Public Impact

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How 2 Pioneering Blended-Learning Teachers Extended Their Reach

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What makes blended learning different in an Opportunity Culture? As two pioneering high school teachers in North Carolina show in new vignettes, blended learning gives them a tool to reach 40 to 100 percent more students per class period with great teaching.

Students alternated days between classroom instruction with their blended-learning teacher and working from home or in a supervised computer lab. The teachers reached more students on the “off” days, but with class sizes staying the same or even smaller.

The two we profile—American history teacher Scott Nolt and precalculus teacher Caitlyn Gironda—both exceeded growth targets while reaching more students, despite having less face-to-face time with students. They earned thousands of dollars in extra pay for their roles, funded through regular budgets.

In the vignettes and an accompanying video, Nolt and Gironda share why they took on the challenge of pioneering this use of blended learning to reach more students, how it worked, and what they learned about how their students learn—and how they adjusted their teaching as they strived to continue to reach all students with excellence.

[Read more…]

Opportunity Culture Voices: Raising My Teacher Voice

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“What does ‘teacher voice’ actually mean? Until this year, it sounded like a nice phrase, but it didn’t hold much meaning for me.

“But I have a job I love, one that shakes up traditional teaching and holds the promise of making a huge difference in students’ and teachers lives—as it did for my students. I wanted to spread the word about my job—and now, with positions like mine under threat at my school, I needed to find my voice. I needed to empower others to explore the idea of an Opportunity Culture.”

–Nashville, Tenn., Math Multi-Classroom Leader Karen Wolfson, in Raising My Teacher Voice to Save My Job–and My Students’ Success

Last year, as the multi-classroom leader for fifth- and sixth-grade math at Bailey STEM Magnet Middle School, a high-poverty, historically low-performing school, Karen Wolfson took her teaching team and their students to new heights:

“Our school had the highest level of growth in the entire district in math in grades three through eight. My team’s two teachers overcame the long odds that the previous year’s data predicted they would face. In one grade, we were projected to have just 12 students rank as proficient or advanced. We ended the year with 43. We saw similar results in the other grade. Both teachers ended the year with the highest level of teacher effectiveness and evaluation scores.

“These teachers were new to the district, its protocols, and the Tennessee state standards, and one was a first-year teacher. Their results were practically unheard of—but under the MCL model, they felt supported and successful.”

But a coming merger of her school with a high school threatens to do away with the MCL model that Karen feels passionate about.

“I can’t let MCL positions disappear. I want to see my district provide many, many more opportunities like mine. And that’s why I took the idea of “teacher voice” very seriously—and what I found was just how powerful my voice can be.”

Read what Karen did to raise her voice, and why she intends to keep speaking up, in the latest Opportunity Culture column in Real Clear Education, and hear her thoughts on an Opportunity Culture.

Opportunity Culture Outcomes: The First Two Years

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This post first appeared in Education Next.

Maybe it’s because we’re turning 50 in the coming year and have together been pondering the plight of the poor and their lost human potential since we were 20. But we’re weary of hearing education reformers pretend that just changing policies and management systems—name your favorite—will put an excellent teacher in every classroom. Even though most of us have spilled voluminous ink on those topics.

What if, instead, change started where excellence already lives—in the classrooms and minds of excellent teachers? That is, those teachers who achieve large student learning gains and leaps in higher-order thinking, and who inspire and motivate students and colleagues alike.

What if all it took to launch were a handful of willing superintendents and some committed principals? Ones willing to empower those excellent teachers: to reach far more students, lead and develop teams of colleagues on-the-job, and help their principals lead their schools, for substantially more pay?

What if all “systems” changes were geared to make that possible, at large scale?

From that line of thinking was born Opportunity Culture, an initiative to try this idea: Let school teams with teachers on them redesign jobs and use age-appropriate technology to extend the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to many more students, for more pay, within regular budgets, adding more planning time, and having them take full accountability for the learning of all the students they serve.

Seven schools in two states began implementing these new school models in 2013–14. More than 30 schools in three states implemented last year, and more than 60 schools in five states will be implementing or designing their school models in 2015–16.

The Public Impact team facilitated school decision-making, along with Education First and Education Resource Strategies, and we produced many free materials to help. But the teachers and principals get all the credit for their outcomes. We’ve gathered data on their early results from the first two years, and we report all the data for which comparison groups were possible.

These outcomes are promising for students and teachers, but there is room to improve the support—and, yes, the systems and policies—that affect teachers in these new roles and their principals.

[Read more…]

What Makes an Opportunity Culture Different?

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When Public Impact launched the Opportunity Culture initiative, we were clear on the goal: reach as many students as possible with excellent teaching. As our team worked with teachers and principals, we committed to a second goal: provide outstanding, lasting, well-paid career opportunities to educators.

As researchers, we saw many pay and career path programs fall short of those goals–and still see too many today. Too often, pay programs fail to provide opportunities for teachers to learn from outstanding peers and others at work–to collaborate, plan with, and support one another. Too many new roles are funded with temporary or politically tenuous money. And very few pay or career path programs increase the number of students who have excellent teachers formally responsible for their learning.

So we embodied our goals and the guidance to achieve them in the five Opportunity Culture Principles. Those principles set Opportunity Culture schools apart from the other efforts.

[Read more…]

How 2 High-Poverty Schools Planned an Opportunity Culture Overhaul

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High-need schools. Lagging student performance. Teacher churn. “We’ve tried everything.” For many school principals, this may sound unpleasantly familiar.

At two Charlotte schools, though, the principals found something they hadn’t tried: creating an Opportunity Culture for their students and teachers.

By extending the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to many more students—for much higher pay,within available budgets, and adding time to plan, collaborate, and improve—the schools saw a way to address their dilemmas using the Opportunity Culture formula. By involving teachers at each school from the start in choosing how to extend teachers’ reach and pay more, they improved teachers’ morale, recruited more great teachers, and kept them.

[Read more…]

Opportunity Culture Principals Speak: “People Want to Be a Part of This”

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Now, it’s the principals’ turn: We’ve shared videos of multi-classroom leaders and team teachers telling why they love their jobs in the Metro Nashville schools that have created an Opportunity Culture. Hear why the principals at Bailey STEM Magnet Middle School and Buena Vista Elementary call an Opportunity Culture “sustainable,” “innovative,” and the “it factor” in changing the game for students and teachers. These principals’ schools use multi-classroom leadership, setting up the feedback loops from team teaching, collaboration, and teacher-leadership that they and their teachers revel in.

“Absolutely the most powerful benefit is student achievement”

“You make sure that every single child is in a top-quality classroom”

“Teachers are applying at newfound rates to be a part of this work”

[Read more…]

Giving thanks for Opportunity Culture Multi-Classroom Leaders

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Need more to be thankful for this year? Add these committed, enthusiastic, deeply determined teacher-leaders to your list! I recently interviewed multi-classroom leaders in in three Metro Nashville schools that use Opportunity Culture models. Videographer Beverley Tyndall and I couldn’t wait to share at least a few bits of these inspiring interviews, and we’ll soon be posting more videos from Opportunity Culture team teachers and principals–for whom we’re also quite thankful! For now, enjoy hearing just a bit about why these teacher-leaders love what they do!

Public Impact®

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