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NY TEACHERS WHO SHARE IN $UCCESS

At Middle School 324 in Washington Heights – where an experimental merit-pay program is working – parents, teachers and students were overjoyed yesterday that President Obama is on board.

Principal Janet Heller and her mostly young and motivated educators said the merit pay is about showing respect for a job well done.

“The president’s support for merit pay shows that education is valuable and the work that teachers do is valuable,” Heller said, referring to Obama’s education address Tuesday.

“This is the president of the United States saying, ‘I’m going to honor those teachers who close the achievement gap.’

“If the president shows respect for teachers, maybe there will be a shift in the public mind.”

MS 324 has already provided solid evidence that performance-based bonuses can work.

All teachers and other staffers were awarded $3,000 bonuses after their students showed dramatic improvement last year on math and literacy exams.

For example, the percentage of students meeting math standards jumped to 71 percent from 39 percent the year before.

It’s one of 200 schools that voluntarily participates in the Department of Education’s school-based merit-pay program.

“The teachers at MS 324 deserved the bonus because they did a good job. It’s a good program for the teachers and students,” said Dismery Vasquez, the former head of the school’s parent association. Two of his children graduated from the school and a third will attend next year.

“MS 324 is like a private school. They have control of the students. Other schools are out of control,” Vasquez said.

Her son, Richard Polonia, who now attends the High School for Economics and Finance, said, “If teachers get more money, they’ll do a better job. But they should always do a better job.”

Heller said the program is an incentive to woo motivated teachers.

Most of her 377 students – 98 percent of them black or Hispanic – are poor enough to qualify for free lunches.

“There needs to be a change. We’re attracting such mediocrity to the teaching profession – but not at our school,” said Benjamin Lev, 27, the school’s union rep.

“If there’s incentive to compete, then you’re going to attract better people.”

About half of MS 324’s instructors have been recruited from Teach for America and the Teaching Fellows program, and many have degrees from the nation’s top colleges.

carl.campanile@nypost.com