Staffing shortages have plagued some schools for decades. How can innovative staffing designs help—and boost learning?
Growing Opportunity Culture Residencies in Texas
Bringing a fresh approach to teacher training, five more Texas school districts will be providing yearlong, paid teacher residencies on teaching teams led by excellent teachers in the 2021–22 school year, by implementing Opportunity Culture roles in partnership with local universities and US PREP National Center (University-School Partnerships for the Renewal of Educator Preparation). The national Opportunity Culture initiative, led […]
Education Lessons from the Pandemic
The Hill, March 13, 2021, by Thomas Toch and Lynn Olson. The pandemic relief package that just cleared Congress includes no less than $126 billion for schools, and there’s talk in education circles of using a portion of the money to reduce class sizes by hiring thousands of teachers to increase social distancing in schools. But scattered teacher shortages in parts […]
Federal Policy for Opportunity Anew
By Public Impact In the wake of Covid-19, the U.S. pre-K–12 education system needs more than a refresh. We need to think anew. In a new Public Impact brief, we recommend the means through federal policy to bring critical, effective instructional and emotional supports to millions of teachers and their students—for a price tag the country can […]
Bringing Indiana Teacher Pay, Prep Up to Snuff
How much does Indiana need to catch up to surrounding states on teacher pay? The short answer? $658.1 million—that’s the cost of bringing Indiana teacher pay to the regional median. In a thorough look at the teacher crisis in Indiana written by Public Impact’s Stephanie Dean, Stand for Children Indiana and Teach Plus make the […]
Design for Impact: Designing a Residency Program for Long-Term Financial Sustainability
Report provides actionable guidance for designing financially sustainable teacher residency programs.
Teachers Shouldn’t Have to Work Alone – and Now They Don’t Have to
Forbes, May 29, 2018, by Michael Horn
With the rise of online learning in schools—what educators call “blended learning”—what teachers do daily is changing in big and small ways. A central question is what will teaching look like in the future, as online learning can increasingly help students learn knowledge personalized to their specific learning need.
Analysis: Through Co-Teaching, Team Teaching, and Collaboration, These Pioneering Schools Are Rethinking How to Best Deliver Personalized Learning for Students
The 74, May 28, 2018, by Thomas Arnett and Bryan Hassel
K-12 education is abuzz with interest in personalizing instruction and a drive to change the student experience. Yet amid this innovative fervor, the traditional classroom staffing arrangement is still an unquestioned assumption in many schools, with each teacher working largely alone, taking sole responsibility for a roster of students.
How Team Teaching (and Other Innovations) Can Impact Blended Learning
eSchool News, May 25, 2018, by Thomas Arnett
Personalized learning’s rationale has strong intuitive appeal: We can all remember feeling bored, confused, frustrated, or lost in school when our classes didn’t spark our interests or address our learning needs. But an intuitive rationale doesn’t clearly translate to effective practice.
The One-Teacher, One-Classroom Model Needs an Upgrade. Here’s What’s Next.
EdSurge, May 24, 2018, by Stephen Noonoo
Emerging school models are supposed to ease the transition to personalized and blended instruction—or at least make it possible. But new ways of teaching can hit a snag when they run up against the familiar one-teacher-one-classroom setup. According to the authors of a new report, it’s not schools that need a “rethink” as much as school staffing.
Paid Educator Residencies, Within Budget: How New School Models Can Radically Improve Teacher and Principal Preparation
Report details how to create paid, full-time, yearlong residencies for aspiring teachers and principals, within existing budgets.
Nashville Student Teachers Earn, Learn, Support Teacher-Leaders
Better-prepared new teachers, more adults in every classroom, more small-group instruction, more adults caring for every student—how can a school wrap all that up in one package? Three Metropolitan Nashville Opportunity Culture schools are trying a novel approach with paid, yearlong student teaching positions. In a new case study, Public Impact examines this “aspiring teachers” program and its early implementation.
In 2013–14, the two elementary schools and a middle school, part of Nashville’s Innovation Zone created to help high-need, low-performing schools, combined the aspiring teachers program with the Opportunity Culture Multi-Classroom Leadership model. Multi-Classroom Leadership extends the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to more students, for more pay, within budget. A multi-classroom leader, or MCL, leads a team of teachers while continuing to teach, helping the team teachers develop and excel through extensive co-planning, co-teaching, and feedback on the job. MCLs take accountability for the learning of all students in their “pods,” and delegate responsibilities to teachers and paraprofessionals that make the best use of everyone’s time.
How has the program, which pays student teachers nearly $15,800 and benefits—in a position that is usually unpaid—affected all the teachers on these teams? Aspiring teachers say they will enter their first teaching jobs, especially in high-need schools, much better prepared. Team teachers and MCLs working alongside them appreciate the assistance in the classroom and the quiet pressure to “up their game” even more. While MCLs are formally accountable for the whole team’s outcomes, team teachers mentor the aspiring teachers, too, forcing them to think about the effectiveness of their own teaching methods.