Center on School Turnaround, July 2018
Overview
In March and April 2018, the Center on School Turnaround at WestEd continued its Thought Leadership Forum series, hosting two online forums on talent development for state education agency officials who are members of the Leadership Council of the Network of State Turnaround and Improvement Leaders. The monthly forums for 2018 are intended to build the capacity of state education agencies and regional comprehensive centers to support rapid school improvement.
The Thought Leadership Forums are developed in pairs, with each pair focused on a key issue related to supporting school turnaround. The first of the two forums features a presentation by a recognized expert in the identified area; the second forum, convened the following month, profiles a state or local education agency’s work related to the topic, providing an on-the-ground example of the issue in action.
This brief summarizes the information presented in the March and April 2018 forums, which addressed Opportunity Culture as a strategy to support talent development. The March presentation was by Bryan Hassel, Co-President of Public Impact. The April forum featured Denise Watts, who leads Project LIFT (Leadership & Investment for Transformation), a philanthropic initiative that is implementing an Opportunity Culture program in North Carolina’s Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. The brief concludes with recommendations for local and state education agencies interested in further exploring Opportunity Culture.