Teacher's Pay: Finally! A Reflection of Worth

Teachers at a charter school in New York City, The Equity Project Charter School, will be paid $125,000 a year, with a bonus up to $25,000. Hiring criteria includes a portfolio of past student work, demonstrated innovation and effectiveness in the classroom, and GRE/GMAT/etc verbal scores in the 90th percentile.

Can I just say how excited I am by this? As the daughter of two teachers (college instructors) and as a longtime student and someone who was trained to teach at the college level myself, I know how rare and amazing it is to have a wonderful teacher.

Good teaching is hard. Classroom hours, especially for K-12 teachers, are just the tip of the iceberg--class time, prep, and grading can easily be a 60-hour work week. Not to mention the emotional investment in each student's progress. People--you might not believe this depending on your experiences as a student, but across the desk, a teacher who cared about you gave thought to cultivating your particular abilities and helping you strengthen your weaknesses. Wonderful teaching is artisanal work, hand-crafted student by student, and not factory work.

So that's why I believe wholeheartedly that an experienced and gifted teacher's pay is worth at least what a low-level corporate executive or prosperous small business owner or an entry-level code warrior at Google makes.

The entrepreneur behind this experiment, Zeke Vanderhoek, has this to say:

“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.”

Can I get an amen?

A nice living to be made for excellent teachers! What a concept. Hope the experiment works and the idea spreads.

Candidates, how can we make this work in all public schools? Because you shouldn't have to take a vow of poverty or already have a trust fund to get by on a $30,000 a year teacher's salary.

Cynematic's personal blog is P i l l o w b o o k. She put away her chalk to become an indie filmmaker, and recently got a nice donation toward her current non-profit educational project from a former student. How sweet is that?

Comments

[Glennia]

That's wonderful. I hope it's a trend. A good teacher is priceless, IMHO.

[Lawyer Mama]

That is a FANTASTIC idea! I'm so eager to hear how the experiment works because I would love to see it sweep across the country. A good teacher is so important to a good education.