Fifty-nine percent of Opportunity Culture® schools in North Carolina exceeded student growth expectations in 2015–16, more than double the percentage of N.C. schools overall at just 28 percent, according to school performance data the state released September 2. ...
What’s Happening
Opportunity Culture® News and Views
ESSA Opportunities for Excellence: New Real Clear Ed Column
In a new column for Real Clear Education, Public Impact®'s co-directors, Emily Ayscue Hassel and Bryan Hassel, highlight the opportunities through ESSA for state leaders to achieve excellence: State and district leaders have a great new opportunity under the 2015...
Fresh Ideas for ESSA Excellence: Four Opportunities for State Leaders
State and district leaders, here’s your chance: Under ESSA (the 2016 Every Student Succeeds Act), you can use your new funding flexibility to take a new approach that focuses on excellence for teachers and students. In a new brief and one-page executive summary,...
High-need, San Antonio-area District Joins Opportunity Culture®
The Harlandale Independent School District, in south-central San Antonio, Texas, has joined the national Opportunity Culture® initiative to extend the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to more students, for more pay, within recurring budgets. The Texas...
How to Radically Improve Teacher & Principal Preparation
How can new teachers and principals start their jobs prepared for educational excellence, and how can the schools that hire them know they’re ready to excel? In today’s preparation systems, no one is fully getting what they need—not aspiring teachers and principals,...
How to Lead a Schoolwide “Team of Leaders”: Tools for Principals
In the most successful Opportunity Culture® schools, principals lead a team of multi-classroom leaders—strong teachers who lead small teams and are accountable for outcomes in each grade and/or subject—to ensure instructional excellence schoolwide. Successful...
New Vignettes: How 4 Pioneering Teacher-Leaders Led Their Teams
What does teacher-leadership look like when teachers lead a team while continuing to teach? For four pioneering multi-classroom leaders in high-need elementary, middle, and high schools, it starts with taking accountability for up to 500 students and leading a...
Speaking Up: A Year’s Worth of Opportunity Culture® Voices
“How many teachers are out there struggling daily because of lack of support? How many burn out because they’ve tried all they know? How many leave our profession early because they can’t do it on their own any longer? How many kids suffer because they...
Higher Pay for Charlotte Teachers: What Opportunity Culture® Provides
A great article in Saturday's Charlotte Observer highlighted what some Opportunity Culture® multi-classroom leaders (MCLs) make. As noted, 26 MCLs in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools receive supplements of $16,000 to $23,000--within school budgets, not from...
Opportunity Culture® Voices: What Is My Job, Anyway? An MCL’s Thoughts
"When I became a multi-classroom leader in 2013, the position was new to our school, district and state—new to the nation, in fact. I have vivid memories of the questions I received, especially in an early meeting with team teachers, when one said, 'So what exactly do...