Extending the Reach

Schools can make the most of their great teachers and leaders by extending educators’ reach to more students. This approach can help create an “opportunity culture” for teachers in which they can collaborate, develop, and advance without leaving the classroom. Innovations in staffing models and career paths can make this approach possible. The Innovation Station’s resources for extending the reach include the following:

  • Staffing innovations, such as publications, infographics, and videos that explain how schools can be redesigned to extend the reach of great teachers or how schools can offer more pay within budget.
  • Technology information, including websites about digital tools, technology use in schools, and blended learning.

Submit a Resource

Staffing Innovations

Broad

This Opportunity Culture webpage, created by Public Impact, provides scenarios and materials for use by district administrators (as an exercise in rethinking the standard school set-up) and... Read more »
The job of “teacher” in most schools today remains centered on full-time classroom responsibilities that are defined by the location, timing, and schedule of the school day and a one-teacher-per-... Read more »

The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation recently published a series of case studies on five school networks engaged in blended learning. These case studies provide deep insight into the following... Read more »

This brief from ERS is based on its work with the Cleveland Metropolitan School District and examines the relationship between strategic school design and effective student-based budgeting.

In this report, the Center for American Progress and Public Impact outline four concrete actions that the federal government can take to expand student access to excellent teachers.

Despite proliferating chatter about the need to reform teacher compensation, the bulk of teacher pay remains fundamentally unchanged.

This infographic by Public Impact summarizes the ideas of “Opportunity Culture” and illustrates ways schools can use job redesign and technology to put excellent teachers in charge of students’... Read more »
This Public Impact video explains how excellent teachers can close achievement gaps, and why schools must reach more students with these teachers.
This Public Impact case study is part of a series that offers an in-depth look at districts, charter schools, and other programs that have started using Opportunity Culture models (those that extend... Read more »
Public Impact’s report explores the potential impact of policy initiatives designed to improve student access to great teachers.
The Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) enlisted the help of principals in three states, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Maryland, to find out more about ways they are using their... Read more »
This Public Impact webpage provides an overview table and detailed descriptions of school models that redesign jobs, and in some cases, use technology in new ways, to extend the reach of excellent... Read more »
This report, published by the Fordham Institute, studies data from North Carolina to determine how “right-sizing” a classroom—i.e., giving the most effective teachers the most students—could affect... Read more »
Public Impact’s report—and related policy brief, presentation, and checklist—explains why every child needs excellent teachers year after year; how schools can put excellent teachers in charge of... Read more »
An update to the first release issued in 2011, this brief by Public Impact examines policies for reaching far more students with gap-closing, bar-raising excellent teaching and for providing well-... Read more »
Produced by the District Management Journal, this series of 10 briefs summarizes 10 key opportunities for districts to realign resources and free up funds for other district priorities.
This Public Impact webpage provides information on how school models that extend the reach of excellent teachers to more students can create new roles that enable teachers and paraprofessionals to... Read more »
This website, developed by a team from the Pahara-Aspen Teacher-Leader Fellows, offers overviews and links to... Read more »
This Public Impact webpage has links to a presentation and two short publications created specifically for teacher audiences.
This report examines how educators working together can improve student outcomes.

These tools from Public Impact are intended to help principals build leadership skills of teacher leaders.

The T3 (Turnaround Teacher Teams) Initiative at Teach Plus represents an innovative approach to recruiting, developing, and supporting teachers to serve in high-need schools.

This Teach Factor report, published by the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET), examines the demand teachers have for leadership opportunities, need for expanded instructional... Read more »

Targeted

This paper explores recent reforms undertaken in the English school system to restructure its leadership development system.

Public Impact’s case study on Opportunity Culture highlights the “truly different” things Project L.I.F.T. did to redesign four schools using Opportunity Culture models and principles.
This vignette, from Public Impact, provides insight into a day in the life of a multi-classroom leader, whose job as an instructional teacher leader is to support and coach other teachers so more... Read more »

This report summarizes key elements of new leadership structures in England resulting from recent reforms that have distributed leadership responsibilities across administrators and teachers.

This series of vignettes, with accompanying video from Public Impact, focuses on principals at three Opportunity Culture schools, profiling their use of the Multi-Classroom Leadership model that... Read more »

This working paper from the Calder Center presents findings from a three-year study of 15,000 students in three districts implementing the Opportunity Culture school staffing model.
This policy brief by Public Impact shows how schools that extend the reach of excellent teachers and their teams to more students, for significantly higher pay within budget, may be able to attract... Read more »
This research study, published by the U.S. Department of Education and Mathematica Policy Research, analyzes the effect of providing high-performing teachers selective transfer incentives to move to... Read more »
The complete recipe for Singapore’s educational success is not public, but one element stands out: the development and thorough use of performance-linked “competencies” to measure, reward, and... Read more »
This paper examines whether it is possible to improve student achievement by reallocating pupils among teachers so that the most effective teachers teach a greater number of students.