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Opportunity Culture Results: Dashboard 2.0

written by Sharon Kebschull Barrett on December 18, 2015

Note: The Opportunity Culture Dashboard has been updated. See the most recent dashboard results here.

22,000+ students reached by Opportunity Culture teachers, more than 800 teachers in advanced or team roles, $2 million in higher pay in one year alone, and more high growth and less low growth than other schools: These are just a few results from the schools in districts launching an Opportunity Culture. Public Impact’s expanded, interactive dashboard on OpportunityCulture.org shows progress in the Opportunity Culture initiative.
dashboard with arrow

Opportunity Culture (OC) now includes 72 schools, either implementing in 2015–16 (51 schools) or designing their OC plans for fall 2016–17 (21). The initiative launched with 7 schools in 2013–14. More sites and schools are joining.

In the 35 OC schools implementing in 2014–15, we’ve already seen that 45% more make high growth and 46% fewer make low growth than other schools in the same states, even though most OC schools are implementing their new models gradually over two or three years.

[Read more…]

The Whole Package: 12 Factors of High-Impact Teacher-Leader Roles

written by Sharon Kebschull Barrett on November 9, 2015

District leaders love the thought of “teacher leadership” that might attract and retain teachers—especially great ones—and close student learning gaps at a time of rising teacher vacancies.

But too often, teacher-leader roles fail to produce the full impact district leaders intend. They rarely dramatically improve student learning or teacher effectiveness.

What are the usual pitfalls? How can districts avoid them?

The Whole Package: 12 Factors of High-Impact Teacher-Leader Roles, a two-page brief from Public Impact, offers a quick list of the pitfalls, and a chart of the 12 essential factors for creating outstanding teacher-leader roles.

[Read more…]

How to Hire Great Teachers and Teacher-Leaders: Free Toolkits

written by Sharon Kebschull Barrett on June 2, 2015

In an Opportunity Culture, districts and schools offer new roles that extend the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to more students, for more pay, within recurring budgets and without forcing class-size increases. The new roles put districts in a much stronger position to hire great teachers—but only if they recruit and select well.

We’ve posted two new toolkits to make that work easier, walking human resources officers and principals through the steps to great hiring, informed by the experiences of early Opportunity Culture districts. These tools are useful for any district hiring teacher-leaders, team teachers, blended-learning teachers, elementary subject specialists, and advanced paraprofessional support—not just Opportunity Culture positions.

The Recruitment Toolkit, downloadable as a PDF, walks districts and schools through the major steps of a successful recruiting effort. It explains why districts that rely on passive strategies—expecting candidates to find out about available positions and apply—will not get the recruitment results they want.

The toolkit addresses key details, such as the timing of recruitment, which ideally begins each year no later than March, to attract a large pool of excellent candidates and capture their interest before they commit to other jobs. Strong recruitment enables districts to attract great candidates regionally, even nationally, who could be a perfect fit for Opportunity Culture or similar roles—including those not actively seeking a new job.

Once schools and districts have a pool of great candidates, what next?

The Teacher and Staff Selection Toolkit provides a four-step guide to help districts and schools select teachers and staff members from competitive talent pools. Districts that have created an Opportunity Culture have seen a surge of applications, even in high-poverty schools. This toolkit helps leaders adapt to a higher volume of applications and the opportunity that volume offers to become very selective in hiring.

The selection kit helps leaders screen and prioritize candidates for these new roles, which require new behaviors and skills beyond those needed in a one-teacher-one-classroom setting. Each step includes a set of considerations, action steps, and links to relevant tools and resources.

And if you haven’t already, take a walk around the Opportunity Culture website! We’ve revamped it so you can easily find the answers to the big questions about an Opportunity Culture:

  • What is an Opportunity Culture?
  • Where is this happening?*
  • How do teachers benefit?
  • How can policymakers help?

* The short answer: The first Opportunity Culture schools in Charlotte-Mecklenburg and Nashville, Tenn., have been joined so far by many more Charlotte schools, and schools in Syracuse, N.Y.; Big Spring, Texas; Cabarrus County, N.C.; and Indianapolis, Ind.; as well as others to be announced. Check out what teachers at the first sites say about their new jobs!

Texas Launches Statewide Opportunity Culture Initiative

written by Sharon Kebschull Barrett on May 19, 2015

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) has made Texas the first state to support multiple districts in creating anb Opportunity Culture, joining the national initiative designed to extend the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to more students, for more pay, within recurring budgets.

The Big Spring Independent School District, an eight-campus district in a town of about 28,000 people in west Texas, is recruiting for its first year of implementation in the 2015–16 school year, and the TEA is identifying additional districts to support in this work.

Big Spring is leading the way for small cities and towns in Texas and across the country to adopt Opportunity Culture models. These models use job redesign and age-appropriate technology to extend the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to many more students, for more pay, within budget.

Opportunity Culture teachers typically work in collaborative teams led by excellent teachers. Teams have in-school planning and collaboration time together and are formally accountable for all of the students they reach. Teachers in Opportunity Culture districts in Tennessee, North Carolina, and New York are earning pay supplements as high as 50 percent of their state’s average teacher pay.

”Texas is committed to providing pathways for advancement and recognition for our best teachers,” said Texas Commissioner of Education Michael Williams. “Through our support of Opportunity Culture at the state level, our goal is to quantify success in districts by working collaboratively with teachers and principals to support greater student achievement for all students.”

[Read more…]

What Could You Do in an Opportunity Culture?

written by Sharon Kebschull Barrett on March 17, 2015

“The best of both worlds.”

“There’s no other job like this.”

“This is one of the greatest opportunities teachers have to increase their salary, as well as increasing their skill set, their strategies, and their leadership abilities. I think it’s an amazing opportunity that you just cannot get anywhere else.”

“I think kids are thriving in the environment. I think it’s really powerful.”

“As a professional, this has been the most feedback and constructive criticism in creating this teacher that I’ve always aspired to be, and now I have the support to do it.”

What could you do in an Opportunity Culture? For the teachers in the latest Opportunity Culture video, the possibilities seem far greater than in their former one-teacher-one-classroom roles. As they note, an Opportunity Culture gives them the chance to earn more, learn more, reach more students, and support and lead other teachers.

[Read more…]

In the News: Charlotte Multi-Classroom Leaders Explain Jobs

written by Sharon Kebschull Barrett on February 11, 2015

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

written by Sharon Kebschull Barrett on January 30, 2015

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.

  • Learn more–fast!–about an Opportunity Culture in the new brief Opportunity Culture for Teaching and Learning: Introduction
  • Hear what teachers and administrators say about an Opportunity Culture in Voices on Video
  • Learn more about Charlotte’s early Opportunity Culture days and its recruiting success

*This article is no longer available online.

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