Sharon Kebschull Barrett

Arkansas Opportunity Culture Pilot Adds 3 Districts and 8 North Little Rock Schools

written by Sharon Kebschull Barrett on March 14, 2019

Ark DOE circle

Opportunity Culture continues to grow: After an initial year at North Little Rock Middle School, the Arkansas Department of Education has expanded its Opportunity Culture pilot to three more districts.

The school districts of Forrest City, Lead Hill, and Lincoln are joining the Opportunity Culture initiative—to which the state committed in its Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plan—with plans to begin using Opportunity Culture roles in the 2019–20 school year. North Little Rock, now in its second year of Opportunity Culture at the middle school’s two campuses, will expand to six elementary schools and two high schools in the 2019–20 school year.

Opportunity Culture schools use new roles—based on the cornerstone role of Multi-Classroom Leadership—to reach many more students with excellent, personalized instruction. These roles, which have produced outstanding student growth elsewhere, provide intensive support to all teachers, paid career advancement, and a stronger teacher pipeline.

“We are on a mission in our state to recruit and retain effective teachers,” said Sandra Hurst, director of educator support and development in the Arkansas Department of Education’s educator effectiveness division. “We believe the implementation of Opportunity Culture schools can provide our districts with an innovative approach to extend the reach of excellent teachers to more students.”

The work in North Little Rock sets an example for this expansion.

NLR logo “North Little Rock’s continued hard work, reflection on lessons learned, and willingness to try something new for its students and teachers has set the stage for others in Arkansas who can learn from the district’s early experiences,” said Troy Smith of Public Impact, which founded the Opportunity Culture initiative. Smith provides guidance to each school’s Opportunity Culture design and implementation teams, made up of teachers and administrators.

“We have experienced growth in student achievement as a result of the implementation of Opportunity Culture,” North Little Rock Superintendent Bobby Acklin said. “Students are engaged in their learning environment, and there are more opportunities for our best teachers to share their expertise with other teachers. It’s a great model for student-focused learning.”

Lead Hill School District will use Opportunity Culture in its two schools, which have about 365 students and 35 teachers.

“Every student in the state of Arkansas deserves an opportunity to reach their potential. The partnership with Opportunity Culture will assist our district in extending the reach of our excellent teachers,” said Wanda Van Dyke, superintendent of the Lead Hill School District.

Lincoln Consolidated School District will implement Opportunity Culture at Lincoln Middle School.

“We are excited to implement Opportunity Culture in our district this fall,” said Mary Ann Spears, superintendent of the Lincoln Consolidated School District, whose 91 teachers serve 1,140 students. “Opportunity Culture will allow us to transform our teaching and learning in our middle school and ultimately the entire district. The development of future teacher-leaders and the impact on teacher retention is certainly a bonus!”

Forrest City School District will begin using Opportunity Culture in three schools.

“We feel that the Opportunity Culture program is an amazing opportunity for our district to provide greater reach and a larger impact on the students in our district,” said Tiffany Hardrick, superintendent of the Forrest City School District. “The program will allow our best and brightest teachers an opportunity to lead and become our future district leaders without leaving the classroom.”

In early 2018, researchers at the Brookings Institution and American Institutes for Research released a study showing the effect Opportunity Culture multi-classroom leaders can have: Teachers who were on average at the 50th percentile in student learning gains, and who then joined teams led by multi-classroom leaders, produced learning gains equivalent to those of teachers from the 75th to 85th percentile in math and from the 66th to 72nd percentile in reading in six of seven statistical models. Nearly three-fourths of the schools in the AIR-Brookings study were Title I.

And in the 2017–18 school year, Opportunity Culture schools in North Carolina—the largest implementation state so far, with about 80 schools—outpaced the state results in student growth. While only 27 percent of non-Opportunity Culture schools in North Carolina exceeded student learning growth targets, nearly double that—53 percent—of Opportunity Culture schools exceeded growth.

“Through its statewide Opportunity Culture pilot, the Arkansas Department of Education is paving the way for every Arkansas teacher and student to benefit from high-quality teacher leadership,” said Stephanie Dean, who as vice president of strategic policy advising at Public Impact provides guidance to the Arkansas Department of Education.

High-Growth Learning, 56K Students Reached: Opportunity Culture 2018–19

written by Sharon Kebschull Barrett on March 7, 2019

As student learning continues to benefit, teachers want to keep and grow Opportunity Culture: That’s just one of the many findings and stats to report from the 2018-19 update of the Opportunity Culture data dashboard.

Public Impact, which created and leads the national Opportunity Culture initiative, updates the dashboard annually.

Highlights from the dashboard include:

Schools—Opportunity Culture now has 302 schools committed. Opportunity Culture grew from seven schools implementing in 2013–14 to 151 schools in 2018–19. Seventy-three more schools have begun designing (planning for implementation) for 2019–20, and states and districts have committed to launch Opportunity Culture in an additional 78 schools in the next few years. Schools, cities, and states continue to join Opportunity Culture throughout each year.

Sites—Nine states now have a total of 28 Opportunity Culture sites covering a range of urban, suburban, and rural schools.

Students—More than 56,000 students were reached by one or more Opportunity Culture teachers. Nothing matters more for students than getting excellent teaching consistently: Excellent teachers help students learn more, and, as multi-classroom leaders, can help other teachers produce higher-growth student learning, too. Research also says that teachers producing high growth develop students’ higher-order thinking skills.

Teaching Roles—2018–19 saw 428 teachers in advanced roles and 1,393 teachers receiving on-the-job development on teacher-led teams. Advanced Opportunity Culture roles are reserved for teachers with a track record of high-growth student learning. Team teacher roles are held by teachers with a typical range of prior effectiveness. Before 2017–18, schools designing Opportunity Culture used a variety of roles to extend teachers’ reach. All schools designing Opportunity Culture implementation plans since 2018 use Multi-Classroom Leadership, embedding other roles within multi-classroom leaders’ small teams.

Teacher Satisfaction—In anonymous surveys, 97 percent of multi-classroom leaders (MCLs) and 87 percent of all those in Opportunity Culture roles said they want Opportunity Culture to continue in their schools. For MCLs, that’s a consistent survey response, while for all teachers and staff, it’s a substantial increase over prior years. Among educators in all Opportunity Culture roles, 94 percent agreed that teachers are held to high professional standards for delivering instruction. At least 90 percent of MCLs also reported a positive impact on staff collaboration and student achievement and agreed that they have new leadership opportunities, higher pay opportunities with Opportunity Culture, and the chance to reach more students. And 91 percent of MCLs and 88 percent of all Opportunity Culture teachers agree that they receive feedback that can help them improve teaching.

Pay—$4.7 million was reallocated to higher teacher pay in 2018–19; $14.7 million has been reallocated since Opportunity Culture began in 2013. The highest pay supplement was $23,000 (for MCLs). The average MCL supplement was $11,833, or 21 percent of the average teacher salary. (Calculated using state average salary in states implementing Opportunity Culture, weighted by the number of MCLs per state.) Opportunity Culture supplements for all teachers ranged from $1,000 to $23,000.

Student Results—A study from the American Institutes of Research and the Brookings Institution showed that students in classrooms of team teachers led by MCLs showed sizeable academic gains. The team teachers in the study were, on average, at the 50th percentile in the student learning gains they produced before joining a team led by an MCL. After joining the teams, they produced learning gains equivalent to those of teachers in the top quartile in math and nearly that in reading.

In early 2018, researchers at the Brookings Institution and American Institutes for Research released a study showing the effect Opportunity Culture multi-classroom leaders can have: Teachers who were on average at the 50^th percentile in student learning gains, and who then joined teams led by multi-classroom leaders, produced learning gains equivalent to those of teachers from the 75^th to 85^th percentile in math and from the 66^th to 72^nd percentile in reading in six of seven statistical models. Nearly three-fourths of the schools in the AIR-Brookings study were Title I.

The national Opportunity Culture initiative extends the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to more students, for more pay, within schools’ recurring budgets. Each school’s design and implementation team, which includes teachers, determines how to use Multi-Classroom Leadership and other roles to reach more of their students with high-standards, personalized instruction—one hallmark of great teachers.

Multi-classroom leaders (MCLs) lead a small teaching team, providing instructional guidance and frequent, on-the-job development, while continuing to teach part of the time. The schools redesign schedules to provide additional school-day time for teacher planning, coaching and collaboration. MCLs typically lead the introduction of more effective curricula, instructional methods, classroom management and schoolwide culture-building.

Accountable for the results of all students in the team, multi-classroom leaders earn substantially higher supplements averaging 20 percent (and up to 50 percent) of teacher pay, within the regular school budget. The school design teams reallocate school budgets to fund pay supplements permanently, in contrast to temporarily grant-funded programs.

Public Impact analyzes the dashboard results to continually improve Opportunity Culture materials and its work with schools and districts. Public Impact is eager to use these advanced teaching roles to meet or surpass its goal of:

Reaching at least 75 percent of students…
With at least 75th-percentile student learning growth*…
While at least 75 percent of educators are satisfied or highly satisfied.

“As Opportunity Culture continues to grow, we at Public Impact learn so much from the educators across the country who continue to implement these roles, achieving more for their students and creating welcoming, supportive workplaces for teachers,” said Lucy Steiner, senior vice president for educator excellence and implementation services. “We so appreciate all their feedback and data that help us continually improve Opportunity Culture.”

*On average, compared to 2010 standard growth levels

Bringing Indiana Teacher Pay, Prep Up to Snuff

written by Sharon Kebschull Barrett on February 25, 2019

How much does Indiana need to catch up to surrounding states on teacher pay?

The short answer? $658.1 million—that’s the cost of bringing Indiana teacher pay to the regional median.

In a thorough look at the teacher crisis in Indiana written by Public Impact’s Stephanie Dean, Stand for Children Indiana and Teach Plus make the case that teachers aren’t being paid enough, they have little room for career growth, and the state does a poor job training and retaining teachers.

Stand for Children Indiana and Teach Plus make three key recommendations to the Indiana General Assembly in Addressing Indiana’s Quiet Teaching Crisis: A Sensible Blueprint for Progress. The groups call for smart policies that will increase teacher pay, provide career growth pathways, and elevate the teaching profession so Indiana attracts and retains the best and the brightest teachers.

The numbers make the problems clear: Starting pay for teachers in some Indiana districts is near the poverty line. Indiana teacher pay dropped 15 percent between 2000 and 2017 when adjusted for inflation, from $59,986 to $50,554—and Indiana teachers earn 17 percent less than college graduates in other fields. As a result, Indiana’s pipeline of new teachers is drying up, with a 60 percent drop in individuals entering Indiana’s teacher preparation programs from 2008–09 to 2013–14. Nearly all Indiana districts struggle to find qualified candidates for teacher openings.

The report’s recommendations, backed up with national examples including the Opportunity Culture model and Louisiana’s teacher residency requirements:

Like such states as Oklahoma, which last year invested more than $400 million in teacher pay, Indiana should initiate a meaningful increase in funding for teacher compensation to become comparable with other professions and competitive with surrounding states;

For districts to receive this increased funding for compensation, state leaders should require them to develop well-designed career ladders and provide state-sponsored technical assistance to support successful transition; and

To improve preparation and talent recruitment, the state should make a meaningful investment to support district efforts to provide teachers-in-training with a paid, full-year residency.

“I invest so much in my work to provide the best education for students. It is time for the State of Indiana to invest in me, to ensure I can continue to provide that quality education.” —Allison Larty, Indianapolis Public Schools Spanish teacher.

For more, see media coverage of the report:

Reengaging Disconnected Youth: Early Lessons from Newark

written by Sharon Kebschull Barrett on February 22, 2019

New Jersey’s youth face enormous, long-standing challenges, many stemming from historic discrimination and endemic poverty. Nearly 4,000 youth between the ages of 16 and 20 are not in school, and about 3,000 more between 15 and 21 are at risk of leaving school without a high school diploma. Half of the city’s 16- to 19-year-olds, and a third of 20- to 24-year-olds, are unemployed.

Most of these youth have experienced violence or other trauma, or changed schools frequently; an estimated quarter are or have been involved in the juvenile justice system. They tend to be chronically absent from school and over-age for their grade but behind in academic credits. Not seeing a clear path to success, these youth gradually disengage from learning.

But Newark is hardly unique in the U.S. What can make a difference for students there, and how can other communities learn from success in Newark?

In Newark Opportunity Youth Network: A Collective Approach to Transforming Lives and Communities, Public Impact’s Julia Conrad Fisher and Juli Kim describe how the two-year-old Newark Opportunity Youth Network (Newark OYN) brings together key community partners—including disconnected youth themselves, education providers, community-based service providers, and more—to perform four critical tasks:

Serve as a systems-level backbone organization to provide formal infrastructure to facilitate clear and direct lines of communication among private and public partners, prompting seamless collaboration toward a common vision of college and career success for disconnected youth;

Deliver direct services to both directly operate and partner with others to operate schools and programs, including a centralized Re-Engagement Center and the state’s first alternative charter school specifically designed to serve disconnected youth;

Provide technical assistance to community-based organizations and network partners in applying a proven youth development model to their programming; and

Advocate to influence policy by tapping into its direct work with disconnected youth to illuminate policies that contribute to the challenges they face. With key partners at the table, Newark OYN is positioned to influence these policies and promote improved outcomes for disconnected youth.

“I only needed three classes to graduate. I’m from Newark. I didn’t really have a choice to join a gang, I was born into it. I went to five high schools over three or four years,” said Tyshawn, now 22, one of several Newark OYN youth who reflect in the report on what led them to disengage from school—and how Newark OYN’s educational programs and schools pulled them back, setting them on a path to opportunity. “I had only three classes left for two years that I could never finish. I was in and out of the street, caught up with police and others. I became a parent, too. I didn’t want to be one of those people who wasn’t around to help take care of my son. That’s when I realized that I needed to finish high school, and I was able to do it at UPLIFT because they believed in me and didn’t give up on me.”

The report details how Newark OYN works to meet its mission. Early lessons from its work can help guide other organizations focused on disconnected youth, just as Newark OYN is taking those lessons to heart.

Charter-Like Freedoms for District Schools: A New Path

written by Sharon Kebschull Barrett on February 21, 2019

Across the United States, school districts have a new option for their schools—“autonomous district schools”—that gives schools the freedoms of charter schools and districts a way to grow high-quality, innovative schools and diversify public school options at scale.

Like charter schools, autonomous district schools are freed from innovation-inhibiting state and district policies, allowing talented educators to make academic and operational changes that better serve students. But rather than operating under a charter that is completely independent from the district, these autonomous schools remain part of the district, which holds them accountable for their performance. They typically must follow district enrollment policies; their performance is included in ratings of the home district’s performance; and they can use district resources (such as transportation and maintenance) that charter schools often cannot. Limited early data suggests that student outcomes in autonomous district schools improve over time more than in other district schools.

In Autonomous District Schools: A New Path to Growing High-Quality, Innovative Public Schools, a Public Impact team led by Juli Kim describes different approaches for implementing autonomous district schools. Districts must carefully design and implement plans for how autonomous district schools will be governed, and how they will support and protect schools’ autonomies. This thorough report reviews governance arrangements and critical design and implementation elements and considerations.

Notable examples include: Springfield (MA) Empowerment Zone Partnership; Innovation Schools, Indianapolis; Renaissance Schools, Camden, NJ; Luminary Learning Network Innovation Zone, Denver; Partnership for Los Angeles Schools; AUSL, Chicago; Innovation Schools, Denver; Fulton County (GA) Charter System schools; and Pilot Schools, Los Angeles.

Ultimately, autonomous district schools can help districts develop a portfolio of schools that includes an increased number of diverse school options and fewer underperforming schools.

Big Ambitions: IDEA Public Schools Aims High for Growth + Quality

written by Sharon Kebschull Barrett on February 21, 2019

In 2000, IDEA Public Schools opened its first campus on the U.S.-Mexico border. Today, IDEA operates 79 schools serving 45,000 students in six regions, proving that it’s possible to grow rapidly while maintaining quality. And IDEA plans to keep its foot on the gas. It’s on track to enroll 100,000 students by 2022, and one day, a million.

Elsewhere in the U.S., charter growth is slowing down as charter operators struggle to hire enough great talent, secure suitable facilities, acquire sufficient capital, and overcome other growth-inhibiting barriers. As families and communities across the country demand better schools, though, the country must find ways to overcome these barriers.

In Built to Grow: How IDEA Public Schools is Expanding to Serve a Million Students, Public Impact’s Daniela Doyle and Juli Kim show how IDEA develops solutions to its challenges so it can expand rapidly without diminishing quality. Its strategies include:

Committing to growth: IDEA’s leadership team sees a moral obligation to grow, to stay true to its mission to prepare students from underserved communities for success in college.

Creating systems for scale: A tight, proven school model is supported by equally tight management systems, giving each new region and school a blueprint to follow.

Tackling talent scarcity quickly and creatively: IDEA uses many of the same salary and career path strategies as other excellent charter operators—using its own five-level Teacher Career Pathway, and partnering with others to recruit great teachers. But it also shows striking differences in providing intensive teacher support and creative teacher selection processes, prioritizing smart applicants who share its vision and growth mindset over basic pedagogical skills—which IDEA believes it can teach teachers directly.

Confronting facilities limitations by building all facilities from scratch: IDEA has taken advantage of Texas state bonds to secure facilities financing, so it can build schools with ideal learning conditions for its needs and benefit from the stability and long-term savings of owning versus renting.

Building up funding for growth: Through strong fiscal discipline and a focus on economies of scale, IDEA is able to reinvest a portion of recurring per-pupil funds in growth and improvement, and combine that with fundraising to cover the cost for new regions to become self-sustaining.

IDEA’s success does not have to be remarkable; in fact, as Public Impact documented in a prior report on expanding the best charter schools, the practices leading to its success are common in fast-growing organizations of all kinds, and easily adaptable to education. Schools that create a tight model with equally tight systems, reimagine roles for great educators and create structures to support them, budget for sustainable growth, and commit to (and invest in) continuous improvement can follow in IDEA’s footsteps.

Three More N.C. Districts to Launch Opportunity Culture with New State Funding

written by Sharon Kebschull Barrett on January 31, 2019

In the latest round of funding for the state’s Advanced Teaching Roles pilot, the North Carolina State Board of Education awarded grants to three districts that will implement Opportunity Culture roles—Halifax County and Hertford County in eastern North Carolina and Lexington City Schools in Davidson County.

These rural and small-town, high-poverty districts struggle with academic success and attracting and retaining teachers. They will use Opportunity Culture roles, which have produced outstanding student growth elsewhere, to provide intensive support to all teachers, paid career advancement and a stronger teacher pipeline.

The national Opportunity Culture initiative, founded by Public Impact, extends the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to more students, for more pay, within schools’ recurring budgets. The Advanced Teaching Roles pilot, begun in 2016, was intended to improve student learning outcomes by allowing excellent teachers to reach more students by leading a teaching team and taking accountability for all of the team’s students, and receive salary supplements for these advanced teaching roles, with models that can be replicated statewide.

Halifax and Lexington City will design their Opportunity Culture plans this spring for implementation in fall; Hertford County Schools will spend the next year planning for implementation in fall 2020. Public Impact will assist these districts in planning and early implementation.

Multi-Classroom Leadership is the foundation of an Opportunity Culture. Each school’s design and implementation team, which includes teachers, uses Multi-Classroom Leadership and other roles to reach more students with high-standards, personalized instruction—one hallmark of great teachers.

Accountable for the results of all students in the team, multi-classroom leaders earn supplements averaging 20 percent (and up to 50 percent) of teacher pay, within the regular school budget. The school design teams reallocate school budgets to fund pay supplements permanently, in contrast to temporarily grant-funded programs. Funding from the Advanced Roles pilot will not be used for pay supplements, but for planning and implementing Opportunity Culture and associated professional development.

In the 2017–18 school year, Opportunity Culture schools in North Carolina—the largest implementation state so far, with about 80 schools—outpaced the state results in student growth. While only 27 percent of non-Opportunity Culture schools in North Carolina exceeded student learning growth targets, nearly double that—53 percent—of Opportunity Culture schools exceeded growth.

In early 2018, researchers at the Brookings Institution and American Institutes for Research released a study showing the effect Opportunity Culture multi-classroom leaders can have: Teachers who were on average at the 50th percentile in student learning gains, and who then joined teams led by multi-classroom leaders, produced learning gains equivalent to those of teachers from the 75^th to 85^th percentile in math and from the 66^th to 72^nd percentile in reading in six of seven statistical models. Nearly three-fourths of the schools in the AIR-Brookings study were Title I; nearly all of the schools in Halifax, Hertford and Lexington City are Title I.

Founded and led by Public Impact, which is based in the Chapel Hill, N.C., area, Opportunity Culture now includes more than 25 districts in nine states (not all are yet publicly announced).

“We are thrilled that these three districts will receive support from the state to make a proven, major difference for their teachers and students,” said Stephanie Dean, vice president of strategic policy advising at Public Impact. “We look forward to helping their educators design an Opportunity Culture model that fits each school’s context and needs.”

Halifax County Schools (HCS), led by Superintendent Eric Cunningham, has 10 schools and 178 teachers. They serve about 2,560 students, of whom about 84 percent are black, 6 percent American Indian, 4 percent white and 4 percent Hispanic. One hundred percent of the students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The district suffers from a teacher turnover rate of 29 percent and academically struggling students.”We are grateful to be awarded the grant to partner with Public Impact in the Opportunity Culture model,” Cunningham said. “This grant will allow our district to develop a strategic and sustainable model to compensate teachers who work above and beyond to meet the needs of our students. The mission of HCS is to create a positive and supportive learning environment. This partnership is a big step in building teacher capacity—a critical component to raising student achievement. Halifax County Schools is well on the way of becoming a lighthouse school district for all students.”

Hertford County Public Schools, led by Superintendent William T. Wright, Jr., has seven schools and 190 teachers.
They serve about 2,900 students, of whom about 79 percent are black, 4 percent Hispanic, and 13 percent white, with about 98 percent eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The district is focused on creating its own educator pipeline given its annual teacher turnover rate of 20 percent and a three-year average rate for administrator turnover of 19 percent.”Hertford County Public Schools is honored to be chosen as a recipient of funding to support the state’s Advanced Teaching Roles pilot,” Wright said. “The Opportunity Culture initiative is directly aligned with our district’s strategic goals in the areas of operational efficiency, teaching and learning, and talent acquisition and development. Hertford County Public Schools, working in conjunction with Public Impact, is impacting lives positively by increasing student learning through the development of excellent teachers, in keeping with our district’s motto by being ‘All In for Learning’.”

Lexington City Schools, led by Superintendent Anitra Wells, has seven schools and 181 teachers. They serve 3,200 students, of whom about 30 percent are black, 35 percent Hispanic, and 22 percent white, with about 93 percent eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Its teacher turnover rates are as high as 36 percent (middle schools); it competes for teachers with Charlotte, Winston-Salem, and Greensboro—three of the state’s largest districts—all of which are able to offer higher salary supplements and a broader range of teacher and leadership opportunities.“We are extremely excited and humbled to have been selected for this grant opportunity,” Wells said. “This grant will enable us to utilize our most effective teachers to help support other teachers as we focus on growing every child, every day, in every classroom. Our students deserve the best, and this model will ensure that they each get exposure to the best instructional strategies and staff available. We, in Lexington, have challenged ourselves to meet every child where they are and support them in reaching their maximum potential. This model helps us in staying true to that goal.”

In the first phase of the Advanced Roles pilot, the school districts of Vance County, Edgecombe County, and Charlotte-Mecklenburg, all of which use Opportunity Culture, were three of the first six districts selected. In addition, Guilford County Schools and Cabarrus County Schools have introduced Opportunity Culture schools.