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Beverley Tyndall
Teacher Support in an Opportunity Culture®
Opportunity Culture® teachers and teacher-leaders agree: It’s all about the support. Hear how teachers appreciate the genuine, on-the-job, consistent support they receive from teachers in the Multi-Classroom Leader® (MCL™) role. Can't access YouTube? Watch this video...
Teachers, It’s Time for Us to Say, ‘Show Me the Money’
Real Clear Education, September 15, 2015, by Romain Bertrand, Multi-Classroom Leader®
“I was not ready to leave a profession I loved, even though I needed the money and wanted the respect.” Many teachers are forced to choose between their profession and financial stability, but Romain Bertrand was able to get both by becoming a multi-classroom leader—one piece of the solution to the profession’s struggle to attract and retain great teachers.
Indianapolis First to Put Opportunity Culture® Into Contract
The Indianapolis school board and teachers union recently became the first in the country to include Opportunity Culture roles in their new contract, offering pay supplements of up to $18,300—35 percent of the district’s average salary. That comes on top of a major base pay raise—the first in five years—for teachers across the board.
Those pay decisions mean that in 2016–17, for example, a 16-year teacher will be able to earn $77,700 by taking on the highest-paid Opportunity Culture role, leading a team of four to six teachers. (Take note: This pay in Indianapolis is equivalent to pay of more than $110,000 in Washington, D.C. or more than $175,000 in Manhattan.)
The changes are part of an ambitious strategic plan for Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS), under the leadership of Superintendent Lewis Ferebee. The contract was ratified by 93 percent of the union members and approved in a 6–0 vote of the IPS Board of School Commissioners.
The Opportunity Culture initiative, created by Public Impact, includes seven districts in five states in 2015–16. Opportunity Culture models extend the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to more students, for more pay, within budget. Schools provide additional school-day time for planning and collaboration, often with teacher-leaders leading teams and providing frequent, on-the-job development.
A team of teachers and administrators at each school decides how to redo schedules and reallocate money to fund pay supplements permanently, in contrast to temporarily grant-funded programs. Opportunity Culture schools in IPS are expected to reallocate funds primarily from vacant positions to pay for the supplements.
The Indianapolis Education Association voted to include multiple Opportunity Culture roles in the contract, with the highest pay for multi-classroom leaders, who continue to teach while leading a team. These “MCLs” coach, co-teach, co-plan and collaborate with their team teachers, while taking accountability for the learning outcomes of all the students the team serves. In IPS, an MCL who leads a team of one teacher and a paraprofessional known as a reach associate will earn a $6,800 stipend. MCLs who lead a team of two to three teachers and a reach associate will earn an $11,400 stipend. Those leading a team of four to six teachers and two reach associates will earn $18,300 stipends.
All teachers teaching on an MCL-led team will earn $1,300 supplements, if the school can afford to do this for each team in the school.
In contrast, of the 120 large-district contracts in the National Council on Teacher Quality’s national database, most stipends are less than $3,000, and the biggest specified leadership stipend (for department chairs in Wichita, Kansas) is $8,614. The Indianapolis Public Schools’ maximum Opportunity Culture supplement of $18,300 is more than double that amount.
The contract also includes $6,800 supplements for “expanded-impact teachers,” great teachers who extend their reach to at least 33 percent more students with paraprofessional support, but who do not lead teams. These teachers may use enhanced digital instruction, specialization at the elementary level, and other models that include enhanced paraprofessional support.
“We are delighted and impressed by the collaborative environment and genuine commitment we see on the part of both the district and the union in Indianapolis,” said former teacher and Public Impact senior vice president Lucy Steiner, who is leading Public Impact’s assistance to IPS schools with these roles. “We will be working with the district and schools to ensure that teachers have the support they need to be effective in these new roles.” The Joyce Foundation is providing partial support to launch Public Impact’s work with IPS.
IPS is the second collective bargaining district in which the local teachers union has supported Opportunity Culture roles, but the first to include the roles in its contract for all teachers.
Read more:
- “Eye-popping salary increases for teacher-leaders”:Stephen Sawchuk in Education Week’s Teacher Beat–Indianapolis Pact Couples New Teacher Roles and Big Pay Boosts
- IPS teachers view strategic plan, initiatives firsthand: WISH-TV News
- With a strategic plan and teacher pay overhaul, will a new era dawn for IPS?: Scott Elliott at Chalkbeat Indiana
- Deal between IPS and its union means big pay raises for teachers: Scott Elliott at Chalkbeat Indiana
- Behind the Headline: Indianapolis Pact Couples New Teacher Roles and Big Pay: Education Next
Indy Teachers Union Votes Highly Paid Opportunity Culture® Roles Into Contract
August 31, 2015, CHAPEL HILL, N.C.—The Indianapolis school board and teachers union on Thursday became the first in the country to include Opportunity Culture roles in their new contract, offering pay supplements of up to $18,300 for teachers leading teams—35 percent of the district’s average salary. Read the full press release…
5 Steps to Great Evaluation: A System to Guide Development, Careers
Opportunity Culture models, which extend the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to more students, for higher pay within budget, change both the content and process of teacher evaluation—for the better. Public Impact’s newest, free, five-step toolkit, Evaluation, Accountability, and Professional Development in an Opportunity Culture: A Practical Guide, gives schools, districts, and states what they need to create an evaluation system that primarily guides teachers’ development and career opportunities.
An accompanying State Policy Brief speaks to anyone who wants laws and other policies to support the Opportunity Culture-style school culture focused on collaboration and excellence.
Why do districts need this? Because today’s systems don’t do what great evaluation should do:
- support on-the-job and long-term development for great teaching
- help identify teachers for advanced roles in which they are likely to succeed
- prepare teachers for advanced roles that help their peers and more students succeed; and
- match teachers to long-term paths in which they can best succeed.
In the still-prevalent one-teacher-one-classroom model, few districts have provided a robust, sustainably funded way to connect teacher evaluation with career opportunities, and they continue to bump up against questions of fairness in evaluation. How can teachers trust evaluators who rarely see them?
But in an Opportunity Culture, few teachers work alone most of the time. Most work in teams on which each person does what he or she does best, and a team of leaders supports the principal. That team collaboration lets them observe one another’s thinking and actions up close as they work together to plan and deliver instruction, often with the ongoing support, coaching, and co-teaching of a great teacher-leader. That means giving and getting valuable and accurate feedback to support their improvement throughout the year, which supports career advancement, which means helping more students succeed.
But districts and states must deliberately change evaluation to match the team, team leader, and extended-reach roles that are common in schools using Opportunity Culture models. These roles have wider spans of students, sometimes with narrower ranges of teaching content. They require enhanced soft skills—such as teamwork, team leadership, and flexibility—and hard skills, such as managing meetings and analyzing larger sets of student growth data during the year. Not changing evaluation systems appropriately can lead to mismatched students and teachers in formal accountability systems, lack of on-point, frequent feedback for teachers in new roles, missed opportunities for teachers to improve faster, and reduction of further career opportunities—harming teachers and students.
Our new guide helps education leaders align evaluation and its uses with an Opportunity Culture and similar school models and career paths—successfully and at a low cost. It reflects lessons drawn from one-teacher-one-classroom style evaluation as well as early experiences of Opportunity Culture teachers and principals—to guide states, districts, and schools toward ensuring that evaluation supports everyone’s success.
The guide and its tools are organized into sections covering evaluation redesign, evaluation content, evaluation process, and critical uses of evaluation. Each section includes a set of action steps, considerations and guidance, tools, and links to other relevant resources.
Although some changes in evaluation and accountability can be made at the school and district levels, our accompanying brief looks at those that require a policy fix at the state level.
Evaluation, Accountability, and Professional Development in an Opportunity Culture® Brief
This brief summarizes and discusses state policies needed to support evaluation and accountability in an Opportunity Culture. A companion practical guide details management and administrative changes at both the state and district levels. Seizing Opportunity at the Top II explains all the policies states should address as more schools implement an OC for teachers and students.
4 Great Examples of Teacher Voice: Opportunity Culture® Columns
What is it actually like to be a teacher-leader in an Opportunity Culture school? You can read the Opportunity Culture website to understand how an “OC” school works, and you can watch videos of teachers and administrators talking about why they love their jobs, what their roles are like, and other aspects of creating an Opportunity Culture.
For more in-depth looks at various aspects of an Opportunity Culture, though, don’t miss the ongoing series of columns written by OC teacher-leaders appearing in the middle of each month on Real Clear Education. To recap so far:
Kristin Cubbage, a multi-classroom leader (MCL) in Charlotte, kicked off the series with “An Opportunity for Change,” explaining her role as the leader of a teaching team, why she loves it, and calling on education leaders to “open the door” to the opportunities she sees in her school.
Joe Ashby, who was a multi-classroom leader in Nashville, writes about how the MCL model creates a teaching team that allows him to give and receive satisfying, useful professional development every day.
Bobby Miles, a multi-classroom leader in Charlotte, turns to the subject of accountability: MCLs extend their reach to more students by leading their team and continuing to teach students directly, for higher pay–and take accountability for the results of all the students in their team. For Mr. Miles, that means he’s accountable for the results of 421 students–and he loves it. “Far from being scary, it motivates me,” he writes.
And in the latest column, MCL Karen von Klahr, who teaches in Cabarrus County, N.C., writes about “riding the roller coaster together”–providing real support to a brand-new teacher. Watch the accompanying video of Ms. von Klahr and her new teacher discuss the joy they found working together.
If you need an overview of an Opportunity Culture, read an introductory column by Public Impact’s co-directors, Bryan C. Hassel and Emily Ayscue Hassel.
As the series grows, you can find all the columns here; future posts will include issues of teacher pay, data-driven instruction, blended learning, elementary school teachers specializing in one or two subjects, an Opportunity Culture in a unionized district, and in schools that are not high-poverty.
Evaluation, Accountability, and Professional Development in an Opportunity Culture® Guide
Evaluation is one critical element of an Opportunity Culture, used primarily to guide development and career opportunities. But previous teacher evaluation reforms were built for the one-teacher-one-classroom model, and few districts have provided a robust, sustainably funded way to connect teacher evaluation with career opportunities. This guide will help education leaders align evaluation and its uses with an Opportunity Culture and similar school models and career paths—successfully and at a low cost.
Riding the Roller Coaster Together: Real Support for New Teachers
Real Clear Education, August 17, 2015, by Karen von Klahr, Multi-Classroom Leader®
“When one teacher grows and learns with guidance like this, a much larger community will reap the benefits.” As a multi-classroom leader, Karen von Klahr was able to offer more support to all teachers on her team, but she found her role was particularly effective in helping a new teacher quickly adjust and grow.