All five starters on this year’s University of Michigan’s NCAA champion men’s basketball team played for other colleges last year.  You heard that right: all five wore different uniforms just a year ago.  When that season ended, they entered the NCAA’s  “Transfer Portal,” which allows college athletes to sell their services to the highest bidder.  Those five took Michigan’s money and donned the Maize and Blue. 

Now, if colleges are willing to pay millions to men and women who can dunk, dribble, and make 3-point shots, just imagine how much our best public school teachers are going to be offered, when they enter the Teacher Transfer Portal!  

The mind boggles…..

Blanche DeForest, Shelley B. Percy, Newton Isaacs, Porter Kohl, and Rochelle Carson are five of the highly sought after teachers entering this year’s Teacher Transfer Portal.

Blanche DeForest now teaches at MLK High School in New York City, where she works with physically challenged students, using music and movement to build her students’ confidence.  

A native of New Orleans , Ms DeForest, 43, has been teaching in the Big Apple for a dozen years and has enlisted the help of several of New York City’s professional athletic teams to work with her students.  That would seem to narrow Blanche’s choices, because she wants to be in a city with at least one pro team.  “I have always relied on the kindness of the Rangers,” Ms. DeForest says.  

At least five wealthy school districts are bidding for the services of Shelley B. Percy, who teaches creative writing at East Side High School in Camden, New Jersey. A 19-year veteran, Mr. Percy forms his students into small teams, which then compete in poetry slams here and abroad. 

One distinction: unlike most young rappers, Mr. Percy’s students rap in iambic pentameter. Eschewing curse words and vulgarity, these young poets embrace ABAB rhyme schemes and extended metaphors. 

School districts on both coasts hope to sign Newton Isaacs, who teaches science at Collingwood High School in Cleveland, Ohio. Every semester Mr. Isaacs forms his juniors into 3-person teams and challenges them to solve a complex problem. For example, this spring his juniors were tasked with designing (using CAD) a toy for 2- and 3-year-olds, one that would develop their motor skills but not so small that they could swallow it nor too large for them to handle comfortably. They also had to design a marketing campaign to reach young parents.  

Hundreds of his former students maintain that his class taught them marketable skills like teamwork and persistence, while also boosting their self-esteem.

Wherever he ends up, next fall Newton Isaacs will be earning more than $3M.

Middle school music teacher Porter Kohl is also expected to sign for well north of $3M. Every year her fifth grade students in her inner city Los Angeles public school write, score, and stage an original opera. They start from scratch, coming up with a story idea in September.  By October they’re well into writing a libretto, with a clear story arc but also with twists and turns.  Composing the score comes next, which also entails some students trying to master the musical instruments.  Costuming, set design, set construction, rehearsals–they’re all part of the year-long project, which culminates in live performances (which will be videotaped and uploaded to her class’s YouTube channel).

Ms. Kohl notes that, while reversing her name suggests a musical inheritance, her true heritage goes back to her great grandfather, who worked in the coal mines in eastern Europe.  “He was a Coal Porter,” she says, although her sly smile makes it difficult to figure out whether she’s kidding or not.  

Rochelle Carson, a middle school science teacher in Brooklyn, TX, is also highly sought after in this year’s Teacher Transfer Portal. Three years ago she mounted a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to buy two air quality monitors, one permanent and one portable. The permanent machine is installed on the school rooftop, while her students transport the portable monitor from place to place during the day.  Her students monitor the readings over time and then attempt to interpret the differences.  

Two years ago Ms. Carson took a giant step with her students, reaching out to 20 other towns in the United States also named ‘Brooklyn.’  She struck a chord, and this year students from middle schools in almost all the other Brooklyns around the USA are sharing air quality data, allowing them to compare and contrast air quality in most of the continental United States.

Who’s bidding for their services?  The richest public school districts, where the median income exceeds $250,000. The list includes Greenwich (CT), Monte Sereno (CA), Scarsdale (NY), Short Hills (NJ), Bunker Hill Village (TX), Belle Meade (TN), Atherton (CA), Chevy Chase (MD), and Palm Beach (FL).  And when the dust finally settles, these classroom teachers will be earning perhaps as much as $5M per year, not chump change in a country where the median teacher’s salary is $63,000.

Why don’t wealthy school districts simply encourage their teachers to copy these clearly successful teaching techniques in their own classrooms, instead of bidding for the teachers who originated them? I directed my question to Hardwick Cheever IV,  the School Board President in Greenwich, Ct.  “Why do you raid these districts and pay inflated salaries?” I asked.  “Couldn’t you just use all that money to pay all of your teachers higher salaries? That would spread the wealth around” 

“That’s not how we roll here in America,” he replied, indignantly. “If buying talent is good enough for the University of Michigan’s basketball team, then it’s good enough for us. Besides, what you call ‘spreading the wealth’ would be socialism in my book.”

I pressed him.  “Do you feel guilty taking these incredibly talented teachers away from their districts? Many of them are teaching low income or disadvantaged children.” 

“Son, as God is my witness, I have nothing against poor people,” he replied. “But it would be unChristian if we did not do everything in our power to take care of our own. That’s the American way. Get used to it.”

The Teacher Transfer Portal closes April 30th.