Our thanks to Stephanie Dean, Vice President of Strategic Policy Advising at Public Impact, for presenting on the first webinar in our new series The Intersection: A Biweekly Education Policy Conversation. Stephanie joined us to discuss the implications of a recent Brookings-AIR evaluation of Opportunity Culture, a differentiated compensation model that extends the reach of excellent teachers, using recurring budget funds.
Key Takeaways:
Strong Gains for Students in Opportunity Culture Classrooms | Teachers who worked on Opportunity Culture teams (lead by a multi-classroom teacher) produced student gains equal to the top-quartile of teachers in math.
The Effects of Opportunity Culture Spill Over | Opportunity Culture schools achieved strong school-wide growth, even in classrooms not led by Opportunity Culture teachers.
Opportunity Culture is Sustainable within Current Budgets | Public Impact advises schools and districts not to use grant funds to pay Opportunity Culture teacher stipends. Instead, they recommend that districts reallocate recurring funds to support the pay supplements.
A Culture of Coaching is Key | The success of Opportunity Culture relies on a culture of coaching in which all teachers are ready and willing to learn from one another. Moreover, principals in Opportunity Culture schools must be comfortable steering the school via a distributed leadership model.
For more on our conversation with Stephanie, check out the full webinar below!
We hope you’ll join us for our next webinar on Wednesday, February 14th at 1pm (EST). We look forward to talking with Todd Ziebarth from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools who will share the National Alliance’s 2018 rankings of state charter laws.
Stay tuned and follow us via Twitter (#HIWebinar) for details on how to register.
