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Beverley Tyndall

4 Great Examples of Teacher Voice: Opportunity Culture® Columns

August 25, 2015

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

August 18, 2015

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

August 17, 2015

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.

Instead of Ineffective PD, Try Redesigning Teacher Roles

August 14, 2015

TNTP’s new report The Mirage sheds light on the nation’s failure to advance strong professional learning for U.S. teachers. The report includes a call for redesigning schools to extend the reach of great teachers. TNTP President Dan Weisberg’s Ed Week quote on the report is right—to give teachers a real shot at professional learning that works, the nation “ought to be testing whether there are other models of school design, teacher jobs, that have a better chance of getting kids consistently excellent instruction.”

These are the right words, but our nation’s teachers and students need far more than words. Reports are a start. We’ve written quite a few of them ourselves about the need for new school designs that extend excellent teachers’ reach, going back to our 2009 3X for All. TNTP itself called for extending the reach of great teachers in one of its prior reports, The Irreplaceables. Teach Plus, Education Resource Strategies, the National Network of State Teachers of the Year, and others have, too.

Now, however, is the time for action. The consensus has mounted that the one-teacher-one-classroom model is not working well for teachers or students. Yet almost all teachers work in exactly that model, despite report after report calling for something different. It’s time to get out of that swirl of talk and transform schools for the better. As Ben Franklin said, “Well done is better than well said.”

What if all of us, and more, turned talk into action? What if the opportunity of new school designs and teacher roles were available to teachers everywhere?

Fortunately, action is already underway. The teacher voice organization Teach Plus has brought teams of great teachers into struggling schools to lead their transformation. Districts like Denver Public Schools are starting to create meaningful, differential roles for teachers. More than 60 schools in five states and seven public school districts have signed on to Public Impact’s growing Opportunity Culture initiative, now in its third implementation year.

We’re partial to the Opportunity Culture approach, because unlike other efforts, it is financially sustainable—and thus scalable to any school anywhere. In Opportunity Culture schools, successful professional learning is no mirage. Teachers are redesigning their schools’ roles and schedules so that great teachers reach more students, and most teachers work in teams led by excellent teachers. Each team leader takes full responsibility for teacher development and student learning in the team’s subjects and grades. In the 34 schools that implemented an Opportunity Culture last year, teacher-leaders earned an average of $10,000—and as much as $23,000—more for these advanced roles, giving them a clear stake in successfully developing other teachers. They have additional school-day time for planning and co-teaching, coaching, modeling, and collaborating with their teams—providing genuine, on-the-job, consistent development. A team of teachers and administrators at each school decides how to reallocate money to fund pay supplements permanently, in contrast to temporarily grant-funded programs.

As we wrote recently, the early implementers have gotten promising results, including high growth in both reading and math by the second year in schools that used Opportunity Culture models schoolwide. In schools converting more gradually to the new models, the Opportunity Culture classrooms showed far more high growth and far less low growth than students in comparable, non-Opportunity Culture classrooms. In anonymous surveys, teacher satisfaction is high, even among teachers not in advanced roles. Schools have received as many as 30 applicants per position for the advanced roles, and all have been selective. There’s room to improve, but the results point in the right direction. See for yourself on OpportunityCulture.org.

The Mirage is appropriately gloomy on the overall state of professional learning nationwide. Readers need to understand, however, that change is already happening. Charter schools and districts are hopping in the game, but­—for now—the districts are leading on staffing innovation at larger scale. They are implementing entirely new approaches in varied contexts—union and non-union, small town and big city, well-funded and not—and often in challenging circumstances, such as superintendent turnover and severe state policy constraints.

We’ve been pleased to have the CEOs of all the organizations we listed above on the national Opportunity Culture Advisory Team. We have partnered with others, such as Education First, to put the models into action. Many other organizations are well-positioned to help schools redesign themselves to extend excellent teachers’ reach in this way, too. If all of these leaders turn to action now, the stream of professional learning already flowing in 60 schools could become a vast river of learning and job opportunity for U.S. teachers—and their students.

This column first appeared on Education Next.

Hear about an Opportunity Culture from those already using it at Opportunity Culture’s Voices on Video page.

I Want To Be Like Karen

August 10, 2015

First-year teacher Emily Angles, from Winecoff Elementary School in Cabarrus County, N.C., tells why she wants to be like Karen von Klahr, her Opportunity Culture multi-classroom leader who explains the joy of having a teaching role that allows her to provide in-depth, on-the-job development for a brand-new teacher.

Free, In-Depth Training Materials for Teaching-Team Leaders

August 4, 2015

With advice and feedback from the first multi-classroom leaders (MCLs) in the Opportunity Culture initiative, Public Impact has created a free set of in-depth training sessions uniquely suited to the MCL role. The sessions may also benefit other teacher-leaders who lead teams and develop colleagues on the job.

Multi-Classroom Leadership is the most popular model chosen by school design teams implementing Opportunity Culture models. Multi-classroom leaders are excellent teachers who continue teaching while leading a team of teachers, taking full accountability for the success of the team’s teachers and students—for a lot more pay. But that combination of teaching and team leadership requires new skills that few teachers—even excellent ones—have developed. Feedback from MCLs indicated that leadership programs focused on aspiring principals or traditional coach/mentor roles don’t suit the needs of the high-accountability MCL role, which requires daily instructional management and leadership to succeed.

Opportunity Culture models use teamwork, job redesign, and technology to extend the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to more students, for more pay, within recurring budgets. Each school creates a design team that selects and adapts models that will suit their school best. Teachers and principals on these teams cite the importance of genuine team leadership and consistent, on-the-job feedback and development as key factors in the frequent choice to use Multi-Classroom Leadership, as well as the desire to reach as many students as possible with great teaching. In some schools, MCLs operate as a team of leaders for the school, supporting one another and the principal.

The MCL training sessions are structured to run over three summer days, followed by six shorter sessions during the school year. New and experienced MCLs can experience these sessions in formal training, study them on their own, or study them in meetings with other MCLs in their schools. District professional learning staff, principals, assistant principals, and other training providers can lead sessions using the included facilitator notes. Public Impact also organizes formal training and train-the-trainer sessions—with experienced, successful MCLs co-facilitating—and helps districts and schools establish a clear process for MCLs and principals to support one another’s success.

In 2014–15, the Opportunity Culture initiative included more than 30 schools, 450 teachers, and 16,000 students, and will include more than 60 schools in 2015–16. Early data from the initiative reveal that:

Recruiting for Hard-to-Staff Schools

August 1, 2015

In an article for School Administrator magazine, Sharon Kebschull Barrett, senior editor at Public Impact, examines how districts can attract rock star teachers, especially to hard-to-staff schools and subjects. Four districts that implemented the Opportunity Culture model have found a way to keep great teachers in the classroom and reach more students, offering leadership opportunities, on-the-job training and higher pay. 

Opportunity Culture® Lessons from the First Two Years

July 23, 2015

By Bryan C. Hassel and Emily Ayscue Hassel

In our companion post, Opportunity Culture Outcomes: The First Two Years, we shared student, teacher, and design outcomes from the first two years of Public Impact’s Opportunity Culture initiative, which so far has affected more than 30 schools, 450 teachers, and 16,000 students.

The outcomes are promising—better student growth, higher pay, strong teacher satisfaction. However, some pioneering districts, schools, and teachers achieved better, faster results than others. Strengths and challenges varied across sites. Learning from these differences fast is crucial to improved outcomes as more schools and districts create their own Opportunity Cultures, extending the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to many more students, for much higher pay, within regular budgets.

These lessons we drew from these early years are based on data we collected and feedback from Opportunity Culture schools and districts, including teachers, principals, and district administrators. Implementation teams from Public Impact or its partners Education First and Education Resource Strategies solicited feedback using “exit slips” after every decision-making meeting with school and district design teams. We conducted interviews with staff and administrators at the school and district level. Implementation teams scheduled regular calls and made site visits eight to 10 times a year, during which we collected feedback and recorded our observations. With that and other data, we created the Opportunity Culture Dashboard, which contains indicators of implementation effectiveness, including student learning outcomes and teacher and staff perceptions from anonymous surveys.

Many of these lessons are no surprise—and yet still a challenge to get right. Some are a challenge only because the people who have power to change them must act with commitment and decisiveness—and the temptations to do otherwise are overwhelming.

Lesson 1: Address Necessary State and District Policy Barriers. Districts and states must identify and address Opportunity Culture (OC) policy barriers before the design process begins, and review annually at midyear in preparation for the next year.

Lesson 2: Establish District Support for Schools’ OC Implementation. District leaders must provide timely technical assistance, tools, decision-making power, and transitional support for small, temporary financial shortfalls for school models within Opportunity Culture Principles.

Lesson 3: Support Strong School Leadership for OC Implementation. Principals need training and support to lead a team of teacher-leaders and other teachers who extend their reach, and they need paid career advancement options that let them remain directly responsible for student outcomes.

Lesson 4: Build and Support Effective Design Teams. Form district and school design teams with clear goals, roles, and decision-making power, staffed with individuals committed to OC Principles; top district leaders must maintain direction and support to implement and scale up the Opportunity Culture designs.

Lesson 5: Create Complete School Design Plans. School designs should include long-term and next-year detail about roles, financial sustainability, technology, schedules, and how teachers will work together.

Lesson 6: Clarify MCL Roles and Build Teaching Team Leadership. Multi-classroom leaders (MCLs)—essential in schools that want to reach all or nearly all students with excellent teachers—need clear roles, advance training, ongoing coaching in leadership and management skills, and protected time to plan and lead.

Lesson 7: Build Schedules that Let Teams Collaborate. Schedule and protect additional in-school time for OC teachers to plan, alone and as a team; review student work; and improve together during the school year.

Lesson 8: Hire Early and Be Selective. Recruit early, advertise widely using multiple methods, make links to Opportunity Culture job openings obvious on the district’s website, and use the materials on OpportunityCulture.org to recruit and be selective among candidates.

Lesson 9: Give Everyone the Right Data to Improve. Interim and annual data should be collected and reported to match OC roles, to help teachers improve during the school year and help principals lead well; consistent interim assessments would help OC teachers.