The Equity Project, an innovative New York City charter school, is set to open in September. What distinguishes this school is its commitment to the theory that excellent teachers are the key to student success. The school’s founder and principal, Zeke M. Vanderhoek, is so committed to that idea that he’ll earn less than its teachers: $90,000 a year to their $125,000 salary.
For 15 months Vanderhoek crisscrossed the country in a search described by some as the American Idol of education. His goal was to find truly excellent teachers to fill the first eight openings, so he personally interviewed 100 of the school’s 600 applicants and discovered that some teachers with outstanding resumés lacked the skills needed to run a classroom. “There are people who it’s like, wow, they look great on paper, but the kids don’t respect them,” Vanderhoek said.
So what does $125,000 bring in the way of teaching talent? An accomplished musician, two teachers with degrees from Ivy League schools, and the former head strength and conditioning coach for the Los Angeles Lakers, for starters. What the group has in common is a high “engagement factor,” the ability to grab the attention of students, convey their own enthusiam for the subject they teach, and expertly redirect students who veer off track.
The school will cover its expenses with a combination of a charter school grant, public school financing, and small amount of private donations. To keep expenses low, it won’t have an administrative staff. Teachers will be expected to shoulder a portion of the work usually done by support staff themselves. They will also work longer hours, more days, and have larger classes (30 students) than is typcial in New York City.
In addition, they will not earn the generous retirement benefits that their peers in the city’s teachers’ union receive and will forfeit traditional job protections: they can be fired at will. Their students were selected through a lottery system that gave preference to kids living in the school’s largely Hispanic, low-income neighborhood and to low academic performers.
None of that has dampened the teachers’ enthusiasm for the new venture. “It’s so refreshing that somebody comes to a teacher and says, ‘Show me what you know,’” said Oscar Quintero, who is moving to New York City from Florida to teach special education. “This is the first time in 30 years of teaching that anybody has been really interested in what I do.”
The school’s science teacher, Judith LaFevre, will move from Arizona, and acknowledged in an e-mail that the school is “…an experiment of sorts, in which I’m one of the subjects…This could be unsettling were it not for the excitement of working with a team of master teachers, all of whom are motivated to help every student succeed, with no excuses and no blame.”
There’s been some debate in education circles about whether such a distinguished group of teachers can gel as a team to maximize the student success. “I have tremendous confidence that the staff is going to be excellent,” Vanderhoek said. “But we will see.”
—“Next Test: Value of $125,000-a-Year Teachers,” by Elissa Gootman, The New York Times, June 5, 2009.
