In 1989, Wendy Kopp began what, for her, would have been an improbable journey.  Raised in University Park, Texas, an affluent suburb five miles north of Dallas, home to Southern Methodist University, Kopp had no experience with the inner-city school systems her work would some day affect. Dan Porter, a classmate of Kopp’s from Princeton where she received her bachelor’s degree, majoring in public policy, had once said, “If you had asked me who was going to spend 10 years saving the children, of everybody at Princeton, Wendy would have been close to the bottom.” But, that’s exactly what she had done and continues to do today.

From the beginning, Kopp differed from her other classmates at Princeton. While some may have joined social clubs or environmental groups, Wendy formed a business magazine. She never swears, works hard, sleeps five hours, and rises at 4am. She once tried sleeping on alternating nights to get more time out of the week. She makes lists, lots of lists. She even went so far as to form a strategic plan for her own wedding. However, there’s no slighting Mrs. Kopp’s effectiveness. She gets things done while others are still debating whether to even try. Once she sets her mind to do something, there’s no stopping her.

For her Princeton senior class project, Wendy Kopp proposed to form a national teaching corps. Citing the disparity between the educations received by lower-income families in comparison to her own or that of her peers, Kopp set out to close the gap. She felt that the problem was a lack of good teachers in the communities that need them most. If she could recruit good, young, confident teachers to teach in inner-city schools for a manageable period, together they could make a difference; and so began Teach for America, modeled after the Peace Corps.

Initially, her idea was criticized for being overly ambitious by her senior thesis adviser who went as far as to suggest the idea was “obviously deranged.” However, Kopp used the skills she had honed as president of the campus organization that linked students and business leaders and tapped corporate sponsors. She convinced Morgan Stanley to donate her office space and Mobil Oil Corp. to generously grant her $26,000 to get the plan off the ground. “I realized there’s an incredible amount of money in the world and people who are looking for good things to support. If you just get in the door, you have a good chance of making your idea fly,” explains Kopp.

Properly financed, Kopp next needed to recruit teachers. Here, too, Kopp was urged to scale back her plans. Despite estimations that she would have difficulty finding more than 50 recruits, Kopp set out to hire ten times that many. She felt 500 was the least amount she needed to make a national statement. Kopp would have no problem reaching her goal; over 2,500 graduates applied, including her former classmate Dan Porter who would join her organization in its early stages.

Kopp dismissed initial criticism about her organization, including concern about the recruitment of graduates who had not majored in education, the two-year commitment, the blanket salary policy, and even her autocratic management style. At one point, the staff threatened to quit unless she agreed to make all decisions democratically; Kopp stuck to her guns and nobody quit. She would eventually rework the salary structure to provide a range of salaries, but for the most part, it’s Kopp’s way or the highway. “[She’s] not really that concerned about what the public’s view is, or what tradition requires, or what other people will tell her are the barriers for things that can be done,” says Ian Huschle another of her first employees.

As equally successful as Wendy’s knack for winning over her critics, is her ability to make a difference. Teach for American has been running for more than 16 years, has placed over 14,000 teachers, and currently has 3,500 corps members in over 1,000 schools across the country. They’ve recently expanded to Memphis and existing schools are pleased. Wendy Kopp has done and will continue to do a fantastic job affecting significant changes in the country’s education system; not bad for someone who has never taught a class.

"The true aim of everyone who aspires to be a teacher should be, not to impart his own opinions, but to kindle minds.”
Frederick William Robertson