It’s a winning formula: school paraprofessional + tutoring culture focus + support and training + pay supplement = a highly coveted role. How do schools and students both win when districts begin using the Opportunity Culture® Reach Associate™ role? This short...
Sharon Kebschull Barrett
3 Key Steps for State Policymakers: Our New Journal Article
Nationally, hundreds of Title I schools using Opportunity Culture® staffing design were two to three times more likely to achieve high-growth learning in 2024–25 than Title I schools in the same states not using these designs–outcomes exceeding other national strategic staffing efforts. What would it take for school systems everywhere to see the same results?
A big part of the answer lies in the hands of state policymakers. In the latest issue of State Education Standard, the journal of the National Association of State Boards of Education, Sharon Kebschull Barrett and Bryan C. Hassel of Public Impact® provide three key steps policymakers should take to support all of their districts in redesigning for student success and educator satisfaction.
Can Districts Miles Apart Share Staff Successfully—And Why Would They?
We think of school districts in a steady competition for teacher talent–but what happens when they collaborate to share staff instead?
Listen to our latest Opportunity Culture® Audio podcast to hear how two North Carolina districts, hours apart, worked together when one district needed, but couldn’t find, a high school math teaching team leader with a record of producing high-growth learning.
Research | 2-3X schoolwide high-growth learning nationally, high growth by teaching teams with Opportunity Culture® staffing design
From EdNC, by Sharon Kebschull Barrett, March 30, 2026
New national data shows 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.
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.
Superintendents Speak: Podcasts Consider High Learning Growth, Rural “Force Multiplier,” Sparking Reading Achievement
It’s been a month of learning from several superintendents, who’ve come on the Opportunity Culture® Audio podcast to share their thoughts about staffing design in their districts.
Ector County Independent School District
When Superintendent Scott Muri left his high-performing school district for Ector County, Texas, the president of the Ector County Independent School District (ECISD) board said he wondered whether Muri had “lost his mind” when he applied for the job, and Muri acknowledged that it would be a monumental challenge.
Indeed, upon arrival in summer 2019 in Odessa—known for oil wells and high school football—Muri was faced with 16 of the district’s 45 schools receiving an F from the Texas Education Agency, and four more graded a D—along with 350 teaching vacancies for its 34,000 students.
But by 2024, the district was named the K–12 Dive District of the Year, and 2025 found Muri testifying about the district’s turnaround before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions.
Superintendent Leadership, Student Results, and Funding Options: Opportunity Culture® Staffing in the News
It's been a busy Opportunity Culture® week! From big research about student results in Texas to superintendents recognized for their impressive implementation to Title II options for funding redesign, the Opportunity Culture® initiative is making a splash. New...
Record Number of Systems to Begin Using Opportunity Culture Design
With state funding in New Mexico and North Carolina and private funding in Oklahoma, 25 schools systems will join the national Opportunity Culture® initiative in 2026, extending the reach of excellent teaching to more students, for more pay, within regular budgets. The initiative’s staffing designs have boosted student learning and reduced vacancies nationally.
Mississippi Report Recommends Staffing Redesign, Highlighting Opportunity Culture® Models
In a new report, The Weight They Carry: Life as a Teacher in Mississippi, education policy nonprofit Mississippi First recommends addressing the state’s ongoing teacher shortage in part by improving compensation through both an across-the-board pay increase and redesigned school staffing models that allow teachers to advance and receive substantial pay supplements without having to leave the classroom.
The report highlights Opportunity Culture® models, which are in their first year of use in the Jackson, Mississippi, school district. Opportunity Culture® design can help address the compensation pressures teachers face; Public Impact, which founded the Opportunity Culture® initiative, has also consistently called for higher pay overall for educators. Collaborative Multi-Classroom Leader® teams can also address some of the concerns teachers have about unmanageable workloads, and the distributed leadership inherent in schools using these teams both reduces the burden on principals and strengthens leadership pipelines.