Blended learning holds unique promise to improve student outcomes dramatically. Schools will not realize this promise with technology improvements alone, though, or with technology and today’s typical teaching roles. In a new Public Impact policy brief, A Better Blend: A Vision for Boosting Student Outcomes with Digital Learning, which we co-authored with Joe Ableidinger and Jiye Grace Han, we explain how schools can use blended learning to drive improvements in the quality of digital instruction, transform teaching into a highly paid, opportunity-rich career that extends the reach of excellent teachers to all students and teaching peers, and improve student learning at large scale. We call this a “better blend”: combining high-quality digital learning and excellent teaching.
What’s Happening
Opportunity Culture® News and Views
Teachers Say “Yes!” to an Opportunity Culture®
A year ago, Public Impact began working with school design teams of pilot schools in the Charlotte and Nashville public school districts to choose and tailor school models for extending the reach of excellent teachers to more students.
We didn’t know for certain how well the design processes would go. We chose these districts because they had leaders who showed real commitment to expanding the impact and authority of already-excellent teachers and a burning passion to help disadvantaged students. But would that be enough?
Charlotte’s Project L.I.F.T. Flooded with Applications
Do teachers care about terrific career opportunities that let them stay in the classroom? Do teachers long for jobs that pay them more—substantially more—for leading their peers and reaching many more students with their excellent teaching? Do teachers want jobs that give them time during school hours to collaborate with and learn from their peers? Judging from the 708 applications now stacked at Project L.I.F.T., teachers are thundering, “Yes!”
Missing the Mark at the Arizona State Ed Tech Summit
As Stacey Childress and many others have pointed out, Andy Kessler’s closing remarks at this week’s big ed-tech conference at Arizona State University went way off track. By positioning technology as a way to replace teachers, Kessler missed the mark on two key points.
First, great teaching will matter more, not less, in the digital age. As we’ve written here and here, digital learning has the potential to level the educational playing field on learning the basics. As digital content gets better and better, students around the globe will be able to learn basic content and practice skills through this new medium.
Teachers: This is the Moment to Expand Your Impact
If you are a teacher who helps students learn exceptionally well, this is your moment—schools and policymakers must vastly expand your impact, now.
Today, our nation is at a crossroads; we simply cannot fall short educationally for another decade as other countries surge.
Why is this time unique? Two crucial trends are at play. First, the United States has begun to act on the compelling data showing great variation in teachers’ success in helping students learn, as well as the monumental impact this variation can have on the life chances of students. As states and districts work to build better teacher-evaluation systems, schools will have increasingly accurate and useful data to identify which teachers are exceptionally effective.
The Original Personalization App—Great Teachers
With all the buzz about the District Race to the Top and jockeying to fit it into differing agendas, you might miss its simple premise: “There are great teachers … who have figured out how to personalize education and we are asking our districts to identify them and amplify their reach and impact,” Secretary Arne Duncan said in his remarks announcing the competition.
Expanding the Impact of Excellent Teachers
If you are a teacher who helps students learn exceptionally well, this is your moment—schools and policymakers must vastly expand your impact, now. Today, our nation is at a crossroads; we simply cannot fall short educationally for another decade as other countries surge.
Why is this time unique? Two crucial trends are at play. First, the United States has begun to act on the compelling data showing great variation in teachers’ success in helping students learn, as well as the monumental impact this variation can have on the life chances of students. As states and districts work to build better teacher-evaluation systems, schools will have increasingly accurate and useful data to identify which teachers are exceptionally effective.
How to Pay Teachers Dramatically More, Within Budget
There’s been a lot of chatter about increasing teacher pay—even doubling it. With the release of TNTP’s The Irreplaceables, talk about paying teachers more and retaining the best will likely increase. Whether or not your political perspective leaves you thinking this is necessary, most people assume it’s a pipe dream given budget and political realities.
Public Impact’s Opportunity Culture team ran the numbers to determine how much more schools could pay teachers—within budget—just by putting excellent teachers in charge of more students’ learning. We found that schools could free funds to pay excellent teachers in teaching roles up to 40 percent more and teacher-leaders up to about 130 percent more, within current budgets and without increasing class sizes. In some variations, schools can pay all teachers more, while further rewarding the best.
Ed-Tech Innovators: Get Results Now by Leveraging Great Teachers
We’re excited about the prospects, but we all know it will take time for digital learning to transform education. Meanwhile, the effectiveness of teachers will continue to be the single most important school factor in student learning.
That doesn’t mean innovation isn’t important. On the contrary, it’s vital for moving from today’s reality–in which only a fraction of students have excellent teachers–to what students need: consistent access to excellence. Here’s a prediction: Digital developers whose products are used to enable excellent teachers to reach more students successfully will be rewarded with positive results and avoid the dreaded “Cheaper but No Better” headlines.
Teacher Evaluation Outside the One-Teacher-One-Classroom Mode
As more schools use technology and new staffing models to reach more students with personalized learning and excellent teachers, how will evaluation systems keep up? It’s been a heavy lift for pioneering states and districts—examples here—just to begin measuring the basics in a one-teacher-one-classroom mode. What can schools do to select, develop, and evaluate teachers in new roles—such as those working in elementary specialist teams, blending technology and face-to-face instruction, leading other teachers, or using any of these models while reaching students in remote locations via webcams?