Wendy Kopp « Skoll Foundation

Teach for All

Skoll Entrepreneur(s): Wendy Kopp
Change(s) Addressed: Economic & Social Equity

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DESCRIPTION:

Wendy Kopp developed the idea for Teach For America in her senior thesis and has spent the last 20 years growing the organization, which today fields 6,000 teachers and counts among its alumni many leading education reformers. Wendy developed the concept for Teach For All together with Brett Wigdortz, the founder and CEO of Teach First, the organization’s U.K. adaptation. She authored One Day, All Children: The Unlikely Triumph of Teach For America and What I Learned Along the Way, and is the youngest person and the first woman to receive Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson Award. In 2006, she was named one of America’s best leaders by U.S. News and World Report, and in 2008, Time named her one of the world’s 100 most influential leaders.

KEY ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS OF 2010

Teach For All is accelerating the impact of 9 social enterprises as they enlist their nations’ most promising future leaders to meet educational needs. Teach For All is also supporting entrepreneurs in nearly 25 countries to develop the Teach For All model. The network will grow to 16 partner organizations in 2010 and 23 by the end of 2011.
As evidence of the model’s success, Teach For America attracted more than 35,000 talented graduates for 4,100 teaching slots and is currently fielding more than 7,000 corps members in 35 regions. 17,000 Teach For America alumni continue to have a significant impact on educational reform over the long term. Teach First has more than 800 teaching participants this year and 1,000 alumni, 40% of whom are already in school leadership roles.
In total, the Teach For All network currently fields more than 8,000 teachers, impacting the lives of more than 560,000 students in areas of educational need.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THEIR WORK:

Wendy Kopp, Teach For All.

Fresh college graduates looking for meaningful work, under-served schools needing inspired teaching. Why not bring them together?

Since Teach For America's inception in 1900 20,000 young teachers have dramatically improved learning for 3 million disadvantaged students.

Today, more than 35,000 outstanding graduates each year apply to Teach For America, competing for 3,000 coveted slots.

Teach for All extends Teach for America's innovative model overseas.

Working with local partners, Teach For All recruits recent top college graduates, trains them to be successful teachers in disadvantaged communities, and fosters their ongoing leadership and addressing educational inequity.

Ladies and gentlemen, Wendy Kopp. Thank you. Our work at Teach for All is inspired by two things. The first source of inspiration is the most salient lesson we have learned through our work at Teach for America, which is that we can solve this problem of educational and inequity.

I know I came in to this and must people who join Teach for America come into this out of a sense of idealism. You know, they think this is an unconscionable problem and that we have to do something about it.

But what we realize through our work is that not only is that it an unconscionable problem, and not only do we need to do something about it, but we can do something about it. And in fact can solve it.

We see that In the classrooms of teachers who even in their first and second years put their kids on a completely different academic trajectory. We see it now in the work of some of our alumni.

Who are pioneering the development of a new generation of schools that are taking whole schools full of kids in urban and rural communities in our country. And truly putting them on a trajectory to graduate from college at the same rates as kids in privileged economic environments.

And now we see the possibility of true system-level change through the work of other alumni who are serving as school superintendents, as social entrepreneurs, and as policy makers. We have the problem of educational inequity not because children in low-income communities and children of color aren't motivated or can't do the work.

Not because their parents don't care, but because we as a society have not given them the opportunities they deserve. We can solve that, and if we can then we must.

The second source of inspiration behind Teach For All is the inspired passionate social entrepreneurs in countries, all around the world, from India to Chile, to South Africa, to Germany, to the Baltics, to Estonia, who believe that, in this theory of change.

Who believe that recruiting their nation's most promising future leaders to commit two years to teach in their highest poverty communities will be life-changing for the kids they reach.

And will also be a fundamental force for long-term change through producing leaders who understand what you understand after you've taught successfully in a low-income community, which is that we can solve this problem and who know how to solve it.

And knowing that they will go on and work from inside of education but also ultimately from every sector at every level of policy to affect the fundamental changes necessary to ultimately truly eliminate educational inequity.

We can realize a world in which all children have the opportunity to attain an excellent education; and the question really is whether our response to the problem is commensurate with the magnitude of the problem.

We believe, and those social entrepreneurs, and I have to just say that this award really is a tribute to their efforts.

We know that the answer to the question of whether we'll solve the problem lies in whether enough of our society's most promising future leaders will step up and say we're going to lead us to that day.

Thank you school for your vote of confidence.

Wendy Kopp