She has appeared on “60 Minutes,” starred in the documentary “American Teacher” — and makes $125,000 at an unusual Washington Heights charter school.
But celebrity teacher Rhena Jasey, 32, scored a low 18 — on a scale of 0 to 100 — in the recently released Department of Education teacher ratings.
Jasey, a 32-year-old Harvard grad, works at The Equity Project, a publicly funded but privately run charter school that has garnered nationwide attention for its huge teacher salaries — $125,000 a year, plus performance bonuses up to $25,000.
That’s well above the DOE’s top salary to its most educated and veteran teachers — $100,049. But at The Equity Project, teachers don’t get tenure, and can be fired on the spot if they don’t measure up.
It’s a closely watched educational experiment.
“If you want to attract and retain talent, you have to pay for it,” founder and principal Zeke Vanderhoek, a Yale grad who was featured in The New York Times before his school opened and soon after, told “60 Minutes.”
So far, results at the 480-student middle school have fallen short compared to other district schools, with 31 percent of TEP’s fifth-graders passing state tests.
Vanderhoek refused to speak to The Post, and screamed at a reporter who visited the Audubon Avenue school Friday.
He also would not discuss Jasey, saying in an e-mail, “I do not publicly comment on the specific data reports of any individual teacher.”
Jasey’s score of 18 for fifth-grade math in 2009-10 had a range of error placing her between 4 and 32. She did not return messages seeking comment.
Vanderhoek said his teachers are judged on student data and their work, classroom observations and other factors.
“We believe this comprehensive evaluation portfolio is a much more accurate picture of a teacher’s impact on student growth” than the DOE ratings, he said.