Teacher Pay Supplements
in Opportunity Culture Sites 2020–21

Highest Opportunity Culture (OC) Supplement: $20,000

Average Multi-Classroom Leader (MCL) Supplement: $11,893

Average MCL Supplement as Percentage of Average Teacher Salary*: 21%

Average OC Supplement Paid to Teachers**: $9,552

Range of OC Supplements for All Teachers: $2,250 – $20,000

Range of OC Supplements for Reach Associates***: $1,000 – $3,000

Approximate $ Reallocated to Higher Pay in 2020–21***: $9.2 million

Approximate $ Reallocated to Higher Pay Since OC Launch***: $29.9 million

 

Each Opportunity Culture school forms a design team, which includes teachers, to plan its Opportunity Culture implementation to fit the needs of the school. The team determines what roles to include on multi-classroom leader teams, and it reallocates the school’s budget to fund supplements to teachers’ pay that are sustainable within the regular budget. Pay levels for roles are set by each district.

These sustainable pay supplements encourage excellent teachers to stay in teaching roles so they can extend their reach to more students, and, in the case of multi-classroom leaders, provide support and on-the-job development to small teaching teams. Research shows that these teams achieve significantly higher student learning growth.

* Average is calculated using state average teacher salary in states implementing Opportunity Culture, weighted by the number of MCLs per state. Source: NEA Research. (2020, July). Rankings of the States 2019 and Estimates of School Statistics 2020. Retrieved from http://www.nea.org/
** Teachers in advanced roles include MCLs, Master Team Reach Teachers, and Team Reach Teachers. See Teachers page for descriptions of these roles.
*** Reach Associate (RA) range and totals include only extra RA pay received in the form of fixed dollar supplements. Some RAs also earn extra pay by being placed in a higher step on the assistant pay scale.