“Private school *principals*, however, often make substantially more than public school principals even the schools are much, much smaller. I know of one principal at a Jewish Day School who was making over 400K/year, and numerous others in the 200K-300K range. The top of the salary scale for NYC public school principals is just over $150K.”
Over 400K a year funded by tzedakah money is absurd. However, your comparison is not totally accurate, as a principal in a Yeshiva generally fills a much broader administrative role than one in a public school. (Although in MO schools it is probably more similar, as they tend to have more administrative staff.) Public school principals (In NYC — I’m not familiar with the rest of the country) are supported from below by numerous AP’s, coaches, non classroom professionals (therapist, SBST members, etc.) and multiple office staff. Then there is a whole hierarchy above in the various networks and central offices. (Which have been changing with each reorganization, so I can’t specify the titles, but they still exist, now I believe mostly in the CFN). If you would take the total money spent on administrative positions in the NYC DOE, not even including the real higher ups in the Chancellor’s office, and divide by the number of schools, you will find that yeshiva administrators are generally not overpaid!
BTW, I happen to feel that the tremendous waste that goes on by having so much central staff is big part of the problem. I was working for the NYC DOE at the time of Bloomberg’s first reorganization, and thought he had a great idea by merging 30 something districts into 10 regions. Problem is the only place they really reduced staff was at the clerical level!!! Less secretaries making minimum wage, but not fewer administrators making high salaries! (For ex., each district used to have one District Administrator for Special Education. In the new structure, a region made up of 4 districts had 4 Regional Administrators for Special Education! I’m not picking on any specific job, just illustrating a point.) Then again, in NYC most principals and administrators are unionized as well (Why doesn’t anyone pick on the CSA?)
Additionally your starting salary for teachers is not completely accurate either, as you can no longer receive long term teacher certification from NYS without a master’s degree, so very few teachers actually make the starting salary for a BA — if you look at the same chart there is a column for what teachers with a master’s make, which is more. Then again, if they have a higher level of education they should make more. . .