$125,000 a Year

by David Safier

Want to make $125,000 a year as a teacher? Apply to work at a New York charter school opening its doors in 2009.

Here’s how it will work. Teachers in Grades 5-8 will see 30 students per class, most of them from low income, Hispanic families, teach longer school days and school years, and share duties that would normally be taken care of by attendance coordinators and discipline deans.

And the principal will only make $90,000. (Every teacher is going to love that part!)

The 31 year old Yale graduate starting this school believes the single most important component of a school is its teachers, and great teachers working under difficult conditions will be more successful than mediocre teachers in ideal conditions.

So he wants to spend more-or-less what public schools spend, but hire the finest teachers money can buy and cut back on administrators (no assistant principals), support staff and technology.

It’s an intriguing idea. I’ll be interested to see what happens. Whatever the results, it won’t give us any definitive answers about the relationship between well paid teachers and good education, but I’m hoping it succeeds. If better teachers lead to better education, the next step is to see how we can attract the most talented people we can find to teach in our schools and encourage them to stay there for the long term. Higher pay has to be a major part of that discussion.