Entrepreneur tests theory of ‘better teachers, better students’

Brian Till

Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009 | 2 a.m.

As your fifth grader heads back to school this morning, weighed down by a rushed bowl of Cheerios and an oversized bag of worn books, how would you like to know that his or her science teacher has 30 years of experience, and spent last year as a special consultant to the state of Arizona? Or that his or her gym teacher shaped Kobe Bryant into 225 pounds of pure muscle?

And how would it feel to know that those teachers would be paid between $125,000 and $150,000 this year? And be certain they have the whole world watching to see how well they teach your child?

If something in that sounds intriguing or comforting, you should move to Washington Heights, N.Y., and try to enroll your son or daughter in 32-year-old Zeke Vanderhoek’s radical experiment.

Vanderhoek dreamed up the concept while working for Teach for America after graduating from Yale.

“It seemed very obvious to me that there were great teachers and very mediocre teachers,” he says. “You put the same kids in two different teachers’ classrooms and the results are astoundingly different.”

In exchange for the tremendous raise — on average, middle-school teachers in New York make $49,470 — teachers are expected to work harder than their counterparts, and deliver better results. The school day has been extended at Vanderhoek’s “The Equity Project,” stretching from 8:25 a.m. to 5 p.m. three days a week, and 4 p.m. on other days. And classes will have 30 students, higher than the state’s average.

Teachers are expected to teach extracurriculars during the three extra hours — student paper, yearbook, etc. — and also have to peer review other teachers and contribute in other substantial ways.

Vanderhoek won $2.3 million in government money for the idea, had to pass approval from both New York City’s education department and the State Board of Regents, and for the duration of the five-year charter, students will take state Regents exams to ensure they are progressing. The school receives $12,443 per student it enrolled.

Most importantly, the model doesn’t rely on a substantial influx of funding; donated money is only used for facilities, for which public schools receive state financing to support. The idea to is to radically reassess the way schools spend the money they’re already allocated. Thus, tripling teachers’ salaries requires substantial changes. The principal of the school, for instance, will only make $90,000, a reversal of order compared with every other middle school in the country. Extracurricular and non-core curriculum is severely reduced; students can only take Latin, as opposed to an array of languages offered at most schools, and all students are required to take music.

The experiment begins this fall with 120 fifth graders; the school will eventually total 480 pupils as a new class of fifth graders is added each year and older students advance.

Not surprisingly, when Vanderhoek launched the project, he was inundated with teacher applications. Of 600 he received, he interviewed 100 personally, and drove across the country watching 35 finalists teach in their own classrooms. From that roster, eight educators were selected.

After his stint with Teach for America and before launching The Equity Project, Vanderhoek started Manhattan GMAT, a test preparation service for the business school entrance exam. He hired top-notch tutors and paid them substantially more than the competition. Sound familiar?

That venture — grounded in the same principles as The Equity Project — turned into a multimillion-dollar success, and one of the nation’s largest review companies.

Let’s see if the Yale grad, who himself never spent a day in public school as a youth, can pull it off once more.

Brian Till, a columnist for Creators Syndicate, is a research fellow for the New America Foundation, a think tank in Washington.