Comparing Private High Schools

On the heels of our October survey of 233 public high schools in the metro area, we present a comprehensive statistical breakdown of 56 local private high schools, examining such things as tuition, teachers' salaries, and test scores.

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NUMBER OF FULL-TIME TEACHERS

In schools with both primary and secondary grades, this figure is the number of teachers attached to the high-school grades only. Loyola Academy in Wilmette has 165 full-time teachers, the largest number on the chart; Roycemore and Chicagoland Jewish High School in Deerfield have the fewest full-time teachers, with 11 each.

PERCENTAGE OF TEACHERS WITH MASTER'S DEGREES/NUMBER OF TEACHERS WITH DOCTORATES

These figures indicate the academic strength of a high school's faculty; they also suggest a teacher's eagerness to ascend a salary ladder that tends to reward people who have earned advanced degrees. Note that the number of teachers with a master's degree is given as a percentage of the total faculty; the adjacent column shows the actual number of teachers with a doctorate. Regina Dominican High School in Wilmette has the largest proportion of teachers with a master's degree: 89 percent. The smallest proportion is at Leo Catholic High School, where 11 percent of the teachers have a master's degree. At Chicago Waldorf School, 82 percent of the teachers have had Waldorf training, which, in the Waldorf system, is considered the equivalent of a master's degree. Francis Parker has ten teachers with a doctorate, the largest number on the chart.

AVERAGE TEACHER SALARY

In public school districts, the average teacher salary is made public, as required by law. Private school teachers get a little more protection, since they are not public employees. Nevertheless, most of the private high schools that Chicago surveyed did provide salary averages. (An N/A in this column indicates a school that did not provide salary information.) The best-paid private high-school teachers are at Benet Academy in Lisle, where the average teacher salary is $75,000. Benet, along with the U. of C. Lab School (with an average salary of $71,884), Francis Parker ($68,300), and the Latin School of Chicago ($64,013), are the only schools on the chart to exceed the median teacher salary—$63,509—at Chicago area public high schools, as reported in the October issue of Chicago.

This article appears in the December 2007 issue of Chicago Magazine.

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