Top Results for Student Learning, Higher Pay, Educator Satisfaction
Opportunity Culture® staffing models, which create teacher-led teams, continue to produce top-tier results nationally, according to nearly a dozen years of data, Public Impact® reported today. The models reach larger numbers of students each year, produce substantial extra student learning growth, provide field-leading pay supplements, and achieve extremely high ratings in educator surveys. Districts examining turnover and vacancies have seen substantial declines. These results have held even as the model scales up nationally, unlike many school reform initiatives whose early results fade.
Teachers achieved far higher-growth student learning results after joining small teams led by a teacher in the Multi-Classroom Leader® role. Some teams include teachers who extend their reach to more students directly and advanced paraprofessionals who focus on small-group tutoring during the school day. The new roles all receive higher pay that is sustainable through reallocations of regular budgets, determined by school design teams that include teachers.
Substantial extra learning growth, within recurring school budgets: Students taught by these teams gain an extra half-year of learning annually (about 4.5 months per nine-month school year) in reading and math, averaging two rigorous third-party studies.
Team teaching roles include a typical range of teachers. Team teachers start, on average, at the 50th percentile of effectiveness, and their student learning surges above the 75th percentile on these teacher-led teams.
Title I schools that had these teams in place for at least four years and were reaching all students in core subjects in 2023–24 were 83 percent more likely to make high growth schoolwide than Title I schools without the teams.
The results have not softened with scale; in 2024–25 alone, Opportunity Culture® teams reached more than 200,000 students. The initiative will serve over 225,000 students in 2025–26.
Field-leading pay supplements: Supplements for the Multi-Classroom Leader® role have risen over a decade and now average 23 percent of each state’s teacher salaries, or $13,513, and go as high as $20,000, all funded through reallocations of regular budgets. The supplements are lifting some teachers into six-figure salaries. Other educators in innovative team roles typically earn between 3 and 15 percent extra, and residents on the teacher-led teams receive salaries, rather than working unpaid.
Very high ratings by educators: In an annual survey, educators on these teams have expressed strong satisfaction—the best among reported staffing initiatives. The survey asks thousands of educators how likely they are to recommend teaching on a scale of 0 to 10. In the 2023–24 Opportunity Culture® survey, 90% of team leaders, and 80% of all educators on these teams, answered 5 or higher, compared to only 66% of teachers nationally in a 2024 Educators for Excellence (E4E) survey. Opportunity Culture® educators were about twice as likely as other teachers nationally to give the highest ratings of 9 and 10. Teacher-leaders have consistently reported wanting the initiative to continue in their schools—between 97 and 99 percent, among those expressing a preference—and support from all staff on these teams has grown to 90 percent in the most recently available survey data.
Dramatic declines in turnover and vacancies: Districts that have examined effects on teacher turnover report substantial drops in teacher vacancies and improved retention rates when using Opportunity Culture® teams. In Winston-Salem/Forsyth County (N.C.) Schools, turnover declined 54% over two years in Title I schools with these models, according to district analysis. The Ector County, Texas, school district, which implemented Opportunity Culture® teams alongside companion changes including teacher residencies on teacher-led teams and increased tutoring, reduced vacancies more than 90%. The Stanford-Harvard Education Recovery Scorecard reported: “In 2019, the district was facing a massive teacher shortage, with over 350 substitute teachers filling in.” In 2024–25, “that number is down to 29.”
Districts using these models follow a set of design principles. Each school forms a design and implementation team of teachers and administrators that determines how to use Opportunity Culture® roles to reach more students with excellent teaching. The design teams reallocate school budgets to permanently fund pay supplements for those in Opportunity Culture® roles, in contrast to temporary grant-funded programs. They provide protected in-school time for instructional planning, collaborative improvement, and development. Team teachers and leaders have authority and accountability matched to their roles; team leaders share formal accountability for the results of all students on the team.
“Teacher-led teams are essential to scaling excellent teaching to all students,” said Bryan C. Hassel, co-president of Public Impact®, which founded the Opportunity Culture® initiative. “Over 12 years, 10,000 educators in urban, rural, and suburban schools have used their voices to help us get this right for their students. We’re delighted to ensure that educators earn more, too—and I think far more is possible.”
Dr. Hassel holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University and is a Rhodes Scholar and Morehead-Cain Scholar who has focused on financially sustainable approaches to anti-poverty and education policy for three decades.