NYC charter to pay teachers more than lawyers
By Jim StergiosMarch 11th, 2008
But the unions don’t like this idea. A proposed New York City charter school is to pay teachers $125,000. There is even thought of adding incentive pay for high performance.
The idea is that the higher salaries will be made possible by becoming more efficient and by reducing the number of support staff.
According to the Friday New York Times, the head of NYC’s principals’ union, Ernest A. Logan,
called the notion of paying the principal less than the teachers “the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.” “It’s nice to have a first violinist, a first tuba, but you’ve got to have someone who brings them all together,” Mr. Logan said. “If you cheapen the role of the school leader, you’re going to have anarchy and chaos.”
Self-interest I get. May not approve, but I get it. Then there is pure self-preservation–that domain is reserved for Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers. She commented that
the hefty salaries “a good experiment.” But she said that when teachers were not unionized, and most charter school teachers are not, their performance can be hampered by a lack of power in dealing with the principal. “What happens the first time a teacher says something like, ‘I don’t agree with you?’ ”
Mike Antonucci, in today’s Education Intelligence Agency communique’, makes a good point:
UFT hasn’t gotten teachers a $125,000 salary after 47 years of trying. A non-union charter schools opens with that, with no negotiations required.
Will it work? Let’s try.
Entry Filed under: Education, News
3 Comments Add your own
1. Walter | March 11th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Ok here is my take on this… If they are paying teachers more the implication is they will teach better? Its kind of insulting to my character, as if I am not teaching to the best of my ability because I am underpaid.
“I could get your child to read but they aren’t paying me enough.”
I do not think you would find this comment anywhere.
2. Jim Stergios | March 11th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Walter: Thanks for your comment. I wouldn’t turn this into something that is ad hominem. It’s not. Why do we often seek out the highest paid doctors when seeking health care? Often because they are the best in the business. The additional payment is in part to attract the most motivated teachers, yes. But, in a world where we increasingly have data on student performance and on the value added by teachers, the idea is to attract the best teachers.
Perhaps that is you. You could apply. If money does not matter to you, then you don’t have to apply. I am not sure why this school’s decision strikes you as harmful to you.
3. Liam | March 12th, 2008 at 11:56 am
There is a comment string on a similar post at BMG. I made the point on it that by constraining the bidding process, unions had, in fact, constrained instructional improvement. And, unsurprisingly, another blogger argued, like Walter, that it was an insult to imply that he would be a better teacher if he were paid more.
Walter, as a former teacher, I have to tell you that my single biggest frustration was being paid in step with teachers who were not as good as and didn’t care as much as I was and did. As a teacher, I deserved $125,000. In our society, which seems to be slowly slipping into a bottomless morass of pop culture, what could be more needed, or more noble, than paying the individuals who are invested with handing off the intellectual torch to the next generation what they are worth.
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