Teaching: A Viable Alternative

The CEO and founder of Teach For America (TFA), one of the largest single employers of Harvard students at graduation, visited the campus yesterday to encourage seniors to spend their next two years teaching in low-income communities.

Wendy Kopp told the nearly 50 students who attended the recruiting event that out of the 13 million American children today who live below the poverty line, only half will graduate from high school. TFA targets high-performing college students, hoping that two years of school-teaching will inspire them to pursue careers that, directly or indirectly, will help "eliminate educational inequality."

"We can solve this problem, [but] most Americans believe there’s not much we can do," Kopp said. "There’s an enormous sense of urgency to take our work to a higher level and become bigger and better."

Sabrina M. Forte ’08, a campus campaign coordinator for TFA who is applying to the program this year, said what drew her to TFA was "its dual mission—in the short term, to change the lives of your kids, and in the long term, whatever career path you go into, leadership, law, medicine, to create systemic change."

Forte added that she also hoped that TFA would allow her to take on a career in public service.

"I want to make Harvard a place where people don’t just resort to consulting and [investment] banking, but broaden their career options to the non-profit sector," she said.

Last year, 249 of the 295 positions offered through the online recruiting program for Harvard’s Office of Career Services were for starting jobs or internships at financial service companies.

"Why aren’t we recruiting college students to work in low-income public schools as we are for Wall Street?" Kopp asked during an interview after the speech.

Indeed, Denise L. Delaney ’08 said she was attracted to TFA in part because of the high caliber of recent graduates who chose to enter the program.

TFA’s Director of New Site Development in Boston, Joshua Z. Biber, said TFA can also help students answer a crucial question: "What are you going to do with your Harvard degree?"

Kopp said she became concerned with educational inequality during her undergraduate years at Princeton, and for her senior thesis outlined a plan to form TFA.

Almost two decades later, TFA has 5,000 current corps members working with 440,000 kids across the U.S., she said.

TFA applicants must fill out an online application by Nov. 2 to be considered.