22,000+ students reached by Opportunity Culture® teachers, more than 800 teachers in advanced or team roles, $2 million in higher pay in one year alone, and more high growth and less low growth than other schools: These are just a few results from the schools in...
educator pay
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.
“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...
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:
Big Changes in Big Spring
What can a rural, 4,000-student district do to attract and retain teachers, and support many brand-new teachers? In “Reconsidering the Traditional Model: Big Spring ISD Works to Build Teacher Career Pathways,” Cindy Clegg writes in the Texas Lone Star about how and why the Big Spring school district is creating an Opportunity Culture.
A publication of the Texas Association of School Boards, the Texas Lone Star takes an in-depth look at the multi-classroom model being used in combination with paraprofessional support to extend the reach of great teachers to many more students and teachers, within regular budgets–from choosing the model to carefully selecting the multi-classroom leaders–who lead a team, coaching, co-planning, and supporting the team, while continuing to teach themselves.
Texas has created a statewide initiative to introduce Opportunity Culture to interested districts. “We are trying to build statewide capacity for school improvement,” says Mark Baxter, director of school improvement and support for the Texas Education Agency.
Big Spring is starting with six multi-classroom leaders (MCLs) at three campuses, who each earn a $10,000 supplement, funded through teacher vacancies and larger classes, which have increased paraprofessional support. Although Opportunity Culture school redesign models do not require larger classes, Big Spring chose to go from 22 to 30 students because, says School Improvement Director Heidi Wagner, “Would you rather have 30 kids in front of one excellent teacher or 22 in front of a mediocre teacher?”
Read the full article here.
Teachers, It’s Time for Us to Say, ‘Show Me the Money’
Real Clear Education, September 15, 2015, by Romain Bertrand, Multi-Classroom Leader®
“I was not ready to leave a profession I loved, even though I needed the money and wanted the respect.” Many teachers are forced to choose between their profession and financial stability, but Romain Bertrand was able to get both by becoming a multi-classroom leader—one piece of the solution to the profession’s struggle to attract and retain great teachers.
Indianapolis First to Put Opportunity Culture® Into Contract
The Indianapolis school board and teachers union recently became the first in the country to include Opportunity Culture roles in their new contract, offering pay supplements of up to $18,300—35 percent of the district’s average salary. That comes on top of a major base pay raise—the first in five years—for teachers across the board.
Those pay decisions mean that in 2016–17, for example, a 16-year teacher will be able to earn $77,700 by taking on the highest-paid Opportunity Culture role, leading a team of four to six teachers. (Take note: This pay in Indianapolis is equivalent to pay of more than $110,000 in Washington, D.C. or more than $175,000 in Manhattan.)
The changes are part of an ambitious strategic plan for Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS), under the leadership of Superintendent Lewis Ferebee. The contract was ratified by 93 percent of the union members and approved in a 6–0 vote of the IPS Board of School Commissioners.
The Opportunity Culture initiative, created by Public Impact, includes seven districts in five states in 2015–16. Opportunity Culture models extend the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to more students, for more pay, within budget. Schools provide additional school-day time for planning and collaboration, often with teacher-leaders leading teams and providing frequent, on-the-job development.
A team of teachers and administrators at each school decides how to redo schedules and reallocate money to fund pay supplements permanently, in contrast to temporarily grant-funded programs. Opportunity Culture schools in IPS are expected to reallocate funds primarily from vacant positions to pay for the supplements.
The Indianapolis Education Association voted to include multiple Opportunity Culture roles in the contract, with the highest pay for multi-classroom leaders, who continue to teach while leading a team. These “MCLs” coach, co-teach, co-plan and collaborate with their team teachers, while taking accountability for the learning outcomes of all the students the team serves. In IPS, an MCL who leads a team of one teacher and a paraprofessional known as a reach associate will earn a $6,800 stipend. MCLs who lead a team of two to three teachers and a reach associate will earn an $11,400 stipend. Those leading a team of four to six teachers and two reach associates will earn $18,300 stipends.
All teachers teaching on an MCL-led team will earn $1,300 supplements, if the school can afford to do this for each team in the school.
In contrast, of the 120 large-district contracts in the National Council on Teacher Quality’s national database, most stipends are less than $3,000, and the biggest specified leadership stipend (for department chairs in Wichita, Kansas) is $8,614. The Indianapolis Public Schools’ maximum Opportunity Culture supplement of $18,300 is more than double that amount.
The contract also includes $6,800 supplements for “expanded-impact teachers,” great teachers who extend their reach to at least 33 percent more students with paraprofessional support, but who do not lead teams. These teachers may use enhanced digital instruction, specialization at the elementary level, and other models that include enhanced paraprofessional support.
“We are delighted and impressed by the collaborative environment and genuine commitment we see on the part of both the district and the union in Indianapolis,” said former teacher and Public Impact senior vice president Lucy Steiner, who is leading Public Impact’s assistance to IPS schools with these roles. “We will be working with the district and schools to ensure that teachers have the support they need to be effective in these new roles.” The Joyce Foundation is providing partial support to launch Public Impact’s work with IPS.
IPS is the second collective bargaining district in which the local teachers union has supported Opportunity Culture roles, but the first to include the roles in its contract for all teachers.
Read more:
- “Eye-popping salary increases for teacher-leaders”:Stephen Sawchuk in Education Week’s Teacher Beat–Indianapolis Pact Couples New Teacher Roles and Big Pay Boosts
- IPS teachers view strategic plan, initiatives firsthand: WISH-TV News
- With a strategic plan and teacher pay overhaul, will a new era dawn for IPS?: Scott Elliott at Chalkbeat Indiana
- Deal between IPS and its union means big pay raises for teachers: Scott Elliott at Chalkbeat Indiana
- Behind the Headline: Indianapolis Pact Couples New Teacher Roles and Big Pay: Education Next
Opportunity Culture® Lessons from the First Two Years
By Bryan C. Hassel and Emily Ayscue Hassel
In our companion post, Opportunity Culture Outcomes: The First Two Years, we shared student, teacher, and design outcomes from the first two years of Public Impact’s Opportunity Culture initiative, which so far has affected more than 30 schools, 450 teachers, and 16,000 students.
The outcomes are promising—better student growth, higher pay, strong teacher satisfaction. However, some pioneering districts, schools, and teachers achieved better, faster results than others. Strengths and challenges varied across sites. Learning from these differences fast is crucial to improved outcomes as more schools and districts create their own Opportunity Cultures, extending the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to many more students, for much higher pay, within regular budgets.
These lessons we drew from these early years are based on data we collected and feedback from Opportunity Culture schools and districts, including teachers, principals, and district administrators. Implementation teams from Public Impact or its partners Education First and Education Resource Strategies solicited feedback using “exit slips” after every decision-making meeting with school and district design teams. We conducted interviews with staff and administrators at the school and district level. Implementation teams scheduled regular calls and made site visits eight to 10 times a year, during which we collected feedback and recorded our observations. With that and other data, we created the Opportunity Culture Dashboard, which contains indicators of implementation effectiveness, including student learning outcomes and teacher and staff perceptions from anonymous surveys.
Many of these lessons are no surprise—and yet still a challenge to get right. Some are a challenge only because the people who have power to change them must act with commitment and decisiveness—and the temptations to do otherwise are overwhelming.
Lesson 1: Address Necessary State and District Policy Barriers. Districts and states must identify and address Opportunity Culture (OC) policy barriers before the design process begins, and review annually at midyear in preparation for the next year.
Lesson 2: Establish District Support for Schools’ OC Implementation. District leaders must provide timely technical assistance, tools, decision-making power, and transitional support for small, temporary financial shortfalls for school models within Opportunity Culture Principles.
Lesson 3: Support Strong School Leadership for OC Implementation. Principals need training and support to lead a team of teacher-leaders and other teachers who extend their reach, and they need paid career advancement options that let them remain directly responsible for student outcomes.
Lesson 4: Build and Support Effective Design Teams. Form district and school design teams with clear goals, roles, and decision-making power, staffed with individuals committed to OC Principles; top district leaders must maintain direction and support to implement and scale up the Opportunity Culture designs.
Lesson 5: Create Complete School Design Plans. School designs should include long-term and next-year detail about roles, financial sustainability, technology, schedules, and how teachers will work together.
Lesson 6: Clarify MCL Roles and Build Teaching Team Leadership. Multi-classroom leaders (MCLs)—essential in schools that want to reach all or nearly all students with excellent teachers—need clear roles, advance training, ongoing coaching in leadership and management skills, and protected time to plan and lead.
Lesson 7: Build Schedules that Let Teams Collaborate. Schedule and protect additional in-school time for OC teachers to plan, alone and as a team; review student work; and improve together during the school year.
Lesson 8: Hire Early and Be Selective. Recruit early, advertise widely using multiple methods, make links to Opportunity Culture job openings obvious on the district’s website, and use the materials on OpportunityCulture.org to recruit and be selective among candidates.
Lesson 9: Give Everyone the Right Data to Improve. Interim and annual data should be collected and reported to match OC roles, to help teachers improve during the school year and help principals lead well; consistent interim assessments would help OC teachers.
Opportunity Culture® Outcomes: The First Two Years
This post first appeared in Education Next.
Maybe it’s because we’re turning 50 in the coming year and have together been pondering the plight of the poor and their lost human potential since we were 20. But we’re weary of hearing education reformers pretend that just changing policies and management systems—name your favorite—will put an excellent teacher in every classroom. Even though most of us have spilled voluminous ink on those topics.
What if, instead, change started where excellence already lives—in the classrooms and minds of excellent teachers? That is, those teachers who achieve large student learning gains and leaps in higher-order thinking, and who inspire and motivate students and colleagues alike.
What if all it took to launch were a handful of willing superintendents and some committed principals? Ones willing to empower those excellent teachers: to reach far more students, lead and develop teams of colleagues on-the-job, and help their principals lead their schools, for substantially more pay?
What if all “systems” changes were geared to make that possible, at large scale?
From that line of thinking was born Opportunity Culture, an initiative to try this idea: Let school teams with teachers on them redesign jobs and use age-appropriate technology to extend the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to many more students, for more pay, within regular budgets, adding more planning time, and having them take full accountability for the learning of all the students they serve.
Seven schools in two states began implementing these new school models in 2013–14. More than 30 schools in three states implemented last year, and more than 60 schools in five states will be implementing or designing their school models in 2015–16.
The Public Impact team facilitated school decision-making, along with Education First and Education Resource Strategies, and we produced many free materials to help. But the teachers and principals get all the credit for their outcomes. We’ve gathered data on their early results from the first two years, and we report all the data for which comparison groups were possible.
These outcomes are promising for students and teachers, but there is room to improve the support—and, yes, the systems and policies—that affect teachers in these new roles and their principals.
The Opportunity Culture Dashboard posts school design, student, and teacher outcomes, along with our findings about needed improvements. Among the outcomes:
- More than 150 teachers held advanced roles, and more than 300 other teachers were developed on the job by Opportunity Culture (OC) teacher-leaders in 2014–15.
- Teachers typically reached 33 percent to 300 percent more students than average.
- More than 16,000 students were reached using OC models in 2014–15, over 70 percent of them in STEM classrooms.
- Districts launching recruitment by March received applications at a rate of about 30:1 applications per OC position. Those starting later had between 4:1 and 10:1 per position.
- Teacher pay supplements for advanced roles ranged from $3,500 to $23,000 and averaged approximately $10,000.
- All sites but one paid these supplements completely within regular budgets by reallocating funding, with no grants or special funding; all are within regular budgets for 2015–16.
- Average weekly planning minutes ranged from 225 to 450.
- Of the three schools that implemented Opportunity Culture models schoolwide in the first year:
- Two had high growth in both reading and math in the first year.
- The third school had high growth in reading and math by its second year (subject to state verification).
- In schools transitioning gradually over two to three years, significantly more students in OC classrooms made high growth in the second year than in non-OC classrooms in the same and similar schools—by March 2015, 42 percent to 70 percent more made high growth, depending on the comparison group. Fifty percent more students in non-OC classrooms made low (Annualized data not yet available for OC classrooms; first-year data unavailable due to teacher privacy and lack of comparison data.)
- A significant majority of teachers agreed with a wide range of positive statements about the Opportunity Cultures in their schools in an anonymous survey.
These outcomes are promising, particularly because schools with reported student outcomes were very high-poverty.
However, some pioneering districts, schools, and teachers achieved better, faster results than others. Strengths and challenges varied across sites. Learning quickly from these differences is crucial to improved outcomes as more schools and districts create their own Opportunity Cultures.