Zitat des Tages von Wendy Kopp:
If the world's leaders are serious about improving collective well-being, we'd better get serious about prioritizing education in our nations and in our global discussion.
I'll get up at 5 or 6. I try to catch up on sleep on the weekends, so I'll try to get seven hours of sleep. During the week, my ideal is to go to bed at 9 and wake up six hours later.
We've done a lot of research on the characteristics of our teachers who are the most successful. The most predictive trait is still past demonstrated achievement, and all selection research basically points to that.
The mission that unites all of the programs of the Teach For All global network is that of cultivating the leadership capacity critical to ultimately ensuring educational opportunity for all.
Competition and competitive rhetoric can be healthy. It's what drove the United States to pursue the Soviet Union into space, creating countless innovations along the way.
There's no how-to guide for how to change the world. But it's easy to get hung up by misconceptions about what it takes to make an impact.
If we freed up all the money in the certification process, think about how much more money we'd have to put into teacher salaries.
When I started Teach For America, I wasn't trying to come up with an idea that would change the world. I was trying to solve a problem much closer to home: I was a senior in college, and I had no idea what I was going to do with my life!
We believe strongly in transparency and accountability, which is why Teach For America encourages rigorous independent evaluations of our program. Our mission is too important to operate in any other way.
We go around and talk about what are each of the kids most proud of from the previous week.
If we could reach the point where many of our nation's future leaders know what teachers know after teaching successfully in our highest-need schools, we would have a very different situation.
As a founder of two organizations that recruit top college graduates to expand educational opportunity, I've spent a lot of time examining what's at work in successful classrooms and schools over the past two decades.
The lack of diversity in higher education is a problem we as a country must tackle if we're going to live up to our promise.
Every time a child's promise is cut short by their legal status, our country wastes precious resources and loses talent we need.
We are looking for a set of personal characteristics that predict success, the first and foremost of which is perseverance in the face of challenges. We also look for the ability to influence and motivate others who share your values, strong problem-solving ability, and leadership.
It's Teach For America's responsibility to ensure that all alumni know their voices are heard and valued, and to surface the range of opinion they represent.
Teach For America is working hard to be one significant source of the leadership we need.
If we're going to see sustainable results from all the other investments we're making in education, we need to build leadership capacity in each and every country.
When kids are met with the highest expectations and given the extra supports they need, they can be as motivated as kids anywhere.
All over the world, children facing the challenges of poverty attend schools that aren't designed to meet their extra needs; across country lines, the lives of marginalized kids look far more similar than they do different.
I think the way to understand Teach for America is as a leadership development program.
We're trying to be the top employer of recent grads in the country. Size gives us leverage to have a tangible impact on school systems.
In every case where I've seen a transformational school, there's a principal who really has the foundational experience of having taught successfully.
In the long run, we will need many more African-American, Latino, and Native American leaders, and leaders from low-income communities, who can bring additional insight and a deeply grounded sense of urgency, and who are the most likely to inspire the necessary trust and engagement among students' parents and community leaders.
We collaborate with other countries on issues like public health and climate change because we understand these issues affect our collective welfare.
Our laws guarantee all students the right to a K-12 education, regardless of their immigration status.
Cultivating more leaders who reflect our heterogeneous society depends on universities' transparent use of race as one of many factors in an admissions process that is accessible to all.
We're looking for people out there who have demonstrated that they are leaders, have track records of achievement, and want to be part of a force... of a much larger force of determined people who want to bring about, ultimately, institutional change.
Our experience at Teach For America has been that the more people understand educational inequity, the more they want to do something about it.
We aspire to be equal opportunity, but all across the country where a student is born, their race, their class affect where they end up.
I've heard a number of our alumni - people who are running schools and school systems - think a lot about different models for the teaching profession.
The teachers are trying to build the same culture in the classroom as we're building in the organization.
We are working essentially to build a leadership force of folks who will, during their first two years of teaching, actually put their kids on a different trajectory - not just survive as a new teacher, but actually help close the achievement gap for their kids.
Charter laws do something really important. They give educators the freedom and flexibility that they need to attain results. But we also have to invest a lot in the leadership pipeline to take advantage of that freedom and flexibility.
Our teachers are operating just as effective leaders in the business world do. They set a vision that most people think is crazy. They convince the kids why it's important to accomplish the goal. And they are totally relentless.
It's possible to train great people, but a person with great training who doesn't have certain characteristics is only going to go so far.
