When Mississippi First and Teach Plus Mississippi each issued reports recently advocating for bold legislative action that would fund staffing redesign pilots, we wanted Opportunity Culture® Audio listeners to hear more.
Listen: In Mississippi, Responding to a Teacher Retention Crisis
State-level action and support is key to getting excellent teaching to many more students fast–and kids can’t wait. They need better learning, and for that, they need well-supported, well-paid teachers. As the leaders of Mississippi First and Teach Plus highlight in their reports, The Weight They Carry: Life as a Teacher in Mississippi and Reimagining School Staffing: Recommendations from Teach Plus MS Policy Fellows, Mississippi faces not a generic “teacher shortage” but a specific teacher retention crisis.
In our latest audio piece, Angela Bass, executive director of Mississippi First, Grace Braezeale, the director of research and K-12 policy who wrote Mississippi First’s report, Sanford Johnson, executive director of Teach Plus Mississippi, and Policy Fellow Sharon Buckhanan share what they hear from teachers throughout the state about the conditions leading to burnout and to great teachers leaving the profession altogether—and their hopes for how things could change for teachers, students, and parents if schools start using Opportunity Culture® teaching teams, proven to increase student learning and provide job-embedded, in-depth support for teachers.
“[Teachers already on Multi-Classroom Leader® teams] had nothing but good things to say. They loved it. They loved how it worked. They loved seeing the students improve and the data that was being collected from it of how the design was working.”—Teach Plus Mississippi Policy Fellow Sharon Buckhanan
“One appeal of strategic staffing that has really resonated with policymakers is that it doesn’t necessarily call for a larger investment. It’s using what we have smarter.”—Angela Bass, executive director of Mississippi First
“One of the central ideas behind our teacher pipeline work at Mississippi First is that a strong teacher workforce ultimately means strong student achievement and the best opportunity for students to succeed. …I think that strategic staffing and Opportunity Culture is a great way to promote that stability in the classroom and promote teacher retention and teacher quality.”—Grace Braezeale, director of research and K-12 policy, Mississippi First
“Five years from now, I would love to be able to say that you can’t throw a rock in Mississippi without hitting a district that is doing Opportunity Culture.”—Sanford Johnson, executive director, Teach Plus Mississippi
In a state that has made great strides, becoming a national leader in literacy, policymakers can make another major difference by supporting districts in bringing that joy to many more teachers, they say.