Jackson Library

View from the Top: Wendy Kopp: Additional Reading

Thursday, April 17, 2008
View from the Top

Wendy Kopp, Chief Executive Officer and Founder
Teach for America

In her senior thesis as an undergraduate student at Princeton University, Wendy Kopp outlined a plan to recruit outstanding recent college graduates to teach for two years in America's neediest urban and rural schools. Upon graduation, she founded Teach For America, a national corps that would have an important impact on the nation's education system, putting a dent in the lingering problem of educational inequality. She has spent the past 18 years developing the corps into a prestigious, highly regarded program that attracts some of the nation's brightest young men and women. Today, 5,000 corps members reach approximately 440,000 students in low-income communities across the country. They join more than 12,000 Teach For America alumni who are assuming significant leadership roles in education and social reform. These alumni are running some of the most acclaimed schools in low-income areas, advising governors and senators on education policy, and marshalling the resources of companies and law firms toward education reform.

Kopp holds honorary doctorate degrees from Mount Holyoke College, Rhodes College, Pace University, Mercy College, Smith College, Princeton University, Connecticut College, and Drew University. She is the author of 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, the highest honor the school confers on its undergraduate alumni. In 2006, she was named one of America's Best Leaders by U.S. News and World Report.

Selected Articles

Additional reading material has been selected by Jackson Library Staff. Due to contractual arrangements, remote access is only available to the current Stanford community and the subscribers of the "Library Databases" offered through the GSB Alumni's Lifelong Learning Program. Other access is limited to onsite at Jackson Library. Inclusion below does not imply University endorsement of ideas expressed.

Why Teach for America. New York Times, 9/30/07
Hada Flores is a walking advertisement for what is best about Teach for America.
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'Teach For America' strives for educational equality. CNN, 6/20/07
This year, 18,000 of America's top college graduates competed for spots teaching in some of the poorest areas of the United States. Only one in six will be picked for the Teach For America program, which is trying to bring educational equality to struggling school districts.
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Open debate. Fast Company, 3/07
Do leaders teach? Do teachers lead? Harvard Business School Professor Bill George and Teach for America's Wendy Kopp take to the blackboard.
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Schooling corporate giants on recruiting. Fortune, 11/27/06
Wendy Kopp has turned Teach for America into one of the largest hirers of college seniors. Now Amgen, Goldman and others want to partner with the nonprofit on talent acquisition.
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The Problem-Solver. Reader's Digest, 6/06
In 1989, Wendy Kopp was a college student, searching for a topic for her senior thesis. What she found was a calling.
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Teach for America turns 15. USAToday, 10/6/05
Woo, a 23-year-old biology major who graduated last May from Bowdoin College in Maine, climbs five flights of stairs each morning at a Brooklyn middle school to teach science. She's one of 2,200 new teachers learning their craft through Teach For America, which sends top-notch college graduates into urban and rural schools.
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Selected Websites

Teach for America

Wendy Kopp

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