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How 2 High-Poverty Schools Planned an Opportunity Culture® Overhaul

by | January 29, 2015

High-need schools. Lagging student performance. Teacher churn. “We’ve tried everything.” For many school principals, this may sound unpleasantly familiar.

At two Charlotte schools, though, the principals found something they hadn’t tried: creating an Opportunity Culture for their students and teachers.

By extending the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to many more students—for much higher pay,within available budgets, and adding time to plan, collaborate, and improve—the schools saw a way to address their dilemmas using the Opportunity Culture formula. By involving teachers at each school from the start in choosing how to extend teachers’ reach and pay more, they improved teachers’ morale, recruited more great teachers, and kept them.

“Opportunity Culture spoke to me,” says Alison Harris, principal of Ranson IB Middle School in Charlotte, in a new case study. When Harris arrived at Ranson in 2011, it was a school in trouble, unable to recruit and retain enough teachers for its struggling students.

“In the 2011–2012 school year, I just made it clear that we’ve got to do something to help our scholars catch up,” Harris says in an accompanying video. “They are already coming to us behind—it is no one’s fault, but it is everyone’s responsibility. … For many of our scholars, it is truly life and death whether or not they get a great education in middle school.”

Nearby, Tonya Kales and Jeanette Reber at Ashley Park PreK–8 felt similar concerns about getting their students a great education. At both schools, the principals and school teams that included teachers chose to use new Opportunity Culture teaching roles—Multi-Classroom Leadership for teacher-leaders, and Time-Technology Swaps, which blend learning through in-person and online instruction.

Those roles and the support for teachers, time for collaboration, and paid career advancement options they offer would, Reber says in another new case study, help Ashley Park attract and keep teachers and further boost her students’ learning.

In Multi-Classroom Leadership, excellent teachers continue to teach while leading, supporting, and developing a team of teachers. “Teachers don’t always want to leave the classroom,” Reber says in the video. “They don’t always want to get far removed from being directly involved with scholars. So Opportunity Culture was the perfect thing for these teachers who want to stay connected with the kids and grow themselves.”

After settling on the new roles, Ranson and Ashley Park began the multiyear process of introducing, implementing, and adjusting their models.

Recruit Great Teachers with Great Opportunities, 4 Key Steps

by | January 15, 2015

What brings excellent teachers in droves to apply for jobs in hard-to-staff schools? Project L.I.F.T. in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District started by offering a complete Opportunity Culture package of career advancement roles that let great teachers stay in the classroom, help more students, and collaborate with and lead peers. These roles provide significantly higher pay and offer on-the-job development to all teachers–within regular school budgets. With that package on offer, four key recruitment steps got teachers’ attention.

And so, in its second year of Opportunity Culture implementation in four schools, Project L.I.F.T. saw a strong uptick in both the quantity–more than 800 applications for 27 spots–and quality of applicants for teaching roles at schools that previously saw many positions go unfilled.

Dan Swartz, L.I.F.T.’s human capital strategies specialist, and L.I.F.T. Superintendent Denise Watts explain how they got there in a new vignette from Public Impact, Recruiting in an Opportunity Culture: Lessons Learned, with an accompanying video of principals and district leaders sharing how an Opportunity Culture attracts great teachers.

  • First, Swartz says, start early—by March, if not earlier, before the best teachers find jobs elsewhere.
  • Second, communicate clearly about the benefits—A complete package of sustainable career advancement opportunities is rare in education, and teachers won’t expect it. Districts must communicate the whole picture of opportunities, support, and pay.

Opportunity Culture® Principals: “People Want to Be a Part of This”

by | December 3, 2014

Now, it’s the principals’ turn: We’ve shared videos of multi-classroom leaders and team teachers telling why they love their jobs in the Metro Nashville schools that have created an Opportunity Culture. Hear why the principals at Bailey STEM Magnet Middle School and Buena Vista Elementary call an Opportunity Culture “sustainable,” “innovative,” and the “it factor” in changing the game for students and teachers. These principals’ schools use multi-classroom leadership, setting up the feedback loops from team teaching, collaboration, and teacher-leadership that they and their teachers revel in.

“Absolutely the most powerful benefit is student achievement”

“You make sure that every single child is in a top-quality classroom”

“Teachers are applying at newfound rates to be a part of this work”

And watch this blog! We’ll have more videos to come in 2015 from other Opportunity Culture sites, such as Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Cabarrus County, N.C., and Syracuse, N.Y.

Team Teachers Tell All! Why Opportunity Culture® Teams Work

by | December 2, 2014

Before Thanksgiving, we shared this video of Metro Nashville multi-classroom leaders (MCLs) telling why they love what they do; now, hear their team teachers share why they love working on MCL teams in an Opportunity Culture! Lead teachers at Buena Vista Elementary serve on MCL teams with “aspiring teachers” who work in yearlong, paid student teaching positions. As you’ll hear, they get the sort of daily, immediately useful, on-the-job feedback and collaboration that teachers say they crave, and that is a hallmark of Opportunity Culture school models (see the Opportunity Culture Principles). “Invaluable,” “amazing,” “really resourceful,” the teachers say–see why!

Coming Wednesday: Opportunity Culture principals tell why an Opportunity Culture is “the new frontier” for all schools.

Giving thanks for Opportunity Culture® Multi-Classroom Leaders

by | November 24, 2014

Need more to be thankful for this year? Add these committed, enthusiastic, deeply determined teacher-leaders to your list! I recently interviewed multi-classroom leaders in in three Metro Nashville schools that use Opportunity Culture models. Videographer Beverley Tyndall and I couldn’t wait to share at least a few bits of these inspiring interviews, and we’ll soon be posting more videos from Opportunity Culture team teachers and principals–for whom we’re also quite thankful! For now, enjoy hearing just a bit about why these teacher-leaders love what they do!

How the STEM Teacher Shortage Fails Kids–and How to Fix It

by | November 6, 2014

In the U.S., STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and math) get a lot of press lately. But it’s still hard for leaders to connect the dots: Too few skilled STEM teachers lead to too few students embracing STEM subjects, leading to too few STEM-trained workers to fill available jobs. The consequences for students-turned-job-seekers, businesses, and the U.S. economy—where STEM jobs are an economic growth multiplier—are enormous.

The statistics are grim. In Reaching All Students with Excellent STEM Teachers: Education Leaders’ Brief and the accompanying slide deck, Public Impact lays them out and then explains how Opportunity Culture school models can help. These models extend teachers’ reach to more students, for more pay, within budget, by saving teachers time and letting them lead peers while teaching in new career paths.

This report is part of Public Impact’s commitment to 100Kin10, a national network of more than 150 partners responding to the national imperative to train 100,000 excellent STEM teachers in 10 years and keep our best STEM teachers in the classroom.

“Many of 100Kin10’s partners focus on changing the opportunities and support available to STEM teachers,” says Talia Milgrom-Elcott, executive director and co-founder of 100Kin10. “Public Impact’s Opportunity Culture effort to extend the reach of excellent teachers and pay them far more is a powerful way to address teacher shortages and retention challenges.”

Who needs this new brief and slide deck?

  • District leaders—to learn how to improve your STEM efforts
  • Teachers—to support your advocacy for meaningful professional learning and advancement
  • Teacher-prep programs—to grasp how grim things are,and steer aspiring STEM teachers toward districts offering better career opportunities
  • State policymakers—to grasp why tinkering at the edges of traditional school models isn’t enough, and how policies can make an Opportunity Culture schools feasible statewide
  • Business leaders—to understand the root of the STEM employee shortage, and to learn what education reforms will help close the gaps
  • Reporters—to understand the background statistics and ways of addressing the STEM shortage

Opportunity Culture pilot schools are already attracting far more STEM teachers, by extending the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to more students, for significantly higher pay, within regular budgets. Early implementers received 30 applications for each open position, even in high-poverty schools that could not fill positions previously. Those are teachers who otherwise might be tempted away by the higher pay and multiple advancement opportunities of other STEM careers.

In an Opportunity Culture, students can experience consistent access to excellent STEM teaching. Great teachers can stay in the classroom while they advance. They lead teams on the job with clear authority and time to plan and collaborate, specialize in their best subjects, or use age-appropriate amounts of digital instruction, without having to increase class sizes.

Excellent STEM teachers in Opportunity Culture schools are already earning 10 to 50 percent pay supplements from within their schools’ regular budgets, not temporary grants.

5 Steps to Design Highly Paid Teacher Career Paths

by | October 29, 2014

To help all students reach their potential, district leaders must ensure that every student has consistent access to excellent teaching. Opportunity Culture compensation and career path structures help make that possible, and the new guide out today from Public Impact shows how.

Teacher Pay and Career Paths in an Opportunity Culture: A Practical Policy Guide shows how districts can design teacher career paths that will keep excellent teachers in the classroom and extend their reach to more students, for more pay, within budget. When districts design these paths, they create opportunities:

  • for excellent teachers to reach more students directly and by leading teaching teams,
  • for solid teachers to contribute to excellence immediately, and
  • for all teachers to receive the support and development they deserve.

The full guide walks a district through the organizing steps and details of designing Opportunity Culture pay and career paths that fit its needs and values. It includes an overview of key Opportunity Culture concepts, graphics and explanations detailing new school models and roles, and assistance for evaluating the impact of different compensation design choices. The steps guide districts to ensuring financial sustainability and designing a complete career lattice.

The summary provides a brief overview and graphics that show how pay and career paths work at a glance.

Being a Multi-Classroom Leader: “It Is My Dream Job”

by | July 22, 2014

“I glance at my computer clock; it is already time for the next block and I forgot to eat lunch. When a Frenchman forgets about eating, this is a sign that he loves what he does.”

So says Romain Bertrand, the first multi-classroom leader (MCL) at Ranson IB Middle School in Charlotte, N.C., today in “Expand Your Reach: New-world role combines coaching teachers and teaching students” on Education Next. Walking readers through a piece of a typical day, Bertrand explains how he leads two pods of three teachers and one learning coach (or teaching assistant) each–and is responsible for the learning outcomes of 800 sixth- and seventh-graders.

In an Opportunity Culture, MCLs earn significantly higher pay; in the Project L.I.F.T. schools within Charlotte-Mecklenburg, that means up to $23,000 more, or 50 percent more than average teacher pay in North Carolina. MCLs get to continue teaching while providing on-the-job professional learning for their teams, planning, coaching, and collaborating with them.

Bertrand loves his job–and he wants the world to know, so other teachers can have similar, highly paid opportunities that let them advance while staying in the classroom, reaching more students with great teaching. For more about him, Multi-Classroom Leadership, and the Opportunity Culture schools in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, see: