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Beverley Tyndall

What Makes an Opportunity Culture® Different?

March 31, 2015

When Public Impact launched the Opportunity Culture initiative, we were clear on the goal: reach as many students as possible with excellent teaching. As our team worked with teachers and principals, we committed to a second goal: provide outstanding, lasting, well-paid career opportunities to educators.

As researchers, we saw many pay and career path programs fall short of those goals–and still see too many today. Too often, pay programs fail to provide opportunities for teachers to learn from outstanding peers and others at work–to collaborate, plan with, and support one another. Too many new roles are funded with temporary or politically tenuous money. And very few pay or career path programs increase the number of students who have excellent teachers formally responsible for their learning.

So we embodied our goals and the guidance to achieve them in the five Opportunity Culture Principles. Those principles set Opportunity Culture schools apart from the other efforts.

Here’s a primer on what makes an Opportunity Culture different:

Put Technology to Work in Rural Schools

March 30, 2015

Technology makes it possible for each of us to do more, learn more and be more connected.

Need to pay your bills and register your kid for swim lessons while locating a recipe for dinner? Jump online. Want to learn more about something you just overheard while in line at the grocery store? Type it into a search engine. Wonder what your former Little League teammates are up to? Check your Facebook newsfeed.

Imagine what we could do for education if we maximized the potential of technology for teachers and students. Technology’s potential seems particularly compelling for rural schools, which struggle to offer an array of learning opportunities, to transport students to a central facility and to get the best combination of teachers from small candidate pools.

Technology in education sounds terrific: It can bring the world to a classroom. It can give students access to courses and resources they might not otherwise get. It can inject engaging fun into the classroom, as students learn through games and create in a digital medium.

Technology seems like a shiny tool that will build a bridge across the achievement gap. But technology’s power, like any tool, depends on how it is used. If a builder buys a new skill saw and wants to get the full value from his investment, he will place it in the hands of his best carpenter and will charge that leader with training the other carpenters to use it effectively. Likewise, efforts to use digital tools in education gain new potential when paired with efforts to give more students access to the best teachers.

Schools in several states are doing just that by developing new staffing models that break out of the traditional one-teacher-per-classroom model. They extend the reach of their top teachers using technology and team leadership. These teacher-leaders help their peers orchestrate in-person and online activities to maximize student learning. They use flexible student groupings and scheduling to meet each student’s needs while coaching teams of teachers toward excellent instruction.

Most rural schools, including districts participating in the Idaho Leads initiative, the Idaho P-TECH network, Khan Academy in Idaho and other efforts, are already forging ahead with integrating technology into their work. But to tap the full potential of technology, students, communities, educators and policymakers will also need to re-envision the traditional paradigm: particularly the notion of education delivered within classrooms of 20 to 30 students led by a single teacher.

In Technology and Rural Education, a paper funded by the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation and developed with the Rural Opportunities Consortium of Idaho, we offer a set of recommendations to overcome challenges and capitalize on the potential of technology to serve students, particularly Idaho’s rural students, including:

Technology and Rural Education

March 27, 2015

Technology holds great potential for rural schools, such as extending the reach of excellent teachers and expanding course offerings. But digital devices in a pre-digital school structure will not transform K-12.

Stretching One Great Teacher Across Many Classrooms

March 27, 2015

Published on NPR.org on March 37, 2015 by Blake Farmer A stack of research suggests that all the classroom technology in the world can't compare to the power of a great teacher. And, since we haven't yet figured out how to clone our best teachers, a few schools around...

What Could You Do in an Opportunity Culture®?

March 17, 2015

“The best of both worlds.”

“There’s no other job like this.”

“This is one of the greatest opportunities teachers have to increase their salary, as well as increasing their skill set, their strategies, and their leadership abilities. I think it’s an amazing opportunity that you just cannot get anywhere else.”

“I think kids are thriving in the environment. I think it’s really powerful.”

“As a professional, this has been the most feedback and constructive criticism in creating this teacher that I’ve always aspired to be, and now I have the support to do it.”

What could you do in an Opportunity Culture? For the teachers in the latest Opportunity Culture video, the possibilities seem far greater than in their former one-teacher-one-classroom roles. As they note, an Opportunity Culture gives them the chance to earn more, learn more, reach more students, and support and lead other teachers.

Teachers, watch and share this video with your colleagues–and then go see what job openings are posted in Opportunity Culture schools at OpportunityCulture.org/jobs/.

Districts, if you’re doing an Opportunity Culture, share this with potential hires. If you’re not doing it, see what you’re missing!

Policymakers, hear directly from teachers and administrators about why an Opportunity Culture appeals to excellent teachers and those aspiring to excellence–then see how you can make an Opportunity Culture possible.

This video can also be viewed on Vimeo.

Opportunity Culture® in the News: How to Transform Education

March 13, 2015

How can state and district leaders transform education by extending the reach of great teachers and their teams to many more students, for more pay, within budget? Read our latest thoughts this week:

  • On EdNC.org, Emily Ayscue Hassel and Bryan C. Hassel exhort North Carolina’s leaders to focus on the destination–giving all students access to excellent teaching, consistently–and set the guideposts districts need to get there. “State leaders can transform North Carolina by funding a diverse set of districts to design financially sustainable, scalable advanced pay systems that reward excellent teachers for reach and leadership,” write the Hassels, co-directors of Public Impact and founders of the Opportunity Culture initiative.
  • On GettingSmart.com, the Hassels write about the challenges–and a possible solution–to the need for great school leaders at a time when schools must achieve deeper learning, not just learning basic skills. They call for a new model–one that combines Multi-Classroom Leadership with multi-school leadership.
  • And EducationNext.com highlights our video about the Opportunity Culture choices of Ranson IB Middle and Ashley Park PreK-8 in Charlotte.

Coming Monday: All about our latest Opportunity Culture video!

What could you do in an Opportunity Culture®? (2015)

March 12, 2015

Teachers and staff in Opportunity Culture school districts discuss how new teacher-leader roles offer teachers “the best of both worlds,” allowing them to work directly with teachers and students to help both reach their goals, while earning large pay supplements, within school budgets. Team teachers receive the support and feedback they need to develop into the excellent teachers they aspire to be, and students thrive in an environment where excellent teachers are directly accountable for their growth.

In the News: Charlotte Multi-Classroom Leaders Explain Jobs

February 11, 2015

Learn about an Opportunity Culture from some of the people who know it–and love it–best: Ranson IB Middle School multi-classroom leaders (MCLs) Bobby Miles and April Drakeford, along with Principal Alison Harris, and Ashley Park PreK-8 MCL Kristin Cubbage told Andrew Dunn of the Charlotte Observer and TimeWarner Cable News how Opportunity Culture roles keep great teachers in the classroom and provide the support, collaboration, and coaching all teachers need.

“This definitely is my dream job,” Drakeford told TWC News. “Teachers are getting better each week because they’re coached weekly. …It’s a lot of work, but you see so much success.”

In video clips for Dunn’s Opportunity Culture primer, Miles, Cubbage, and Harris explain some of the differences between Opportunity Culture positions and usual teaching roles, and tell how an Opportunity Culture creates career paths for teacher-leaders to stay in the classroom and keep and support great teachers.

Parts 1 and 2: Paying Teachers More—Within Budget (10:08)

February 3, 2015

Watch this space for an updated motiongraphic, based on the experiences of the first pilot schools to implement their own Opportunity Culture®s, showing the importance of models that let teams led by excellent teachers reach many more students, and let all teachers...