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jaykimf
Joined: 24 Apr 2004
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 Posted: Sun Mar 16, 2008 9:13 am Post subject: The real value of teachers-$125,000? |
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There was an interesting article in the NY times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/nyregion/14lives.html?ref=education
What do you think?
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ZEKE M. VANDERHOEK, the upstart behind the extravagant, much-debated idea that paying teachers at his fledgling charter school $125,000 a year will translate into a top-notch education for students, is tethered by circumstance to a chair in his Chelsea office. It should be noted that Mr. Vanderhoek, 31 and showing the signs of an addiction to almond croissants, had to be coerced into making time to chat.
A public education advocate, innovator and, to some minds, revolutionary, he did not attend a single day of public school � he spent the years from kindergarten through 12th grade at the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, Md., and segued to Yale. He has a set-in-stone philosophy: teachers should not be fiscal martyrs. He found that out while earning $30,000 a year teaching � and occasionally screaming at � a class of 34 unruly sixth graders at Intermediate School 90 in Washington Heights, a slightly neglected neighborhood he grew to love and where he has chosen, with permission from the New York City Department of Education and the State Board of Regents, to hatch his own school.
Teachers at his charter school � The Equity Project Charter School, or TEP � will not toil for the measly salary he earned. He picked the $125,000 base pay because it fit his budget. �Actually, I think it should be higher,� he says. The teachers may also earn a maximum annual performance bonus of $25,000 in addition to their salary.
Mr. Vanderhoek is quite anxious to clear up some misconceptions about the school, starting with the criticism that it will attract more mercenaries than teachers.
But he disputes that. �The money, as funny as this may sound, is not about the money,� he says. �The money is a signifier. Because money, in our culture, is a signifier of how jobs are valued, and right now schools are telling teachers that they are not valued. The great and talented people who go into teaching are incentive-ized in every possible way to leave the classroom for jobs in administration or jobs outside of schools altogether. What we are trying to do is reverse those incentives. We want the best teachers to keep on teaching, to be challenged and valued.�
The school has received 70 �quality applications� so far for its teaching slots, and more than 100 substandard applications (doomed to Mr. Vanderhoek�s No Response File for failing to follow explicit directions). Applicants have to submit multiple examples of their students� achievements and of their own teaching innovations, and must have scored in the 90th percentile in the verbal section of the GRE, GMAT or similar tests. Mr. Vanderhoek anticipates �a very veteran staff.�
�We�re not hiring first-year teachers,� he said.
The school�s inaugural class in 2009 will have 120 fifth graders, shepherded by seven �master� teachers. Plans call for a move into a new $17 million home by 2011.
Mr. Vanderhoek will serve as a hands-on and proprietary principal with a self-imposed starting salary of $90,000. �My uniform will be Bermuda shorts,� he quips, �and I plan to keep on being principal until I get fired.�
Unlikely; after all, he�s the boss, and the school�s board is likely to subscribe, as he does, to the theory that passionate and innovative teachers, not class size or a flashy curriculum, are the stimuli for academic success, particularly with underprivileged children.
The mandatory uniform for the students, who will eventually number 480, has yet to be decided. Mr. Vanderhoek confides that he is leaning toward generic khakis.
He looks somewhat miserable when asked about the bare walls in the executive office at Manhattan GMAT, the educational testing firm he started from scratch and parlayed into a multimillion-dollar testing and tutoring service, billed as the nation�s largest. His method? Attract smart tutors and compensate them handsomely, a recipe similar to the one that is the backbone of TEP.
Mr. Vanderhoek, who is keen on reinvention (before creating Manhattan GMAT in 2000, he taught at I.S. 90 for three years, subsisting on falafel and moonlighting as a tutor based at his local Starbucks), has updated the 3Rs to fit his teachercentric credo: Rigorous Qualifications, Redefined Expectations, and Revolutionary Compensation. No wonder he�s had no chance to personalize his office.
�I have a pretty strong aesthetic sense,� he says, �and I guess it�s kind of funny, or sad, that my own work space reflects none of it.� The wooden clock (�Not my taste, really�) is a parting gift from his staff at Manhattan GMAT � he stepped down as chairman in January 2007 to devote himself to his dream project, TEP. The plastic bear-shaped honey jar is his own; Greek yogurt, his latest food crave, requires sweetening. But the bright yellow mini-Lamborghini on the windowsill? �Don�t get the wrong idea about that,� he cautions. �It�s just a play on that classic obsession chief-executive-officer types have with fancy cars. I hate cars.� He doesn�t own one; he takes public transportation to and from the Harlem co-op he shares with his wife, Stephanie, and 11-month-old Ella.
His most recent extracurricular foray is a ditty (he is adept on guitar and piano), �Cookie McGirt,� written for Ella. He says his love of music is not why music is one of the school�s two electives (the other is Latin). Rather, they are geared for the students, mainly Dominican, many of whom are not proficient in English. As he puts it, �Music and Latin are the two subjects proven to most positively impact linguistic development.�
Mr. Vanderhoek seems very sure of this. He is also sure he won�t hire his mother, a professor of genetics at St. Mary�s College of Maryland, if she applies. �A great teacher, but on the merits, she might need a little more middle-school experience.� Sorry, Mom.
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Thunndarr
Joined: 30 Sep 2003
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| Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 3:44 pm Post subject: |
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Mr. Vanderhoek is quite anxious to clear up some misconceptions about the school, starting with the criticism that it will attract more mercenaries than teachers.
But he disputes that. �The money, as funny as this may sound, is not about the money,� he says. �The money is a signifier. Because money, in our culture, is a signifier of how jobs are valued, and right now schools are telling teachers that they are not valued. The great and talented people who go into teaching are incentive-ized in every possible way to leave the classroom for jobs in administration or jobs outside of schools altogether. What we are trying to do is reverse those incentives. We want the best teachers to keep on teaching, to be challenged and valued.� |
I've argued this point til I was blue in the face with a certain former mod. My position all along w/r/t the quality of teachers in Korea has been that if schools/hagwons/universities truly bemoan the lack of quality applicants as much as they say they do, the solution is simply to offer a better compensation package. (Of course, the corollary point is that what they truly bemoan is the lack of well-qualified suckers willing to work for a pittance.)
Others, of course, blame the government for lax regulations. (A non-sensical position if ever there was one.) |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 4:19 pm Post subject: |
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$125k if you're experienced, work hard, are very talented, AND live in NYC (higher cost of living).
Yes, that's about right.
Edit: This is Rockville, MD? That's not a cheap suburb of DC, but $125k is great pay for teachers. |
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RACETRAITOR
Joined: 24 Oct 2005
Location: Seoul, South Korea
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| Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 8:18 pm Post subject: |
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| I seem to recall that was approximately the dollar number that Ford put on a single human life when it decided to release the Ford Pinto missing an important cheap safety part. However, with inflation you'd think the number would've gone up in the last 30 years. |
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