New York charter schools to pay $125,000 salaries
Chronically underpaid teachers will be paying close attention to the outcome of a significant educational experiment that gets underway at a New York charter school this fall. The idea: recruit top-notch teachers and compensate them accordingly. A dream team of eight teachers, including an accomplished violinist, Kobe Byant’s former trainer and several with Ivy League degrees, will be paid US$125,000—two and a half times as much as the national average. Class sizes will be bigger, hours will be longer, and they will have to sacrifice some retirement benefits. As well, they can be fired at will. The school, called The Equity Project, will choose students by lottery, with priority given to low-academic performers and those from low-income neighbourhoods.