Call to Audit Pay Raises

* It seems to me that state Sen. Tom Hayden’s call for a state audit of the LAUSD’s 40% administrative raises should be reported on the front page (June 27). I don’t know if the audit will happen, but I think I can explain how these raises came about and how they are justified. Most school administrators are in it for the money. School systems do not exist to serve the needs of pupils, but rather to serve the needs of bureaucrats.

When teachers ask for raises or for higher per-pupil funding it sounds like whining; when administrators ask for raises, it sounds like good business. “Change” and “reform” almost always translate into higher compensation for the people who scrambled to get out of classroom teaching and into nice, big offices. In public education, anyone who gets as far away from the kids as possible is considered smart and deserving of better pay.

DAVE MARESH

Yucca Valley

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I am in shock. I read your June 25 article and cannot believe the audacity and chutzpah of the board. While they are offering teachers a 3% pay raise, the newly expanded (decentralized) subdistricts’ top administrators will have to make do with paltry salary increases between 30% and 40%. As a veteran teacher, I had hoped that with a new superintendent, with a robust economy and with the community breathing down its neck, the board might see fit to offer teachers a pay raise commensurate with our level of expertise, responsibility and respect. I guess they have.

LYNN A. RABIN

Tujunga