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Greater Than the Sum of Their Parts

A critical mass of D.C. alumni, driven by a shared conviction, become a force for education reform in our nation's capital

By Michelle R. Davis

In Michelle Rhee’s quest to improve D.C.’s troubled schools, she can likely count among her allies a dynamic core of Teach For America alumni who have long awaited such a change in leadership. In the nation’s capital, Teach For America corps members and alumni form an intersecting network that spans all levels and niches of the education system.

Alumni represent about 10 percent of the District’s 191 principals, and 220 alumni and 250 corps members teach in local classrooms. Most prominently, D.C. middle school teacher Jason Kamras (Metro D.C. ’96) was named 2005 National Teacher of the Year.

Alumni walk the halls of the mayor’s office; they head community-based organizations that serve local schools; they craft legislation and shape policy on Capitol Hill and in leading think tanks; and they sit on the elected school board.

“There are few organizations that have had more impact on education in this area,” says Jay Mathews, Washington Post education writer and featured columnist. Earlier this year, Mathews wrote a column celebrating the web of Teach For America’s influence in the District.

D.C. alumni are also making their mark on the national education reform scene. At a conference on teacher quality held in D.C. last year, Abigail Smith (E. North Carolina ’92) remembers laughing when she saw the panel gathered to talk about raising the bar for classroom educators. There was a teacher, several principals, a researcher, and some education policy experts—all Teach For America alumni.

“I was struck by that,” says Smith, special assistant to D.C.’s deputy mayor for education. “These are the folks who are the national voices on issues of teacher quality.”

“Our alumni and corps members have contributed to a general atmosphere [in D.C.] of believing that reforms can succeed, which wasn’t there 5 or 10 years ago,” says Amy Black (Baltimore ’97), executive director of Teach For America-Metro D.C. “There are enough people in enough places that operate with high expectations for students, and that influences the broader climate.”

That wasn’t always the case, says Sarah Bax (Metro D.C. ’94), a math teacher at a District middle school. In her early years in the system, Bax found a greater contrast between other educators and Teach For America teachers and alumni in how they approached their work. But that distinction, she says, has diminished as more alumni stay in the system and as some of the strategies Teach For America favors—such as using data to drive instruction—have become more mainstream.

“I didn’t [use to] introduce myself as a Teach For America alum. It had [the implication] that this is a young person who is probably not going to stay around and doesn’t know what they’re doing,” says Bax, now a 14-year veteran of D.C. public schools. “But as we’ve had people stay, take on real leadership positions, and get results, now I get a positive reaction.”

Teach For America alumni are leaving their mark in both D.C.’s extensive charter network and its district schools. In addition to leading classrooms, they are establishing models of excellence and fighting to improve performance in struggling schools. KIPP DC: KEY Academy, led by Sarah Haynes (Metro D.C. ’99), has been the highest-performing charter school in the District for the last four years.

D.C. is also home to an emerging network of alumni school leaders who are beginning to share resources and expertise. Last year, at the request of Mayor Adrian Fenty, Teach For America hosted a dinner for all 20 school leaders—most of whom have been principals for less than three years—to make introductions and encourage them to leverage one another in their efforts.

Still other alumni have chosen to promote change through political channels. In 2000, a group of D.C.-based alumni banded together to form EdAction (which now includes non-alumni) to field and support candidates for the D.C. school board. That year Julie Mikuta (G.N.O. ’91) won a seat. During her four years on the board, Mikuta helped overhaul the district’s academic standards and create a new teacher induction policy.

Since then, EdAction has campaigned for two mission-aligned nonalumni who won school board positions, including Victor Reinoso, now the District’s deputy mayor for education. In May, Sekou Biddle, (N.Y.C. ’93) ran successfully for the D.C. school board (now called the State Board of Education). He works on issues pertaining to the No Child Left Behind Act and other state-level policies that affect the District of Columbia. He’s also watching closely as Rhee’s tenure unfurls.

Rhee’s appointment as chancellor is a new high point in “the level of success that Teach For America is having collectively and individually,” Biddle says. With alumni in the mayor’s office, and in Rhee’s inner circle—and with himself on the state board—he believes positive change is possible.

The current atmosphere gains its optimism from a strong synergy between alumni. The common corps experience “engenders trust, because you know that there’s an underlying philosophy and values that are shared,” says David Wakelyn (L.A. ’90), a senior policy analyst for the Washington-based National Governors Association who often collaborates with alumni—among them education consulting firm president Scott Joftus (L.A. ’90)—in working with states to implement high school improvement strategies.

Veronica Nolan (Metro D.C. ’98), the executive director of Urban Alliance, a high school internship program for D.C. students, says district alumni often recommend students for her program. “There’s an instant kinship” between alumni, she says, “an automatic understanding that the students are capable of great things, but you have to hold them accountable.”

Still, mutual ground doesn’t preclude diversity, notes Craig Jerald (L.A. ’91), the Washington-based director of policy for the Strong American Schools campaign (see article on p. 15), a nonpartisan effort to make education a central issue in the upcoming presidential election. “It’s a mistake to view Teach For America alumni as a monolithic group ideologically,” he said. “There are liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats in this group. What unites most of us is a common thread of anger that the system doesn’t serve kids better than it does now, and an impatience to make real strides in improving education.”

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