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Charter school's $125K experiment

March 13, 2011 5:00 PM

Katie Couric reports on an experimental New York City charter school founded on the idea of hiring the best teachers by paying them $125,000, while denying them tenure.

NYC charter school's $125,000 experiment

60 Minutes OverTimeKatie Couric on paying teachers $125,000 a year

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by mhuebner1 March 24, 2011 8:00 AM EDT
$125,000!!!! Wow! I make $40,000 after 28 years of teaching in Iowa! That would be a dream come true!
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by kjyoak March 23, 2011 10:07 AM EDT
I am frustrated that CBS does not leave all appropriate posts online indefinitely (even for a month or two after a story airs) so that the public can see what others had to say on a particular issue. I will say again, since my last post was removed, that many in the public and the media continue to focus on an invalid assumption - that teachers are either "good" or "bad". *If we want to improve education, we must support our teachers in their professional learning.* Who would feel that a surgeon trained 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago, was ready to perform surgery today with no additional education? How can we expect schools to get any better if we do not provide our teachers with the support they need to become increasingly more effective? It is my guess that most teachers (I am one) would be perfectly satisfied with a reasonable salary and a school environment that supported ongoing collaboration and learning for both students and adults. A school that does not support this kind of learning becomes stagnated, and students perform below expectation (there is much clear evidence for this). Why is the public content with schools that do not support learning for the very people who are expected to help students to learn? This has never made sense to me, and I will be spending my career advocating for a change in the way the public responds to this issue.
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by Yoopteach March 23, 2011 12:28 AM EDT
In Michigan it takes four years to become tenured. Tenure also involves an Individual Development Plan, a mentor teacher, many formal and informal observations and a continuing education plan. Even with all of that many teachers leave the profession within the first five years. Nowhere in the law does it say that in order to get tenure you just have to be breathing. Of course, if you have an untrained administrator that does the famous eight minute observation how can a teacher know what to improve? This story, however, did not showcase any of this information. It was very one sided - poor reporting.
I also question this school's practice of not having any Reading or Mathematical specialists. I have found that a group of teachers working with students is better than one teacher responsible for all of the learning. Students have a chance for more one-on-one learning and attention. Teachers have a better chance to work on strengths and weaknesses of each student. It would have been nice to find out if parents and volunteers were involved in this school. Again this is an incomplete story and not up to 60 Minute standards.
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by RMKH March 22, 2011 9:57 AM EDT
Let's be real, the problem with education today is very simple, there are absolutely no consequences when students do not perform at grade level and both students and parents are well aware of that fact. Everyone passes regardless of performance. That's what the "no child left behind" legislation has done for us. A GED means more today than a high school diploma. All you do to graduate high school is show up. With all the discipline problems we have in classrooms today it's a wonder students learn anything or that teachers actually try to teach. You want to get a parent involved, let them know their child is not passing, they'll make sure homework etc. gets done.
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by scarmody March 21, 2011 3:08 PM EDT
I have been a teacher for 33 years in the state of South Carolina, a right to work state so I have never been allowed to join a union thus I have no tenure and no ability to prove my worth sy earning $150,000, as a matter of fact after 33 years and a master's degree plus 30, I don't make a third of their salaries. I did not get into teaching for the salary but I am very tired of defending the heart and talent of the great teachers I work with every day I have had no raises in the last 6 years as my district has a cut-off for pay raise at 27 years, but I show up every day with love for teaching and my students and fellow workers. My students are wonderful, our school's test scores are fantastic and I put our students up against any other school and it's results!
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by elisamgm March 20, 2011 10:46 PM EDT
I agree that no one should have tenure, in ANY profession. People change, go under different life situations, or simply , change their taste for the profession or get "burned out".
I also would like Katie Couric to question the validity of tenure for the Supreme Court members. Clarence Thomas has obviously allowed his wife to compromise his work as an impartial judge who would just apply the law.
He does not seem to be bothered by the cries of the people who said he shold recuse himself from certain hearigs in which he is, ostentatiously, biased.
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by sgcomm March 20, 2011 7:01 PM EDT
The simple facts are:
Mayor Bloomberg wants to save NYC money by ending tenure and seniority laws so he can eliminate any teachers making top salaries.
To do this he has been closing schools and re-opening them as charter schools so he doesn't have to hire any teachers at top pay levels if the school is non-union.
This charter school was a failure because it didn't even perform up to the levels of public schools.
It obviously wasn't the fault of the teachers.
So who are you going to blame now?
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by ebfg1234 March 16, 2011 8:48 PM EDT
The TEP school is using rote learning to teach the students. This methodology has been outlawed by the Dept. of Education. The "in-thing" now is balanced literacy as taught by Teacher's College. As for Joel Klein;this is the same Joel Klein, who never taught and who wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal condeming defined benefit pensions for teachers. Joel Klein is now receiving a define benefit pension paying him $34,000 per year after only eight years as Chancellor or that he sold his soul to Rupert Murdock for two million. Joel Klein went to a large NYC high school in Queens. How come he received a good education while today's students in the same high school don't seem to do as well ? Maybe it's not the teachers and maybe it's the parents of the students. How come we never hear about parent responsibility? One last point to consider. In 1975, the UFT loaned the city money when Gerald Ford told the city to drop-dead. There were many years when teachers received zero raises for several years at a time or raised were delayed. I taught for thirty-five years in NYC. I deserve my pension.
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by frankfurt66 March 15, 2011 9:55 PM EDT
To mwansley:
In the REAL WORLD you DO have protections against losing your job for random reasons. You DO have sick days and paid vacation. You DO have the right to a safe work place. You DO have protection from excessive work hours without compensation, either monetary or in comp time. In the REAL WORLD you DO have protection from harassment.In the REAL WORLD you DO have the opportunity for health care coverage together with contributions from your company. You Do have provision for retirement income to which you have contributed. All of these have come from collective bargining and the strength of unions. None of this came from the goodness of the hearts of company execs with their golden parachutes and 'generous severance packages'. We are all in the REAL WORLD together. As unions go, so goes everyone else.
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by Karen1486 March 15, 2011 3:58 PM EDT
What has happened to investigative reporting? I shudder to think what will happen to our information stream if those anti-news governmental officials get their way and stop funding for the PBS channels.

Joel Klein is incorrect. Teachers must work for three years prior to getting tenure. During that time administators are supposed to supervise and observe the new educator. At any point in that time frame the person may be let go for any reason. Perhaps Mr. Klein's problem was that he couldn't get people to teach in some of his dangerous and undisciplined schools. During my 35 years as a teacher I have found generally that the people who can't teach usually become supervisors and administrators. It's a shame - but it is true.

After tenure has been gained teachers can still be let go. The school system has to build a case aginst the person. This certainly can be done if the administration is doing their job. Inferior teachers who keep their jobs are usually connected to someone on the Board of Education or the Town Council. Remember the spoils system and Andrew Jackson?

Why isn't Zeke Vanderhoek teaching? Is the old adage really true? (Paraphrased - of course) "Those who can, teach - those who can't teach become administrators." Does Mr. Vanderhoek's school have to accept all students? This is a problem that everyone ignores. Public schools cannot get rid of an undesirable element. Many students have special needs but there are few funds to address their issues. Unfortunately these misplaced children stay in the general population and negatively affect the climate and culture of the school and the classroom. Upon graduation or dropping out of high school I periodically see their names on the police blotter. This is not the answer. Everyone must be taught. Students who negatively affect the learning of others should be placed in an alternative environment. They should not be allowed to lower the level of concern of the other students.

My last observation relates to the lack of union representation. I saw the comments made by Randi Weingarten on the web but that should have been included in the actual aired show.

I'm beginning to wonder if it is even worth my time to watch anything but PBS. I want the facts. All the facts.
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