By Paola Gilliam Over the past week and a half, Public Impact’s Sharon Kebschull Barrett has interviewed many current and past Opportunity Culture Fellows about their shifts to at-home learning—what’s going well, what worries them, and what tips they have for other Opportunity Culture educators and districts. Use this link to find these stories of how great teachers adapted […]
Annual Dashboard Update: Reaching Ever More Students with Excellent Teaching and Teachers with Excellent Career Opportunities and Support
By Paola Gilliam With little time to prepare for at-home teaching and learning, Opportunity Culture educators are bravely and innovatively doing what’s best for students. We’re not surprised: Each year, we report the latest Opportunity Culture statistics in our online dashboard. Opportunity Culture—currently composed of 90 percent Title I-eligible schools—continues to expand Multi-Classroom Leadership, growing 50 percent annually, on […]
As COVID-19 Forces Shutdowns, Resources for Teaching and Learning at Home
By Sharon Kebschull Barrett As many schools close and turn to online learning due to COVID-19, multi-classroom leaders (MCLs) can help smooth and lead the way for their teaching teams and students. Students need their teachers’ steadying hand even more when the world feels chaotic and parents face extra stress. Public Impact published initial guidance […]
Lead Instructional Excellence with New Tools, Resources
By Paola Gilliam To help Opportunity Culture multi-classroom leaders, their teaching teams, and other teachers lead student success, Public Impact has added to its suite of instructional excellence support. Our tools and professional development are based on experiences and feedback of top Opportunity Culture educators, as well as hard research. We provide a free, full set of […]
Charter School Leaders of Color Draw from Experience to Support Excellence
By Public Impact How has 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? We profiled eight such leaders to find out, in a three-part series written by Public Impact’s Daniela Doyle, Juli Kim, Shonaka Ellison, and Ismael Hernandez-Cruz in partnership with the National Alliance […]
More From the Opportunity Culture Fellows Convening
In September, Public Impact convened its Opportunity Culture Fellows for collaboration and learning, featuring sessions on tools to help educators personalize instruction, the science of reading, strategies of multi-classroom leaders and principals for team leadership and leading schoolwide change, and effective advocacy within schools and districts. On the Opportunity Culture blog, we are sharing some […]
Early Indianapolis Restarts Shed Light About Improvement Strategy
Districts are increasingly joining with external providers—often charter operators—to implement “restarts” as one way to turn around persistently struggling schools. In a restart, a school continues to serve the same community, while its new provider receives operational autonomy in exchange for a contractual commitment to raise student outcomes. Our ongoing research has documented more than […]
Learning From and With Opportunity Culture Fellows
In September, Public Impact convened its Opportunity Culture Fellows for a day of collaboration and learning which featured sessions on tools to help educators personalize instruction, the science of reading, multi-classroom leader & principal strategies for team leadership and leading schoolwide change, and effective advocacy within schools and districts. On the Opportunity Culture blog, we […]
How to Reach Far More Young Children with Excellent Teaching
Read our vision brief: Excellent Teaching for Every Young Child: Opportunity Culture in Early Childhood Education What if far more children ages 0–5 who are in early childhood education and care settings had consistent access to excellent teaching? In these critical developmental years, young children—especially those who have fewer educational and developmental advantages outside of […]
Meeting the Potential of a Virtual Education: Lessons from Operators Making Online Schooling Work
In general, virtual charter schools have had poor outcomes. A 2015 study from CREDO (the Center for Research on Education Outcomes) found that, on average, students enrolled in online charter schools lost 180 days of learning in math and 72 days of learning in reading compared to similar students in brick-and-mortar schools. But virtual schools […]
Why Charter Champions Should Partner with Parents to Support Students with Disabilities: New Report from Public Impact
In Better Together: Why Charter School Champions and Parent Advocates Should Partner to Better Support Students with Disabilities, Public Impact issues a call to action for charter champions—including charter associations, city-based education organizations and other reform organizations that see charters as an integral piece of a thriving system of public schools—to form and deepen partnerships […]
How Charter School Facility Incubators Can Overcome Common Charter Barrier: Case Study from Public Impact
Charter schools frequently confront inadequate facility funding, few affordable and suitable buildings, inadequate facility expertise among charter founders, and gradual expansion of enrollment and grade levels that requires more or new space. Charter school facility incubators provide affordable, short-term space for new and growing charter schools. In a new report, Charter School Facility Incubators: A […]