Wendy Kopp interview

 

Bill:
I’ve always wanted to figure out what drives you.
We are so consumed with building churches, we often look right over the problems of the educational system.  What did you see when you were in college that made you stark raving mad?

Wendy:
“I had no idea that where you were born had so much to do with your education process.”
“At Princeton I learned others had not been given the same chances that I had been given in High School.” 
“Where you are born determines your educational prospects.”

Bill:
Give us the horrific reality.

Wendy:
“On the one hand we see the stark realities. 13 million kids living below the poverty line who are three grade=levels behind those in well-off communities.”
“Just yesterday I spoke with seven people who “Teach For America” and asked, “Is it that bad?” And they all said, “It’s worse.””
“When kids are given the opportunities they deserve, they excel.  It’s not that the kids can’t do the work; no, we have simply not given the kids the opportunities they deserve.”

Bill:
Great leaders have something that burns inside them. From that start at Princeton, you had a burning to see every kids….

Wendy:
“One day every child will have opportunity to obtain a good education.”
“That idea draws people out….”
“Step #1 is to align people who are drawn to the vision….”

Bill:
You decided after your Senior year to cast the vision for recent college grads to give up outstanding opportunities and teach in troubled areas for two years.  You thought they actually would.

Wendy:
I knew they would!   I knew people were searching for a way to make significant differences in the world. I knew they would do it. I was right.
10% of Yale’s graduating class is applying for consideration to “Teach for America”
We can solve this problem. Our generation must take this on.  In just two years you can make an extraordinary difference. But, it’s about the rest of your life. 

Bill:
You shamelessly ask for young people to sacrifice and do something beyond themselves. You stand in front of large groups of people and shamelessly ask, “Why wouldn’t you do this?”

Wendy:
Can you imagine a bigger opportunity for impact? 
What you learn through that is so transformational!
You’ll never leave behind what you learn.  
You’ll be part of a group of civic leaders who effect fundamental changes in society.

Bill:
I ask pastors, “Why aren’t you challenging people more? Why are you afraid to set a high bar and ask people to give themselves to it?”
I’ve seen you challenging people and you actually believe that sacrifice adds value to someone’s life.

Wendy:
What I’ve found is that it is your own personal level of conviction in this work…that makes the difference.  If we truly believe in this, it makes it easy. We are giving people a gift.  We give people an opportunity that is really important.

Bill: 
You wanted this to achieve scale rapidly. Tell us your thinking about that.

Wendy:
I knew that we had to “become the thing to do on the college campuses.” 
This had to be “a movement, in this generation, to take on injustice.”
The president was told not to start the Peace Corp with fewer than 500 people if he wanted it to be perceived as a national movement.  So, that became our starting point. 

Bill:
You had to build an organization. You had to find people and put them in positions. 

Wendy:
My greatest asset was my inexperience. I had no idea that this was crazy. I realized the power of inexperience. I knew the difference on delivering the mission was the building of the organization.

Bill:
There are pastors and church leaders who believe the message. But the building of the organization to sustain the message seems difficult and they’d like not to do it.  You “willed” yourself to do it.

Wendy:
Teach for America produced 3500 alumni in the first decade.  I think about the fact that this year we’ll bring in 3500 new people!  If we hadn’t gotten our act together and become a well-managed, strategic organization, we could not have gotten it done.

Bill:
You call your organization insane about recruitment.  You look for leadership traits more than teaching traits.

Wendy:
What we are trying to do is channel our greatest leaders against the country’s greatest social injustice. That requires leadership. 
It takes a great leader to develop a vision for getting children reading on grade level. 
That takes leadership.
It’s about vision. It’s about being purposeful. It’s about maximizing every minute you have. It’s about being relentless. 
We know we need every leader out there to teach in our low-income schools.
We need policy makers, system leaders, and every level of the educational system and every level of society.  

Bill:
Another decision you made that fascinated me….For a while you set your organization’s budget on what you thought was necessary to do your program. You were working 100 hours a week. Then, you came to a point where you did a flip and decided, “I’ll have to figure how much money I can raise, then size the organization accordingly.”

Wendy:
It’s a tricky balance.  If I had started that way, there would be no “Teach for America.”
We needed two million dollars and I raised it.
Where could we be five years down the road? How much money would that cost?
We think we could attain incredible scale, but it would cost a lot of money.  So, how do we get there?  We had to gain stability or we could never have held great ambitions.

Bill:
You shut down two divisions you’d created. Did that feel like defeat?

Wendy:
At the time I’d come to believe we needed to come back to our mission.
People thought we’d shut the door. We asked ourselves, “Should we?” 
Our original mission was worthy so we shut down these other things.

Bill:
You came to a place of real hardship. I’ll never forget reading this.  You said, “Leading this organization was requiring so much of you that the only way you could continue to deliver what was required of you was to sleep every other night.”

Wendy:
People need to attain in integrated life.  I’m no longer sleeping every other night.

Bill:
But, you pushed through that. You didn’t quit. 
I never advocate insane living…but there are times when leaders have to push through something. I respected your decision, for a while to do something that you didn’t want to do very long.
Let’s say I’m a very wealthy person. How do you challenge people to give? What is your core ask?

Wendy:
I made one of those pitches this morning. We’ll find out later if it works.
He said, “So, as far as I can tell you are generating the revolution in American education.”
We’ve been operating fifteen years or so. Something is going on where our leaders engaged. I see where leaders are “Teach for America” alumni. 
Their sole purpose is, “Dramatic gains for kids.”
Every Teach for America alumni is changing America.  We could double “Teach for America” in the next five to seven years.” 

Bill:
How the average person thinks about where the problem lies in public education matters.  You think dramatic changes can happen.

Wendy:
What is fascinating is the response of our teachers.  Ask them and they say, “Teacher quality. Principle quality and Academic expectation for kids” will make all the difference in America’s education.
Look at the evidence.  
The question is, and I’m convinced of this more and more every year, will enough of our country’s future leaders step up and lead us there, saying, “We’re going to solve this problem.”

Bill:
You have access to 100,000 pastors and church leaders.  I’m giving you a free shot.

Wendy:
We know this is a solvable problem; it is massive, but it is solvable. We have a moral imperative to solve it.  Encourage your young leaders to give two years!  They’ll have impact and the experience will impact them.
There is a call to serve and fight injustice at the heart of most faith traditions.
We can do this…if we can get big enough and attain the level of skills necessary.




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