This post by Whitaker Brown, an eighth-grade science teacher at Ranson IB Middle School in Charlotte, N.C., first appeared on the Project L.I.F.T. website. See here to learn how to apply in February for Opportunity Culture® positions in the Project L.I.F.T. zone of...
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Opportunity Culture® News and Views
The Importance of Having an MCL
This post by Nicole Hardy, a kindergarten teacher at Ashley Park Pre-K--8 Elementary School in Charlotte, N.C., first appeared on the Project L.I.F.T. website. See here to learn how to apply in February for Opportunity Culture® positions in the Project L.I.F.T. zone...
New Models Combine Teacher Leadership, Digital Learning
Teachers using blended learning need guidance to help students achieve high-growth learning consistently. Teacher-leaders and their teams need time to collaborate and learn together on the job. Students need access to personalized instruction that catalyzes consistently high growth and expands their thinking.
How can schools achieve all of these goals? Combine blended learning with teacher leadership. Two new models from Public Impact explain how elementary and secondary schools can combine Time-Technology Swaps and Multi-Classroom Leadership— while paying teachers far more, sustainably.
In middle and high schools, students in these models rotate on a fixed schedule between a learning lab and regular classrooms—a “Time-Technology Swap.” In the lab, students learn online, using digital instruction, and offline, pursuing skills practice and project work. This lab time, supervised by paraprofessionals, frees teachers’ time. That time allows teachers, working on teams led by multi-classroom leaders, to teach additional classes, and to plan and collaborate with their teammates on the job. Class time with the teacher is focused primarily on engaging portions of instruction that are best taught in person and in small-group follow-up. Lab work is chosen and directed by the multi-classroom leaders and their team teachers, and is personalized to each student. In some high schools, students do assigned digital learning and project work at home during part of the school day, rather than in a learning lab.
In elementary schools, students similarly engage in personalized digital learning and/or offline skills practice and project work for a limited, age-appropriate portion of the day at school. This frees multi-classroom leaders and team teachers to reach more students without increasing instructional group sizes, and to plan and improve together based on data about student progress each week.
Why should schools combine blended learning and teacher-led teams?
- All students reached with excellence: 100 percent of students can have one or more excellent teachers responsible for their learning in each affected subject, without larger classes.
- On-the-job learning and support for teachers: Teachers can gain and consolidate planning and collaboration time, and teachers can get more support and on-the-job development from multi-classroom leaders.
- Teachers earn more—often much more: Pay increases of up to 67 percent are possible for multi-classroom leaders, while pay for blended-learning teachers on the team can increase up to about 25 percent, within regular budgets, not temporary grants.
Many Opportunity Culture schools are already combining Time Swaps and Multi-Classroom Leadership. These new models offer a glimpse at what they are doing, and provide a starting point for additional schools that want to reach all students with excellent teaching and provide all teachers with career advancement opportunities and on-the-job development and support—creating an Opportunity Culture for all.
Work for Public Impact®!
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...
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...
“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 at...
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.
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:
Opportunity Culture® Fellow Bobby Miles on Teach Strong Panel
Opportunity Culture® Fellow Bobby Miles, a multi-classroom leader for an eighth-grade science team in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, will share his views on Tuesday, November 10, as a panelist at the launch event for the Teach Strong Campaign, a national partnership...
Opportunity Culture® Voices: Keep on Keeping On
“I’m practically a Syracuse City Schools lifetime member—from student, to teacher, to coach, then nearly into administration—but with a happy detour. I got to return to the classroom in a new position of multi-classroom leader. As the MCL, I lead a team of teachers while continuing to teach—the sweet spot for this point in my career.
But at a school new to me, in a new leadership role, with teachers who didn’t necessarily sign up for the total collaboration and openness of this team-teaching model, I faced challenges. I knew we needed to focus on data—we did need data to “drive our instruction”—and that meant sharing our students’ results with the whole team.”
–Syracuse City Schools Multi-Classroom Leader Maggie Vadala, in Keep on Keeping On: Using Data to Move Students Forward
Data-driven instruction + a new model of teacher-led team teaching + being at a new, high-need school + data systems that must continue to improve: That’s what Syracuse’s Maggie Vadala took on last year–and very happily. In Thursday’s RealClearEducation.com, Vadala describes the challenges.
“As I dug into the data, I realized I left one important item out: relationships! I was working with five third-grade teachers and 75 students. Altogether, the five teachers had just 11 years of teaching experience.
So while we were sharing our students’ sometimes dismal data, a far-from-comfortable experience for teachers used to working alone, I had to simultaneously build trust. They were welcoming but suspicious about my role—was I just there to run to the principal whenever they made a mistake? Where was I going with all that data? I had a group of committed people; now, they had to trust that I could guide us to accomplish more together than independently.”
Read how she did it, in her warm but no-nonsense, straightfoward approach to leading her team, and their ups and downs along the way. And hear more of Vadala’s thoughts on the accompanying video drawn from our September interview with her. She’s just one of the many inspiring Opportunity Culture teachers and teacher-leaders who sees the difference Opportunity Culture is making in schools. Read past columns from her Opportunity Culture colleagues in the Opportunity Culture series–and thanks to Real Clear Education as always for hosting it.