Someone looking to make a case for cutting funding for professional development would do well to cite the work of TNTP. The organization’s 2015 report titled “The Mirage” argued that districts were spending billions to help teachers improve — with little return on investment.
So it’s somewhat surprising that Dan Weisberg, the president of TNTP — an education reform-oriented organization previously called The New Teacher Project — was on Capitol Hill this week pushing back against the Trump administration’s proposed cuts to Title II funding, a large share of which goes to teacher professional development.
“We at TNTP are professional development skeptics, but I would say that we are seeing and doing work across the country [indicating] that the trend is positive in terms of work being more disciplined,” Weisberg told Chalkbeat.
Weisberg said the cuts “would be really unfortunate and have bad impacts on educators and kids.”
In one key way, Weisberg’s position is not surprising: his organization contracts with districts to provide services and is sometimes paid through Title II funds. (Weisberg notes that this accounts for a very small fraction of TNTP’s budget.)
That may mean his objections fall on deaf ears within the Trump administration, which has indicated skepticism of an education establishment it sees as benefitting from the current system. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has also argued that school spending is unlikely to benefit students.
Still, TNTP’s position indicates the breadth of opposition to the budget slashes, which have faced fierce skepticism from a number of education groups and from lawmakers. The cuts are seen as unlikely to be enacted in full.
The Trump budget proposal eliminates a $2.4 billion program known as Title II, Part A or Supporting Effective Instruction, which the administration has described as duplicative and ineffective. In 2014-15, nearly half of that money went to professional development.
Weisberg — along with a number of education reform groups and the superintendents of the Tulsa and Baltimore school systems — made the case to Congressional staff that it was important to “mend not end” investment in teacher training.
“Our argument to folks on the Hill was that Congress actually made some positive changes that brought more discipline to the spending of these federal funds,” he said. “Zeroing it out now or substantially cutting it is really pulling the rug out from some good policy work Congress has done.”
Weisberg also said he has had informal, “off-the-record” conversations with the Department of Education staff suggesting that they are also not enthusiastic about the cuts.
“They were given some very tough decisions to make in the budget process,” he said. “Let me put it this way: I don’t think you’re going to hear vociferous objections from the Department of Education if Congress decides to fund those programs.”
TNTP and others have long argued that there isn’t much strong evidence of the effectiveness of professional training for teachers, though a number of recent analyses offer more clues as to what makes professional support for teachers work.
One recent overview of research suggests that individualized coaching helps teachers improve and increases student test scores. Two new studies on mentoring of new teachers suggest that it can increase student test scores and teacher retention.