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Listen to the Teachers!

February 27, 2014

As teachers and leaders pull Opportunity Culture models into five states in 2014 (watch for announcements, coming soon!), what teachers think about their experiences matters enormously.

Listen to their voices: On our new “What Teachers Are Saying” page, teachers from school design teams that chose and adapted models to fit their schools, and the teachers working within those models this year talk about what an Opportunity Culture has meant to their lives, professionally and personally. This amazing group of teaching pioneers loves the support, collaboration, on-the-job learning, and higher pay in their Opportunity Culture schools:

“Support is a huge piece of this—it makes a big difference! I feel very supported this year, more so than last year. I love how [my multi-classroom leader] can co-teach with me and also work with students.”— Buena Vista Elementary team teacher Amy Cramer, Nashville

“I think the sky is the limit. I never would have thought that about teacher salary—usually, it’s, ‘I’m going to cap out soon as a teacher. I do it because I love it, etc. But to actually think that I could be paid what I’m worth is the best feeling in the world. Teachers are so underappreciated and devalued, especially ELA teachers.”—Tiffany McAfee, Touchstone Education master teacher, Newark, N.J.

“I actually was able to start a savings account this year, for the first time in my career.”—Ashley Park Elementary Multi-Classroom Leader Kristin Cubbage, speaking to Charlotte’s WBTV

“I love [being a multi-classroom leader] because I’m able to model things. Teachers can come watch me as I teach. I get to preach what I teach, I get to work with students, they get a double dose, and with a person who has more experience, teachers feel like they get additional service. That brings a whole new dimension to how they see me. If they see I can have success managing their students with the same strategies I’m telling them to use, they know it can work. It’s also relevant to them. They also trust it. A big thing with teachers is trust. Someone in the trenches makes it much more useful. They trust my feedback and value it. And they see it in action.”— Buena Vista Elementary MCL Joe Ashby, Nashville

“For brainstorming, there are just more people to go to. I’m so excited to have that. I feel like I have a career focus now. Before, I enjoyed teaching, but didn’t know how to advance.”—Churchwell Museum Magnet Elementary team teacher Tamika Samples, Nashville

Watch for more quotes as more schools create their own Opportunity Cultures. Want to know more about an Opportunity Culture? Watch this 20-minute speech that Bryan Hassel–co-director of Public Impact–gave to the 2014 N.C. Emerging Issues Forum, where he explained why sustainably funded career paths are critical to the future of the profession.

In the News: Charlotte’s Opportunity Culture® Expansion

January 10, 2014

Thursday’s announcement that the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District is scaling up its use of Opportunity Culture models that extend the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to more students, for more pay, within budget, got some attention. CMS school design teams, which include teachers and school leaders, will integrate the new models into 17 more schools this year, and more schools will join the implementation in each of the two years after that, with almost half of the district’s schools implementing by 2017–18. Read all about it!

“Belk Foundation gives $505,000 to create big rewards for star teachers” by Charlotte Observer reporter Ann Doss Helms

“More CMS Schools To Give Star Teachers New Duties, Higher Pay,” by WFAE reporter Lisa Miller

“Raises for teachers willing to help redefine how students learn” by WBTV reporter Kristen Miranda

“CMS to expand program which financially rewards top teachers” by WSOC reporter Torie Wells

Worth noting from those reports:

From WFAE:

“This position allowed me to have a comparable salary to [other jobs I’ve been offered outside the classroom], but also stay with kids, which is where my heart is and where my passion is. It’s keeping me in a bunch of classrooms, which is great.”–Kristin Cubbage, a multi-classroom leader at Ashley Park Elementary, one of four Charlotte schools implementing the new models this year.

From WSOC:

“We think [teachers] deserve more — we think they deserve more pay, we think they deserve respect, more support.”–Katie Morris, chairwoman of The Belk Foundation, a local family foundation, which made a rare, three-year commitment of $505,000 to help fund the transition costs of the redesign work, after which the models will be financially sustainable.

From The Charlotte Observer:

“I have loved this job. It really is kind of a dream job in education.”–Cubbage

From WBTV:

“We plan to roll this out to the rest of our CMS buildings. The question is not if, it is when.”–Superintendent Heath Morrison

Great Teachers Can Teach More Students, Even Without Raising Class Sizes

November 19, 2013

Fordham today released a paper by Michael Hansen projecting the impact on student learning if excellent eighth-grade teachers—those in the top 25 percent—were responsible for six or 12 more students per class. He found that moving six students per class to the most effective eighth-grade science and math teachers would have an impact equivalent to removing the bottom 5 percent of teachers.

We imagine many teachers and parents reading that finding will still fret over the idea of increasing class sizes that much, even with great teachers. So here’s some good news: schools can give a lot more than six more students access to excellent teachers, without actually raising class sizes. And they can pay great teachers—or even all teachers—more by doing so.

The key is shifting to new school models that extend the reach of excellent teachers wisely. At Public Impact, we’ve published many such models on OpportunityCulture.org, and honed them via our work with teams of teachers and administrators now implementing them in schools.

6 Ways to Pay All Teachers More–Within Budget

October 31, 2013

Our fresh approach to paying teachers more is the basic premise of an Opportunity Culture: Use redesigned jobs and age-appropriate technology to reallocate spending toward what matters most—great teaching. But have you wondered just how that works?

Our new three-page brief, 6 Ways to Pay All Teachers More Within Budget, spells it out for you. With Opportunity Culture models, schools can extend the reach of excellent teachers and the teams they lead to more students, for more pay, within budget (not temporary grants)—making significant pay increases possible for all teachers.

Savings and cost calculations of several models–Multi-Classroom Leadership, Elementary Subject Specialization, Time-Technology Swaps, and the combination at the secondary level of Multi-Classroom Leadership with Time-Technology Swaps–show that schools could pay teachers approximately 20 to 130 percent more—without increasing class sizes, and within existing budgets. Even when increasing all team teachers’ pay, schools can still pay teacher-leaders approximately 65 to 80 percent more. And beyond that, reallocating other current spending could offer yet another boost to teachers’ pay, beyond what we have demonstrated so far in our Opportunity Culture models.

Using Blended Learning to Pay Teachers More

October 28, 2013

The power and promise of blended learning—to let students learn individually paced basics online, so teachers can focus on personalized, enriched face-to-face instruction—can bring excellent teaching to more students, and enable all teachers to earn at least 20 percent more, sustainably. In addition, teachers can gain planning and collaboration time during school hours.

How? In what we call Time-Technology Swaps—one of the job models in an Opportunity Culture— excellent teachers and the teams they lead reach more students, for more pay, within budget, without having to increase class sizes. Paraprofessionals working with leadership and direction from teachers supervise the online-learning time. Lower wage rates for paraprofessionals enable higher pay for the excellent teachers and their teams. These teaching teams can teach more students without increasing class size because, at a given time, some of their students are online while teachers work in person with others. Schools can even reduce class sizes and still pay teachers more.

Scalable Secondary-Level School Models Increase Teacher Pay, Planning Time

October 24, 2013

Recently, I was chatting with a secondary school-level teacher who co-leads her teacher-run charter school. In her school, scheduling and staffing deliberately provide abundant teacher collaboration time and teacher-leadership, crucial for teachers to innovate and improve as they serve the school’s high-need population. She asked, “Emily, how can we make models like this scalable and appealing to more schools, so that districts use them, too?”

We have just released our latest calculations in the Opportunity Culture series, which indicate that middle and high school teachers who use blended learning and lead teaching teams can earn 20 to 67 percent more, within current budgets, and without class-size increases. This requires new school models with redesigned teacher roles that extend the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to more students. Using these models, teachers also gain 5 to 15 additional school hours weekly to plan and improve instruction collaboratively.

Could You Give All Students Excellent Teachers–and Pay More?

October 10, 2013

What if every U.S. student had a new civil right to an excellent teacher, every year, in all core subjects? What if schools also had to pay teachers at least 20 percent more, within budget? Could you design a school that met those demands?

Try it: Use Public Impact’s free Opportunity Culture scenarios to see if you could design a rural or urban, high-poverty school that

  • closes gaps and helps all students leap ahead by letting excellent teachers take responsibility for all students’ learning in core subjects;
  • pays all teachers more, and excellent teachers who lead teams far more, within budget
  • gives teachers frequent school-day time for planning, team collaboration, and on-the-job development; and
  • does not reduce student learning time.

It’s a tall order, but new school models, now being implemented in pilot schools in the U.S., can make what we call an Opportunity Culture a reality.

Designed to help district and school design teams rethink the one-teacher-one-classroom mode, these scenarios ask planners to assume the role of a school principal. The principal must develop a plan to give all students access to excellent teachers and their teams with the school’s current staff, without any new funding. The principal must make the school attractive by both paying teachers more and offering them a great place to work—full of teaching career advancement opportunities and job-embedded development led by teacher-leaders.

In the News: Column Highlights Public Impact®, Project L.I.F.T.

August 20, 2013

Christopher Gergen and Stephen Martin focused their “Doing Better at Doing Good” column* in The (Raleigh, N.C.) News and Observer on Public Impact and our Opportunity Culture models, noting our work with Charlotte-Mecklenburg’s Project L.I.F.T.

“The reach extension strategy has far-reaching implications for the way our classrooms are designed, our teachers are trained, and our budgets are constructed. It’s transformative work that is hard to do. But the allure of providing excellent teaching for all of our children while providing team-based development and well-compensated professional pathways to our state’s teachers is undeniable,” wrote Gergen, the founder of Bull City Forward and Queen City Forward, a fellow with the Fuqua Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at Duke University, and author of Life Entrepreneurs, and Martin, a director at the Center for Creative Leadership and author of The Messy Quest for Meaning.

In the News: Opportunity Culture® Appearances

August 2, 2013

Recent Opportunity Culture appearances:

  • Getting Smart listed Public Impact and our Opportunity Culture initiative in its first annual “smart list” of great policy and advocacy organizations making a difference. The 40 groups on the list “put students first, set the path, and lead the conversation.”
  • EdSurge ran a featured article on our latest case study, on Rocketship Education, discussing how Rocketship’s modifications to its blended-learning model “put teachers in the driver’s seat.” This is the fourth in a series of Opportunity Culture case studies Public Impact published this summer, to great response and high demand; more case studies will be coming this fall and beyond.

Rocketship Education: Bringing Tech Closer to Teachers

July 24, 2013

When Rocketship Education, a pioneering, rapidly expanding charter school network, looked at its results, it could have rested on its laurels. After all, with seven schools in California together ranking as the top public school system for low-income elementary students, Rocketship had proof that its blended-learning model— combining online learning with face-to-face instruction—works.

But next year, Rocketship leaders will fix a disconnect they see between what happens in the online learning lab and the classroom, to give teachers more control over the students’ digital learning and further individualize the teaching.

Instead of reporting to a separate computer lab, fourth- and fifth-graders will move within an open, flexible classroom between digital learning and in-person instruction, with those moves based on their individual needs and the roles that specific teachers are best suited to play—similar to the Opportunity Culture Time-Technology Swap—Flex model and the Role Specialization model.

In the latest Opportunity Culture case study from Public Impact, Rocketship Education: Pioneering Charter Network Innovates Again, Bringing Tech Closer to Teachers, we look at what Rocketship has done so far to achieve its top results, and where it’s headed.