Public Impact® is hiring--come help us implement an Opportunity Culture® in more schools across the country! Public Impact®, which created the Opportunity Culture® initiative, is a national education policy and management consulting firm based in Chapel Hill, N.C. Our...
Beverley Tyndall
Opportunity Culture®: Introduction for Policymakers and Advocates
Policymakers and education advocates can use the Introduction for Policymakers and Advocates slide deck to understand and explain why students and educators need an Opportunity Culture. It provides some background statistics on the history of teaching and pay, and explains how Opportunity Culture career paths are helping address the profession’s challenges today, along with other resources.
Opportunity Culture® Voices: Mixing Team Leadership, Specialization
“ 'One-teacher-one-classroom' is a phrase you hear a lot in education these days: For the past 11 years, that described me. I taught on my own in self-contained third- and fifth-grade classrooms, and I loved my job. But I had enough leadership opportunities, such as...
A Win-Win Model for Students and Teachers
By Danielle Bellar, First Published by Real Clear Education, November 15, 2015
“All students and teachers deserve the opportunity to experience teaching and learning this way.” Multi-Classroom Leader® Danielle Bellar and her team had to make schedule and teaching adjustments, but Multi-Classroom Leadership has resulted in higher end-of-grade test scores, a decrease in negative student behavior, and support from parents.
“Every Great Teacher Needs a Coach as Well”
Multi-Classroom Leader® Bobby Miles, center, spoke on the Teach Strong panel with Mary Cathryn Ricker of the American Federation of Teachers and former Rep. George Miller of California. (Photo by Lisette Partelow) Last week, Multi-Classroom Leader® Bobby Miles spoke...
Boosting Idaho Rural Students’ College Prospects by Expanding Access to Great Teaching
In this paper written for the Rural Opportunities Consortium of Idaho, Public Impact examines the challenges that prevent rural schools from providing great teaching, and presents four strategies for increasing access to highly effective instruction in rural Idaho.
Combining Multi-Classroom Leadership and Subject Specialization
Danielle Bellar describes her role as a multi-classroom leader, leading a team of three subject-specializing teachers for 75 5th-graders in Charlotte, N.C. Read Danielle's related blog post, A Win-Win Model for Students and Teachers. Can't access YouTube? Watch...
Launching Paid Teacher Leadership with Union-District Partnership
How could a large number of well-paid teacher-leader roles emerge in a unionized district? This question is at the top of the list for many superintendents.
Syracuse, N.Y., educators have some advice, captured in a new three-page vignette, How One Union-District Partnership Launched an Opportunity Culture. Syracuse union and district leaders discuss their experiences and lessons they learned about working together for a successful launch.
In late 2013, the Syracuse City School District became the nation’s first unionized district to use Opportunity Culture, with four of its highest-need schools choosing and tailoring models to fit. They began to implement their new teacher-leader roles using the Multi-Classroom Leadership model in 2014–15, and are now expanding the roles to many more schools. Multi-classroom leaders—several per school—earn a $12,000 supplement in Syracuse for leading teams and helping their colleagues succeed, while continuing to teach.
Opportunity Culture models extend the reach of teachers who excel with students to more students, directly and by leading other teachers, for much higher pay funded by reallocating existing budgets. Teachers gain planning and collaboration time, and teachers in advanced roles are responsible for the outcomes of all the students they serve—as well as for the support, development, and success of their colleagues when they work in teams. In nearly all cases, instructional group sizes remain the same or even smaller.
The strongest advice from Syracuse on launching an Opportunity Culture? Both union leaders and a former administrator say: Get the union involved from the very beginning, and keep it involved at every step of the way.
Bobby Miles on Being a Multi-Classroom Leader®
Bobby Miles explains why his role as a multi-classroom leader is "the best of both worlds"—allowing him to lead a team of teachers while impacting more students in the classroom. Read Bobby's related blog post, 1 Teacher, 400 Scholars—and Loving It. Can't access...
The Whole Package: 12 Factors of High-Impact Teacher-Leader Roles
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.
Low-impact teacher-leader roles are a distraction from what great teachers really crave: helping their peers and more students succeed. Defining and organizing high-impact teacher-leader roles can allow great teachers to have a far greater effect on vastly more students and teaching peers.
DO design teacher-leader roles with these 12 factors in mind, involving teachers in the design decisions:
• Selectivity: make advanced roles selective
• Preparation: train teacher-leaders for their roles
• Greater Reach: use roles to give more students access to great teachers, not fewer
• Continued Teaching: let teacher-leaders keep teaching students part time
• Time to Lead—and Learn: give teacher-leaders time to plan and collaborate
• Development Opportunities: let teachers in the same role help one another improve
• Accountability: make teacher-leaders formally responsible for their students and teams
• Formal Authority: give teacher-leaders formal authority to spread their practices
• Higher Pay: pay supplements of at least 10%– 50% of average pay
• Funding Stability: fund higher pay with recurring budgets, not grants or tenuous line items
• Funding Scalability: for big scale, fund extra pay with stable, state-level funds
• Prevalence: ensure that each school has many advanced roles, not just a few
DON’T stumble over pitfalls with plans that have these unfortunate qualities: