paid $150,948, and the two vice principals share a $277,702 regardless of student outcomes on tests.
David Williams, a representative from the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, called the ballooning Baltimore teacher salaries a “misallocation of money, and a misallocation of priorities.”
“Taxpayers aren’t getting their bang for their buck,” he told FOX 45. “When you talk about someone making more than $300,000 a year, and you have graduation rates going down, you have college enrollment going down … there’s something very wrong in Baltimore.”
