Public Impact

How Opportunity Culture® Models Aim to Increase Teacher Diversity

As recent reports have highlighted, public schools face an ongoing need to increase educator diversity. Students of color make up more than 50 percent of public school enrollment, FutureEd reported, but 79 percent of the teaching force is white. How can Opportunity Culture models help?

New from Public Impact®: How Innovative Staffing Can Address Teacher Shortages, Permanently—and Boost Learning

How can innovative staffing help reduce staffing shortages and boost learning? Public Impact’s latest brief explains how the Opportunity Culture initiative uses innovative staffing designs to create new career options for educators, increase collaboration and support, and incorporate high-impact tutoring for all students into the school day—within regular budgets.

New Opportunity Culture® Video: Leading Through Co-Teaching a Combined Class

As a temporary solution to a shortage of paraprofessional reach associates who can provide release time, Multi-Classroom Leader® Sunil Dutt combines one of his math blocks with that of a new teacher into one large group meeting in the library, so that Dutt can co-teach and model instruction.

New Opportunity Culture® Audio: Dramatic Student Growth Follows Focus on Data, Small-Group Tutoring, and Collaboration

Lucama Elementary, a rural, Title I school in Wilson County, North Carolina, implemented several Opportunity Culture roles in 2021–22. Following a focus on data-driven, small-group tutoring, instruction based on the science of reading, and greater educator collaboration through Multi-Classroom Leader® teams, the school dramatically increased student learning growth. Principal April Shackleford and Lucama educators explain their success, and why it led them in 2022 to expand to schoolwide Opportunity Culture roles in the latest Opportunity Culture audio piece.

Maximize Opportunity Culture® Models to Respond to NAEP Results

The NAEP results released this week may feel deeply discouraging—if not surprising—to weary educators. But Opportunity Culture research points to sustainable, scalable ways to improve student learning—and at Public Impact, we see ways to improve learning well beyond those initial research findings. This is the moment for Opportunity Culture schools and districts—and those considering using Opportunity Culture models—to rapidly reach as many students as possible and maximize the innovative staffing of Opportunity Culture teams to dramatically boost student results.