I think you will find most private-school teachers are scarcely as well paid as their peers in public high schools.

But other private schools leaders said they did not think that the new salary incentive would be enough to draw private-school teachers into the city's failing schools.

Another customer, a private-school teacher, said: "At least you're open.

Last year, he said, a private-school teachers' average salary was $23,000, which would have been 37th in a state ranking of public schools.

"Who's to say that private-school teachers wouldn't form a union, too?"

The average annual salary for private-school teachers around the nation for 1986-87 was was $21,000, said John Bachman, vice president of the association.

He married a private-school teacher, Charlotte Glasser, and they had two sons, now 11 and 15.

M. was no longer dressed in the uniform of a private-school teacher, but in a blazer and high stiff collar.

The Republican candidate, Mark Sharpe, a private-school teacher, came within four percentage points of beating Mr. Gibbons in 1994.

His father, Larry, was a private-school teacher.