Education Bureaucrats Take the Top Salaries – But What Are We Buying?

A recent report by Ballotpedia reveals a disturbing trend: The highest-paid state officials in the nation are all appointed rather than elected – and they almost exclusively occupy high offices in the state departments of education. So, when American taxpayers fund the salaries of these “administrators” to the tune of hundreds of thousands of tax dollars a year, what is the return on investment? Here’s a hint: It isn’t a quality education.

Bureaucracy Beats Democracy Come Payday

According to Ballotpedia’s report, the top ten highest-paid state officials in the country in 2025 had annual salaries ranging from $304,212 (Oregon Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction Charlene Williams) to $489,000 (New York Commissioner of Education Betty Rosa). Nine of the ten, in fact, head state departments of education. In the top ten, Georgia Treasurer Steve McCoy, who made $329,000 in 2025, was the only state official not involved directly in education – and even he was selected by appointment rather than election.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, eight of the ten lowest-paid positions on Ballotpedia’s list were elected. Only members of the Delaware Public Service Commission and the Tennessee Public Utility Commission made the bottom ten (counting the two collectively rather than by individual seats) as appointed positions.

Even the highest-paid governor in America – New York’s Kathy Hochul, who made a smooth quarter million – falls a full middle-class salary short of the lowest-paid public education bureaucrat in the top ten.

More Expensive Doesn’t Mean More Education

Well, haven’t folks been clamoring for years about how teachers need higher pay? Not so fast – these aren’t teachers. They’re bureaucrats. They’re “administrators” appointed either by governors or the states’ boards of education (which themselves are appointed by governors in 32 of the 50 states). A recent report by the National Education Association shows that teachers themselves don’t make anywhere near that much. In fact, if you take the average teacher salary in 2025 for each of the nine states in Ballotpedia’s top ten, you find that, by comparison, the salaries of these top bureaucrats are 3.5 to 6.2 times higher.

Okay, okay, but these unelected administrators with tax-funded salaries who don’t even educate children must be pulling their weight, right? Surely the states paying their top education officials hundreds of thousands of dollars a year are leading the nation – nay, even the world – in quality education? Sadly, no. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) shows mostly abysmal performance for eighth-grade reading and math.

Sure, a few states are doing all right in some regards. Colorado ranks third in the nation for reading and 14th for math, while Illinois is seventh in the nation for reading and 16th for math. Nebraska is seventh for math – but 30th for reading. New York, the state with the highest-paid state official in the nation, ranks 27th in eighth-grade reading and 28th in math, and Rosa made approximately five times the average teacher salary. Why?

In Louisiana, State Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley made more than $350,000 in 2025, which was a whopping 6.2 times the average teacher salary in the Pelican State. Louisiana ranks 28th in the nation for reading and 42nd for math – no surprise there, as it has one of the lowest average annual teacher salaries on Ballotpedia’s list. And it only gets worse from there.

So, the highest-paid state officials in the nation are appointed by other officials – many of whom are themselves also appointed by other officials – rather than elected by the people. And the officials voters do choose for themselves, the ones who are actually accountable to the people come election time, are among the lowest-paid. Meanwhile, it almost seems the more a state pays its top education official, the worse off the kids end up. 

How does this happen? In many of these states, the commissioner, superintendent, or whatever you want to call the head honcho is appointed by the state board of education. When that’s the case, it’s generally also the board that decides the official’s salary. Imagine that.