If you’re interested in political and policy leadership, whether international or domestic, begin your career with Teach For America. By committing two years to teach in an urban or rural community, you will take on an intense personal challenge, working relentlessly to ensure that your students achieve academic success. At the same time, the experience will provide an unparalleled firsthand look at how our country’s policies—not only in education, but also in health care, housing, and economics—impact the lives of students and their families. Policy, advocacy, and political leaders play a critical role in deploying resources and setting priorities for governments and communities. Many alumni who now serve as leaders in these areas say that their two years in the corps informed their convictions about the methods necessary to solve societal disparities while lending them credibility that proves invaluable as they work to shape our nation’s policies.
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I was always aware of the great differences in educational opportunities for children across Brooklyn, where I grew up, and across the country. A key reason I joined Teach For America was to help bridge those differences.
Teaching English as a second language to middle school students, however, was eye-opening. It gave me even more personal insight into the obstacles that impede greater educational opportunity for all children. I developed a deeper understanding of the specific challenges facing first-generation immigrants and their children. I became much more sensitive to how different societal problems compound and affect one another.
Realizing how interconnected these issues are influenced my decision to pursue a leadership position in local government. From my classroom experience, I knew the value of building relationships and support systems in order to strengthen the community. That helped me to be an effective teacher, and it has continued to help me throughout my career.
Today, I serve people in a way that is very similar to my Teach For America experience. I’m immersed in my community, just as I was when I was teaching. I am accountable for providing public safety, transportation, parks and recreation, clean water, and other environmental services for which the City of Tucson is directly responsible. I approach my job the same way I approached teaching: actively and personally. I try to understand, from the service level, the challenges people face. It’s one thing for a director of an organization to come to the mayor’s office and ask for $100,000 of city money for a program—you can comprehend it at a conceptual level—but I go to the site where they’re delivering the service, look at it from the perspective of those using the service, and see if the investment the city is making is valuable.
Government, education, health care—all the institutions upon which our communities and our nation depend—are only as strong as individual citizens make them. One of the benefits of the Teach For America experience is that you gain a deep, personal understanding of the challenges that many communities in our country face. Whether it’s at the ballot box or as a career choice, the experience of being able to make positive change is powerful and invaluable.
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I attended public school in a high-need area in Los Angeles and had phenomenal teachers who changed the course of my life. I earned a scholarship to a private boarding school that had numerous resources my previous school lacked. Without these resources, it would have been difficult to compete for college admission.
In college I took classes on equity and income distribution, and seeing the obvious link between educational opportunity and life outcomes solidified my interest in education policy. I went to graduate school directly after college, but realized I was missing a real sense of the challenges teachers, schools, and school districts face. I applied to Teach For America after hearing about it from an alumna and fellow graduate student, Michelle Rhee, who went on to found The New Teacher Project and is now chancellor of the D.C. public schools.
At the school where I taught, more than 90 percent of the students were English language learners. It was gratifying to be able to use my skills, as a teacher and as someone with experiences similar to those of my students and their families. Teaching is so different from talking about theory or reading case studies—I found teaching to be truly invigorating, and the tremendous amount of hard work resulted in real outcomes.
My corps experience gave me a much stronger sense of the systemic changes needed to close the achievement gap. Many of my current colleagues at The New Teacher Project are also Teach For America alumni, and our firsthand experience gives us a level of credibility as we’re working to improve teacher quality in high-need schools.
As a school board member, I hear people making excuses for children in low-income communities, and I take it personally, because I think about my former students. I know that they will achieve when held to high expectations and I have a personal stake in ensuring that our policies reflect this potential. For example, I helped to lead a reform that instituted a review of the superintendent at the time, which resulted in the hiring of a new superintendent who is more focused on student outcomes. Without the drive I got from teaching it would be much more difficult to be effective.
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I grew up in a low-income community, where I received an adequate education through junior high. Then I was sent to high school in a neighboring community that was mostly Caucasian and high-income. There was no question that every student from this high school would graduate from college.
In college I realized that the educational inequity I’d experienced was symptomatic of larger issues in society. I felt passionate about education, but I never had a strong desire to teach before hearing about Teach For America.
At first, I saw joining the corps as a chance to understand the impact of policies at the ground level. Then I met my students, and I was that much more committed. My kindergartners left my classroom averaging more than 80 percent mastery in grade-level mathematics and reading skills. After the corps, I joined the Partnership for Better Schools, a committee formed in Los Angeles to support reform-minded school board candidates. That led to my current job, where I advise on policy issues for the Los Angeles Unified School District.
I keep my students close to heart, and consider policy resolutions through the lens of their experiences and needs. I spend a lot of time visiting schools and talking to teachers and principals. Those two years as a corps member built a resilience that continues to help me achieve my personal and professional goals.
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When I go to a meeting on teacher quality, I’m comforted to know that I’ll see Teach For America alumni. I know that these individuals believe, as I believe, that we’ve got to deliver an education to all children. It’s because of Teach For America that I’m confident we’re going to transform education in D.C.
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My parents raised me to feel passionately about social justice for all individuals, but it wasn’t until I did an internship in Anacostia, D.C. with Senator Kennedy’s Labor Committee Office, and then studied labor relations in college that I learned about educational inequity. Teach For America fit my interest in working with communities to empower themselves and offered the possibility to have an immediate influence on educational inequity. I was initially concerned about delaying my doctoral degree, but soon realized I could earn a master’s in the corps, and then enter a doctoral program with a clearer sense of purpose.
The social inequity I studied in college became very real upon entering the classroom. Every day I saw connections between education, health care, job opportunities, and socioeconomic mobility, and every day I saw the possibility for change. I developed after-school tutoring, a chess club, and soccer programs at my school, and students jumped at the chance to participate. In my second year, 30 percent of my incoming students had passed their 3rd grade writing exam, and through hard work, tutoring, and a pen-pal program with students in nearby Orange County, 90 percent passed the 4th grade test.
This experience gave me a solid grounding in the potential of our education system, and my colleagues in the policy realm value this perspective. Today, I head an organization that authorizes and evaluates charter schools and reports on their performance and progress. I often come across other Teach For America alumni in my work, and I’m always inspired by their accomplishments. More important than reputation or connections, however, is the reward of the corps experience itself. I can’t think of anything I could have done during that time that would have mattered as much.
Learn more about alumni effecting fundamental change
Click here to hear from alumni in public policy about how Teach For America has impacted their decisions and perspectives.
Teach For America and the Kennedy School at Harvard share a simple yet powerful belief: that each of us can make the world a better place. At the Kennedy School, Teach For America alumni can build upon the insight and experience gained in the classroom to prepare to become leaders in solving our country’s most compelling social and public problems.
- David Ellwood
Dean and Scott M. Black Professor of Political Economy John F. Kennedy School of Government Harvard University
Graduate schools partner with Teach For America to offer special benefits for corps members and alumni, including two-year deferrals, application fee waivers, and scholarships. These partners recognize and value that alumni have gone through a highly selective process and have engaged in a challenging professional experience. Click here to search our complete database.
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