Denver teachers on strike

DENVER >> Amber Wilson was once an evangelist for performance-based pay systems for teachers and went from school to school in Denver years ago, pushing her fellow educators to support one for their district.

But more than a decade after the city adopted such a system, Wilson, an English teacher, says it has morphed into “a monster of unintended consequences.”

Pay-for-performance models like Denver’s offer teachers bonuses for raising student achievement and for taking on tougher assignments, such as in schools with many students from lowincome families. Wilson and many of her fellow educators across the country say that this model once hailed as a way to motivate teachers has delivered erratic bonuses while their base salaries stagnate amid rising living costs.

“We’ve been experimented on, and it didn’t work,” said Wilson, 45. “And it’s time for us to say, ‘No, no, no.’ ”

She was on a picket line in the bitter cold Monday, striking with more than 2,000 other educators to protest the pay system she had once promoted.

The strike is the first by Denver’s teachers in 25 years and many students joined in, leaving their classrooms with their backpacks and marching in the street with teachers.