What is an Opportunity Culture?

In each Opportunity Culture school:

• A design and implementation team of teachers and administrators determines how to use Multi-Classroom Leadership and other roles to reach more students with teachers who have demonstrated high-growth student learning.
• Multi-classroom leaders lead a teaching team, providing guidance and frequent on-the-job coaching while continuing to teach, often by leading small-group instruction.
• Accountable for the results of all students in the team, multi-classroom leaders also earn supplements averaging 20 percent (and up to 50 percent) of teacher pay, within the regular school budget.
• The schools redesign schedules to provide additional school-day time for teacher planning, coaching, and collaboration.

The Opportunity Culture Principles

Teams of teachers & school leaders must choose and tailor models to:

1. Reach more students with excellent teachers and their teams
2. Pay teachers more for extending their reach
3. Fund pay within regular budgets
4. Provide protected in-school time and clarity about how to use it for planning, collaboration, and development
5. Match authority and accountability to each person’s responsibilities

Similar principles apply to teams of principals and district/network leaders

Research-based

In an independent study, teachers who:

• were on average at the 50^th percentile in student learning gains…
• who then joined teams led by teacher-leaders known as multi-classroom leaders, or MCLs (who had prior high growth as teachers)…
• produced learning gains equivalent to those of teachers from the 75^th to 85^th percentile in math, and, in six of the seven statistical models, from 66^th to 72^nd percentile in reading.

Opportunity Culture meets ESSA requirements for an evidence-based intervention for schools in need of improvement.

Found in districts across the U.S.

More districts—large and small, rural and urban—make the Opportunity Culture commitment every year.

Continually refined and strengthened

Opportunity Culture Fellows and other educators provide Public Impact with feedback on our materials, implementation processes, trainings for educators, and more to help keep Opportunity Culture a truly teacher-led movement.

Valued by educators

The vast majority of Opportunity Culture educators say in surveys that they want Opportunity Culture to continue in their schools.