Creating an Opportunity Culture

College Board, NC School of Science & Math, Public Impact Join Forces for Rural Schools

written by Sharon Kebschull Barrett on January 17, 2019

Public Impact is excited to announce that our Opportunity Culture initiative is partnering with the College Board and the N.C. School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM) to reach rural school districts with excellent NCSSM teachers. In the first phase of this pilot, an excellent NCSSM teacher will become an Opportunity Culture multi-classroom leader for a team of pre-calculus teachers spread across rural North Carolina in the spring 2019 semester. The first phase will lay the groundwork to add more remotely located multi-classroom leaders from NCSSM and elsewhere.

The national Opportunity Culture initiative extends the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to more students, for more pay, within schools’ recurring budgets. Opportunity Culture multi-classroom leaders usually lead a small teaching team within one school, providing instructional guidance and frequent on-the-job coaching while continuing to teach part of the time. Accountable for the results of all students in the team, they also earn supplements averaging 20 percent (and up to 50 percent) of teacher pay, within the regular school budget. The schools redesign schedules to provide additional school-day time for teacher planning, coaching and collaboration.

The first teaching team includes teachers from Vance County High, New Bern High, Lexington Senior High, and North Pitt High schools.

Many rural and urban schools do not have enough teachers prepared to ensure student success in advanced math, science and other courses leading up to and including the AP level. This shortage was the impetus for this partnership.

“I am excited to be part of this project because I will be working with dedicated pre-calculus teachers from across North Carolina,” said the multi-classroom leader, Maria Hernandez. “Our hope is to support each other as we share teaching practices and rigorous curriculum that will engage students and foster mathematical curiosity. Working to prepare students for higher-level mathematics courses can help us pave the way for greater access to STEM careers in the future.”

Full details are in the press release, below.

Interested in getting started with Opportunity Culture in your district? Contact us!

College Board, Public Impact, and N.C. School of Science and Mathematics Pilot Remotely Located Teacher Leadership to Prepare Students for AP Math

CHAPEL HILL, N.C.—The College Board and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM) are partnering with Public Impact’s Opportunity Culture initiative to reach rural North Carolina school districts with excellent NCSSM teachers.

The national Opportunity Culture initiative extends the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to more students, for more pay, within schools’ recurring budgets. In the first phase of the new pilot, an excellent NCSSM teacher will become an Opportunity Culture multi-classroom leader for a team of pre-calculus teachers spread across rural North Carolina in the spring 2019 semester. The first phase will lay the groundwork to add more remotely located multi-classroom leaders from NCSSM and elsewhere.

Opportunity Culture multi-classroom leaders usually lead a small grade or subject teaching team within one school, providing instructional guidance and frequent on-the-job coaching while continuing to teach part of the time. Accountable for the results of all students in the team, they also earn supplements averaging 20 percent (and up to 50 percent) of teacher pay, within the regular school budget. The schools redesign schedules to provide additional school-day time for teacher planning, coaching and collaboration.

In 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 in 2017–18, Opportunity Culture schools in North Carolina—the largest implementation state so far, with about 80 schools—outpaced the state results in student growth overall (not just math). 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.

Founded and led by Public Impact, which is based in the Chapel Hill, N.C., area, Opportunity Culture now includes more than 20 districts in nine states, but no district or state has used the option of a remotely located multi-classroom leader (MCL).

This pilot will expand access to excellent teaching through a combination of instruction delivered by the MCL remotely and by on-site teachers under the MCL’s guidance. The College Board expects the pilot to demonstrate a new way to provide many more students with advanced coursework from in-person teachers in locations lacking such instruction now.

“We’re excited that the pilot will inform how we can help teachers support more students, especially those in rural areas, in developing the skills necessary for college success,“ said David Gupta, vice president of the College Board’s Southern Regional Office. “This will prepare students for success in AP courses, which give students the opportunity to earn college credit for their hard work in high school.”

A hallmark of Opportunity Culture design is the higher pay for MCLs financed within existing school budgets. Public Impact will develop financial models that illustrate how Remotely Located Multi-Classroom Leadership could be expanded to schools across the country.

North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics will design and deliver the pre-calculus pilot course. Public Impact and NCSSM will design the remotely located MCL role and technology-enabled interaction with teachers and students. This pilot is limited to districts and schools in North Carolina, a state with expanding interest in Opportunity Culture (eight N.C. districts so far belong to the Opportunity Culture initiative) and remote access to online AP courses. Students benefit by being able to enroll in the class at their home school and receive both remotely delivered and in-person instruction. The in-person teachers benefit from the MCL’s guidance, support and teaching team collaboration.

“NCSSM teachers already deliver classes to students across the state through our distance learning initiative,” noted Melissa Thibault, NCSSM’s vice chancellor for distance education and extended programs. “This pilot gives our educators a way to help more teachers benefit from the kind of leadership and educator collaboration that exists on our campus, so we can reach even more students.”

Maria Hernandez of NCSSM will be the remotely located multi-classroom leader.

“I am excited to be part of this project because I will be working with dedicated pre-calculus teachers from across North Carolina,” Hernandez said. “Our hope is to support each other as we share teaching practices and rigorous curriculum that will engage students and foster mathematical curiosity. Working to prepare students for higher-level mathematics courses can help us pave the way for greater access to STEM careers in the future.”

Hernandez will lead a team of these teachers:

Stanford Wickham, Vance County High School
Jocelyn Thammavong, New Bern High School
Ashley Knox, New Bern High School
Corrette Miller, Lexington Senior High School
Sarah Donaldson, North Pitt High School

“I really like the idea of having an extra teacher in the classroom, even if it’s not every day—someone to co-teach, to answer students’ questions so that they can dig deeper into content, and to guide me in better developing students’ higher-order thinking skills with probing questions,” New Bern High teacher Ashley Knox said.

Veteran teacher Corrette Miller said she sees long-term benefits to multi-classroom leadership: “I’ve been in public schools for 30 years, and this is what’s going to keep me in for the next five to 10 years. This won’t just improve my teaching for this year—it will impact all the students that I’ll teach for the rest of my career.”

When the pilot concludes in June 2019, Public Impact will publish sample models and resources to encourage future design and implementation of Remotely Located Multi-Classroom Leadership across the U.S.

“Every student and teacher should have access to a professional team that will help them achieve high-growth learning in advanced subjects. In some locations, remotely-connected teams make that possible. We’re thrilled to have exemplary partners in the College Board, NCSSM, the school districts and dedicated educators to help achieve this goal,” said Stephanie Dean, vice president of strategic policy advising at Public Impact.

Opportunity Culture in the News: Edgecombe County Schools

written by Sharon Kebschull Barrett on November 29, 2018

Today’s Hechinger Report highlights Opportunity Culture in Edgecombe County Public Schools, a rural North Carolina district, noting its effects on:

teacher recruitment (schools using this model have historically started the year with two to four empty teaching positions, but this year had none),
“profound collaboration among teachers,”
and strong student growth (North Edgecombe High School has exceeded growth expectations two years in a row and entered the top 20 percent of schools in the state on that measure).

Noting these “major accomplishments” in Edgecombe County, reporter Tara Garcia Mathewson quotes Erin Swanson, Edgecombe’s director of innovation, saying that Opportunity Culture could be transformational.

“We know that in order to really do things differently,” Swanson said, “to reimagine what education looks like for our kids, we have got to have the most amazing people at every level.”

Read more about North Edgecombe High’s principal Donnell Cannon (recently selected as an Opportunity Culture Fellow) in the Fall Opportunity Culture newsletter. And don’t miss the latest newsletter, which includes a spotlight on North Carolina districts’ Opportunity Culture student growth results.

And check out the latest slide deck from Opportunity Culture on Multi-School Leadership–see all Multi-School Leadership materials here.

Multi-School Leadership: Tools to Extend Excellent Principals’ Reach

written by Sharon Kebschull Barrett on June 12, 2018

An Opportunity Culture extends the reach of excellent teaching—what about doing the same for excellent schoolwide leadership? Public Impact, which founded the national Opportunity Culture initiative, today releases a set of practical materials on Multi-School Leadership: How to extend the reach of excellent principals by having them lead a small group of schools, for more pay, funded within the budgets of their schools.

Multi-school leaders (MSLs) are excellent principals with a record of high-growth student learning who lead a small group of two to eight related or closely located schools. They lead a collaborative team of their schools’ principals while typically continuing to lead one school in the group directly.

The cornerstone of Multi-School Leadership is instructional leadership within each school by multi-classroom leaders. Together, these create a leadership career path with multiple levels, all focused on instructional excellence, frequent guidance and support for teachers and principals, and keeping great educators working directly with students.

These new roles also allow paid, full-time residencies for both aspiring teachers and principals—entirely within schools’ regular budgets. (Public Impact will be publishing more on residencies in the near future.)

New Multi-School Leadership Materials

Multi-School Leadership model; summary

Job descriptions: Multi-school leader, principal, instructional assistant principal/principal resident, operations manager\Other tools: MSL Schedule Specifications, MSL Critical Design Decisions

More: Look for selection guidance, tools for managing multiple schools, and more—coming soon!

Benefits of Multi-School Leadership

Reach more teachers and their students with excellent leadership
Let outstanding principals advance with higher pay, while continuing to lead instructional excellence
Help all principals and teachers continuously improve their leadership and instruction
Retain principals longer by helping them handle the job well and succeed with students
Build a strong pipeline of excellent instructional leaders, with a career path for development

How Do Multi-School Leaders Lead?
Multi-school leaders:

Lead their team of school principals to review data for each school and for the schools overall to identify the best approaches to achieve student success.
Guide each school’s top instructional leader in key elements of instructional and administrative leadership.
Observe and give feedback, coach, and lead performance data analysis and problem-solving throughout the multi-school team.
Rotate working in person in the schools they lead, connecting personally with teachers, staff, and families.
Take accountability for student learning, teacher satisfaction, and other outcomes in all schools led. Multi-school leaders earn supplements above principal pay, typically 10 to 40 percent, depending on spans and budgets. All pay supplements are funded within the total budgets of the schools in the group.

The Foundation: Multi-Classroom Leadership
Multi-classroom leaders:

Are teacher-leaders with a track record of high-growth student learning and leadership qualities.
Lead a small grade or subject team: co-planning, coaching, co-teaching, and modeling instruction and data analysis for and with the team.
Continue to teach part of the time, often by leading small-group instruction.
Work with other multi-classroom leaders as a team to help principals lead instruction, behavior policies, and other critical activities affecting learning in each school.
Take accountability for student learning, teacher satisfaction, and other outcomes in all classrooms led.

Because multi-classroom leaders co-lead instruction schoolwide, other changes in schoolwide leadership roles to allow multi-school leadership become possible. Research indicates that multi-classroom leadership helps teams of teachers produce substantially higher student learning growth than in typical schools, forming a strong foundation for adding multi-school leadership, too.

Opportunity Culture now includes more than 20 districts in nine states. See the Opportunity Culture Dashboard for more details.

Public Impact’s Opportunity Culture in the News

written by Sharon Kebschull Barrett on May 14, 2018

What’s new with Opportunity Culture? Recent news coverage highlights the growth and successes of Opportunity Culture, an initiative of Public Impact:

Jessica Smith (left) leads a teaching team as a multi-classroom leader in Indianapolis Public Schools.

Guilford school board wants flexibility to help 9 low-performing schools: Jessie Pounds of the News & Record reported on the expansion of Opportunity Culture into nine schools in Greensboro, N.C., with the district planning for more. “I am really grateful that we have taken a very significant step in hopefully providing much needed support and resources,” said Guilford County Schools board member Byron Gladden.

How long should teachers work before receiving tenure? In a discussion of tenure in California, Education Dive reporter Amelia Harper notes the need to develop teachers as leaders: “Administrators can use professional development to develop teacher leaders or can work with organizations, such as Public Impact to implement models in which teachers oversee and support teachers in multiple classrooms. By doing so, they can help make more of their teachers tenure-worthy, whether they receive tenure in their state or not.”

3 Vance schools set to launch Opportunity Culture initiatives: Miles Bates of the Henderson (N.C.) Daily Dispatch reports on the expansion of Opportunity Culture schools in the Vance County Schools District. “It will provide us with the opportunity to expose excellence in teaching to all of our children and will be great support for our teachers,” said Principal Marylaura McKoon. “It really is a win-win situation. It will do good things for our school.”

Teachers kept quitting this Indianapolis school. Here’s how the principal got them to stay: Chalkbeat reporter Dylan Peers McCoy reported on the exciting news that after years of high turnover, Opportunity Culture was making a difference in teacher retention at Lew Wallace Elementary. When he surveyed his students this year, Principal Jeremy Baugh said, 97 percent said they planned to return next year. Read about what the team teachers and multi-classroom leaders say about the support they received. “I can’t even imagine doing it without Jessica,” first-year teacher Abby Campbell said about her multi-classroom leader, Jessica Smith. “I would’ve been a hot mess.” Education Dive noted the results as well.

Guilford County Becomes N.C.’s 5th Opportunity Culture District

written by Sharon Kebschull Barrett on April 19, 2018

Under Superintendent Sharon Contreras, Guilford County Schools, based in Greensboro, N.C., has joined the national Opportunity Culture initiative to extend the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to more students, for more pay, within schools’ recurring budgets.

Researchers at the Brookings Institution and American Institutes for Research released a study in January showing the effect Opportunity Culture 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, in six of the seven statistical models, from 66^th to 72^nd percentile in reading.

Opportunity Culture, founded and led by Public Impact of Chapel Hill-Carrboro, N.C., now includes more than 20 districts in nine states, including five in North Carolina. Guilford will be the second of North Carolina’s five largest districts to join. See the Opportunity Culture Dashboard for more details about the initiative, which has grown to more than 225 schools since implementation began in seven schools in 2013.

Contreras was also the superintendent in Syracuse, N.Y., when she took the unprecedented step of becoming the first collective bargaining Opportunity Culture district in 2014–15, only the third district in the initiative’s pilot phase.

[Read more…]

Opportunity Culture by the Numbers: 2017-18 Dashboard Updates

written by Sharon Kebschull Barrett on March 16, 2018

Quick Stats from the Opportunity Culture Dashboard, updated for 2017-18:

225+ schools committed to Opportunity Culture
1,450+ teachers with advanced roles or on-the-job development
41,000+ students reached by excellent teachers extending their reach
$3.3 million in extra pay for teachers in 2017–18; $10 million since Opportunity Culture was implemented in the first schools five years ago
22 Opportunity Culture sites in 9 states—and growing
Strong educator support: 97% of surveyed multi-classroom leaders (MCLs) and 81% of all school staff involved in OC want Opportunity Culture to continue in their schools
High growth by MCL-led team teachers: Math gains rose from 50^th percentile of teachers to 75^th–85^th, reading from 50^th percentile of teachers to 66^th–72^nd

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

Details:

Schools—Opportunity Culture now has 228 schools committed; OC grew from 7 schools implementing in 2013–14 to 111 schools in 2017–18. Forty-six more schools have begun designing (planning for implementation) for 2018–19, and states and districts have committed to launch Opportunity Culture in an additional 71 schools in the next few years. Schools, cities, and states continue to join Opportunity Culture throughout each year.
Sites—9 states now have a total of 22 Opportunity Culture sites covering a range of urban, suburban, and rural schools.
Students—More than 41,000 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, they 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—There were 331 teachers in advanced roles and 1,135 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. Schools designing Opportunity Culture before 2017–18 used a variety of roles to extend teachers’ reach. Schools designing in 2017–18 and after will all use Multi-Classroom Leadership, embedding other roles within MCLs’ small teams.
Teacher Surveys—In anonymous surveys, 97 percent of multi-classroom leaders and 81 percent of all school staff involved in OC want Opportunity Culture to continue in their schools. 94 percent of MCLs also reported a positive impact on staff collaboration and student achievement; 96 percent agreed that they have new leadership opportunities; and 95 percent agreed they have better pay opportunities and the chance to reach more students. And 96 percent of MCLs and 89 percent of all OC teachers agree that they receive feedback that can help them improve teaching.
Pay—$3.3 million was reallocated to higher teacher pay in 2017–18; $10 million has been reallocated since OC began in 2013. The highest pay supplement was $23,000 (for MCLs). The average MCL supplement was $12,247, or 21 percent of the average teacher salary in the U.S. OC supplements for all teachers ranged from $1,500 to $23,000.
Student Results—A study from the American Institutes for 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 50^th 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.

See the dashboard for more details.

Public Impact analyzes the dashboard results so we can continually improve Opportunity Culture materials and our work with schools and districts. Our goals are to reach all students with excellent teaching and all teachers with outstanding career opportunities and support.

“We are grateful to the hundreds of teachers, principals, and district staff nationally who have stepped out of their comfort zones to achieve more for students through Opportunity Culture,” said Emily Ayscue Hassel, co-founder of the Opportunity Culture initiative and Public Impact co-president. “Public Impact treasures both the feedback from these educators and the hard data to make Opportunity Culture even better for people as it grows.”

How Does an Opportunity Culture Work?

In each Opportunity Culture school, a team of teachers and administrators adopts new roles to reach more students with teachers who have produced high-growth student learning. Multi-classroom leaders lead a small teaching team, providing guidance and frequent on-the-job coaching while continuing to teach, often by leading small-group instruction. Accountable for the results of all students in the team, they also earn supplements averaging 20 percent (and up to 50 percent) of teacher pay, within the regular school budget. The schools redesign schedules to provide additional school-day time for teacher planning, coaching, and collaboration.

Learn more at OpportunityCulture.org; hear from Opportunity Culture educators in teacher-written columns and videos.

We welcome your questions and feedback; contact us here.

Analysis: New Study Finds Huge Student Learning Gains in Schools Where Teachers Mentor Their Colleagues as Multi-Classroom Leaders

written by Emily Ayscue Hassel and Bryan C. Hassel on February 14, 2018

This column was first published on The 74 on February 13, 2018.

In survey after survey, teachers report dissatisfaction with the professional development they receive. Many aren’t satisfied with their professional learning communities or coaching opportunities. Teachers say they want more on-the-job development, career advancement while teaching, and collaboration time.

Some teachers are getting what they want. But is that good news for students? Do their students learn more?

According to a new study released through the CALDER Center, the answer is yes — a lot more. Authors Ben Backes of American Institutes for Research and Michael Hansen of the Brookings Institution found that students of teachers who receive these types of supports from multi-classroom leaders in Public Impact’s Opportunity Culture initiative showed sizable, statistically significant academic gains.