Q&A: Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp '89

Founder and chair of the board for Teach for AmericaWendy Kopp ’89 spoke on campus on Monday about the growth of her organization and its role in the community. After the lecture, Kopp sat down with The Daily Princetonian to discuss the founding of TFA and the importance of teachers in the public school system.

The Daily Princetonian: Your senior thesis here at Princeton was based on the idea of a national serviceorganization, modeled off the Peace Corps, that focused on teaching. How was thisidea inspired and how did it ultimately translate into the global organization thatTeach for America has ultimately become?

Wendy Kopp ’89: The first step was really to see through the vision and plan that was in the thesis, and,actually, I think there was a four- or five-page plan for creating TFA in the first year.I honestly just followed the plan, and it was one of those things when the timing wasperfect and it was quickly just very clear it was far beyond me, and it magnetized somany people who kind of believed in the values it was based on and the vision.I think then, I became very focused on entering TFA to fulfill its potential to get bigger and better, and I was exclusively focused on that, and I think a lot of time, a lot ofperseverance from a lot of people was able to make it grow to where it is here now.

I didn’t wake up and start thinking about things international but rather just started hearingfrom people from India to Lebanon to China to Chile to the next place. Thirteen people in oneyear, actually, who were just determined to adapt this model in their countries. To callupon their country’s top grads to get them to commit two years to teach to cultivate theirsense of leadership as a force for change, and they were looking for help, which led thelaunch of Teach for All as a separate organization that would just be a network of all theseindependent groups with a mission of essentially providing the right support but alsocreating a platform so that we all would be learning from each other.

DP: Your books — "One Day, All Children: The Unlikely Triumph of Teach For America"and "AChance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn't in Providing an ExcellentEducation for All"— discuss the prospect of education reform and the kind of vision that Teach forAmerica has been operating under. Could you talk a little about the ongoing missionbehind Teach for America, and how has the vision been evolving alongside thechanging educational landscape in America?

WK: Teach for America is one source for innovators and pioneers in the effort to assure that allour kids do get a chance for an excellent education. I think some of the biggest influenceshave been our own alumni who taught and figured out what it was that would reallywork with kids and really invented new approaches and new school models.We learned from them, and our own expectations for what we could ask from our teacherschanged. We evolve constantly as we learn from our own people and others.

As an example, in many states we have raised standards for kids, which we think is awonderful thing but it requires that our teachers are also meeting a higher bar for ourkids. It’s very challenging to teach to the common core standards, so we provide ourteachers with the kind of development they need to actually be able to do that and helptheir kids succeed against a higher bar. I mean, every year we’re askingourselves: how do we ensure that our teachers have the knowledge and mindset to make a realdifference based on everything we’ve learned from our teachers in the community of thepast years? At the same time, we look to our alumni to help pioneer the future and tolearn from all the developments and figure out how to contribute to it.

DP: You talked a lot about the importance of teachers being able to relate to the corevalues and aspirations of the community and understanding where they come from,but what are some of the challenges in doing that?

WK: At Princeton, students who come from backgrounds of privilege and understand whatopportunities are provided to kids in other communities bring a tremendous amount thatcan really help communities understand what’s possible for their kids. At the same time,it’s so crucial to understand the context and culture of values of the community itself, andI think that interchange of perspectives only comes from deep relationship building. So when I think of the most successful teachers, one of the biggest differentiators is that theybuild strong relationships with their kids and families far beyond the classroom, and Ihonestly think that is the first step: actually getting out to the community and sitting withthe parents and understanding their context and at the same time understanding thebroader community context.

DP: There’s been criticism directed at not only Teach for America but otherorganizations and non-profits aimed at education reform that it fundamentallyundermines the public school system by placing more responsibility on mere collegegraduates rather than our public school teachers. How do you respond to thesecriticisms?

WK: Many of the philosophical debates that go on about Teach for America and othereducational interventions, especially on campuses like this, are so far removed from theactual reality of schools and communities, and the fact is, TFA places its teachers invacancies. There’s no way with collective bargaining and union contracts that we could doanything other than that. They are vacancies, and they are at the hardest-to-staff schools in thenation, and saddest to this day, it’s more popular to teach at the upper East side of Manhattan than it is to teach in the far reaches of the South Bronx, and TFA is bringing people who not only are willing to teach in these very high-needed communities but arealso deeply dying to do it.

DP: Do you find that TFA has been able to fill the gaps of the public school system inAmerica and what are these gaps? What do you think are these gaps?

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WK: In the short run, we are one additional stream of people who are willing to go above andbeyond traditional expectations to meet the extra needs of the kids and make up for theweaknesses in the system. We are certainly not the only source of these teachers. Thereare so many other committed teachers in the community where we work. In the long run, we are a source that’s proven to be somewhat unparalleled of leaders who will then go onto demonstrate the same kind of excellence in the classroom. The last five "Teachers of the Year" in Washington D.C. are TFA alumni. There are about almost 1,000 school principalswho are TFA alumni. Some of the most reform-minded state commissioners in the pastfour years have been TFA alumni. In some cases, they run for office, serve on school boards and serve on state legislatures, and hopefully, higher office one day. But ultimately, we don’t believewe can solve this problem from within classrooms alone. Ultimately, we need to changethe fundamental structure and the way school systems are set up. The big question is who is going to do all that, and we think we’re an important source for the people who will in fact takethis very complex problem on.