How to Pay Our Teachers More | Erica Jordan-Thomas | TEDxCharlotte

TEDx Talks

29 Nov 201717:41

Summary

TLDRThe speaker, a former teacher and current principal, explores how to increase teacher salaries by rethinking traditional educational models. She compares exceptional teachers, like 'Beyoncé educators,' to world-class performers and discusses how her school leveraged the 'Opportunity Culture' initiative. By expanding effective teachers' reach through leadership roles, like multi-classroom leaders, and integrating technology for personalized learning, her school enhanced student outcomes without exceeding budget limits. This innovative approach not only raises teacher pay but improves work-life balance, accelerates teacher development, and fosters greater student achievement.

Takeaways

📚 Teachers play a pivotal role in shaping students' futures, but they often feel underappreciated due to low salaries.
💰 The speaker, a former math teacher and current principal, struggled on a salary of $33,000 despite her passion for teaching.
🏆 There are 'Beyoncé educators' who consistently achieve top results with their students, but the traditional classroom setting limits their reach.
🔄 The school rethought the teacher-student venue model by expanding the influence of effective teachers through roles like Multi-Classroom Leaders (MCL).
👨‍🏫 Bobby Miles, an exemplary science teacher, expanded his reach from 120 to 937 students by leading a teaching team and creating lesson plans for the entire department.
🎓 MCLs also serve as instructional coaches, providing feedback and support to other teachers, helping them improve their teaching methods.
📈 Blended learning models, like the one created by Molly Whalen, personalize education for students, combining face-to-face instruction with technology.
👩‍🏫 Opportunity Culture allows effective teachers to lead teams and impact more students, while increasing their salaries by at least $16,000 within the existing budget.
💡 The model not only improves teacher work-life balance but also accelerates teacher development and student learning outcomes.
🏅 The Opportunity Culture program has led to measurable improvements, with the school ranking second in language arts and third in science growth in their district.

Q & A

What challenge does the speaker identify regarding teachers' salaries?
-The speaker identifies that teachers are underpaid, with many like the speaker struggling on salaries as low as $33,000, despite their significant impact in the classroom.
Why does the speaker compare educators to Beyoncé?
-The speaker compares exceptional educators to Beyoncé because they consistently deliver excellent results, just as Beyoncé consistently releases number-one albums. However, unlike Beyoncé, their impact is limited by the classroom, and the speaker believes great teachers should be given a larger platform, or 'venue,' to reach more students.
How did the school expand the reach of effective educators like Mr. Miles?
-The school expanded the reach of educators like Mr. Miles by implementing an 'Opportunity Culture' model, where teachers like him became multi-classroom leaders (MCLs). This allowed him to create lesson plans for the entire science department, coach other teachers, and still directly teach students, extending his impact to all students at the school.
What is an 'Opportunity Culture' as described in the script?
-An 'Opportunity Culture' is a model that expands the reach of effective educators by allowing them to lead and support other teachers, while also paying them more. This model increases their influence across more students and classrooms, providing better outcomes for both students and teachers.
How does the 'Opportunity Culture' affect teachers' work-life balance?
-The 'Opportunity Culture' improves work-life balance for teachers by giving them support from multi-classroom leaders, reducing the burden of lesson planning and providing consistent feedback, helping teachers work more efficiently and sustainably.
What was the impact of Opportunity Culture on student learning at the school?
-The implementation of Opportunity Culture led to significant improvements in student learning, with the school ranking number two in the district for growth in language arts and number three for growth in science.
How did the school pay teachers more without increasing its overall budget?
-The school restructured its existing budget to create new Opportunity Culture positions, like multi-classroom leaders, which allowed them to pay effective teachers more by reallocating resources, rather than requiring additional funds.
Why did Mr. Miles decide to become a teacher?
-Mr. Miles initially pursued a career in medicine but decided to become a teacher after a negative experience in a medical internship and realizing his love for working with kids, with encouragement from a mentor.
What roles does Mr. Miles have as a multi-classroom leader (MCL)?
-As an MCL, Mr. Miles creates lesson plans for the entire science department, coaches and provides feedback to other science teachers, and teaches small groups of students who need additional support.
How does the Opportunity Culture model support personalized learning?
-The Opportunity Culture model supports personalized learning by using blended learning techniques, where students receive individualized instruction both from teachers and through technology, ensuring that each student's unique learning needs are met.

Outlines

00:00

🎓 The Struggles and Passion of a Teacher

The narrator, a high school math teacher, reflects on the passion and dedication to teaching. Despite loving teaching and witnessing students breaking barriers, she struggled financially, earning only $33,000 annually. Her classroom defied societal stereotypes as students achieved remarkable academic success. However, she felt unpatriotic due to her financial struggles, despite believing that teaching is a patriotic act. Determined to create a better future for teachers and students, she became a principal to find solutions to improve teachers' salaries.

05:03

🤔 Rethinking Education Like a Concert Venue

The narrator encourages a shift in how we think about schools and education, drawing a parallel with Beyoncé’s performances. Beyoncé's success and access to larger venues are due to her proven track record of success. Similarly, there are outstanding 'Beyoncé educators' in schools, achieving exceptional results, but limited by the traditional classroom structure. The speaker suggests that with better data and larger 'venues,' great teachers can reach more students and have a greater impact, but this is often not the case in education, especially in underprivileged communities.

10:04

🏫 Expanding the Impact of Exceptional Teachers

The narrator introduces Bobby Miles, a science teacher with a background in pre-med, who became a highly successful educator. Despite his achievements, he initially reached only a small number of students. With the help of a program called Opportunity Culture, his impact was expanded to 937 students. By leading teacher teams and creating lesson plans, Mr. Miles was able to indirectly teach across multiple classrooms, leveraging his expertise to benefit the entire school. This approach enabled him to have a broader influence while still retaining his passion for teaching.

15:04

👨‍🏫 Empowering Students Through Representation and Personalized Learning

In addition to expanding Mr. Miles' reach, the school created opportunities for personalized learning. The narrator highlights the importance of representation, particularly for black boys, who make up a third of the student population. Teachers like Mr. Miles serve as role models for these students. Another teacher, Molly Whalen, introduced a blended learning model that combined face-to-face teaching with technology. This allowed her to personalize instruction for students at different levels, which proved highly successful. Ms. Whalen eventually became a leader, coaching other teachers to implement similar models.

💼 Sustainable Pay Increases Through Opportunity Culture

The narrator explains how the Opportunity Culture model not only expands teachers' reach but also increases their pay. By restructuring the school's budget, the narrator was able to add $16,000 to teachers' salaries without increasing costs. Unlike temporary grant programs, this model is sustainable and allows for ongoing teacher support. Teachers benefit from instructional support, which improves their work-life balance and professional development, leading to better results for students. The model has contributed to significant growth in the school's academic performance.

🇺🇸 Teaching as a Patriotic Act: The Future of Education

The narrator concludes by reaffirming the belief that teaching is one of the most patriotic acts, as teachers shape the future leaders of the country. However, if teacher pay does not reflect the importance of their work, more educators will leave the profession, and potential great teachers may never join. The narrator emphasizes that their school, through Opportunity Culture, has proven that it's possible to improve teacher pay and impact. The goal is to provide every student with access to great teachers, turning this vision into a reality at the narrator's school.

Mindmap

Keywords

💡Beyoncé educator

A 'Beyoncé educator' refers to a highly effective teacher who consistently delivers outstanding results with their students, much like how Beyoncé consistently tops the charts with her music. In the script, this concept is used to describe educators like Mr. Miles and Ms. Whalen, who are able to reach students at a large scale and produce exceptional academic growth. The term symbolizes excellence in teaching and the impact these educators can have when given the right opportunities.

💡Opportunity culture

The 'opportunity culture' is a framework designed to expand the reach of highly effective educators to more students while paying them more. This concept is central to the video’s message, as it highlights how restructuring roles within schools can increase teacher impact without needing additional funding. At Ranson IB Middle School, this system was implemented by creating roles like Multi-Classroom Leaders (MCLs) to guide teams of teachers, thereby extending the influence of top educators.

💡Multi-Classroom Leader (MCL)

A Multi-Classroom Leader (MCL) is a teacher-leader who supports a group of teachers by creating lesson plans, coaching them, and analyzing student data to improve outcomes. In the script, Mr. Miles serves as an MCL, expanding his reach from 120 students to 937. The MCL role exemplifies how schools can leverage the skills of top educators to benefit a larger number of students and fellow teachers while providing them with higher pay and leadership responsibilities.

💡Blended Learning Teacher (BLT)

A Blended Learning Teacher (BLT) combines traditional in-person teaching with online learning tools to personalize education for students. In the video, Ms. Whalen transitions to a BLT role, allowing her to engage two groups of students simultaneously—one in person and the other online. This method maximizes her instructional impact and helps students learn at their own pace, catering to their individual needs.

💡Personalized learning

Personalized learning is the practice of tailoring education to meet the unique needs of each student. The script mentions how educators at Ranson IB Middle School create lesson plans that are adapted to the specific learning styles and progress levels of their students. This approach ensures that all students, regardless of their starting point, can make significant academic progress.

💡Teacher pay

The issue of 'teacher pay' is a key concern in the video. The speaker, a former teacher and current principal, discusses the financial struggles many teachers face, such as earning $33,000 per year. The video argues that current teacher salaries do not reflect the important societal role they play, and that systems like opportunity culture provide a way to pay educators more by restructuring budgets and roles, rather than requiring additional funding.

💡Educational inequality

Educational inequality refers to the disparities in academic resources, teacher quality, and outcomes between schools, especially in low-income areas. The video highlights this issue by explaining how schools like Ranson IB, where many students come from low-income backgrounds and are below grade level, often struggle to find and retain top teachers. The opportunity culture model aims to address this by expanding the reach of effective educators to students who need them most.

💡Teacher support

Teacher support in the video refers to the guidance and resources provided to educators to help them improve their practice and achieve better student outcomes. Through roles like the MCL, teachers at Ranson IB receive regular coaching and feedback, easing their workload and improving their teaching quality. This support system helps educators get better faster, which in turn benefits students.

💡Sustainability

Sustainability in the context of the video refers to creating lasting improvements in the education system without relying on temporary funding or grants. The opportunity culture model is presented as sustainable because it allows schools to restructure within existing budgets. By providing teachers with better pay and support through roles like MCLs and BLTs, schools can maintain long-term improvements in teacher retention and student performance.

💡Work-life balance

Work-life balance is a concept discussed in the video in relation to teacher well-being. The speaker mentions how teachers often work long hours, staying up late to prepare lessons, which can lead to burnout. Through the opportunity culture model, teachers like those at Ranson IB receive support in lesson planning and instructional feedback, allowing them to manage their workloads more effectively and achieve a better balance between their professional and personal lives.

Highlights

As a high school math teacher, the speaker emphasizes their passion for teaching and the life-changing impact they saw in their classroom, such as helping students break barriers and defy stereotypes.

The speaker addresses the financial struggles of being a teacher, highlighting how they struggled on a $33,000 salary while knowing that teaching was their life's purpose.

The speaker became a principal to create better opportunities for students and teachers and to rethink how teachers are paid, emphasizing that change is needed in the education system.

The analogy of Beyonce is introduced to reframe the way we think about teaching: just like great performers, great educators can create a huge impact, but their reach is limited by traditional classroom settings.

The speaker highlights how great data leads to larger venues in entertainment, proposing that teachers with exceptional results should also have access to larger platforms to expand their impact.

Mr. Miles, a highly effective science teacher, is used as an example of a 'Beyonce educator' who had great results but was limited by reaching only a small percentage of students.

The concept of 'opportunity culture' was introduced to expand the reach of effective educators like Mr. Miles, who now impacts 937 students instead of just 120, without physically being in every classroom.

The 'multi-classroom leader' (MCL) position was created to allow excellent educators to lead teacher teams and create lesson plans for the entire department, extending their reach and impact.

Mr. Miles, as an MCL, also coaches teachers weekly, providing feedback and identifying action steps to improve teaching quality across the department.

Teachers like Mr. Miles still get to teach directly, working with small groups of students to create strong connections and personalized instruction, especially for students who need extra help.

The speaker highlights the importance of representation, noting that expanding Mr. Miles' role increased the opportunity for black boys to see themselves in a black male teacher, an underrepresented group in education.

Ms. Whalen, another exceptional educator, used technology to personalize learning in her math classroom by splitting students into groups that alternated between face-to-face and online instruction.

Ms. Whalen eventually became an MCL as well, expanding her reach to 323 students and leading a team of math teachers to implement the same blended learning model.

The opportunity culture approach not only improves student outcomes but also pays teachers more. MCLs like Mr. Miles and Ms. Whalen earn at least $16,000 more than their base salary, and this increase is sustainable within the school's existing budget.

Teachers are happier and more supported with MCLs, improving work/life balance. They also get better faster through weekly feedback, which improves student outcomes, as demonstrated by the school's growth rankings in language arts and science.