I'd be curious to hear the numbers on that because 6 students doesn't sound like enough to cover one teacher unless maybe they're paying near $20K each or so.
10-15k per student per year beats out nearly any public school system in my state. They only _just_ raised the starting salaries to a bit under 40k.
edit: also - homeschooling/private teachers are much more efficient. An elementary school day takes more like 2 hours instead of 7, and there's basically zero after-hours work. Do you know any teachers who would give up public school to work 2-3 hours a day for 70k a year with no all-night grading/etc? Cause my bet is it's a huge majority of them.
120k/yr seems like it'd be more than teachers make almost anywhere. $10k/kid seems closer to average.
You could also get access to a larger pool of potential teachers (with STEM backgrounds even!): I don't think I'd ever consider teaching public school for any pay level at this point, but I could see myself teaching some of my neighbors' kids with mine in a few years for cheap/free if there were interest.
I assume most public teachers total compensation would near $120k/yr when you factor in health insurance and pension benefits, and senior teachers with lots of time in in decent states are probably doing a bit better than that. I don't know how self employment tax works either other than it adds costs too.
I thought teachers in the US mostly have 403b now (which as far as I know works like 401k), but I don't really know. A solo 401k would actually be more attractive if so, but probably not until above 60k gross income. Depending on state, family situation, and tax planning ability, they could also potentially get free or heavily subsidized Obamacare.
The small "class" sizes and much greater autonomy would be big non-tangible benefits though. And of course these arrangements can have more... flexible tax reporting.
