Public Impact News & Views

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.

Learning to Lead as a Multi-Classroom Leader

written by Hadley Moore on March 8, 2019

In 2015–16, I was a high school English teacher at an elite, private college-prep high school. In 2017-18, I became an assistant principal at an inner-city elementary school. How on earth did that happen?

I loved being a high school English teacher. It was my dream job, molding and shaping young people’s lives through literary works that made my heart sing. I could have quite happily remained ensconced in my classroom for life. However, I was feeling restless, and candidly, a little bored. I wanted more—I wanted a greater impact, and I wanted the opportunity to network with other educators.

Enter the chance to become an Opportunity Culture multi-classroom leader, or MCL. I left my safe classroom in that smoothly oiled prep school to lead a team of six teachers, overseeing six classrooms and four courses in an urban public high school in its first year of using Opportunity Culture staffing models. On the first day, when I couldn’t figure out where to find printer paper in that vast, impersonal new building, I cried.

Despite the culture shock, I threw myself into my MCL and coaching role, and I couldn’t be more grateful for that experience. I would not be the school leader or competent instructional coach that I now must be on a daily basis if not for the foundation of Opportunity Culture. It was a true “opportunity” to grow, and it has led me in a professional direction I never could have imagined.

The MCL role allowed me to grow and feel confident as an instructional leader. Without this experience, I would not have pursued administration. When I became the assistant principal at Washington Irving Elementary School in the Indianapolis Public Schools, I put my MCL skills to work:

Building relationships: This is key to any successful school climate and culture. What I loved about being an MCL was that we were embedded coaches and not evaluators. My team and I worked side by side to plan and deliver great instruction. Alongside them I co-taught, introduced the curriculum, charted and analyzed data—and I observed both the mundane and the fantastic. As a result, I could build encouraging and supportive relationships with the teachers who were under my umbrella. I was not a threat or an authority figure; I was a partner. Their success was my success. Their failures were my failures.

Now, I can see how much the MCL role helped me build relationships and have fun doing it! Once I got into an evaluator position, I missed the comfort that was easier to establish in my MCL role. However, it was just as important, if not more so, to work at building relationships with my teachers as an assistant principal. I wanted them to see me as their coach, their cheerleader, and their teammate, just as my teachers did when I was an MCL.

Focusing on rigor: The MCL role made it clear that instructional rigor motivates and engages students. Our kids want to be challenged; they want to be respected enough to be entrusted with lessons, assessments, and performance tasks that allow them to demonstrate the fullness of their talents and abilities. The most successful and impactful teachers were the ones who understood that and incorporated rigor every single day. From my prep school work, I brought content knowledge, high expectations, and enthusiasm for reworking a lackluster curriculum and book list. We replaced tired, whitewashed young-adult texts with meaningful multicultural literature written for adults. The kids thrived, and their teachers blossomed as well—elated and empowered with the growth they saw in students’ reading, writing, and conversations in their classrooms daily.

Collaborating: At first, the teachers I supported were a bit suspicious, since my role had never existed before. What was I there to do? How was I going to improve their practice—or would I just place more demands on their already limited time? I had to establish a collaborative team culture in the English department, and that started with me. Our weekly meeting was sacred, and we all showed up on time ready to interact. I modeled that, but they perpetuated it. My office became the hub of the department—and not just because of the sodas and candy I kept stocked. We shared our

challenges and our successes with one another—daily, beyond our formal weekly meeting. We observed one another’s lessons, offered opinions on curriculum changes, and chose texts in tandem. Our conversations that were once on the surface level of “how was your weekend?” naturally morphed into “what was the impact of this morning’s Maya Angelou text on your classroom discussion?” Ultimately, it was the commitment to our shared students—and our emphasis on instructional excellence—that allowed us to build the collaborative culture that ensured our success.

I would not have had the courage, curiosity, and relationship-building skills to take on an assistant principal position—let alone in an elementary school!—were it not for the experiences I had building a team and transforming an academic culture as a high school English MCL. I am grateful daily for Opportunity Culture and my own opportunity to grow and develop myself alongside those beloved, respected, hardworking teachers.

Hadley Moore was the assistant principal of Washington Irving Elementary School in Indianapolis Public Schools, and an Opportunity Culture Fellow in 2017–18. Read more columns written by Opportunity Culture educators, many with accompanying videos, here.

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

The Best Tool — Sometimes: Using Tech in Elementary School

written by Amber Hines on March 7, 2019

This column first appeared on EducationNC on March 5, 2019.

As soon as students enter my classroom for a small-group session, I know what question is coming: “Are we going to record?”

Elementary school students love using technology. But teachers must use students’ valuable learning time wisely: Technology should be meaningful, data-driven, and help meet our learning goals. Our students are digital natives, so they’re confident with technology; it can give them the freedom to share their thoughts and think critically about both their own and their peers’ work.

As an Opportunity Culture multi-classroom leader for third through fifth grades, I lead my small teaching team to make smart — and fun— choices for tech-enhanced learning. Among the tech we use: two-way video recordings and QR (quick response) codes for assessments and self-study.

Two-way video recordings

With small reading groups, I’ll record myself in a short clip — two minutes at most — giving them verbal directions. They write a short response about what we’ve just read, then record a video of themselves responding. All students in the group can see what the others posted, and they provide peer feedback online. I also give feedback, and they respond to my feedback. It becomes an ongoing discussion, but with time to reflect on their work and to help one another. When they give feedback online, they give more thoughtful responses. And when they make a video clip about their work, they feel like You-Tubers!

Why use video recordings?

More time for instruction. Instead of presenting one by one, all students are presenting at the same time: Using headphones and microphones, and spread around the room to avoid distracting one another, they each record and post a video on their devices. We use five or 10 minutes for what might have taken an hour, leaving more time for feedback.
Less teacher planning time. I’m not spending time making and checking worksheets; I write what I will record for their directions, but then I have time to listen to their responses (for which I have set length limits) as they come in.
Personalized instruction and feedback. I can tailor the instruction and the tool to each child’s level and learning needs. A student who struggled with reading but had oral comprehension through the roof, for example, provided more detail in videos than in written assignments. Sometimes educators just check written work for correct answers, without explanations or feedback. But kids love (and need) individualized feedback! When students hear and watch me give them personal feedback on video, they soar.
Elevating every child’s voice. Video helps students who are shy or lack the confidence to speak in groups. I saw one shy student become a whole new child when making a short clip of herself and providing feedback to others. She felt safe and secure without everybody watching her. That let me fully understand her thinking, and she built up her self-confidence. This levels the playing field. As we all know, one student can dominate a conversation, but now everybody’s opinion gets valued and heard equally.
Developing student leadership. Students love to give peer feedback because they can take ownership of their learning, and they’re acting as peer coaches. This creates a community of learning. We teach them how to give feedback appropriately. We remind them to look for good things to praise and to provide positive suggestions to improve. They don’t say things like “you can’t do this.” They say, “maybe you should try,” modeling respect throughout the room.
Accountability. Anyone—other educators, parents, and students themselves—can review our work. This lets parents and other educators see what really happens in the classroom. In addition, for videos and QR bar codes, we create rubrics to check whether we and students use the technology correctly, and measure students’ growth with these tools.
Seeing teacher growth in action. I see the online work of all students and the feedback the teachers give. That helps guide me support, coach, and develop my teachers.
Seeing student growth in action. With short videos, students and parents can monitor their progress throughout the year. Students can really see their personal growth in how they analyze questions and present information.

QR codes in the classroom

In addition to using video recordings, we also embed QR codes in students’ learning center activities. Students circle their answers in pen (so they can’t change answers later), then scan the QR code to check their work. They must explain why any answers were wrong, and we give feedback after that. Using QR codes saves time and lets students focus on their individual learning gaps.

Note that these methods aren’t the pre-made, kill-and-drill tech. My team uses technology to meet our instructional goals. We embed technology into proven activities to make them even more engaging.

As the multi-classroom leader, I’m able to select and refine technology, easing the burden on my teachers and ensuring that the whole team uses consistent, high-quality tools. I started by searching online for “teacher support group for technology.” Teachers happily share what tech they have tried and how it affects their students. I logged into programs as a student to test them, ensuring that I was comfortable with anything I introduced to students. But I also was open with students that this was a new tool that we were going to learn together. By making myself vulnerable as a teacher to say, “I didn’t have all the answers,” students learned that it was OK to make mistakes and try something new.

Technology is our students’ normal. If we’re not meeting them at their normal, we’re putting them at a disadvantage later in life.

This isn’t about changing what they learn; we strive for rigorous, high-quality content as always. We’re simply adapting to how they learn best — getting engaged in and accountable for their learning.

Amber Hines is the multi-classroom leader for grades 3–5 in English language arts and science at Zeb Vance Elementary in North Carolina’s Vance County Schools. She is a 2018–19 Opportunity Culture Fellow. Read more columns written by Opportunity Culture educators, many with accompanying videos, here.

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:

Public Impact News & Views

Welcome to the Public Impact blog, offering news and views from the Public Impact team. Questions or concerns? Contact editor Sharon Kebschull Barrett.