--- title: 10 Questions for Teach for America's Wendy Kopp | TIME description: The founder of Teach for America recently celebrated the organization's 20th anniversary. Wendy Kopp will now take your questions. canonical: https://time.com/video/oflo3VZr/ og:title: 10 Questions for Teach for America's Wendy Kopp og:description: The founder of Teach for America recently celebrated the organization's 20th anniversary. Wendy Kopp will now take your questions. og:url: https://time.com/video/oflo3VZr/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/oflo3VZr/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 10 Questions for Teach for America's Wendy Kopp twitter:description: The founder of Teach for America recently celebrated the organization's 20th anniversary. Wendy Kopp will now take your questions. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/oflo3VZr/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # 10 Questions for Teach for America's Wendy Kopp > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: 10 Questions for Teach for America's Wendy Kopp [Watch (HLS stream): 10 Questions for Teach for America's Wendy Kopp](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/oflo3VZr.m3u8) (6:35)  _Published 2011-01-27. The founder of Teach for America recently celebrated the organization's 20th anniversary. Wendy Kopp will now take your questions._ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:09 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [10 Questions for Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales](/video/SWcOGNEa/) ### 10 Questions for Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales [10 Questions for America Ferrera](/video/7oH71WzG/) ### 10 Questions for America Ferrera [Time 100 Roundtable: Wendy Kopp](/video/UCgjBWrU/) ### Time 100 Roundtable: Wendy Kopp --- ## Transcript >> Hi. I'm Rick Stengel. I'm the editor of TIME Magazine and we are doing 10 Questions today. 10 Questions with Wendy Kopp, the founder and CEO of Teach for America, which also happens to be having its 20th anniversary this year. So, Wendy, welcome. >> Thank you. >> And I'm sorry I didn't mention your fabulous book, " A Chance to Make History ,"-- >> Yup. >> which is out now just in time for the 20th anniversary, right? >> Exactly. >> You thought of the whole thing. You thought it through. I'm gonna start with a question from Michaele Malta from St. Charles, Missouri. " What does it take to join Teach for America ?" >> We look for people who demonstrate the kind of leadership ability that we found to be necessary to teach successfully. So, we're looking for people who demonstrate achievement, perseverance-- >> Uh- huh. >> in the face of challenges, the ability to influence and motivate others, problem- solving ability, and maybe, most importantly, you know, a set of traits that we would call a fit with this mission-- people who want to work relentlessly in pursuit of ensuring that the kids who are growing up facing all the challenges of poverty, you know, have an excellent education and ultimately excel academically. >> And I'm curious. So, what percentage of applicants do you accept? >> Last year, about 50, 000 people applied-- >> Yeah. >> to Teach for America. We selected-- We brought in 4, 500 of them. >> So, less than-- fewer than 1 in 10? >> Yeah. >> All right. >> It's a very rare person who's ready for this right out of college. >> We have a question from a young man in India-- in Agartala, India, asking, " What pushed you to start Teach for America in the first place ?" >> I was born in a community that, you know, had a terrific public school and, you know, was fully prepared to go to Princeton and then have the chance to go to Princeton, you know, and just to see the impact of that and yet I knew that still in our country today, you know, that's not a given. Like, this is a country that aspires so admirably to be a place of equal opportunity, and yet, where you're born really determines your-- >> Uh- huh. >> educational prospects ,-- >> Uh- huh. >> and in turn, life prospects. And I just thought, you know, that is, I believe, our country's most fundamental injustice. And it's a big systemic problem. And ultimately, I think, you know, the only way really to solve it is to say let's marshall the energy of our country's-- >> Uh- huh. >> most promising future leaders against that problem in the short run. >> Uh- huh. >> But knowing that throughout their lives, there'll be a force for change because of the kind of experience that they have-- >> Right. >> in their two years. >> What makes a Teach for America teacher more qualified to teach in underprivileged schools than a teacher who has a traditional teachers' college background? >> We do put enormous energy into understanding what differentiates the most successful teachers in urban and rural schools; you know, what are the personal characteristics-- >> Uh- huh. >> that you can see at the selection stage-- >> Uh- huh. >> that differentiates-- >> Uh- huh. >> the most successful teachers; what are they doing differently in the classroom. And we use those lessons to inform a continuously improving program around selecting teachers-- >> Uh- huh. >> and then investing in their training-- >> Uh- huh. >> and support so that, you know-- so that our teachers are getting more and more effective. And I think, you know-- I think if we look at the data about Teach for America, we'll see that, you know, rigorous studies show that the Teach for America corps members are, in fact, doing well ,-- >> Uh- huh. >> compared to other new teachers. >> Uh- huh. >> you know, but I wouldn't say that we're the only program out there doing good stuff. >> Amy Sandberg from Virginia asks, " Will TFA ever start placing teachers in rural areas ?" >> In fact, 20 percent of our teachers teach in rural areas. We're working in Indian reservations in New Mexico and South Dakota, in remote rural areas in the Mississippi Delta and in many other rural regions across the country. >> That is good to know. How should school systems deal with ineffective or incompetent teachers? >> I take all of my, you know, kind of convictions from understanding what is happening in classrooms, in schools that are truly succeeding with their kids. And in every one of those schools, there's a school principal who puts enormous energy into ensuring-- you know, recruiting and developing tremendously talented teaching forces. And I think we need to do a lot more to empower our school principals around who they bring in to their buildings, you know, to-- you know, build their capacity to develop their teams-- >> Right. >> over time. And ultimately, you know, if teachers aren't productive members of the team, ultimately, we need a fairway to move them out of those roles. >> Although the higher percentage of the transformational schools compared to all schools are charter schools, right? Are they? >> Absolutely. >> Yeah. >> So, we need-- You know, we need to rethink our policy-- >> Yes. >> context-- >> Yeah. >> and at the same time, we need to redouble our efforts-- >> Yeah. >> to create, you know, the talent force necessary-- >> Yeah. >> and the leadership force necessary to actually create great options for kids. >> Uh- huh. This is a question from New York City. " If the U. S. government could give you one thing to further Teach for America, what would it be ?" >> You know-- Teach for America, you know, is at this point, you know, operates at a significant scale where about as big as the [ unk ]. You know, we have 8, 000 teachers in the midst of their two- year commitment plus our 20, 000 alumni. And we really see the potential to almost double in scale in the next five years. But to do that, we'll need to grow not only the local support in communities that is the lion's share of our funding base, the private sector support ,-- >> Uh- huh. >> the school district, and state support, but our federal support as well. And so, we need to-- we need to rally to grow our federal funding stream. >> Thank you, Wendy. >> Thanks. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"10 Questions for Teach for America's Wendy Kopp","description":"The founder of Teach for America recently celebrated the organization's 20th anniversary. 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