Brief explains why and how the federal government must focus states and districts on giving every student access to excellent teachers.
Could You Give All Students Excellent Teachers—and Pay More?
What if every U.S. student had a new civil right to an excellent teacher, every year, in all core subjects? What if schools also had to pay teachers at least 20 percent more, within budget? Could you design a school that met those demands?
Try it: Use Public Impact’s free Opportunity Culture scenarios to see if you could design a rural or urban, high-poverty school that
- closes gaps and helps all students leap ahead by letting excellent teachers take responsibility for all students’ learning in core subjects;
- pays all teachers more, and excellent teachers who lead teams far more, within budget
- gives teachers frequent school-day time for planning, team collaboration, and on-the-job development; and
- does not reduce student learning time.
It’s a tall order, but new school models, now being implemented in pilot schools in the U.S., can make what we call an Opportunity Culture a reality.
Designed to help district and school design teams rethink the one-teacher-one-classroom mode, these scenarios ask planners to assume the role of a school principal. The principal must develop a plan to give all students access to excellent teachers and their teams with the school’s current staff, without any new funding. The principal must make the school attractive by both paying teachers more and offering them a great place to work—full of teaching career advancement opportunities and job-embedded development led by teacher-leaders.
5th-Largest U.S. District Explores Extending Excellent Teachers’ Reach
At Public Impact, we and our partners provide districts and charter schools with support in implementing models to extend excellent teachers’ reach based on the Opportunity Culture Reach Extension Principles. But we hope others can do this without outside support, and we publish all our models and design tools for free—and continue to add materials—to make that possible. In Nevada, we’ve found what may be the first district to go it alone, using our materials.
Clark County, home of Las Vegas, is making plans to launch the new job roles of its Project Reach-Extended 10 in fall 2014, as the district grapples with both crushing budget deficits and a strong commitment to improve learning outcomes for all 311,429 of its students.
The Clark County School District (CCSD) aims to provide a variety of job roles and career advancement opportunities for its teachers who extend their reach, paying them more through reallocated dollars, not special grants—thereby creating a sustainable program.
Expanding the Impact of Excellent Teachers
By Bryan C. Hassel, Celine Coggins & Emily Ayscue Hassel If you are a teacher who helps students learn exceptionally well, this is your moment—schools and policymakers must vastly expand your impact, now. Today, our nation is at a crossroads; we simply cannot fall short educationally for another decade as other countries surge. Why is […]
Teachers: This is the Moment to Expand Your Impact
By Public Impact In this abridged version of the Commentary that appeared in Education Week, Celine Coggins of Teach Plus joins Public Impact’s Bryan Hassel and Emily Ayscue Hassel to discuss why schools and policymakers must expand the impact of excellent teachers, now. With new information demonstrating the great variation in teacher effectiveness and the availability of better […]
Teachers: This is the Moment to Expand Your Impact
By Emily Ayscue Hassel and Bryan Hassel; first published on Education Week. If you are a teacher who helps students learn exceptionally well, this is your moment—schools and policymakers must vastly expand your impact, now. Today, our nation is at a crossroads; we simply cannot fall short educationally for another decade as other countries surge. […]
The Original Personalization App—Great Teachers
By Emily Ayscue Hassel and Bryan Hassel; first published in Education Next With all the buzz about the District Race to the Top and jockeying to fit it into differing agendas, you might miss its simple premise: “There are great teachers … who have figured out how to personalize education and we are asking our districts to […]
Expanding the Impact of Excellent Teachers
By Bryan Hassel and Celine Coggins; first published on Education Week. If you are a teacher who helps students learn exceptionally well, this is your moment—schools and policymakers must vastly expand your impact, now. Today, our nation is at a crossroads; we simply cannot fall short educationally for another decade as other countries surge. Why […]
How to Pay Teachers Dramatically More, Within Budget
By Emily Ayscue Hassel and Bryan Hassel; first published on Education Next. There’s been a lot of chatter about increasing teacher pay—even doubling it. With the release of TNTP’s The Irreplaceables, talk about paying teachers more and retaining the best will likely increase. Whether or not your political perspective leaves you thinking this is necessary, most […]
Opportunity at the Top: How America’s Best Teachers Could Close the Gaps, Raise the Bar, and Keep Our Nation Great
Report explains why traditional policy initiatives have been unsuccessful and explores the potential impact of policy initiatives designed to improve student access to great teachers.
Teachers in the Age of Digital Instruction
Book chapter proposes that “digital education needs excellent teachers and that a first-rate teaching profession needs digital education.”
Reformers: We Must Be Much Bolder to Reach Every Child with Excellent Teachers
By Emily Ayscue Hassel and Bryan Hassel; first published on Education Next. As ESEA talk heats up, reform groups are tossing ideas on the table (e.g., here). We can debate the details, but most have some merit. Here’s the problem: even if our nation fully implemented most of the recommended legislation in the next decade, we still […]