Today’s top-quartile teachers achieve enough student progress to close our nation’s achievement gaps and raise our bar to internationally competitive levels. But approximately 64,000 of these top teachers leave teaching every year. And the best teachers who stay reach no more children than the very worst teachers.

Even if current reform efforts to recruit more great teachers and dismiss low performers were wildly successful, nearly two-thirds of children still would not have great teachers. But if we add high-performer retention and reach extension, 87 percent of classes could be taught by gap-closing, bar-raising teachers—in a mere half-decade.

This outcome is within our reach—but only if we vastly expand the opportunities for top teachers to achieve success, impact, and rewards—by building an “opportunity culture” for America’s teachers.

Learn more by reading the new report from Public Impact: Opportunity at the Top: How America’s Best Teachers Could Close the Gaps, Raise the Bar, and Keep Our Nation Great.