This is a personal memoir by Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach For America, and how she was able to turn a vision into reality. In this book, she provides a personal glimpse into what it took to establish and operate an extremely successful nonprofit organization, in order to address the discrepancies of a failing educational system.From the onset, it is hard to believe that she was only twenty one years old when she decided to launch such an aggressive campaign - almost impossible. What is interesting about this book, is that it provides a type of blueprint of the creation of Teach For America. Furthermore, it provides an insight into Wendy's logic of thinking, and how she was able to overcome such insurmountable obstacles in her quest to build a viable organization. Clearly, there were moments in the organization's tenure, that had financial disaster written all over them. For example, at one point, they owed UCLA $600,000 for hosting their 1993 summer institute - which they decided to postpone payment for what seemed like months, because there was a lack of funds. In addition to that debt, there was the looming $200,000 payroll requirement needed every two weeks just to pay employees.
Nevertheless, Teach For America survived The Dark Years (Chapter 5), and went on to impact our educational system in a positive way. However, success did not come without vociferous criticism - particularly from educational experts. Here is the link to the original Linda Darling-Hammond article featured in Phi Delta Kappan, published in September, 1994.
Wendy Kopp is the founder and president of Teach For America.
