Principal Compensation: Green Dot vs. Alliance vs. LAUSD

Yesterday, I took a look at median teacher salaries in LAUSD and two prominent LA charters: Green Dot and Alliance College Ready. There was a dramatic difference between median base salaries at LAUSD and the charters, and I attributed that to the level of experience and age of the teachers, as well as a union contract that has step and column raises. Today, let’s look at Principals. In a change from yesterday, while Alliance has the lowest median pay for teachers, their median base pay for principals is the highest by a full $10,000.

What does that mean? It could be the Alliance principals are simply more qualified or experienced. On the other hand, it could represent a institutional belief within Alliance that the principal should be more highly compensated. It is interesting to note that Alliance’s median base salary for principals is almost three times as much as the median base pay for teachers.