Teach For America

From an e-mail I received. An impressive -and effective- initiative.

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 inequity. 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.