Results Show National Impact and Resilience Post-Covid
March 24, 2026, CHAPEL HILL, N.C.— New national data show that schools using updated Opportunity Culture® staffing design standards achieved, on average, two to three times the rate of schoolwide high-growth learning of other schools in the same states in 2024–25. These results extend prior findings across North Carolina. In addition, new third-party research in one district found a full extra half-year of learning in reading and more than an extra third of a year in math for students between 2020 and 2024. Prior third-party research on three districts found more than an extra half-year of learning in math.
The staffing designs create teaching teams that reached over 275,000 students and 10,500 teachers in 2025–26 alone and are expanding in 18 states.
“Educators continue to help students learn far more in roles designed to support excellent instruction,” said Bryan C. Hassel, co-president of Public Impact, which founded the Opportunity Culture initiative. “We see variation based on adherence to design standards associated with stronger learning, and potentially due to other factors like curriculum focus. Most important, students are learning while educators are earning more.”
Opportunity Culture staffing design affects both instruction and human resources by extending the reach of excellent teaching to more students, for more pay, within regular budgets—and with more time for team collaboration. Schools create Multi-Classroom Leader® teaching teams, which are led by a teacher with a record of high-growth student learning compared with others in the same state.
A team of teachers and administrators at each school determines the exact team design and instructional methods, which vary among sites. All schools now use design standards and materials based on data. Multi-Classroom Leader teams may include other teachers who reach more students and advanced paraprofessionals who tutor, for more pay.
Two to three times the rate of schoolwide high-growth learning: According to publicly available data, high growth surged among certified schools in 2024–25, the first year that schools had access to new design standards all year and that educators had direct access to design and instructional tools online.
Among hundreds of schools, 45% of Title I schools attesting that they met Level 1 certification standards for Opportunity Culture teams made high growth, compared with just 21% of Title I schools without the teams in the same states. Sixty-two percent produced high-growth learning schoolwide when they met the design standards and reached all of their students with the models. Increasing fidelity raised rates of high-growth learning even more.