Career Advice on How to Become An Educational Administrator for Elementary or Secondary Education |
General Career Information |
| Educational administrators are the people who oversee and monitor schools of all kinds, as well as universities and colleges. These are the people that implemented the programs that shaped how you thought and developed throughout your educational experience and beyond. Yet, it is possible for educational administrators to escape the spirit crushing, soul-bruising world of education and strike out into more open-minded establishments in the business world and museums. Some educational administrators are even hired to work in prisons. |
Career Facts: |
| If it’s happening at a school, university or a college, you can bet that there is an educational administrator sticking his or her overpaid noise in it. In the K-12 world, the educational administrator goes by the name of principal, yet oddly a principal is rarely anyone’s “pal.” Principals work to make teachers miserable as much as possible. This is done in a wide variety of ways, ranging from setting unrealistically bizarre and high standards, to teaching specifically towards test results, to implementing odd rules. You name it; the principal can do it and does. For many, their job is something of a personal kingdom from which to rule and work out childhood bed-wetting issues and the like. In short, if you like power and enjoy the idea of being a bully, it’s pretty hard to go wrong with being a principal. And the best part of all is that you can hide behind any “decision” or “new policy” by claiming its for the good of the students. It’s a kind of magic. |
Career Opportunities and Job Outlook- Average: |
| The job growth for educational administrators is expected to be about average, around eight percent. As of yet, no one has determined a way to outsource the job of educational administrator overseas, but you know they are working on it and hard. While the job growth is expected to be average, the outlook for new job openings is expected to be excellent, as a large percentage of those working as educational administrators are expected to retire. Therefore, you may indeed have excellent results when you begin your job search. However, it should be noted that this “retirement wave” has been expected for decades and never seems to materialize. |
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A Day in The Life: |
| Overall, this is not an easy job. If your school is a disaster (and the majority of them are at this stage, especially in many cities and school districts), the buck stops with you. All of society’s problems and ills walk through the doors of a school, whether public or private. Often it is the educational administrator and teaching staff that are expected to fix these problems. Principals will spend much of their time dealing with budget issues, which can often become very complex due largely to the number of departments within a school and varying demands for funds. Further, teachers and faculty often resent principals and vice-principals. After all, they are the ones who implement and enforce policies. |
Average Salary: |
| The average salary for educational administrators, such as principals, is about $84,000 with the top ten percent earning about $124,000 per year. |
$84k |
Career Training and Qualifications: |
| It is expected that those working as educational administrators have at least a master’s degree, and often principals have their doctorate. |
