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TNTP Looks to the Future
When Michelle Rhee, The New Teacher Project's president and CEO, left the organization to become chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools in June, 30-year-old Timothy Daly (Baltimore '99) stepped up as president.
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TNTP Looks to the Future
By Michelle R. Davis
When Michelle Rhee, The New Teacher Project’s president and CEO, left the organization to become chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools in June, 30-year-old Timothy Daly (Baltimore ’99) stepped up as president. Working under the organization’s new CEO, Ariela Rozman, another TNTP veteran, Daly will support Rozman in steering the $17 million, 120-employee nonprofit (with 37 Teach For America alumni), which is dedicated to recruiting and supporting new public school teachers from the ranks of successful professionals and to breaking down the policy barriers that keep urban schools from hiring the best.
Most clients seem unfazed by the management switch. “I don’t have the slightest worry [about the performance of the organization], because Michelle built capacity across the system,” says John Deasy, the superintendent of Maryland’s Prince George’s County Public Schools, where TNTP has placed 50 teachers to date. “The branding and the work won’t change.”
Currently TNTP has more than 20 active programs—in districts such as New York City, Memphis, Oakland, and Washington, D.C.—and since its inception has recruited, trained, or placed more than 23,000 teachers in American classrooms. Daly and Rozman are intent on continuing the organization’s bold five-year plan to increase its impact on several fronts.
TNTP plans to offer one-stop shopping to districts by providing recruiting, hiring, and certification services all under one roof. For example, TNTP can fully staff a district’s 20 lowest-performing schools, provide principals with professional development on the best methods for hiring teachers, perform all teacher-hiring services, and develop new technology and databases to aid in the hiring process. A pilot project is in the works to launch regional hiring centers where all districts and charters schools in a region could go for TNTP teachers, Daly says.
“We’re going to grow, but we need to keep a sense of urgency and edge,” he adds. “We’re trying to retain our character of working collaboratively within districts but also pushing them to innovate.”
The organization also plans to expand its policy work, studying the effect of state and local regulations on securing good teachers for high-need classrooms. It will build on its previous research studying teachers’ union contract regulations and how they affect retention and hiring of quality teachers, particularly in hard-to-staff schools.
To finance these operations, the revenue-generating organization must engage in significant fund-raising for the first time in its history. “We’re looking for a small number of partners who get it and can support us without asking us to change our mission,” Daly says.
Daly’s first order of business? Building relationships with his new school district partners and potential funders. “Initially, it can be a challenge, and it takes some time,” he says. “You have to earn credibility through your actions.”
