Top 50 Wendy Kopp Quotes

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.

Kids in urban and rural areas face so many challenges, and they show up at schools that don’t have the extra capacity or extra resources to meet their needs.

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.

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.

We must broaden the definition of who our neighbors are, and extend the boundaries of our interest and empathy.

Research shows that whether you are low-income or not, mindset is a bigger predictor of success than academic skills, and how students gain great academic skills and persevere in the face of challenges.

People think of teachers who are born to teach, and you think of all these charismatic folks. Some of the most successful teachers are some of the least charismatic, interestingly. But they have a gift of figuring out what motivates people.

Education is the most powerful tool countries have for boosting economic growth, increasing prosperity, and forging more just, peaceful and equitable societies.

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.

Few things are more important to our country‘s future than recruiting and keeping great teachers in our schools.

We collaborate with other countries on issues like public health and climate change because we understand these issues affect our collective welfare.

People are everything in education, just as in the corporate world.

A core part of Teach For America’s mission has always been affecting positive change in the traditional public school system.

When you think of the typical Teach For America corps member, soldiers and ex-bankers are probably not the people who come to mind. In fact, there is no such thing as a typical corps member. They can’t be neatly pigeonholed or painted with a broad brush.

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.

School boards can be a steppingstone to higher forms of political leadership.

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.

Our laws guarantee all students the right to a K-12 education, regardless of their immigration status.

Education must be the only sector that hasn’t already been completely revolutionized by technology.

You will find it will almost always be more comfortable to sit on the sidelines and critique the builders from afar. But at the end of the day, the people who make a difference, the people who shape history, are not the haters.

Teach For China recruits top American and Chinese college graduates, like 26-year-old Yang Xiao, to teach in the country’s most disadvantaged schools.

Imagine how different those classrooms could be if hundreds of Nigeria‘s most talented recent graduates and professionals channeled their energy not only into the country’s banks, but into making education in the country a force for transformation.

Whenever we’ve seen the kids in the most disadvantaged context truly excel, always it’s been in classrooms and in whole schools where there is a clear vision of where the kids have the potential to be.

We’re not trying to be the only route into teaching. We do put enormous energy into understanding what differentiates the most successful teachers.

Research confirms that great teachers change lives. Students with one highly effective elementary school teacher are more likely to go to college, less likely to become pregnant as teens, and earn tens of thousands more over their lifetimes.

I’m happy to admit that I’m a hopeless optimist.

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!

In a society that glorifies the pioneers, it’s easy to think that an endeavor is only worth pursuing if you can be the first to pursue it.

When I started Teach For America as a college senior, I sensed that there were thousands of talented, driven college students and recent grads who were searching for a way to make a real difference in the world.

Teach For America is working hard to be one significant source of the leadership we need.

We should be individualizing instruction, utilizing that data to actually give teachers the tools necessary to meet the needs of a very diverse group of kids which exists in every class.

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.

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.

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.

Across the globe, disadvantaged children are not living up to their potential because if they attend school at all, the schools are usually not designed to meet their extra needs.

Every time a child’s promise is cut short by their legal status, our country wastes precious resources and loses talent we need.

I had been very focused on the issue of education disparities in our country, and literally, by the time kids are just nine years old, in low-income communities, they’re already three or four grade levels behind nine-year-olds in high-income communities.

Where educational deprivation exists, it breeds conflict and enables repression.

Mindsets, skills and leadership, experience and access, and critical consciousness – we need all four of these things for our students to be the leaders, people and citizens we want them to be.

Ending educational inequality is going to require systemic change and a long-term, sustained effort. There are no shortcuts and no silver bullets.

Dartmouth is such a special college with its rich history, dedicated student body, and, as I’ve been learning more recently, colorful customs.

It’s time to declare a cease-fire in the education arms race. We have far more to gain from collaborating to solve our common problems than competing for higher rankings.

As a white woman with a privileged education, I’m keenly aware that I founded an organization that can only realize its goal if it enlists many more leaders who share the backgrounds of the students and families we work with.

Tests that sugar-coat the truth only set up our kids to fail in worse ways down the road.

As a senior at Princeton, I felt like the whole world was open to me. In our country, that’s not a given. We aspire to be a place of equal opportunity, and yet where you’re born determines your prospects.

Fostering the leadership necessary for transformational outcomes in education is hard work, and in countries around the world, there is a constant search for easier solutions.

Teach for America recruits top recent college grads, young professionals, people we believe are the U.S.’s most promising future leaders, and asks them to commit two years to teach in high-need urban and rural communities.

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.

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.

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.