Quotes from Wendy Kopp

The teachers are trying to build the same culture in the classroom as we're building in the organization.

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

Effective teacher support in my mind is the same thing as effective management. Our teachers need strong management, just like anyone in any profession.

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.

I think people are attracted to teaching because they want to make a real impact.

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

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.

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.

More often than not, the most effective leaders have been shaped by teaching successfully in high needs classrooms. Because of their experience, they know that it is possible for low-income children to achieve on an absolute scale and understand what we need to do to allow them to fulfill their potential.

We go around and talk about what are each of the kids most proud of from the previous week.

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.

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.

Let the tech firms and consulting firms build your skills, but be sure to ask yourself, 'Am I maximizing my impact?' 'Am I living up to my values?'

I think the way to understand Teach for America is as a leadership development program.

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.

Common Core reminds us what testing can do right. Modeled on standards of the world's education superpowers, questions demand critical thinking and creativity. Students are asked to write at length, show their work, and explain their reasoning.

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

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.

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

All around the world, we send our top talent into finance, technology, medicine and law - everywhere but towards expanding opportunity for our most marginalized children.

Technology has enormous potential to address educational needs more efficiently, help teachers improve their performance, and enrich and individualize student learning.

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.

Teach For America was built on the idea that our best hope of reaching 'One Day' is to have thousands of alumni use their diverse experiences and ideas to effect change from inside and outside the education system.

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.