TNTP and Indiana SBOE’s Crony Corporate Teacher Evaluation Agenda

by Doug Martin

Funded by Bill Gates and started by corporate school darling Michelle Rhee, The New Teachers Project  has a big role in my  book Hoosier School Heist.  And this corporate consulting/temporary teacher group is at it again, this time with help from the Indiana State Board of Education.

On Wednesday, February 4, the state board will meet to determine whether or not it will take TNTP’s recommendations from the group's report done over the last two months on Indiana teacher evaluations for the state board, and there’s a very good chance it will, since TNTP has been a part of the school privatization movement in Indiana for years now.  

Since TNTP has partnered with SBOE board member Dan Elsener’s Marian University, so we know he's onboard with the agenda.  And just a few days ago, Eli Lilly agreed to hand out $3.4 million to the Mind Trust to expand TNTP and Teach for America in Indiana.

TNTP’s CEO, Ariela Rozman, is a Mind-Trust board member.  In 2013, Rozman made over $300,000 in total compensation (page 7).  That same year, TNTP made almost $4.8 million in government grants (page 9).  TNTP, then, was active in 30 cities and created 1652 teachers  for its organization (page 30). 

As noted in TNTP report to the Indiana SBOE, The New Teacher Project doesn't like local control and finds it a problem that 90 percent of the teachers in Indiana have been rated good, which makes firing them and hiring temporary recruits from TNTP and Teach for America more difficult and slows down school privatization.

Reporter Megan Trent summarizes TNTP’s recommendations, one of them being test scores:

The New Teacher Project recommendations include setting a range for teacher evaluations. For teachers specializing in an area covered on ISTEP tests, 33% to 55% of the teachers’ evaluations would be based on student test scores. Educators that teach subjects not covered on ISTEP would have a range of 25% to 40% of their evaluations based on test scores.

Praising the evaluation system set up four years ago and criticizing the “obstacles” (like Glenda Ritz?) to implementation that have occurred (see page 8-9), TNTP, of course, wants the SBOE (minus Glenda Ritz as its chairperson, no doubt) to have a major role in the new plan, and this may require new laws (see page 26).  If adopted, TNTP's teacher evaluation plan for Indiana will begin in 2016.

Filled full of corporate language like “stakeholders,” the plan, no doubt, seeks to further dismantle teachers in Indiana.  Hoosiers need to find out how much TNTP was paid to do the SBOE report and if any taxpayer money was used and how much.

For TNTP’s recent and secret school privatization teacher preparation goals at the University of Memphis (which was hidden from department of education professors), read Jim Horn’s piece here.