Extending the Reach of Excellent Teachers - Opportunity Culture

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An Opportunity Culture for All

Read the full An Opportunity Culture for All report, or the summary.

In 2009, Bryan C. Hassel and Emily Ayscue Hassel presented the Opportunity Culture vision: how schools can reach more students with the high caliber of instruction that great teachers provide—while also building a profession that attracts, develops, and keeps more teachers who teach at this level.

They described how schools could use job redesign and age-appropriate technology to extend excellent teachers’ reach, directly and by leading other teachers, in fully accountable roles, for more pay—but within budget, and without forcing class-size increases.

When crafted correctly, reach models allow excellent teachers to be responsible for more students’ learning and to help peer teachers excel. Good teachers learn on the job while contributing to excellent outcomes. In most models, teachers work in teams and can support each other during collaboration time built into the school day.

Since then, under the Hassels’ leadership, Public Impact has worked with and documented school teams moving toward this vision through its Opportunity Culture initiative. In the updated vision based on that work, published as An Opportunity Culture for All, we still envision excellent teachers leading their profession to achieve great results by using job redesign and age-appropriate technology to extend their reach to more students, for more pay, within budget. And it has become increasingly clear how extending the reach of excellent teachers starts a virtuous cycle enabling increased teacher selectivity, opportunity, and pay—for all:

New Virtuous Cycle GRAPHIC

  • Selectivity about who enters and remains in teaching becomes easier when schools offer the engaging, developmental, financially rewarding jobs with outstanding peers that high performers want. When good teachers benefit developmentally and financially from having great peers, everyone has a reason to advocate for selectivity.
  • Opportunity for career advancement while teaching and rigorous, on-the-job learning become possible when fully accountable, excellent teachers advance by leading, collaborating with, and developing peers in teams to reach more students. Co-teaching on teams where excellence is acknowledged provides authentic on-the-job learning and enables a team’s teaching to rise to the level of the most skilled teachers in each instructional area. Paraprofessionals scheduled correctly enable these teams to collaborate during school hours and reach far more students.
  • Pay that is substantially higher becomes possible, without forcing class-size increases, when teams reach more students than possible in today’s one-teacher-one-classroom mode. Less-costly paraprofessionals save teachers time for reach, and academic resource teachers shift into fully accountable teaching roles, making teacher pay increases of 20 to 130 percent possible. Reallocation of other spending to higher teacher pay is also crucial to achieve six-figure average pay.

Read the full An Opportunity Culture for All report, or the summary.

Featured Publications

Days in the Life: The Work of a Successful Multi-Classroom Leader

November 28, 2017

Pioneering Blended-Learning Teachers Reach More Students

October 25, 2016

ESSA: New Law, New Opportunity

July 28, 2016

Understanding the Opportunity Culture Principles

July 28, 2016

Paid Educator Residencies, Within Budget

June 20, 2016

Principal Tools

June 7, 2016

Pioneering Multi-Classroom Leaders

June 1, 2016

More Publications...

Opportunity Culture News & Views

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

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 … Read more...

Public Impact Is Hiring: Paid Internships Available

We're hiring! Public Impact seeks interns to start immediately and in June, focused on two data projects. As part of their role, interns will: Gather both quantitative and qualitative data using a wide variety of sources, including research journals, online publications, interviews, and … Read more...

Opportunity Culture by the Numbers: 2017-18 Dashboard Updates

Quick Stats from the Opportunity Culture Dashboard, updated for 2017-18: 225+ schools committed to Opportunity Culture 1,450+ teachers with advanced roles or on-the-job development 41,000+ students reached by excellent teachers extending their reach $3.3 million in extra pay for … Read more...

Finding Inspiration Again Through Teacher Leadership

This column first appeared on EducationNC on February 23, 2018. As a young child I was always taught the famous proverb: If you love your job, you will never work a day in your life. I discovered my passion in education—my love for learning and teaching. So I have truly never “worked” since I was … Read more...

Job Opportunity at Public Impact: Entry-Level Research Analyst

Public Impact continues to grow and hire great new members of our team. See our latest opportunity, for an entry-level research analyst, and apply now! Work includes quantitative and qualitative analysis, learning from experienced professionals, and working independently and as a collaborative … Read more...

Public Impact Keeps Growing! Media & Communications Assistant Wanted

We're hiring--now seeking a media, communications, and editorial assistant. Public Impact is a national education policy and management consulting firm based in Chapel Hill, N.C. Our mission is to improve education dramatically for all students, especially low-income students, students of color, … Read more...

Join the Growing Public Impact Team!

We're hiring entry- and mid-level consultants to start this summer--join us! We are a team of professionals from many backgrounds, including former teachers. We conduct research to understand what leads to better outcomes, and we develop and implement innovative solutions to create dramatic … Read more...

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We encourage the free use, reproduction, and distribution of our materials, but we require attribution. If you adapt the materials, you must include on every page "Adapted from OpportunityCulture.org; © Public Impact." Materials may not be sold, leased, licensed, or otherwise distributed for compensation. See our Terms of Use page or contact us for more information.
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We are grateful to the funders who support the improvement and growth of the Opportunity Culture work.