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Where Is Teaching Really Different? New Opportunity Culture Video

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What could you do in an Opportunity Culture? In a new video, teachers in Opportunity Culture schools tell how their roles let them:

—Reach more students with great teaching

—Lead other teachers without leaving teaching—“the best of both worlds”

—Give and get support—“the best part of an Opportunity Culture”

—Personalize learning for more students

—Help students learn far more

—Earn higher pay for the long haul—pay supplements in Opportunity Culture schools range up to 50 percent of average pay

Opportunity Culture schools in eight districts nationwide extend the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to more students, for more pay, within recurring budgets; in this new video, teachers tell what they love about their new roles.

[Read more…]

New Models Combine Teacher Leadership, Digital Learning

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Teachers using blended learning need guidance to help students achieve high-growth learning consistently. Teacher-leaders and their teams need time to collaborate and learn together on the job. Students need access to personalized instruction that catalyzes consistently high growth and expands their thinking.TT plus MCL

How can schools achieve all of these goals? Combine blended learning with teacher leadership. Two new models from Public Impact explain how elementary and secondary schools can combine Time-Technology Swaps and Multi-Classroom Leadership— while paying teachers far more, sustainably.

[Read more…]

Opportunity Culture in the News: Real Clear Education, NPR

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Looking for an overview of an Opportunity Culture, and an example of multi-classroom leadership in action? These could get you started:Churchwell team

  • Today, Public Impact co-directors Bryan and Emily Hassel kick off a monthly series of posts on Real Clear Education by Opportunity Culture educators. They explain the concepts behind an Opportunity culture as background to the series, which will be followed next month by Charlotte Multi-Classroom Leader Kristin Cubbage on her new role, which lets her extend her reach to more students by leading a team of teachers.
  • Nashville reporter Blake Farmer produced a story for NPR’s “All Things Considered” on a multi-classroom leader at Bailey STEM Middle School that continues to get attention. Farmer profiles Whitney Bradley, who is up for Tennessee Teacher of the Year, and discusses how schools using Multi-Classroom Leadership are creating a profession with room to grow and advance.

You can hear what Cubbage and other multi-classroom leaders, team teachers, and principals think about an Opportunity Culture at our Voices on Video page.

Put Technology to Work in Rural Schools

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Technology makes it possible for each of us to do more, learn more and be more connected.

Need to pay your bills and register your kid for swim lessons while locating a recipe for dinner? Jump online. Want to learn more about something you just overheard while in line at the grocery store? Type it into a search engine. Wonder what your former Little League teammates are up to? Check your Facebook newsfeed.

Imagine what we could do for education if we maximized the potential of technology for teachers and students. Technology’s potential seems particularly compelling for rural schools, which struggle to offer an array of learning opportunities, to transport students to a central facility and to get the best combination of teachers from small candidate pools.

Technology in education sounds terrific: It can bring the world to a classroom. It can give students access to courses and resources they might not otherwise get. It can inject engaging fun into the classroom, as students learn through games and create in a digital medium.

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Opportunity Culture in the News: How to Transform Education

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How can state and district leaders transform education by extending the reach of great teachers and their teams to many more students, for more pay, within budget? Read our latest thoughts this week:

  • On EdNC.org, Emily Ayscue Hassel and Bryan C. Hassel exhort North Carolina’s leaders to focus on the destination–giving all students access to excellent teaching, consistently–and set the guideposts districts need to get there. “State leaders can transform North Carolina by funding a diverse set of districts to design financially sustainable, scalable advanced pay systems that reward excellent teachers for reach and leadership,” write the Hassels, co-directors of Public Impact and founders of the Opportunity Culture initiative.
  • On GettingSmart.com, the Hassels write about the challenges–and a possible solution–to the need for great school leaders at a time when schools must achieve deeper learning, not just learning basic skills. They call for a new model–one that combines Multi-Classroom Leadership with multi-school leadership.
  • And EducationNext.com highlights our video about the Opportunity Culture choices of Ranson IB Middle and Ashley Park PreK-8 in Charlotte.

Coming Monday: All about our latest Opportunity Culture video!

In the News: Charlotte Multi-Classroom Leaders Explain Jobs

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Learn about an Opportunity Culture from some of the people who know it–and love it–best: Ranson IB Middle School multi-classroom leaders (MCLs) Bobby Miles and April Drakeford, along with Principal Alison Harris, and Ashley Park PreK-8 MCL Kristin Cubbage told Andrew Dunn of the Charlotte Observer and TimeWarner Cable News how Opportunity Culture roles keep great teachers in the classroom and provide the support, collaboration, and coaching all teachers need.

“This definitely is my dream job,” Drakeford told TWC News. “Teachers are getting better each week because they’re coached weekly. …It’s a lot of work, but you see so much success.”

[Read more…]

In the News: Charlotte’s Opportunity Culture

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New Charlotte-Mecklenburg (CMS) Superintendent Ann Clark highlighted the district’s Opportunity Culture career paths in her “State of our Schools” speech Thursday, the Charlotte Observer reports*.

Discussing the need to be competitive on teacher pay to retain teachers, Clark pointed out how an Opportunity Culture helps great teachers stay in the classroom while making much more money, using such models as Multi-Classroom Leadership and Time-Technology Swaps. Pay supplements for multi-classroom leaders can be as much as $23,000, or 50 percent more than average teacher pay in North Carolina, for example–within current school budgets.

Shortly into the first year of Opportunity Culture implementation in four schools, the district’s top leaders, including Clark, were so pleased that they decided to dramatically scale it up to reach nearly half the schools in the district by 2017-18. Now in their second year, those four schools were joined by 17 more, with up to eight more joining next year.

*This article is no longer available online.

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Identifying Schools Achieving Great Results with Highest-Need Students—Needs Index
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Employment Opportunities—Opportunity Culture Operations Coordinators
Public Impact is seeking candidates for Opportunity Culture operations coordinators to provide support for the Opportunity Culture team.

Learning in Real Time—How Charter Schools Served Students During Covid-19 Closures
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Engaging Families—Profiles of Leaders of Color
Three-part series looks at how being a person of color affected the ways in which successful charter school leaders built schools where students, families, and staff learn, grow, and thrive.

Building a Strong School Culture—Profiles of Leaders of Color
Three-part series looks at how being a person of color affected the ways in which successful charter school leaders built schools where students, families, and staff learn, grow, and thrive.

The Impact of School Restarts—Lessons from Four Indianapolis Schools
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