Preconference Dinner and Presentation: Creating an Opportunity Culture

Preconference Dinner and Presentation: “Creating an Opportunity Culture”
Calls for “a great teacher in every classroom” or “a great leader in every school” often seem out of reach. Yet, we all know that we need to achieve these aspirations if we are going to give our students—and our nation—the education they deserve.  In this preconference presentation, Public Impact’s Bryan Hassel explained the organization’s Opportunity Culture initiative, an effort to rethink how schools work so that all students really can have a great teacher in every class and great leadership in their schools. By redesigning roles and using technology, schools can reach all students with excellent teaching and leadership. And they can do so while creating new, higher paid, financially sustainable career opportunities for educators. Following are some highlights:

• Bryan Hassel, codirector of Public Impact, asserted that education policy reforms do little in the way of providing sufficient recognition, reward, and opportunity for great teachers. Effective teachers are looking for opportunities to advance in their career, develop their craft, have more impact, and collaborate with peers. The Opportunity Culture project, created by Public Impact, highlights more than 20 financially sustainable models for restructuring schools to increase the impact of great teachers, including changes in class size, teacher specialization, multiclassroom leadership, and time-technology swaps.
• Transforming the teaching profession may greatly improve districts’ and schools’ abilities to recruit, develop, and retain the most talented teachers. By restructuring schools to provide teachers with advancement opportunities that do not require excellent educators to leave teaching; moving away from the traditional “1-teacher-1-classroom” model; and redesigning jobs, roles, schedules, and technology at the school level, more students can have access to excellent teachers.