Monday, December 10, 2012

What would John Wesley think?

Protestant church schools in Australia are a complex and "fascinating" phenomena. Many of the older ones are extremely wealthy, charge high fees (of the order of $20,000 per year for tuition), and have high-flying corporate figures on their boards.
What I did not know until recently was the extra-ordinary renumeration packages of some principals (heads of school).

There has been considerable media coverage about the recent sacking of the principal of Methodist Ladies College in Melbourne. This arose due to conflict over alleged discrepancies of payments of the renumeration. This past weekend School for Scandal was the cover story of the Weekend Australian Magazine which describes all the intrigue and conflict in more detail than you probably want to know.

I have no interest or comment on the justice of the dismissal.
The questions no-one is even asking is
Is it appropriate that the head of a church school should be paid more than half a million dollars per year? 
What does this say about the values of the head and the school board? 
According to the Weekend Australian article, "parents launched a Rosa Storelli Fairness page on Facebook, where an anonymous supporter of the board used the pseudonym "John Wesley" to counter their claims."

I find this ironic and tragic given the frugal and humble lifestyle of John Wesley.

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