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

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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 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, in six of the seven statistical models, from 66th to 72nd 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…]

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

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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.

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Beyoncé and Teacher Pay: TEDx Talk Tells All!

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What does Beyoncé have to do with great teachers? Ranson IB Middle School Principal Erica Jordan-Thomas wants you to know:

“There are Beyoncé educators in every single school building dropping number 1 albums year after year in the form of mind-blowing results with their kids.”

But, Jordan-Thomas says in her just-posted Fall 2017 TEDx talk, those Beyoncé educators are being held back by the traditional one-teacher, one-classroom setup in most schools. And there just aren’t enough Beyoncé educators to fill every U.S. classroom.

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Opportunity Culture + Summit Learning: North Little Rock Pilots Statewide Plan

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To kick off a statewide Arkansas initiative to reach all students with excellent teaching, North Little Rock Middle School will begin creating an Opportunity Culture for teachers and students this fall, using teams led by multi-classroom leaders—experienced, excellent teachers who are paid more to lead a team, and are held accountable for student outcomes, teacher support, and team success.

Additionally, the North Little Rock district will use the Summit Learning Platform to personalize student learning. Summit Public Schools, located in California, created the platform to help students set and track goals at their own pace.

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Opportunity Culture Voices: New Series in The 74

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A decade ago, inspired by the best teachers we’ve known, we formed the seed of an idea — the notion that great teachers, those who induce high-growth learning and strong student thinking skills, could and should have far more power to lead instruction, help colleagues succeed, and innovate to reach more students. For a lot more pay.

Why? Because without high-growth learning consistently, students who start behind stay behind. Yet far too few teachers teach at that level consistently. And without pay to match more demanding expectations, these great teachers will keep leaving classrooms for administration and other professions.

When we finally published the idea in 2009, with more details in 2010, education leaders’ responses ranged from a head-scratching “What is this?” to “Here are the reasons this can’t work….” Only a few got it right away.

But when our team began working with schools in 2012, the odds flipped: Nearly every teacher understood immediately. Pioneering teachers in what became the “Opportunity Culture” initiative took these seeds and grew them into results.

–Emily Ayscue Hassel and Bryan C. Hassel, in Teachers in an Opportunity Culture: Well-Paid, Powerful, and Accountable

Jimmel Williams, a master reach teacher in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, teaches at one of the more than 100 Opportunity Culture schools currently in the U.S.

Jimmel Williams, a math master reach teacher in Charlotte, teaches at one of the 100+ Opportunity Culture schools currently in the U.S.

Today, Public Impact Co-Directors Emily Ayscue Hassel and Bryan C. Hassel bring the Opportunity Culture series to The 74, whose motto is  74 Million Kids. 74 Million Reasons to Talk Education. Columns for The 74 will come from Opportunity Culture educators eager to share what their jobs are like, the differences they make for students, and the lessons they’ve learned as they extend the reach of their great teaching to many more students.

“We and these great teachers are grateful for the chance to share — because we’re all tired of reading columns about what should be done in education, when we know that something amazing is already happening. In the columns to follow, teachers will tell you how they’re getting to “amazing” in this financially sustainable, scalable, teacher-loving initiative designed to help all students excel,” the Hassels write. Read the full column at The 74.

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…]

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