Haim
Posts:
7,807
Registered:
12/6/04
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Re: Discussion: Do US Math Teachers Suck?
Posted:
Mar 28, 2012 8:33 AM
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Lou Talman Posted: Mar 28, 2012 12:57 AM
>And, concerning money: Both the CB and ETS are non-
>profit; there are no stock-holders they must keep happy,
>and the money they make has to be plowed back into their
>programs.
There was always a sweet naivete about you, Lou. While it is true that non-profit organizations ("NPO's") do not have stock holders, that just means we are quibbling over who, exactly, is riding their gravey trains. Two points along that line.
First of all, NPO's make profits, they just do not have to share those profits with stock holders. This means the executive class gets to keep the profits. Second, as with for-profit organizations, the amount of the profits depends upon the size of the organizations and their profitability. Smaller, less profitable NPO's have less money; larger, more profitable NPO's have more money. See how that works?
Lou, your own industry works in exactly the same way. Compare the salaries of your school's president with, say, the presidents of schools like Harvard, NYU, and the like.
If you look at executive compensation generally, you will notice that it is quite in line with for-profits, except more so. You can start here,
http://www.charitynavigator.org/__asset__/studies/2010_CEO_Compensation_Study_Revised_Final.pdf
but not end here. What happens a lot at NPO's is that their executives, especially their CEO's, get a lot of "off balance sheet" compensation. For example, they often get free housing (and we are not talking about a 6th floor, cold-water walk-up), free cars, and enormous expense accounts that nobody supervises until there is a political fight and somebody wants that particular CEO out. In other words, NPO executives (like presidents of universities) often live like princes.
Since we recently discussed Teach For America, you may be interested to know that TFA is a "Ma and Pa" operation with total revenue about $270 Million. Except that this Ma and Pa earn
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=4992
CEO Wendy Kopp $280,000
President Matthew Kramer $274,000
so this lovely couple (they are married, with four children) bring home more than half a million dollars a year--strictly in cash compensation. A pretty good day's pay, I think, for doing God's work. I have not bothered to ferret out their non-cash "perks", but I would bet they are considerable.
Lou, perhaps you thought that workers at NPO's take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and walk around in sack cloth. No.
I accept that NPO's will tend to have a higher proportion of "true believers" among them, who are motivated more by idealism than by money. But there are plenty of people working at charitable organizations who are there for the money, and the money is often considerable.
If there were some way to settle it, I would bet that the idealists tend to be found much more frequently among the worker bees (like the bright young Teach For Americans who actually walk into those South Bronx classrooms) than among the executives. You have only to keep an eye open for the frequent scandals among charities, to see what the executives have in mind (and just how much money really sloshes around).
Haim
Shovel ready? What shovel ready?
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