What’s Happening

The March newsletter includes information about an upcoming module, several new Opportunity Culture materials, spring resources, and media highlights. See an excerpt below.

In North Carolina, a newfound focus on the science of reading led to the mandated use of the professional learning program LETRS, or Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling. Making the shift from “balanced literacy” to instruction based on the science of reading takes significant time and training—adding strain on Covid-weary teachers, as Education Week reported.

With their team-based approach, Opportunity Culture schools can ease some of that stress. Opportunity Culture schools place teachers with proven records of student growth in Multi-Classroom Leader® (MCL) roles, leading small teams of teachers and paraprofessionals. Read more…

Despite a steady national drumbeat about the power of high-dosage tutoring to help students rebound from the dramatic post-Covid learning dip, the National Center for Education Statistics reported on Wednesday that such tutoring reaches only about one in 10 students. Although 37 percent of schools reported that they offer high-dosage tutoring—that is, at least a half-hour of one-on-one or small-group instruction three times a week with a trained educator—not even a third of students in those schools receive the tutoring. Read more…

The January newsletter includes a new Opportunity Culture video about the science of reading, a prompt for Opportunity Culture principals, winter resources, and media highlights.

How can innovative staffing help reduce staffing shortages and boost learning? Public Impact’s latest brief explains how the Opportunity Culture initiative uses innovative staffing designs to create new career options for educators, increase collaboration and support, and incorporate high-impact tutoring for all students into the school day—within regular budgets.

The December newsletter includes a new Opportunity Culture audio, video, and blog. It also includes a prompt for Opportunity Culture principals, winter resources, and media highlights.

As a temporary solution to a shortage of paraprofessional reach associates who can provide release time, Multi-Classroom Leader® Sunil Dutt combines one of his math blocks with that of a new teacher into one large group meeting in the library, so that Dutt can co-teach and model instruction.

Lucama Elementary, a rural, Title I school in Wilson County, North Carolina, implemented several Opportunity Culture roles in 2021–22. Following a focus on data-driven, small-group tutoring, instruction based on the science of reading, and greater educator collaboration through Multi-Classroom Leader® teams, the school dramatically increased student learning growth. Principal April Shackleford and Lucama educators explain their success, and why it led them in 2022 to expand to schoolwide Opportunity Culture roles in the latest Opportunity Culture audio piece.

In Building Better PL: How to Strengthen Teacher Learning, researchers Heather Hill and John Papay highlight six key design features of effective professional learning, or PL. Those features fall under two general principles for effective PL—it supports teachers’ day-to-day practice, and it involves accountability for change and improvement. Opportunity Culture schools, which provide routine, job-embedded PL through multi-classroom leader teams, notably hit the mark for those two principles and each of the key features.