Spring Break
Nonprofit CEO discusses education in the US
by Anya Bergman
News | 9/23/08
Posted online at 5:09 AM EST on 9/23/08
Wendy Kopp, founder and CEO of Teach for America, spoke of the potential of TFA, expounding on the lessons learned from her many encounters with TFA recruits, last Monday during the kickoff event of Citizenship Week.
Kopp said that during her time at Princeton, she came up with the idea that students should be aggressively recruited to teach in low-performing communities and "channel [the TFA volunteers'] talent and energy" into classrooms for two-year periods.
She said that the "dramatic gains" in students' proficiency levels made by particularly successful teachers drive everything the TFA staff does to improve their program and give it a sense of urgency.
She spoke of the success of a fourth-grade teacher in the South Bronx and a tenth-grade teacher in Brooklyn who both pushed their students to perform at the proper grade level after finding that they were far behind in terms of grade-level proficiency.
"We can turn the achievement gap on its head," Kopp said.
Kopp said achievement can happen regardless of students' income levels. Teachers can do a lot in terms of educational achievement before running into boundaries that may impede the students' success, such as poor health care.
She told the story of Chris Barbick, who started new middle and high schools in Houston where 77 percent of students receive free and reduced lunch: there is a 92 percent likelihood that those students will graduate from college.
Kopp spoke about three fundamental lessons she learned from recruits like these and others who have been equally successful.
The first, she said, is that education inequity "is a solvable problem." She said there is evidence of how bad the problem is, but there is also evidence from the successful teachers that the problem does not need to exist. There is so much reason for outrage but also a sense of possibility, she said.
Another lesson, Kopp said, is the "difference it can make for people with real leadership ability to channel their energy … in [the] direction [of teaching]."
Kopp said that during her time at Princeton, she came up with the idea that students should be aggressively recruited to teach in low-performing communities and "channel [the TFA volunteers'] talent and energy" into classrooms for two-year periods.
She said that the "dramatic gains" in students' proficiency levels made by particularly successful teachers drive everything the TFA staff does to improve their program and give it a sense of urgency.
She spoke of the success of a fourth-grade teacher in the South Bronx and a tenth-grade teacher in Brooklyn who both pushed their students to perform at the proper grade level after finding that they were far behind in terms of grade-level proficiency.
"We can turn the achievement gap on its head," Kopp said.
Kopp said achievement can happen regardless of students' income levels. Teachers can do a lot in terms of educational achievement before running into boundaries that may impede the students' success, such as poor health care.
She told the story of Chris Barbick, who started new middle and high schools in Houston where 77 percent of students receive free and reduced lunch: there is a 92 percent likelihood that those students will graduate from college.
Kopp spoke about three fundamental lessons she learned from recruits like these and others who have been equally successful.
The first, she said, is that education inequity "is a solvable problem." She said there is evidence of how bad the problem is, but there is also evidence from the successful teachers that the problem does not need to exist. There is so much reason for outrage but also a sense of possibility, she said.
Another lesson, Kopp said, is the "difference it can make for people with real leadership ability to channel their energy … in [the] direction [of teaching]."
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George Patsourakos
posted 9/24/08 @ 12:58 PM EST
Recruiting college students to teach in low-performing communities through Wendy Kopp's "Teach for America" brainchild is a great idea. In America we tend to neglect low-performing students. (Continued…)
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