Teachers Trained by TNTP Earn Top Ratings for Third Consecutive Year in Louisiana Study

The New Teacher Project Earns Highest Ratings for Preparing Exceptionally Effective Teachers in Math, Reading, English Language Arts and Science

NEW ORLEANS – The New Teacher Project’s teacher preparation program consistently ranks among Louisiana’s most effective, according to the third-year results of a state-sponsored study by researchers at Louisiana State University. TNTP was the only teacher preparation provider in the state to earn the highest possible rating for training effective teachers across four core subjects: math, reading, English language arts and science. According to the study, new teachers trained by the program showed evidence of being “more effective than experienced teachers” in advancing student academic growth in each of these subject areas.
 
New teachers enrolled in TNTP’s Louisiana Practitioner Teacher Program (LPTP) earn their certification during their first year teaching—a rigorous, field-based approach that immediately exposes teachers to the realities of the classroom and accelerates teachers’ post-certification impact on student learning. It is specifically designed to help career changers who are new to teaching be immediately effective in high-need schools.
 
More than 1,495 teachers have been certified or are pending certification through the LPTP, the first non-university teacher preparation program in Louisiana. The program currently serves 13 districts and charter school associations in the New Orleans, Shreveport and Baton Rouge areas, including the Recovery School District. Teachers certified by LPTP include Teach For America corps members, teachers recruited by TNTP’s teachNOLA and Louisiana Teaching Fellows program, and teachers from the Teach Baton Rouge program, all of which are highly selective programs that serve high-need schools.
 
The study, “Value Added Assessment of Teacher Preparation in Louisiana: 2005-2006 to 2008-2009,” is part of an ongoing research project examining the effect of recent graduates of Louisiana teacher education programs on student achievement in grades 4-9. Controlling for student past performance and school environment, the model shows how much teachers certified by each program contribute to student learning. Seventeen teacher preparation programs were studied, and each was assigned performance levels ranging from 1 to 5, based on the effectiveness of their teachers by subject area.
 
Over the past three years, TNTP has earned nine Level 1 ratings, more than any other provider. The latest results for TNTP’s program show that it consistently produces highly effective teachers, especially for the core subject areas of math, reading, English language arts and science.

• In math, TNTP earned a Level 1 rating, as it has for the last three years. Level 1 indicates that teachers from the program “are more effective than experienced teachers.” For the past three years, TNTP-trained teachers have had a positive effect estimate on student achievement of 5.1 points, 8.2 points higher than the mean for new teachers. By comparison, the study’s authors calculate that being eligible for free lunch has a negative effect of 2.1 on a student’s academic achievement; therefore, having a math teacher trained by TNTP more than compensates for this disadvantage of poverty. The program has certified more than 210 math teachers to date.
• In reading, TNTP also earned a Level 1 rating for the third year in a row. For the past three years, TNTP-trained teachers have had an effect estimate of 2.5, over 5 points higher than the mean. TNTP was one of only two programs studied to earn a level 1 rating in reading.
• In English language arts, TNTP was the only program to earn a Level 1 rating. For the past three years, TNTP-trained teachers had an effect estimate of 1.7, or 4.5 points higher than the mean.
• In science, TNTP earned a Level 1 rating. For the past three years, TNTP-trained teachers had an effect estimate of 2.1, or 3.6 points above the mean.

 
In the fifth subject area, social studies, TNTP was rated Level 3. A Level 3 rating indicates that teachers certified by the program have an effect on student achievement that “is typical for new teachers.” However, this rating primarily reflects the performance of elementary teachers, who receive less coursework in social studies than in math or reading content areas. TNTP is currently revising its coursework to enhance its training in social studies and other areas.
 
“Three years of study results validate that TNTP’s Louisiana Practitioner Teacher Program is one of the most successful models for preparing highly effective teachers,” said Ariela Rozman, Chief Executive Officer of The New Teacher Project. “They show that pairing careful teacher recruitment and selection with rigorous, field-based training is the recipe for creating new teachers who can help poor and minority students make dramatic gains.”
 
The study results will inform TNTP’s ongoing efforts to improve and scale up its teacher certification programs nationwide. TNTP currently operates similar programs in six states including Louisiana. Thanks to an Investing in Innovation (i3) grant by the Department of Education, TNTP will launch or expand similar teacher certification programs in six additional cities—Charlotte-Mecklenberg, NC; Chicago, IL; Washington, DC; Fort Worth, TX; Nashville, TN and New Orleans, LA—and collect data on their efficacy.
 
“We are proud to be part of a nationwide movement to ensure that all students get great teachers,” said Timothy Daly, President of The New Teacher Project. “That starts with effective teacher training. We applaud Louisiana's commitment to understanding teachers’ impact on student achievement and for holding teacher certification programs accountable. This information will help Louisiana scale up its strongest programs and build a thriving teacher workforce—the key to raising student achievement.”

For more information on the study, please visit the Louisiana Board of Regents website.
 

Note on Study Methodology: The study is intended to assess the relative effectiveness of Louisiana’s teacher training programs. These include alternate routes to certification like TNTP’s program, whose teachers earn certification during their first year teaching, and undergraduate programs, whose teachers do not begin teaching until after being certified. This design complicates direct comparisons of the effectiveness of newly certified teachers from the two types of programs to one another, because the former group has the advantage of a year in the classroom. However, regardless of whether alternate route teachers like those trained by TNTP are defined as first- or second-year teachers, the program’s Level 1 ratings indicate that they exceed their peers—both new and experienced teachers—in effectiveness.