Raise CCSD Board of Trustees' Pay Gradually for Future

Superintendent of Charleston County Schools Nancy McGinley's salary tops that of Charleston's Mayor. The district's operating budget must be the highest in the county, with the possible exception of Boeing's. If the job of CCSD's Board of Trustees is to oversee the Superintendent, which it is, the compensation of $25 per meeting appears truly out of proportion.

Why should anybody care? Compensation as now configured presupposes that elected Board officials are mere dilettantes, spending little time on their roles. Or it assumes that members taking their duties seriously must be wealthy or retired. If a single meeting takes even one hour to prepare for and merely two hours in session (and how often is a session that short?), that amounts to a minimum of three hours of work for $25, not much more than the minimum wage.

Why does Dorchester District 2 pay its Board members $600 a month and its Board Chairman $750? Why do other districts in this state pay much more than that? 

It's all very well to talk about noblesse oblige and "giving back." Board members whose compensation amounts to two or three lattes must be more vulnerable to other forms of bribery than those who are compensated well. Not long ago, Louisiana had one of the lowest salaries for its governor, but then he was expected to steal the rest. Think of Huey Long and Edwin Edwards. Human nature doesn't change.

Let's match DD2's compensation for the next round of school board elections. The amount of money involved is chump change in a district flowing with millions in operating and capital expenses.

Such a raise would be a step forward in honesty in government.

Hicks's Opinions Not Front Page News

How often do Congressional hearings take place in the Low Country? Once every decade or so? And how relevant might hearings on the new Boeing plant be to the future of the area?

Yet the news articles about this event, thanks to the P&C's editors' deliberate choice, landed on page 10A.

Instead, readers can revel in (or revile) the half-baked opinions of an unqualified, provincial pontificator named Brian Hicks, deliberately placed on the front page above the fold. Don't you wonder how the two reporters who actually wrote the news reacted to this travesty?

The News and Courier becaume the Post and Courier when it combined with the Evening Post. Finally we understand the symbolism of its name change. The placement of Hicks's column equals putting the lead editorial above the fold and pretending it's not an editorial.

It's one decision to play up local instead of national news on the front page. It's a horse of a different color to replace news with opinion.

Saturday's hard-copy edition proves that the P&C is no longer a newspaper.

Boeing Brings CCSD Back to the Future

The academy announced for Stall High School reported in Monday's P&C [see Stall High School to Open Academy] mimics similar long-standing partnerships all over America--initiated not only by Boeing but also by other businesses important to the economy of each area.

The "new aeronautics academy" should be a boon to Stall High School students and others who wish to attend. Why does Superintendent McGinley insist that CCSD replicate it in her four "areas"? Aren't there other specialties needed for the local economy? Why has CCSD not pursued previous business partnerships?

Does it take someone from Seattle to see that Charleston's high school students could get training and certificates in high school instead of paying tuition to get them post-graduation at Trident?