Spotlight On: Advanced Teaching Roles Initiative

Spotlight On: Advanced Teaching Roles Initiative     In 2016, North Carolina created the Advanced Teaching Roles Initiative. This legislation establishes a school leadership re-design model that empowers districts and educators to design new teaching roles that provide advancement opportunities, improved professional development, and greater support for student achievement. Advanced Teaching Roles enables highly-effective teachers to advance their careers, extend their positive impact on student achievement, and increase their compensation. The best part: they get to stay in the classroom! In effective models, developing teachers also benefit by having access to real-time professional development, relieving some of the pressures of principals who are traditionally the primary source of instructional leadership in the school. Today, ten districts are taking part in the Advanced Roles Initiative.   Success by Design Program Created in 2013 and inspired by lessons learned from the Opportunity Culture model in Project LIFT schools, Success by Design is an official Advanced Roles program in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS).  This approach is being phased in strategically over time.  During the 2018-19 school year, Success by Design was implemented in 50 schools. Success by Design advanced roles teachers can earn up to $20,000 on top of their base salary, while increasing their impact on student achievement. Early results from the CMS program suggest that this model helps the district recruit and retain top talent, resulting in significant student achievement gains. During the 2017-18 school year, 58% of Success by Design schools exceeded growth, compared with 27% of all schools statewide.  Also, a recent study published by the CALDER Center finds that students’ academic gains increased when taught by advanced roles teachers, with significant achievement gains in math.   For more information visit www.BEST-NC.org/advancedroles.

Investing in education is the right move for legislature- EdNC- Allen E. Gant Jr.

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_hidrop] Education transformation in North Carolina depends on our ability to attract and retain the best and brightest teachers and school leaders. That’s why we commend our elected leadership for their bold commitments to raise teacher pay. The National Education Association reports that North Carolina has raised teacher salaries faster than any other state over the last two years. More importantly, legislative leadership has made it a top priority to significantly boost not just starting pay, but pay for all early career teachers. Business leaders know that talent is the key to the success of any organization. That’s why we must continue investing in a teacher pay plan that enables every teacher to earn more, earlier in their career and compensates experienced teachers who expand their career into classroom leadership and/or hard-to-staff schools and subjects. BEST NC members believe North Carolina can have the best education system in the nation. We start by looking at the reality of today’s teaching profession. The truth is that schools are competing with other professions to retain new, talented teachers. Even though starting teacher pay was raised significantly over the last two years, teachers quickly fall behind their college graduate peers with the slow progression of our pay schedule. That is one big reason turnover is so high among younger teachers in North Carolina. The other hard reality is that we don’t compensate teachers as we do other highly-skilled professions. In most other professions, earnings potential keeps up with early career growth and includes additional opportunities for specialized skills or achievement. Currently, North Carolina teachers can’t reach top earnings until they are nearly 50 years old. No other high-skilled profession follows such a slow curve. To be clear – teaching is a highly skilled profession, requiring teachers to make complex, real time decisions to ensure students are engaged and learning. Plus, the demands of the economy require teachers to meet higher expectations and provide personalized learning for all students. We must ensure that our classroom teachers have the respect and compensation commensurate with this demanding job. Giving higher raises to early-career teachers will help recruit top talent to the profession, reduce turnover, and enable them to earn more, faster. We can continue building on these gains by compensating experienced teachers for taking on leadership roles, teaching in hard to fill subject areas or taking positions in hard to staff schools. We commend both the Governor and House leadership for prioritizing pay increases for teachers and principals in their budget proposals. The Senate pay plan that was previewed this week appears to build on those proposals, offering a multi-year commitment to a visionary plan for paying teachers commensurate with the importance and skill of their profession. About the Author: Allen E. Gant, Jr., is the chairman and CEO of Glen Raven, Inc. and a member of BEST NC. Click here to view Allen E. Gant Jr.- Investing in education PDF [/vc_hidrop][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Promising signs on teacher pay at legislature- The Charlotte Observer- Allen E. Gant Jr.

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_hidrop] BY ALAN E. GANT JR. Gant Photo by – Steve Exum Special to the Observer Education transformation in North Carolina depends on our ability to attract and retain the best and brightest teachers and school leaders. That’s why we commend our elected leadership for their bold commitments to raise teacher pay. The National Education Association reports that North Carolina has raised teacher salaries faster than any other state over the last two years. More importantly, legislative leadership has made it a top priority to significantly boost not just starting pay, but pay for all early career teachers. Business leaders know that talent is the key to the success of any organization. That’s why we must continue investing in a teacher pay plan that enables every teacher to earn more earlier in their career and compensates experienced teachers who expand their career into classroom leadership and/or hard-to-staff schools and subjects. BEST NC members believe North Carolina can have the best education system in the nation. We start by looking at the reality of today’s teaching profession. The truth is that schools are competing with other professions to retain new, talented teachers. Even though starting teacher pay was raised significantly over the past two years, teachers quickly fall behind their college graduate peers with the slow progression of our pay schedule. That is one big reason turnover is so high among younger teachers in North Carolina. The other hard reality is that we don’t compensate teachers as we do other highly skilled professions. In most other professions, earnings potential keeps up with early career growth and includes additional opportunities for specialized skills or achievement. Currently, North Carolina teachers can’t reach top earnings until they are nearly 50 years old. No other high-skilled profession follows such a slow curve. To be clear – teaching is a highly skilled profession, requiring teachers to make complex, real-time decisions to ensure students are engaged and learning. Plus, the demands of the economy require teachers to meet higher expectations and provide personalized learning for all students. We must ensure that our classroom teachers have the respect and compensation commensurate with this demandingjob. Giving higher raises to early-career teachers   will help recruit top talent to the profession, reduce turnover, and enable them to earn more, faster. We can continue building on these gains by compensating experienced teachers for  taking on leadership roles, teaching in hard-to- fill subject areas or taking positions in hard-to- staffschools. We commend both the governor and House leadership for prioritizing pay increases for teachers and principals in their budget proposals. The Senate pay plan that was previewed Wednesday appears to build on those proposals, offering a multi-year commitment to a visionary plan for paying teachers commensurate with the importance and skill of their profession. Gant is chairman and CEO of Glen Raven, Inc. and a member of BEST NC. Click here to view Allen E. Gant Jr. -Investing in education PDF [/vc_hidrop][/vc_column][/vc_row]