Teachers take risks when they decide to teach middle-school math

The headline in the WSJ article says “Denver Teachers Object to Changes In Pay-for-Performance Plan”

Yawn

But what really caught my eye when reading this story was this sentence:

But the biggest rewards will go to early- and midcareer teachers -- and to those
willing to take risks by working in impoverished schools or taking jobs few
others want, such as teaching middle-school math.

No one who reads KTM regularly is surprised to find that teaching middle-school math is considered a job desired by few teachers. It must be darn hard to teach students who’ve emerged from elementary school not having mastered such things as fluency with multiplication tables, long division or fractions. These are considered by many mathematicians to be critical stepping stones on the way to higher-level mathematics. Instead, middle school math teachers might typically find students who have mastered things like math journaling, sorting colored manipulatives as a way to demonstrate they understand the “concept” of multiplication and pizza-slice fraction analysis.

Middle school math – where the math sh*t hits the fan.

PS – Actually, the entire article is worth reading.

The Denver teachers may decide to strike while the Democratic Convention is in town.

That could create some awkward moments. The Democrats don't want to anger
teachers unions, which are key allies. Nor do they want Denver's plan to fall
apart.

Merit pay did make a difference.

Before the plan took effect, she said, "we almost never sat down with our
principals to say, 'Where are our students now, where do they need to be and how
do we get them there?' This really has changed the culture in our schools."