YouSaid · the spoken record

Wendy Kopp

lines on the record: 58
first: 2017-10-09
most recent: 2017-10-09
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“But see, I don't think I would have, right? I mean, who knows, but it's just not, there's really not a bone in my body. I feel like I don't even know how I would do that. Like, you know, and everyone's cut out for different things. And we're shaped by our early experiences, of course. I have not one instinct to do that, right? Like I'm so to this day, I've never been more energized, like 27 or however many years in. Know like this is really all I've ever wanted to do”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There are about 7,000 to 8,000 teachers at any given time and 50,000 alumni. 50,000 alumni. Most of whom I will say are still in the work.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And decide I'm going to go become a school principal and reshape schools. And some who say, I'm going to work at the system level, and some who say I'm going to run for office because we got to change the policy context. And some who say I'm going to start something that improves the child welfare system because that, until we do that, we will never solve this problem. And that's what Teach for America is trying to do. So I know that and I know that we need to stay the course because I have yet to see another thing that's made a bigger difference in really tackling the systemic challenge and its full complexity. And the critics, you know, I wish they'd dive in and help us do better, essentially.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's what I'm saying. Every one of these people. And that's one city. I mean, name a city, I could tell you the stats. Like, it's really, they've become such a leadership force for change in these cities. So, you know, you can critique it all you want. But I guess my view is propose the alternatives, right? Like we have here a deeply entrenched and systemic issue that cannot be solved from within classrooms alone, right? This is No amount of teaching is going to solve this. We need incredible teachers, but we also need some of those people who.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the fact is, if you took the teach for America people out of that city, not just the teachers during the two years, right, but the 900 teachers who are still in the system and the school principals and the last two schools chancellors who presided over the system for a decade. One of them was a...”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thing, like there's enough question out there in the blogosphere, you know, and so it definitely made the work more difficult. But, you know, as the criticism became probably at its most extreme, we were seen incredible impact in communities. I mean, when we started placing teachers in Washington, D.C., it was the lowest performing of all the major urban districts. Its kids were two years behind the kids in Harlem. And, you know, now it's the fastest improving urban school system in the country. Wow. You know, everything, graduation rates, enrollment rates, everything moving in the right direction.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it's not that it didn't, I mean, the fact is it made the work so much more difficult. You know, it's easy now to justify a decision to go off to work for the consulting firm for two years because you don't even know is teach for America really a good”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you know, we were working very hard to get better, you know, and the criticism actually started pretty early on. I mean, this was a constant thread during our first decade, actually. But in a way, we were our own harshest critics. I mean, we were tearing ourselves up. I mean, we felt that we needed to do things a lot better. So I guess our assessment was the world isn't going to be better if we shut down Teach for America. So there's really only one option, which is to get better.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because we were seen enough evidence in classrooms and enough evidence even in whole schools that actually when you meet kids who are facing a lot of challenges and have a lot of assets, but with high expectations and the extra support they need, they'll excel at an absolute scale. So that recognition is what really inspired us to say, okay, how do we take this to the next level?”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think, I mean, we were seeing, even year five, we were starting to see real evidence of, you know, the immediate impact of our teachers, of what some of our alumni were starting to do. It's like we were starting to see the big idea play itself out. These people aren't leaving. They're dedicating themselves to this. They're becoming the pioneering leaders. We thought they could be. That's what kept us going through these dark years, like realizing that actually this really is a good idea. Like it really is working.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Maybe self doubt? Oh, yes. It did, but I didn't know what to do. I mean, part of what was leading me to stay in it was just a sense of responsibility. Like I couldn't figure out how to get out of it. I mean, honestly, if someone had appeared who I felt like could get us out of this and get us to a point of stability or something, I would have just turned the whole thing over to them at this point. There's no doubt about that. I mean, I was just, in fact, I was kind of looking for this, but I just, I couldn't seem to find the answer other than to keep putting my head down and keep going at it until we could get out of it.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Let's just say I was an autocratic in my intention. Know, I really did have this thought that everyone should just do the right thing. And, you know, so it was just not playing itself out as intended. So I'm sure that there was some truth on all sides.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, at this point, I didn't know what to do. I was honestly, I still remember it was like midnight. I'm so exhausted. And one of our staff members who turned into my husband later, much later, raises his hand and said, Wendy, I mean, I was making no sense and wasn't being responsive to anything. He said, what I'm hearing you say is that we're not going to make all decisions by vote. Is that right? And even then I hedge. Like, I should have said yes. But no, so we all left, and the next morning I sent out a note saying, you know, we're not going to make decisions by vote. And you know what? No one left.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But people decided this was because I wanted to control everything and they just decided unless we can make all decisions by vote, we're all walking out the door.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh gosh, that was even earlier. I mean, I think it was our second year, actually. We were all at our training institute. And I was still, I had this notion of no hierarchy, which was a genuine notion. I just thought if we're all on the same mission, why do we need a hierarchy?”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, we were calling every single person and lever we could possibly come up with. And ultimately, I guess we wore them down. You know, these things happen like this is what happens. And it's what happens to social entrepreneurs. You know, I mean, ultimately it all works out because you kind of reshape the ecosystem and the environment. And that's why Teach for America ultimately Thrived, but I think it's kind of the definition of social entrepreneurship. There aren't natural funding sources, so you almost have to create them and ultimately by your existence help shape them. And until that's happened, it's just excruciating to make it.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I mean, I think that grant was just a big one. You know, it was probably one and a half million for us at that point.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And we could not get anyone in the government. And again, like, you know, I'm still in my twenties, twenties, whatever. We still had only so much credibility and we're dealing with these governmental. Officials, and you know, we were taking ourselves a lot more seriously than they were taking us, let's just say, but ultimately at about one minute before we would have pushed send on, you know, the plan B of just shutting it down, they finally came through. But that was one of many, many examples of the extreme stress of that era.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh there was so much probably the most excruciating moment was when President launched AmeriCorps, this National Service Initiative, Teach for America was one of those first partners with America. And so that federal funding really gave us a big boost. But the second year there was, well, all sorts of questions actually about our financial viability. And so the folks who are operating AmeriCorps wouldn't approve a grant to teach for America. And this is about June, and we have 500 teachers who think that they're going to go into training, but we didn't have the money to even fly them there. And so I felt like this is it. Either we get the governmental approval or we shut it down. And we were ready. I mean, we were ready to FedEx letters to all 500 people saying we can't make it. You're not going to be able to come.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And we were losing donors in like half a million and a million dollar chunks and had to completely convert the funding base essentially overnight. And that kind of threw us into what I think of as the dark years of Teach for America. Every paycheck, every payroll, there's a question about whether we were going to meet it.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, the hardest piece, as you say, was around recruiting, selecting, training, supporting them, but then there was how do you manage something? I mean, I had no idea what I was doing. I mean, I had really, really idealistic notions. You know, we should all make the same salary and there shouldn't be any hierarchy and all sorts of things, which now I might think maybe there's a path to some of that. But at the time, this was just chaos. And then ultimately, most importantly, I mean, there were also the political learnings. How do you navigate the politics of education? But probably most fundamentally, because you can't do anything without resources. Like how are we going to sustain this thing financially? Because none of those donors thought that they were going to stick with it.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, this and on the recruitment side. And, you know, like it's a cycle, right? Like every year. And so, yeah, the fundraising never stops. I mean, that's just kind of an ongoing underlying thing that you just constantly have to be thinking about the resources.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, you start teaching and you see the microcosm of the world playing out in your classroom. You know, you see kids who are facing all the challenges of poverty and lack of adequate healthcare and nutrition and racial discrimination the whole bit. And it's very overwhelming. So the pioneering first core members had to kind of find their way to the solutions. You know, often from other teachers in their schools, and we ultimately were learning from them.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, it was terrifying. You know, I mean, it was the first year we had 489 people cooped up in dorms for eight weeks, a diverse group, not as diverse as we would all hope and as teach for America is achieved at this point. But, I mean, we had a mix of folks who had never been in an environment like this and had many of them who hadn't been working in urban-rural communities. So there was just a lot of tension and a lot of issues to sort through. And it was very, you know, it was exhausting.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I didn't know, and that's why we found these experienced teacher educators and experienced teachers who had a specialty in preparing and supporting teachers in urban and rural areas. And we really just turned the whole thing over to them.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“New York City and NLA, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and southern Louisiana, and then two rural sites in rural, middle Georgia, and eastern North Carolina.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, they were during the summer they were, but then they would go to one of six places where we had decided to cluster them and where the school districts had agreed to hire them.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I will give you five hundred thousand dollars if you can raise the other $1.5 million. And that was the moment I knew it's done. Like, I knew that his credibility and that kind of leverage, I could just go back to everyone else and that they would all come in.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I asked him for a million dollars. I needed another two million basically. And he spent, I mean, I was in there for probably two hours. And he spent the whole time thinking about his friends who would do this. I mean, he really loved the idea. And he kept saying, I think Sam Walton would do this. And I kept thinking, oh no, I know where all this leads. Like, no, like, you are the one. I know you're the one. You care about education. You're an entrepreneur. You understand this. And he finally, I actually think he decided I wasn't going to leave. And he said, I'll tell you what.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, when I walked into Ross Perot's office, I felt like I was at the end. Like I had tried everything I had tried to access everyone and I knew either he supports this or I just really don't know where else to turn. So I literally told myself, and I've often wished I could be as persistent, but I won't leave his office. I'm going to glue myself to the chair in his office and I'm not going to leave until he commits. Yeah.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Finally, he called me up. I mean, I actually thought it was a friend of mine because everyone knew I was trying to get to Ross Perot. And someone yells down the hall, Ross Perot is on the line, and I pick up the phone and say, yep, I'm thinking this is one of my friends pulling a prank. And I hear his voice on the other end, which is very recognizable. I'm like, oh my gosh. And I said to him, I'm coming to Dallas. I'm going to be there next week. Can I come see you? And he agreed.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He's from Dallas, and I'm from Dallas, and he's really into education reform. I mean, when I was growing up, Ross Perot, as a business leader in Texas, was really fighting for all this legislation to improve the school. So I had never met him, but I just had in my head he was going to fund this. And Ross Perot doesn't think I wrote him 11 letters before he agreed to see me. We have different memories. So you”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, that's a very good question that we hadn't thought through. But, I mean, one thing we did was say, okay, we're going to send teams of two out in, you know, actually I got the head of Hertz to donate rent a cars, so we had five renta cars and we were going to send two people in each of them off to interview these folks. So they would each take parts of the country and they would drive from campus to campus and would do these interviews. And we had created a day-long application process that started with an essay application and then they did a sample teaching session and an interview. I mean, we had had someone go out and develop this kind of selection process. And by the way, this is about when we have these teams out on the road and they're interviewing these folks. I'm thinking we don't have any money.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you know, it just kept building on itself. But we had all these applications, we had underestimated, of course, everything. Like what to do with 2500 applications? How did you go through?”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, well, that is as I look back like you, that may be how it looks. I mean, at the time, it didn't seem so precarious. There were real teacher shortages in these districts. You know, we had talked to folks in many of these districts and realized that they really wanted to hire these folks. And so it didn't seem as precarious as it sounds now.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. And there was a man who some of your listeners will remember, Fred Heckinger, who was a columnist at the New York Times, who, you know, I'd met him along the way and he just couldn't believe, you know, where is this outpouring of idealism coming from the me generation? So he told that story in an article in the fall is probably October. And so one thing would lead to another. People started realizing, wow, I mean, this generation does want to do this. So, you know, the donors who were not making a decision decided some of them, okay, we'll get behind this. The school districts started taking it more seriously. So everything was coming together. The only massive problem was that we were nowhere near raising $2.5 million.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, the pitch was even like if you want to be part of the movement to improve education in America and ensure that we live up to our nation's promise to be a place of equal opportunity, then apply to this. And you'll teach for two years and then you'll be part of a group of leaders who work for the rest of their lives to change things. And one of the first people we found was a guy at Yale actually who drafted this flyer and he was really the first one. He put it under doors and within one weekend he had 170 voicemail messages on his answering machine.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, no, he was going to hire them at regular teacher salaries. So I had gone through and just was really testing the feasibility. Will the districts hire them? And I was hearing, yes, if you can actually get them. And then the funders, I would meet these potential funders and they would say, well, It's a good idea, but it's not going to work because the college students won't do it. So the whole plan became let's just show people that the college students want to do it. So what we did was to decide, okay, we're going to find two students at each of 100 campuses. We're going to find one and tell them to go find someone who represents a different sort of diversity on that campus. And then those two people are going to essentially put flyers under doors and try to inspire people to apply.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, well, our plan was let's show people that the college didn't want to do this. So, I mean, that was pretty much, you know, because we were hearing no one was going to do anything. The school districts were telling us if you get these people from these colleges, we had a list of 100 colleges. And they would look at the list. I remember meeting the head of human resources in Los Angeles, and I mean, it had his legs kicked back on the desk. You get five hundred people from these colleges to want to teach in my schools, and I'll hire all 500 of them.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, we had named ourselves Teach America, and then we found out that that was the name of a medical supply company. So we spent a full three months trying to think of an alternative until one night at midnight in the subway. I just thought four. Thank”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Someone would have figured it out in the couple years after. I'm really convinced of that. I mean, it's just one of those ideas. It's so foundational to so many other things. Somehow I just landed on a good idea.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I had to find again. I had to find some funding before I graduated so that I had something to live on. And that was my biggest thing. That was very stressful. It's April. I'm thinking I've got two months to get some money.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I had no credibility. And you can't give, I mean, as a foundation, you can't give funds to an individual like me. So, you know, other NGOs can figure out how to be a conduit to startups, but you have to jump through hoops to be able to do that.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And he said okay, I'll tell you what, I'll do it if you can get Princeton to be the conduit of funds. So I called the head of development and literally, I mean, this is amazing, I now realize, but in two hours he got the president to sign off on being the conduit of funds. What”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the business roundtable was the group that had said we're going to take on education reform. And they had no plan. So I think my timing was just perfect. And he said, I'll tell you what, I'll let you use our office in Manhattan and I'll introduce you to some other folks. And I met another executive at Mobile who was just, I love the idea and said, you know, what do you need to try to make it work? And I said, I needed $26,000. I had developed a budget saying that's what I needed to do, needed to spend three months flying all over the country and really trying to put it together”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so I thought these people will fund this. So I wrote letters to everyone quoted in the article. And a few others, by the way, I would pick out Delta Airlines and write to the CEO. I mean, this is the advantage of inexperience. But believe it or not, I got seven meetings off those letters, not with the CEOs, but with people who they would pass the letters down to. One was the head of the business roundtable, who was the CEO of Union Carbide.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, he was very nice He did explain how hard it would be. But meanwhile, I had taken, I mean, I look back at this and I too wonder what possessed me. I was blessed with the advantage of naivete. I was really obsessed with this idea. I mean, I just thought, and really it was an idea whose time had come. I mean, I would tell people this idea and they would just say, doesn't this already exist? In fact, I spent most of the thesis writing just looking for it. I was just convinced someone must be trying to start this because there really was a mood on college campuses. I mean, people really were searching for something that would enable them to make a real difference. You know, the fall of my senior year. There was a front page article in Fortune magazine saying Corporate America takes on education reform”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And he said, you know, do you know how hard it is to raise $2,500? And he sent me down. He said, I'll tell you what, I'm going to link you up with the head of development at Princeton, who's going to explain how hard it is to raise $2,500. Yeah.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, in the last week of writing the thesis, I decided I'm just going to say in the thesis that I'm going to go do this. So he liked the idea, but he thought it was really crazy to think that I was really going to try to go do this. So I had this plan. And one of the things I had looked at at the origin of the Peace Corps and there's this incredible paper and the paper was this beautiful analysis that concluded that it had to start with 500 core members, that that was the smallest possible number that would seem nationally important, but that it was a workable number. Anything bigger would be unmanageable. So that became my number. Like, okay, we've got to recruit 500 people. So the whole plan was to inspire thousands of people to apply in the first year and select and train in place, no fewer than 500 of them in five or six communities across the country. And I had a budget saying this was going to cost $2.5 million in the first year.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, he called me and said, can you come into my office? And I was thinking, oops. I guess this didn't go over. But he loved it. You know, he said, he thought this was brilliant.”
2017-10-09 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Teach For America: Wendy Kopp · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT