Extending the Reach of Excellent Teachers

[00:01] SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.

[00:06] Announcer:

Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center and Champion of High Performance Instructional Leadership, Justin Bader. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.

[00:15] SPEAKER_02:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to be joined today by Stephanie Dean. Stephanie is Vice President of Strategic Policy Advising and a Senior Consulting Manager at Public Impact. Her work focuses on identifying and cultivating state policy conditions that help schools extend the reach of excellent teachers.

[00:35] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[00:38] SPEAKER_02:

Stephanie, welcome to Principal Center Radio. Thanks, happy to be with you. I'm so excited to talk with someone who is deep in the world of policy, particularly around the work that teachers do and the way that teachers work is organized. And bonus points for any long-time listeners of this podcast. I did an episode several years ago where I kind of speculated on what it would be like to have teachers with a little bit of a career ladder so that in any given teacher team, it wasn't just that we had, say, three identical jobs. If we have a third-grade team, my idea was that those would not necessarily have to be identical jobs, that we could say, okay, we're having...

[01:17]

A new teacher come in. So that's going to be kind of the junior teacher. We have someone who has kind of a normal level of responsibility. And we have someone with maybe sort of an enhanced leadership or mentoring responsibility. And that could be reflected in lots of different ways. And I speculated on how that could work with compensation and hours and things like that.

[01:38]

And I was delighted to find that your organization, Public Impact, has actually been implementing something along those same lines, but far more sophisticated. So I wonder if we could start, Stephanie, by having you just describe what Public Impact is and the work that you've been doing in this particular area around extending the reach of excellent teachers.

[01:59] SPEAKER_00:

So we are a research and consulting firm based in North Carolina, but the work we do is in both North Carolina and across the country. The initiative that you were drawn to is called Opportunity Culture, and this is an initiative that several years old now, it originated in the idea of wanting to extend the reach of excellent teachers to more students. So it really connects with that idea of equitable access to excellent teaching, but also the notion that teachers need career ladders. So when you enter their profession, You shouldn't be doing the same job at the beginning of your profession necessarily as the end of your profession. You should have a way to excel and to spread the great work that you're doing in your school. So those are two of the main ideas of opportunity culture.

[02:44]

It also is really about giving all teachers support in schools. So the team-based structure that's created gives all teachers support. and helps principals as well have an instructional leadership team that they can work through. So instead of having to manage a span of 50 or more direct reports, they're working through an instructional leadership team of teacher leaders that are carefully selected.

[03:06] SPEAKER_02:

And I think everyone can get behind the idea of career ladders, right? Like it just makes sense that your job on day one should not be the same as your job on the day you retire. And I think especially for our listeners who are kind of in that in-between space where they have risen to a certain level of leadership responsibility, but they don't feel like their next step is administration. And I know a lot of people, a lot of educators really just don't want to be administrators and don't feel like they should have to in order to take on a greater leadership role.

[03:38] SPEAKER_00:

Yes. So one of the things that I love about opportunity culture, when we do this design work with school teams and with teams at the district level, all the time in the conversations, there's at least one person that says, if this had been around when I was a teacher, I never would have left my students. I never would have left the classroom. And that always kind of hits home with me. Oh, now we know we're on the right track, right? If we have educators who were great in the classroom and left because they needed a career ladder, but their heart is with students and that's where they would have stayed if there had been a career ladder for them.

[04:05] SPEAKER_02:

Now, I have to say, the first time I heard of this idea of extending the reach of excellent teachers, I think it was in kind of the dumbed down campaign trail version. And the way it came to me first, and I kind of immediately rejected the idea, was basically that if a teacher is really good, we should give them larger class sizes. right? That, oh, the best teachers need to reach more students. So we'll just give them even more students in their classes. And if a teacher is not as good, we'll give them smaller class sizes.

[04:36]

And that just seemed stupid to me, frankly. And I think it's not quite what we're talking about here, right?

[04:42] SPEAKER_00:

It's not. When we initially published the idea of opportunity culture, there were lots of different models that were published. And some of them were direct reach roles that would extend the reach of teachers directly using various strategies of scheduling and digital learning. The multi-classroom leader role is the one that really has become the cornerstone of opportunity culture. So last year, third-party research was published by Calder and That looked at a large pool of opportunity culture schools and really found that the multi-classroom leader role, that role that takes leadership of a small team of teachers and provides them with intense support every day in and out of their classrooms and planning, but also in modeling and co-teaching. That's the role that really has been transformational for schools and for teachers and students.

[05:28]

So we've really become much more focused on the multi-classroom leader role. Our schools that we work with also, they do incorporate that, we call it a team reach role, where a teacher is directly teaching more students. using careful scheduling and the support of a paraprofessional. But we advise schools to only do that within a multi-classroom leader's team. So that multi-classroom leader role really is the hallmark of this work.

[05:53] SPEAKER_02:

And it's just a simplistic, you know, you get more kids because you're better at your job kind of arrangement.

[05:57] SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. All of these roles, the job description is set at the district level and the screening and selection process. And it's competency-based. They do behavioral event interviewing and So it's much more than just the scores that you're getting with students. That's a really important indicator that you're an excellent teacher who can knock it out of the park with students and get better than expected results. But you also have to have the competencies that are needed to lead a team of adults or in those direct reach roles to extend your reach, which requires you to operate in a different way than you've been operating as a classroom teacher with just a typical load of students.

[06:30] SPEAKER_02:

And I think that word different is important because we don't just want more, right? And I think every great teacher has experienced this phenomenon that I describe as workflows to the competent. If you are the most competent person, if you're the most responsive person, if you do the best job on any given thing, well, everybody is going to start going to you whenever they need to get something done. And I think a lot of teachers who have reached a point in their career where they are just really good, they are maybe the best person on their team or maybe the best person in their school, they've reached this point of wondering...

[07:06]

what is what is this all for if people are just going to give me more of the same so i i appreciate what you're you're talking about here in term like i feel like we're getting into the the topic of specialization and i think there is a a little bit of a cultural bias in our profession you know a professional norm against specialization But it's certainly something that we see in other professions like medicine. You know, like if you take your kid to the doctor, as I've done several times recently, you know, often you don't see the pediatrician directly. You see maybe a nurse practitioner, maybe the, we had kind of a tough case recently and the actual pediatrician was called in and, you know, consulted. But that kind of specialization feels strange to us when we're talking about classroom teachers. Like we We feel like classroom teachers all need to be the same thing, do the same thing all the time.

[08:00]

What do you think is behind that norm in the teaching profession and how is opportunity culture starting to shift that?

[08:10] SPEAKER_00:

I think one thing about the work that we do with schools is it's a school design process. So the principal comes to the table with a set of teachers. The school counselor is usually involved because that person is an expert at scheduling, maybe a coach who's been working in the school. And this is about thinking about what your school needs. If you are going to design a model that puts people in teacher leadership roles and extends the reach of top teachers, where do you want to see the most change? And that's where they will position these roles.

[08:42]

So if they have an urgent need to focus on reading in the early grades, they might focus their initial design on that aspect of their instruction, or it could be math in the later grades. They will choose that based on their existing needs. I think specialization comes into place because if you have a teacher who is great at a certain aspect of their work, you want to be able to create a structure where they are sharing that with their peers. So it could be directly with more students, but I think more importantly, it's creating a structure where they can share that with their peers, multi-classroom leaders, might be focused on a particular area of instruction. Usually you see that more at the secondary level, but the structure is put in place for them to be able to share their data analysis skills, their planning lesson skills.

[09:34]

When they're in the classroom, if they've got a new teacher that they're working with, they'll be helping that teacher with classroom management. If they've got a seasoned teacher who's trying to shift their practice to incorporate some new technique, they might model and co-teach with that teacher to help them along in that change. So they might specialize in a certain aspect of a subject area, but the work they're doing really spans the globe of what teachers do.

[09:57] SPEAKER_02:

Well, and I think part of the norm that we've inherited is that every teacher needs to do everything, needs to be a jack of all trades, needs to get good at everything. And of course, we want everybody to be good at everything, but it's hard. And I think another norm that we've kind of held onto for a long time is this idea that planning great lessons and planning great units is something that everybody should be able to do right out of the gate. So one of the things that comes to mind to me first is responsibility for what students will learn. Doing that planning and we've for a long time tried to approach that collaboratively because we recognize that it's not great if kids who are taking the same class from different teachers get a totally different experience and get taught totally different things. But it seems to me that one opportunity for that specialization is in that responsibility for what students will learn, simply because there is such a steep learning curve to that.

[10:55]

Designing an excellent curriculum, designing amazing units, having really great lesson plans, It's duplicative to have multiple teachers on the same team doing that separately. So we've done it collaboratively. But I wonder what opportunity culture has come up with in terms of specializing that a little bit more when you do have those team leaders.

[11:16] SPEAKER_00:

So it's really been up to the multi-classroom leaders and their principals to make decisions about that. But what we've seen in a few cases might be of interest to you and your listeners. So one is that sometimes, especially if there is a shift underway within the school where a different type of instruction is desired, the multi-classroom leader might come in and spend the summer before their first year of work with their team doing lesson plans to prepare for what the team will do the following year. There's often also a practice in place where the multi-classroom leader will be like the I do, we do, you do model. So the multi-classroom leader might bear the majority of the lesson planning for the beginning of the year and then through a gradual release model shift that responsibility to team members as it's demonstrated. This is the way I would like you to do it.

[12:02]

This is the best practice that I'd like you to follow. Then the team members pick that up. It does set up a structure where once that's in place, then the team can be Sharing the responsibility for those lesson plans So it is a great way for not every teacher on the grade level to have to do their own independent lesson plans But they're now following a pattern or a structure that's been put in place by their team leader And they're able to share in that way and I have to ask about this and this is going to be a little bit heretical to even say this but Can we acknowledge that some aspects of teaching are very boring and everybody hates doing them even though they're necessary like grading

[12:42] SPEAKER_02:

And doing some of that, you know, some of kind of the grunt work that's built into teaching. How are teams handling that? Because obviously, that does have to get done. What are you seeing in terms of those, you know, time consuming and necessary things, but that, you know, you don't exactly need a master's degree and 20 years of experience to do them?

[13:00] SPEAKER_00:

Your question makes me think of two things. One, the aspect that some parts of teaching are time consuming and could be done perhaps by somebody else. That really gets to the, what we call a reach associate in opportunity culture schools. So this is a high level paraprofessional role that is worked into the team structure. They're providing support to the multi-classroom leader to help free up time for that person to work directly with the team members. And they're supporting the team in a variety of ways.

[13:26]

There could be some things that that paraprofessional could be doing for the team, and it could be structured in a way that it is professional growth for that individual, particularly if they're interested in becoming a teacher. in the future. The other aspect of it though, makes me think about the nature of the team meetings that I've seen when I've visited opportunity culture schools. And when the team is together and they are reviewing student work and discussing, you know, the way they graded something or what that means for the coming lesson or the coming week, I think it shifts a little bit of how some of those procedures feel because now you're part of a team and it's a professional discussion that you're having with your colleagues and you're pushing each other to see what can be gleaned and learned from that piece of student work. So I think it takes a little bit of something that is a process that you have to go through individually as a teacher. And now you're making it part of a professional discussion with your colleagues that's occurring on a weekly basis.

[14:21]

So hopefully it changes some of that dynamic as well.

[14:23] SPEAKER_02:

It reminds me of, you know, the experience of having a student teacher, right? And the difference between having a student teacher versus just, you know, someone to kind of help out, help you clean up, help you make copies and things like that. Because the idea with the student teacher is that it's developmental, right? It's a career ladder and it's a stage for someone who maybe is looking to move up to a higher level of responsibility. So in terms of those career ladders, I wanted to make sure that we talked about compensation because I think one of the big frustrations for a lot of educators is that no matter how good you get in a given role, you know seniority really is the only way to advance in salary and of course that's that's kind of capped and for people who don't want to move into administration uh you know are there other options out there for tiering the uh the compensation a bit based on responsibility so this is really an important part of the opportunity culture design process we first work with district design teams and they're the team that sets the job descriptions and the career ladder that the schools can then use

[15:29] SPEAKER_00:

So multi-classroom leadership, the pay supplements that is attached to that role range, they range from $6,000 up to $23,000 is what we've seen districts attribute to this. So that's on top of your regular teacher salary. The average is about $12,000. So this is meant to be game-changing money for teachers, enough that if you wanted to stay in the profession, this is really putting your pay at a different level and making it possible for you to do that. I think another important aspect of the career ladder that's established is that the pay is all derived from existing dollars. So we help the districts do a financial analysis to figure out competitively with districts around them and careers that are taking teachers away from the classroom, where do they need to aim for?

[16:17]

Like how high do they need to aim for the salary level? But that's kind of paired with the consideration of looking at the existing resources within the district and What could they afford when this goes to scale, when they have multi-classroom leadership across all of their schools and reaching all students? So that helps them set that that pay level. But then the schools are given the freedom to work within their school budgets to make some trades and do this so that it's not supplemental funds that are tied to a grant that's going to go away in three years. But these are stipends that are built to last in the sense that schools are making tradeoffs using the resources that they already have. So some strategies that could be rethinking the way flexible dollars are used, such as Title I or Title II dollars.

[17:02]

Sometimes schools rethink their existing coaching roles, which might have a school-wide span and only be able to get to teachers now and then. They might, instead of having school-wide coaches in the future, shift to having multi-classroom leaders that are assigned to grade levels and working with smaller teams. And another strategy that Schools often use if they have vacancies, they might trade in a vacancy and use those dollars to pay for a paraprofessional, that reach associate role that would support the team, and then to pay for a multi-classroom leader stipend or maybe one of those direct reach roles. So they are able to think about their ideal design for their school to reach all students with great instruction. But then part of this is a financial equation of what can they afford and how might they phase this in over time as dollars and vacancies are reworked.

[17:52] SPEAKER_02:

And I think that opportunity that comes up when you have a vacancy can be a big part of this. And I'm thinking, I wonder if I could kind of talk through a scenario with you, because I feel like every school has something like this. But personally, what I experienced as a principal, I was an elementary school principal, I had a number of wonderful, wonderful teachers who did not want to quit. They did not want to be out of the workforce while their kids were young. But the reality is that it is very, very difficult to be a full-time teacher and have young kids. So what a lot of our teachers had done was do job shares.

[18:29]

They said, okay, I'm going to work the morning, you're going to work the afternoon. Both of us will end up with a semi-reasonable work day and not have to take a whole lot home because, you know, when you've got kids at home, not a lot is... get done in the evening and, you know, people just want kind of a manageable life. There were a lot of kind of sacrifices that they had to make to make that happen.

[18:47]

It worked pretty well for us as a school. It wasn't inconvenient to me in any way. But, you know, and we got some really, really wonderful people who ended up not really taking home very much money, but kind of staying in the profession and not being out of the loop. and that was what they wanted. And I'm thinking about a teacher who is really, really highly skilled, loves working with students, loves working with other people, but just does not want the 60-hour work week, the huge piles of papers to take home, the huge amount of planning to do after-school hours. And I'm wondering how you're seeing maybe that issue shake out, because...

[19:28]

I would love to see, obviously, a more gentle entrance into the profession for new teachers, more support, less overwhelming responsibility on day one, and then kind of a gradual increase as people are ready to step up into more. But for teachers who Our skill, they're not junior teachers, they're not rookies. They just want a professional job that they can kind of leave at school. And I think we've given no room for that in our profession. We've cast that as a bad thing to be able to say, okay, this is my job. I will go and do excellent work there and walk away and not take it home with me.

[20:08]

We've established this norm that people have to take it home with them. And I think that just pushes people out who would love to stay, people who are among our best. So I'm wondering if you could help me think through that, if we can kind of simulate a little bit of the early design process. If I'm a principal bringing you that issue saying, hey, I want to hang on to these really great teachers. They want to work halftime. What are some other options that we should consider?

[20:31] SPEAKER_00:

So in some of our initial thinking and ideas of what opportunity culture design might include, that idea of job sharing was one that we wrote about a little bit. It's not one that I've seen taken up in any of our schools, not to my knowledge at least, but it does feel like if it's a person who is an educator and wants to stay connected to the school and to students, but not in that teacher role, that reach associate role could be designed to keep that person engaged in the instruction that's occurring within a team, but without that responsibility of the standard teacher role. So that's one thing that comes to mind. I don't know that we've seen that in any of our schools, but that is exactly the type of design question that schools would be wrestling with. And the reason that opportunity culture, we have five design principles that all the school designs adhere to, but really what it ends up looking like is unique to each school for reasons just like you articulated.

[21:30]

People have different circumstances and in their school and in their community, and working with the resources, the human resources and the financial resources that you have to create the structure that's best for students is what this is all about.

[21:43] SPEAKER_02:

And if a school does want to get in touch with Public Impact and learn more about the work that you do and maybe talk about engaging in a design process, maybe there's a school that's having some turnover. They have maybe some key people that they're holding on to, but there are going to be a lot of new people coming in. What might that look like for them to reach out to you and engage with Public Impact to do some of that design work?

[22:06] SPEAKER_00:

They can reach out to me directly at Public Impact. I'm the person who usually fields those initial calls from districts and schools that are interested. I think one important thing for listeners to know is that typically we do this work at the district and school levels. So it is a little challenging when a school wants to design an opportunity culture on their own because the district is usually the level that will set the job descriptions and the selection process. They'll run a district pool process for the initial cut of selection for these roles. So it's important to have district leadership on board as well.

[22:37]

But if a school leader was interested and wanted to have that initial conversation with me to learn more about what's the design process like, what's the timeline like, I'm always happy to talk with folks.

[22:47] SPEAKER_02:

And where can people find Public Impact online?

[22:50] SPEAKER_00:

We have an opportunity culture website. So if you go to opportunityculture.org, you can learn more about the basics of opportunity culture design. We have our communications team has done a great job of capturing the voices of educators who are doing this work. We have a group of Opportunity Culture Fellows, so that's multi-classroom leaders, folks who are in these teacher leader roles, and also now some of the principals from the schools, and we draw on their expertise every year. But you can hear their voices and see things that they've written about the transformation in their schools and what it's like to experience these roles.

[23:24]

on our website. So I encourage folks to go explore that.

[23:27] SPEAKER_02:

Well, Stephanie, I think this is important work that you're engaging in. I think it really does enhance the status of the profession to build those career ladders in and to provide those developmental and reach extension opportunities for teachers. So thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio.

[23:45] SPEAKER_00:

Thanks very much. I enjoyed it.

[23:46] Announcer:

Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.