Building the Movement to Eliminate Educational Inequity. Teach For America Business Plan

Transcription

1 Building the Movement to Eliminate Educational Inequity Teach For America Business Plan

2 Table of Contents Table of Contents...2 I. Executive Summary...3 II. Teach For America Overview...5 The Problem...5 Mission and Theory of Change...5 Impact...6 III. Our Approach and Program Model...8 Student Achievement-Centered Approach...8 Program Model...9 IV. Strategic Priorities...13 Priority No. 1: Grow in scale while increasing the diversity of the corps...13 Priority No. 2: Maximize the impact of corps members on their students achievement...14 Priority No. 3: Foster the leadership of our alumni as a force for systemic change...15 Priority No. 4: Build an enduring American Institution...16 V. Organizational Capacity and Structure...17 Performance Management...18 National and Regional Model...19 Expanding Existing Sites and Launching New Sites...19 VI. Financial Plan National Expense Plan...21 Teach For America s Revenue Model...22 VII. Risk Assessment and Management...24 Potential Risks and Strategies to Manage Risks...24 System-wide Risk Mitigation...27 Contingency Plans...27 VIII. Vision For Impact...27 Appendices...29 Appendix 1: Theory of Change...30 Appendix 2: Corps Profile...31 Appendix 3: Alumni Social Impact Report...32 Appendix 4: 2015 Goals...36 Appendix 5: National Board of Directors...37 Appendix 6: Operating Committee Biographies...39 Appendix 7: FY11 Operating Budget

3 I. Executive Summary Twenty years ago, it would be fair to say that there was no real movement to ensure educational opportunity for all children. The prevailing notion, backed up by research at the time, was that socioeconomic circumstances determine students educational outcomes, and the handful of visible examples of classrooms and schools that were defying the odds were viewed as a function of the charisma of heroic teachers or school leaders and not as examples that could be replicated widely. Moreover, there was general disillusionment with the many state-initiated school reforms of the 1980s that were aimed at increasing test scores and reducing dropout rates, yet had shown little concrete progress or results. Today, we have first-hand evidence that educational inequity is a problem that can be solved, and that enlisting the energy and talent of our nation s future leaders in the effort can be perhaps the most fundamental force in accomplishing that end. Structural changes in the ways that we allow schools to operate have enabled innovative teachers and school leaders to discover and replicate what it takes to change the prospects for children growing up in poverty. And new governance situations in places like New York City, Washington, D.C., and New Orleans have removed many of the political barriers that can thwart reform yielding promising indicators of progress across whole systems of schools. At the same time, we have seen that changes in policy and governance alone do not produce these results. The key ingredient for creating and taking advantage of these opportunities is leadership a sufficient pool of transformational teachers and leaders who deeply believe that it is possible to put economically disadvantaged students on a level playing field, who understand what it will take to do so, and who have the ability and experience to make it happen. Over the last twenty years, Teach For America has played a critical role in expanding the pool of transformational educational leaders who are fueling this progress at local, state, and national levels. At the same time, the vast majority of the 14 million children growing up in poverty today still will not have a chance to attain the kind of education that is necessary for a productive, fulfilling life. While 75 percent of children in the top economic quartile will graduate from college within six years, 10 percent of children in the bottom economic quartile will do so. Thus, it is clear that that the changes necessary to ensure educational equity for all children require transformational leadership at every level of our education system, and that if we are going to truly move the needle in closing the achievement gap at an aggregate level, Teach For America can and must do even more to grow bigger and better. To this end, we are launching our 2015 strategic growth plan so that we can continue accelerating the pace of change in education in order to help ensure that that one day, all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education. We will pursue this vision by remaining focused on four critically important organizational priorities: Grow in scale while increasing diversity To expand the pipeline of transformational teachers and leaders, we must become larger and more diverse. Last year, 46,000 graduating seniors and young professionals applied to Teach For America; based on their leadership qualities, we placed 4,500 across 39 urban and rural regions this past year. By 2015, we aspire to place more than 8,000 across approximately 60 of the highest need communities nationwide such that we will be supporting and developing 15,000 corps members as transformational teachers for nearly 1 million students each year. As we grow, we will continue to place a particular emphasis on recruiting and developing individuals who share the racial and economic backgrounds of the students with whom we work. We have seen that teachers who share their students backgrounds can be important role models and can relate personally 3

4 to the challenges and dilemmas they face, and we have also seen that it is impossible to bring about lasting change unless the leaders in our broader movement come from diverse backgrounds. Our current corps is already significantly more diverse than our nation s most selective campuses and by 2015, even as we aim to nearly double the size of our teaching corps, we aspire that a third of our corps will be people of color and a third will be from low-income backgrounds. Maximize the impact of our corps members on student achievement We also are working to increase the impact of our corps members so they become a force of transformational teachers for their students and, in the process, gain the foundational experience necessary for effective long-term educational leadership and advocacy. Studies from the last two years in Louisiana, North Carolina, and Tennessee showed Teach For America at the top of the states new teacher providers in impact on student achievement. Furthermore, rigorous experimental and quasiexperimental research shows that corps members are, on average, equally or more effective compared with all other teachers, including traditionally certified and veteran teachers. We nonetheless must do more to continue learning and improving our preservice and ongoing professional-development programs so that our corps members effect even greater student learning and place even more of their students on different academic and life trajectories. Foster the leadership of our alumni as a force for change Our alumni have played a critical role in the progress made over the last two decades modeling exceptional teaching, leading and staffing many of the new generation of very successful urban and rural schools, assuming significant leadership roles in fast-improving school districts, and initiating, supporting and advocating for policy change. Sixty-five percent of our alumni force work full-time in the field of education and others remain engaged from a variety of sectors. As we look toward 2015, we will focus on accelerating alumni leadership at the school principal and district levels, in policy, advocacy, and elected office, and as pioneers in the development of scalable innovations. Build an enduring institution While pursuing ambitious programmatic goals, it is also important to ensure the strength of our organization so that we can thrive as long as the needs we are addressing persist. To make our work easier and more sustainable, we aim to build an organization that is diverse, inclusive, and engaged while also being well-regarded and financially, operationally, and technologically sound. In addition, we will work to increase the diversity of our staff and boards and the engagement of our alumni with Teach For America. And as we grow both bigger and better, we will aim to contain our costs and grow our diversified revenue base in line with our expenses, generating $440 million annually by Achieving our ambitions across these priority areas will have an enormous impact on the state of public education in America, on many dozens of communities across the country, and on the future of millions of American children. We believe we have an incredible opportunity now, given the continued interest in joining our corps, the clamoring for Teach For America talent in communities across the United States, the evidence of what is possible that is driving shifts in public views and public policy, and the experience and strength of an organization in its 20 th year. We want to seize this moment to get much bigger and much better so that we can begin to truly close the achievement gap in a real sense. And we see a clear path to doing so, as long as we are able to garner the financial support needed and act on the lessons learned over the last two decades to work deliberately and aggressively towards ensuring that all of our nation s children, regardless of where they are born, have the opportunity to fulfill their true potential. 4

5 II. Teach For America Overview Teach For America is the national corps of outstanding recent college graduates and professionals of all academic majors and career interests who commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools and become lifelong leaders in the effort to expand educational opportunity. Since 1990, Teach For America has grown to include more than 28,000 corps members and alumni. We are now one of the nation s largest providers of teachers for low-income communities and at the same time we are building an ever-expanding force of leaders who work from inside and outside of the education system to ensure that all of our nation s children have the opportunities they deserve. The Problem The educational inequity that persists along socioeconomic and racial lines is our nation s greatest injustice. Where children grow up determines their educational prospects: Fourth graders growing up in low-income communities are already three grade levels behind their peers in high-income communities. 1 About 50 percent of them will not graduate from high school by the time they are 18 years old. 2 Those who do graduate perform, on average, at the level of eighth graders in higher-income communities. 3 Only 1 in 10 will graduate from college. 4 For 14 million children growing up in poverty today, these disparities severely limit opportunities in life. Because African American, Latino, and Native American children are three times as likely to live in lowincome areas, 5 children of color are disproportionately impacted by this inequity. Moreover, the individual and societal costs of the achievement gap are profound. For children who drop out of high school or do not attend college, future career prospects and earnings potential are severely diminished, as they become significantly more likely to be incarcerated than to earn $50,000 or more in any single year of life. For the community, the costs are extreme. Students who do not make it through school are many times more likely to become a drain on taxpayers through incarceration and safety net programs like welfare and Medicaid. Their lost earnings potential, in turn, represents a huge loss of tax dollars and economic productivity. In 2009, McKinsey calculated that the economic cost of the achievement gap in America is equivalent to $1.2 trillion annually, which amounts to a permanent recession. Mission and Theory of Change Teach For America exists to address the problem of the achievement gap; our mission is to build the movement to eliminate educational inequity by enlisting our nation s most promising future leaders in the effort. In the immediate term, we serve as a critical source of talented and committed teachers, called corps members, who compensate for the additional challenges their students face and the weaknesses of their school systems to provide their students with the educational opportunities they deserve. Our corps members positive impact on students academic achievement provides tangible evidence that it is 1 U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 1998, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2007 Reading Assessments. 2 Diploma Counts, Editorial Projects in Education (Education Week), (In many high-poverty districts like the regions where Teach For America places corps members, only half or even less of students graduate high school.) 3 National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 2005 Reading Assessments. 4 Mortenson, Tom. Family Income and Higher Education Opportunity, Postsecondary Education Opportunity, 2005 with updated data from National Center for Children in Poverty,

6 possible for all low-income children and children of color to succeed. At the same time, helping their students succeed intensifies corps members sense of urgency and gives them a deep grounding in what it will take to ensure that all students in our nation have the opportunity to attain an excellent education. Over the long run, we produce an alumni force with the talent, conviction, insight, and experience to effect the fundamental changes necessary to realize our vision of educational opportunity for all. Our alumni work directly for change at every level of our education system, while also exerting pressure for positive change from outside the system: continuing to serve as teachers, school principals, and district administrators; taking the pressure off schools by working to remediate the challenges of poverty by working in careers supporting economic development, public health, social services, and law; pioneering innovations in public service as social entrepreneurs; and shaping our priorities and policies as advocates, policy advisers, elected officials, and influencers in other sectors. Impact Over the last five years, we have grown our corps from 3,600 to 8,200 members and our alumni base from 9,000 to more than 20,000, while expanding from 22 to 39 sites. We have also increased our corps diversity, augmented corps members measurable impact on student achievement, and accelerated the leadership of our alumni as a force for change. Direct Impact on Students All rigorous independent research has shown that on average, Teach For America corps members lead students to make at least as much progress as other first-year teachers. A national 2004 study by Mathematica Policy Research 6, which employed a gold-standard research methodology to evaluate corps member impact at the elementary level, found that corps members: make more progress with their students in a year in both reading and math than would typically be expected; and attain significantly greater gains in math than the other teachers in the study, even when compared with certified teachers and veteran teachers. A study by the Urban Institute 7, which analyzed six years of data in North Carolina to evaluate the impact of corps members on high school students, found that: corps members have a positive impact on student learning relative to other teachers, including those who are fully certified in their subject area; and the incremental impact of having a Teach For America teacher was at least twice the incremental impact of having a teacher with three or more years of experience. Furthermore, a recent study of the pathways into teaching in the state of North Carolina found that at every grade level and subject studied, Teach For America corps members did as well or better than graduates from the University of North Carolina s teacher-preparation system. 8 And, data from a multiyear, state-sponsored study of Louisiana s teacher education programs indicate that Teach For America 6 The Effects of Teach For America on Students: Findings from a National Evaluation Mathmatica (June,9 2004) < 7 Making a Difference? The Effect of Teach for America on Student Performance in High School Urban Institute (March 2008) < 8 Impacts of Teacher Preparation on Student Test Scores in North Carolina: Teacher Portals University of North Carolina < 6

7 corps members in Louisiana were outperforming other new teachers and were as effective as veteran teachers across the state in math, science, reading, and language arts. 9 Beyond measurable impact on test scores, 97 percent of principals are satisfied with the Teach For America teacher(s) in their schools, and nearly two-thirds of principals rate corps members as more effective than other beginning teachers with respect to their impact on student achievement. And thousands of these teachers continue leading students to academic success beyond their two year commitment today, an estimated 5,700 alumni remain in the classroom, and hundreds of Teach For America alumni have been honored as teachers of the year at the local, state, and national level, including 2005 National Teacher of the Year Jason Kamras. Broad Impact on Policy, Practice, and the Landscape for Reform It would be fair to say that there was no movement to ensure educational opportunity for all the children in our nation 20 years ago when Teach For America fielded its first corps. Today, it is well known that teachers can have an important impact in changing the trajectory of their students, and dozens of communities have growing numbers of schools that are putting whole buildings full of students on much more promising paths. Today, we are surrounded by hundreds of proof points showing the possibility of ensuring educational opportunity for children who are growing up in urban and rural areas. Today, school systems such as those in New Orleans and Washington, D.C. are demonstrating progress, and the pace of policy change at the federal, state, and local levels is accelerating. At least in the elite of policy and journalistic circles, today it is accepted that schools can change the prospects for children growing up in poverty. While this momentum is the result of many forces, there is no doubt that the leadership of Teach For America s ever-expanding network of over 28,000 corps members and alumni has fundamentally fueled the progress we are witnessing in education reform. By providing underserved schools with highly qualified, results-driven new teachers and helping them to achieve measurable academic progress with their students we have created a unique force of leaders who have the insights, skills, and conviction to build and sustain more high-performing schools and school systems. Individually and collectively, they are helping to shape the policies and practices advancing education reform; a few select examples of our alumni leaders include the following: Colorado Senator Michael Johnston ( 97) passed potentially revolutionary legislation in what has been called the boldest education reform in recent memory, linking teacher evaluation, and tenure, to demonstrated progress in student achievement Building on the efforts of former Chancellor and fellow alumna Michelle Rhee ( 92), recently appointed DC Chancellor Kaya Henderson ( 92) is leading change throughout the DC system from changing hiring policies and accountability practices within the central district office to securing landmark pay for performance teacher union contracts The New Teacher Project President Tim Daly ( 99) published policy analysis that has led to collective bargaining changes in multiple cities and conducted national research into why so few experienced/tenured teachers are dismissed In addition, a growing number of emerging young leaders and veteran alumni have assumed new, highimpact roles over the past several months, including the following: New York City s Deputy Chancellor of Education, John White ( 99), was recently appointed to a new post as Superintendent of the Recover School District in New Orleans. White joined New York City s Department of Education at the invitation of Chancellor Joel Klein in Since 2005, New York City s graduation rate has increased 15 percentage points, the number of local students 9 Teach For America Teachers Contribution to Student Achievement in Louisiana in Grades 4-9: to Louisiana University < 7

8 attending local colleges has nearly doubled, and gains in test scores for New York City 4th and 8th grade students have outpaced national gains on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. After a nationwide search, Gov. Bill Haslam selected Kevin Huffman ( 92) as head of the Tennessee Department of Education. Before becoming executive vice president of public affairs at Teach for America, Huffman served as senior vice president for growth strategy and development, growing Teach For America s operating revenue base from $11 million in 2000 to $114 million in He is the first Teach For America alumnus to be named a chief state school officer. Bill Ferguson ( 05) was sworn into office this January, becoming the youngest ever elected State Senator in Maryland history. With the help of many other motivated Teach For America alumni, he successfully won his Democratic primary and general elections against a 27-year incumbent. Former DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee ( 92), is the founder and leader of StudentsFirst, an organization that is building a grassroots advocacy movement to mobilize parents, teachers, students, administrators, and citizens throughout country to lobby decision makers to make decisions that are in students interests. Teach For America has also made critical contributions to the expansion and impact of the charter movement, and in transforming some of our nation s most entrenched traditional school districts (about 200 alumni serve as district leaders). Alumni have founded some of the top performing charters in the country, including KIPP and YES Prep, pioneering the development of school models that are being replicated across the country to put children in urban and rural areas on the path to graduate from college. More broadly, Teach For America has provided the human capital needed to fuel the growth of the charter movement, supplying a significant portion of the leaders and teachers in hundreds of highperforming charter schools across the country. According to a recent report published by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., students gains in mathematics after three years in KIPP middle schools are large enough in about half the schools to significantly narrow race- and income-based achievement gaps among students. Of the 22 schools examined in the study, 17 are led by Teach For America alumni. 10 Overall, about 65 percent of KIPP schools are led by alumni, and corps members and alumni comprise about 28 percent of faculty and staff. YES College Prep Public Schools is listed as #38 on Newsweek s 100 Best High Schools and is expanding to serve more than 4,000 students over the next few years. In , 40 percent of teachers were corps members or alumni, and alumni lead 5 of 7 schools in the YES network. Rocketship Education, a nascent elementary charter school network with a model for gap-closing schools, was awarded the 2009 Charter School Growth Fund Innovation Award; with corps members and alumni comprising nearly 68 percent of the total staff and faculty, the school vaulted to seventh in the state its first year of operation. Please see Appendices 2 and 3 for more in-depth statistics about our current corps and our alumni base. III. Our Approach and Program Model Student Achievement-Centered Approach Ensuring that our corps members become transformational teachers who lead their students to significant academic achievement is the linchpin of fulfilling our mission. In the short term, academic achievement is the surest path to expanded life opportunities for students growing up today in low

9 income communities. At the same time, the experience of leading students to make significant academic progress inspires our corps members to commit to eliminating educational inequity over the long term and gives them the insight and credibility to be effective leaders. Given the critical importance of student achievement to our mission, we have developed a unique, comprehensive approach to managing and increasing teacher effectiveness. We rigorously evaluate each corps member s impact on student achievement to deepen our understanding of what distinguishes the highest-performing teachers, and we refine and enhance our program accordingly. Our current internal measurement system determines corps member impact on student achievement in a way that allows us to manage this impact on an ongoing basis. We also engage in external evaluations of our program. Additionally, we are beginning to implement a new internal student achievement measurement system that will allow us to use state test data more effectively, to use externally validated assessments as part of our program, and to provide corps members with benchmarks on those assessments that reflect the performance of top-performing teachers tailored to account for variances across subject, grade, and starting point. We use all this data to continuously evaluate and improve our program strategy and execution: to recruit people who demonstrate the potential to lead students to make significant academic gains, teach them the most effective methods of doing so, provide them with ongoing support, and help them reflect on how their experiences connect to long-term leadership in the service of our mission. We charge corps members to lead their students to significant academic achievement, and we measure the extent to which this is happening in classrooms. We have codified the goaloriented approach to teaching into the Teaching As Leadership (TAL) framework, which serves as the foundation for our teacher preparation, support and development work. Student Achievement Teaching As Leadership We use student achievement data to evaluate and improve our impact on students in low-income communities by: Deepening our understanding of what differentiates great teachers, and Improving our program strategy and execution. We have built a selection model that is grounded in our existing student-achievement data and based on the characteristics required to implement the Teaching As Leadership approach. Selection Training Ongoing Support Program Model Building on our student achievement-centered approach yields a robust program model that is implemented across the country and entails aggressive recruitment, a rigorous admissions process, intensive pre-service training, two years of ongoing professional development, and programming that fosters alumni leadership in service of our mission: 9

10 Recruitment: Teach For America recruits on over 400 college campuses nationwide. Our recruitment teams identify top prospects and cultivate them individually to apply, while also raising campus awareness and building knowledge about educational inequity and Teach For America. Our recruitment and selection efforts start with the following question: What are the characteristics that define our most successful teachers, and how can we identify those people? Through 20 years of research, and with the support of many people in the broader academic community, we have developed a selection model based on qualities that we have found are predictive of corps member success. Specifically, we look for the following: - Leadership and achievement in academic, professional, extracurricular, or volunteer settings - Perseverance in the face of challenges - Strong critical thinking skills: making accurate linkages between cause and effect and generating relevant solutions to problems - The ability to influence and motivate others - Organizational ability: planning well, meeting deadlines, and working efficiently - Respect for students and families in low-income communities - An understanding of our vision and the desire to work relentlessly in pursuit of it Our profile is nuanced, and people who fit this profile come from diverse backgrounds and experiences. We deeply value each individual who commits to our mission and believe we have to enlist our nation s best talent in this important work. At the same time, we place a particular focus on attracting and fostering the leadership of individuals who share the racial and/or socioeconomic backgrounds of the students we teach, about 90 percent of whom are African American or Hispanic children living in low-income communities. We have seen historically that when teachers themselves are from under-represented racial backgrounds or low-income families, they have the potential to have an additional impact on their students because they are uniquely positioned to serve as models of the potential for success in education and in life. Additionally, because of the crisis in math and science education and the shortage of qualified teachers for these subjects, we concentrate on recruiting people who have the background and knowledge to successfully teach those subjects. We have learned that the best way to recruit the most talented people is to get them to understand the significance of educational inequity, the effectiveness of our approach to solving this problem, their own potential to be successful teachers, and the way the teaching experience will be personally and professionally meaningful to them. We have also learned that the most effective way to convey these ideas is to meet with prospective corps members one-on-one. We maintain a force of full-time recruiters who were corps members themselves and who have meetings with top prospects across the country striving to convince talented leaders to join the movement to eliminate educational inequity. Admissions: The admissions team builds a highly selective, diverse teacher corps by using a datadriven, proprietary predictive selection model that enables us to predict each applicant s likelihood of success based on criteria that have proven to differentiate corps members who are most successful with their students. 10

11 The application process begins online, where the applicant submits a resume and letter of intent. The next steps are a phone interview and a day-long, in-person interview that includes a sample teaching lesson. Applicants also provide transcripts from their undergraduate and graduate institutions and letters of recommendation from professors and employers. At each stage, we select individuals who demonstrate the strongest potential to be successful. The process is highly selective in 2010, 46,000 individuals applied to Teach For America the largest, most diverse, and most highly qualified applicant pool in our history. Of these individuals only twelve percent were admitted, and we ultimately fielded an incoming corps of 4,500 members. Once an applicant is admitted, we work closely with each potential corps member to help ensure that the offer is accepted. Eighty percent accept our offer of admission to the corps, a yield matching that of Harvard undergraduate admissions. Teacher preparation: Teach For America operates eight rigorous five-week summer training institutes and 1-2 week local orientations. The summer institute involves teaching in summer school programs in school districts, feedback from a faculty of alumni and veteran teachers, and a regimen of seminars and practice sessions geared at building the requisite mindsets, skills and knowledge for highly effective beginning teaching. Teaching in summer school classrooms provides an authentic teaching environment similar to the classrooms in which corps members will teach independently in the fall. As summer school teachers, corps members are closely supervised to benefit from feedback and reflection. Each corps member teaches as part of a four-person collaborative and is managed by a corps member advisor (CMA), and one district teacher supervises class sessions. This teaching experience provides corps members with immediately actionable feedback about their effectiveness, supports them in reflecting critically on what they are doing and why, identifies specific solutions to help them improve their teaching, guides them in implementing these solutions, and allows them to observe how others teach in more and less effective ways. While corps members are engaging in authentic teaching and learning experiences in their summer school classrooms, they are also participating in daily curriculum sessions. Curriculum sessions provide essential knowledge, necessary practice and rehearsal, and targeted reflection that is aligned with the training textbooks. We have created a set of performance-support tools to help corps members apply the knowledge and skills they acquire during the institute. These tools include sample plans that match district curricula, models that corps members can imitate and adjust as needed, and content-rich and well-structured templates. The tools also assist corps members in skillfully undertaking key actions such as unit planning, lesson planning, classroom management planning, student and parent investment planning, student diagnosis, student assessment, and data tracking. Finally, they allow corps members to make use of best practices that have evolved over many years and with the input of many experts. Teacher support and development: Teach For America supports teachers during their two-year commitment, providing a formal cycle of observations and feedback; data-driven, studentachievement-focused tools and resources; and content- and subject-specific professional development. Each corps member is assigned a regional program director who serves as a source of support, guidance, and feedback during the corps experience, and increasingly, we are utilizing online platforms to deliver content, build community, and capture and share knowledge and resources. More specifically, our ongoing professional development model consists of: - Observation and coaching from program directors: Corps members, unlike most new teachers, get ongoing support from their program directors in addition to being able to 11

12 access the professional development resources at their school sites. Our corps members and their program directors engage in extended one-on-one co-investigations of the progress students are making. The TAL framework and rubric provide the central structure for self- and coach-driven evaluations during that process. These cycles of co-investigation are centered on student achievement results from corps members classrooms. Using the data, program directors and corps members engage in problem-solving conversations to identify the reasons for gaps in achievement, prioritize the key levers for raising achievement and students who need the greatest degree of attention, and develop actionable plans to increase the achievement of the prioritized group. The co-investigative process is crucial for corps members to accelerate their learning, develop professionally, and meet their student achievement goals. Through these individual sessions with their program directors, corps members develop the skills and practices to independently evaluate student outcomes, identify the causes of problems, and seek solutions. - Online tools and resources: Corps members have access to classroom resources, advice and community support, video models, and self-directed online learning on our private, secure website for corps members and alumni, TFANet. Specifically, the site includes a student achievement toolkit, which is a collection of documents and resources designed to help corps members create data-driven, student achievement-focused classrooms from day one. The site s Resource Exchange is a searchable and searchable database of more than 30,000 instructional resources, including lesson and unit plans, classroom management strategies, and other materials from alumni and fellow corps members. Staff members and content-area experts write advice blogs for the site, which also includes the Teaching As Leadership site, which corps members and regional program staff can access to better internalize and apply the TAL framework. Additionally, the site includes social networking functionality that allows corps members to connect and share ideas. - Regional learning experiences: In most regions, corps members meet regularly in contentor grade-level-specific learning teams led by experienced teachers, including Teach For America alumni and second-year corps members. At these meetings, corps members discuss ongoing challenges, share best practices, and work together on professional development. Activities might include creating and exchanging lesson plans and other instructional materials, modeling exemplary lessons, examining student work, and collaborating to track student progress toward significant gains. These seminars are among the primary venues for professional collaboration and support among corps members. - Certification and master s programs through university partnerships: Corps members in most regions participate in university teacher certification and/or master s degree programs. These programs are designed to ensure that corps members meet all state certification requirements. They complement the training and support that Teach For America provides, offering corps members additional skills and support to move their students forward, and helping prepare corps members to stay involved in the movement to end educational inequity beyond their two-year commitments. Alumni affairs: We believe that solving the problem of educational inequity will require leaders in all sectors. We also strongly believe that alumni should follow the paths that speak to their particular passions, interests, and strengths. To maximize the impact of our ever-expanding network of alumni, our alumni affairs team focuses efforts on: supporting each region to fuel local movements to ensure educational excellence for all children with the diverse leadership of alumni; strengthening the nation-wide network of diverse leaders committed to educational excellence and equity; and inspiring all alumni to continue to engage deeply in our mission and to advance Teach For America s work. 12

13 We have developed specific career leadership initiatives in areas that: have a direct impact on educational equity and are clearly implied by our theory of change; represent leadership needs in nearly every region; are popular areas of interest for alumni; and have barriers to entry that we might help alumni to overcome. Current career leadership initiatives are as follows: - School and school system leadership - Public leadership - Innovation In addition, we set organizational goals around the number and percentage of alumni donating time and/or money to Teach For America as an indicator of their ongoing commitment to the movement to expand educational opportunity (please see Priority 4 in Section IV below for additional information). IV. Strategic Priorities As we look to 2015 and beyond, we are compelled to do even more to grow our impact by continuing to focus on our four strategic priorities: 1) Grow in scale while increasing the diversity of the corps 2) Maximize the impact of corps members on their students achievement 3) Foster the leadership of our alumni as a force for change 4) Build an enduring American institution Priority No. 1: Grow in scale while increasing the diversity of the corps By 2015, we aim to field more than 15,000 first- and second-year corps members. At this scale, Teach For America will provide percent of the new hires and reach more than 900,000 students across the nation s 60 highest-need urban and rural communities. By 2015, our alumni force will be 44,000 strong, and we will have built the foundation necessary to expand our leadership force to more than 150,000 over the next twenty years forming nearly ten times the critical mass we have built thus far. Incoming corps by year Total alumni by year 8,000 6,000 4,000 2,000 8,000 4,510 2, ,000 40,000 30,000 20,000 10,000 44,400 21,000 12,200 5, Today, 32 percent of 2010 Teach For America corps members are people of color, including 11 percent who are African American and 7 percent who are Latino. Additionally, 28 percent are Pell Grant recipients from low-income backgrounds. We are significantly more diverse than our nation s most selective college campuses; at the 400-plus higher education institutions where we recruit, for example, only 5 percent of the graduating seniors are African American, and only 18 percent received Pell Grants. Even so, we are working to become still more racially and economically diverse - by 2015, even as we aim to nearly double the size of our teaching corps, we aspire that a third of our corps will be people of color and a third will be from low-income backgrounds. This means that we will double the number of African American corps members, triple the number of Latino corps members, and double the number of corps members from low-income backgrounds over the next five years. These teachers will serve as important 13

14 role models for their students, with a unique ability to relate personally to the challenges and dilemmas they face, while also expanding the pipeline of leaders from diverse backgrounds who are critical to effecting lasting change in the education reform movement. Selective Schools vs Results vs Goals 40% 30% 33% 28% 20% 10% 11% 11% 5% 5% 10% 7% 18% 0% African American Latino Low-Income Backgrounds (Pell Grants) Diverse representation at "Most" and "More" Selective Schools 2010 Incoming corps result 2015 Goal Recruiting, selecting, and placing nearly 34,000 new teachers over the next five years while increasing our corps diversity will require that we undertake the following: Refining targeted recruitment strategies - including diversity initiatives, faith-based efforts, outreach to college graduates and professionals, and math and science majors Investing in district strategy work - adding staff capacity to better navigate the most complex placement landscapes, especially in light of state and district budgetary constraints Further regionalizing our recruitment efforts Implementing a more explicit regionally-based recruitment staffing model to foster greater ownership and innovation, differentiation across contexts, and deeper, ongoing, long-term relationships in target communities and campuses Increasing visibility - developing comprehensive strategies to increase visibility and understanding of our work specifically in communities of color Disproportionately allocating resources and financial aid to achieve our diversity goals - targeting financial and staff resources towards both proven and innovative approaches to attracting and matriculating a more diverse teaching corps Leveraging other members of Teach For America s network - engaging regional teams and alumni more strategically in cultivating high priority candidates Retention Given the significant investment we make in each corps member, we strive to maximize the rate at which they complete their two years, in turn maximizing their impact as corps members and ensuring they learn the lessons necessary to inform their pursuits as alumni. To this end, our 2015 goal is that 92% of first-year corps members return for their second year, and that 90% of corps members complete their two years of service. Our retention rates already exceed the rates for beginning teachers in low-income communities. Priority No. 2: Maximize the impact of corps members on their students achievement Our ultimate goal for Teach For America classrooms is that students earn expanded opportunities in their lives through being led by our corps members. As a result of their time with our corps members, these students will not only narrow the measurable academic distance between themselves and their higher 14

15 income peers, but they will also develop the confidence and desire to achieve and the ability to succeed at our nation s colleges and universities. At the same time, it is critical that our corps members develop the conviction, skills, and insights needed to become life-long, transformative leaders fore educational equity. In order to track our progress in a measurable, uniform manner, and to make sure we are focused on helping all of our corps members, and most importantly, their students, perform to their highest ability, our goal is that by 2015, on average, our corps of first- and second-year teachers will effect student gains that place them in the 75th percentile of all teachers nationwide. Achieving this goal means that we must build and develop a diverse staff of outstanding education leaders, thus maximizing the impact of every corps member, strengthening Teach For America s ability to continue to catalyze the movement to expand educational opportunity, and serve as a leader in the sector. More specifically, to attain our vision transformational teaching, we will undertake the following key efforts: Refining program management adjusting the way we manage our program to ensure that corps members and staff are deeply grounded in our vision for transformational change for students Improving formal learning experiences and support resources - evolving our supports in ways that cultivate entrepreneurial leadership while providing more concrete and empowering help in areas such as content pedagogy and classroom management Innovating on our human capital model enabling staff to provide corps members with better, more frequent, and more tailored support, while doing more to retain high-performing staff members Launching a new student achievement measurement system generating higher-quality student achievement data to strengthen feedback for corps members about their students progress, to drive program management and improvement, and to help to validate and communicate our impact Optimizing external partnerships seeking opportunities to maximize relationships with a broad range of partners in this work, including districts, communities, and universities Priority No. 3: Foster the leadership of our alumni as a force for systemic change We must foster the leadership of our alumni in areas that we know are most critical to the broader reform effort. Given that the weakness of the pipeline of educational leadership remains one of the most central constraints to progress, we will redouble our efforts to support alumni who pursue careers in teaching and school and district leadership, with specific goals around the number of school leaders (1,300) and district leaders (90). Given the role we have seen political leadership and effective advocacy organizations play in making it possible for educational leaders to be successful, we will grow the number of alumni who are winning elected office, serving as key policy advisers, and leading advocacy initiatives, with goals of 160 advocacy leaders, 170 policy advisers, and 200 elected officials. And, given the magnitude of the problem and the knowledge that we will need to change the trajectory of the reform effort if we are going to accomplish our vision in our lifetimes, we will aim to provide alumni with the space and support to develop game-changing innovations, ultimately fostering the success of 35 social entrepreneurs. 15

16 Leadership Initiative Goals FY2010 Result FY2015 Goal School and School System School leaders 554 1,300 Leadership School system leaders Advocacy leaders Public Leadership Innovation Policy leaders Elected officials Alumni recognized as social entrepreneurs 8 35 Realizing our ambitious 2015 leadership initiative goals will require the following: Inspiring corps members and alumni to have the greatest possible impact helping them to reflect on the causes of educational inequity, expand their knowledge of the opportunities for impact, and discover the paths that speak to their interests, passions, and skills Helping to accelerate the path to leadership when and where it makes sense, assisting alumni by eliminating or lessening unnecessary barriers to leadership; providing insight into, and resources for, preparing for desired roles; and connecting corps members and alumni to influential people Engaging and connecting creating opportunities for alumni to strengthen their relationships to each other, with corps members, and with Teach For America, as well as providing them with ways to contribute to our program Priority No. 4: Build an enduring American Institution We must build an organization that is highly diverse, well-regarded internally and externally, and financially, operationally, and technologically sound, so that we are able to thrive as long as necessary to address this problem. At the same time, we must increase productivity to ensure our financial sustainability and efficiency. To evaluate our progress in this area, we will manage towards a comprehensive set of measures, including the following: Organizational strength - achieving an organizational strength rating that places us in the 90 th percentile of organizations while also measurably growing the diversity of our staff and board Alumni engagement - strengthening our alumni engagement with Teach For America, with a goal of 60 percent of alumni giving back to the organization placing us in the top tier of organizations in terms of alumni loyalty Brand strength and corps and alumni loyalty - directing resources towards strengthening public awareness and support among recruits and their parents as well as prospective donors, while also increasing satisfaction and loyalty particularly among corps members and alumni Financial measures containing our costs and securing the revenue necessary to support our efforts to grow in scale and impact By ensuring the strength and sustainability of our organization, we make our work easier, ensure that our movement thrives, and build Teach For America into a powerful, motivating symbol of our nation s commitment to being a place of equal opportunity. Between 2006 and 2008, we have exceeded our fundraising goals and realized 41.3 percent compound annual growth, encouraged more alumni to assume greater ownership for our mission and organization, and developed systems to nurture our talent. Please see Financial Plan (Section VI) for additional details on our fundraising model and goals. 16

17 V. Organizational Capacity and Structure Teach For America s national board of 33 directors represents some of the nation s leading minds in business, philanthropy, academia and public service. The board guides our overall strategy and direction and provides fiduciary oversight ensuring that our organization is run effectively and within all relevant laws and regulations. See Appendix 5 for a list of our directors and their affiliations. Within the organization, we have two management structures in place to guide decision-making, prioritization and progress to goals. First, Teach For America s leadership team, led by Wendy Kopp and Matthew Kramer and comprised of senior leaders of each functional area, meets every two months to review progress to goals, discuss critical programmatic or operational needs, monitor organizational efficiency and effectiveness, prioritize and plan for the future. Organizationally, each program area is part of the overall Program Team, one of seven distinct operating areas Finance and Infrastructure, Growth Strategy and Development, Human Assets, Marketing, Public Affairs, Program, and Regional Operations and Regions. Each area is led by a senior leader who sits on Teach For America s operating committee, the senior management team that assumes ultimate responsibility for the organization s performance, operations, and ongoing effectiveness. See Appendix 6 for biographies of Operating Committee members. The operating areas that support the program continuum and are responsible for building Teach For America into an enduring American institution have the following responsibilities: Growth, Strategy, and Development: Responsible for the nationwide effort to enlist the support necessary to secure the revenue and placements necessary to grow our impact. Direct reports include corporate and foundation relations, individual gifts, regional development, development operations, new site development, and growth strategy. Public Affairs: Builds support in the federal government, media, policy, academic and non-profit communities for Teach For America s ongoing efforts Regional Operations & Regions to grow our impact. Direct reports include government affairs, legal affairs, communications, and research. Administration: Ensures Teach For America has the financial, technological, and administrative capabilities necessary to support the execution of our organizational goals; to maintain the integrity of our financial controls and regulatory compliance; and to realize financial and investment efficiencies. Direct reports include planning & analysis, accounting & controls, technology & administration. Marketing: Sets and drives Teach For America s marketing strategic vision and priorities by developing and managing our brand identity and positioning and supporting national and regional Human Assets Growth Strategy & Development CEO Marketing Program Continuum President Public Affairs Administration 17

18 teams to develop and execute marketing strategies. Direct reports include digital media, insights, and marketing. Human Assets: Supports all teams in recruiting, managing, developing, evaluating, retaining, and rewarding diverse and talented people to create a high performance organization that provides unparalleled leadership development opportunities. Direct reports include talent recruitment, selection & performance management, learning & development, and strategy. Regional Operations & Regions: Maximizes our impact and opportunities in each region by identifying, developing, managing and supporting the 39 Executive Directors who are responsible for achieving ambitious student achievement goals, fostering the alumni leadership and network, and maximizing private and public support in their regions. The Office of the Chief Executive and the Office of the President are responsible Teach For America s overall performance, operations, and effectiveness. The teams work with the National Board of Directors and senior leadership to set our organization s strategic course, engage and cultivate allies for our mission, and foster a strong organizational culture and strategic alignment throughout our teams and offices. Additionally, the Diversity & Inclusiveness team reports to the Office of the CEO and is responsible for working across the organization to ensure Teach For America meets its ambitious diversity and inclusiveness goals in all areas. Performance Management At Teach For America, we closely track overall performance using our organizational dashboard (see Appendix 4), which contains all of our top-level 2015 goals. Within each program area, Teach For America has a management plan and staffing structure that enables the team to monitor and make progress toward clearly defined goals. Recruitment: All recruitment staff members use data dashboards to track progress in moving candidates through the pipeline and to monitor the relationship between recruitment activities and number of applications. Dashboards are customizable for management level, i.e., recruitment directors can see campus-by-campus activity; senior staff can monitor progress and activity across cohorts of recruitment directors, and so on. Admissions: Given the multiple deadlines and thousands of interviews happening simultaneously, the admissions team must ensure flawless execution of a tight admissions calendar. We use an online application process, linked to our constituent database. This system enables the operations team to track the progress of each applicant through the stages of the interview, matriculation and placement process, and to obtain and manage data on applicants for analysis so that we can continuously improve our selection process. Teacher training and support: During Teach For America s summer training institute, staff monitor teacher development against the Teaching As Leadership proficiency rubric; student academic growth against standards-aligned learning objectives; and operational efficiency in order to maximize pre-service teachers time spent training. Throughout the year, Teach For America staff record performance information at not only the teacher level (using Teaching As Leadership), but also aggregated student results at the class level, to measure and maximize each teacher s contribution towards student learning. Finally, we also actively seek rigorous external evaluations of our corps members effectiveness. Growth strategy: Our growth strategy team utilizes a corps member placement system that relies on clear milestones and benchmarks throughout the year for securing placements and funding to make decisions on whether to grow, maintain, or contract regional corps size according to demand on the ground. This system allows us to manage toward overall national 18

19 growth goals, and seize new opportunities for placements as they arise, while mitigating the risk associated with volatile district budgets. Human Assets: We have developed a competency model to serve as a foundation for staff evaluation, professional development, and career path planning; and begun investing in providing staff with development opportunities necessary to move from one stage of leadership to the next. Staff members undergo formal performance evaluations annually. These reviews are conducted by staff members managers, and incorporate feedback from at least three of a staff member s peers. In addition, staff members and managers typically have an abbreviated performance review at another time during the year. National and Regional Model Teach For America is a national 501(c) 3 organization with offices supporting teachers and alumni in 39 geographic regions in 31 states and Washington, D.C. Each region has an executive director and program staff, and most also have development staff and local advisory boards. Each region is responsible for setting and meeting its own program, placement, and fundraising goals within the framework of our national priorities and practices. National operations, program, and development teams (the seven distinct operating functions described above) provide coaching and support to help them achieve their goals, create efficiencies, and share best practices nationwide. This organizational model ensures that our program is implemented with fidelity across the country. Currently, Teach For America has about 1,450 regular staff members; in addition to these staff, over 950 seasonal staff work across eight institutes and more than 300 campus campaign coordinators assist our campus recruitment efforts each year. Of these 1,450 staff members, 44 percent work in the national office, 40 percent work in regional offices, and 16 percent work from home offices. Additionally, almost all regional sites have local advisory boards (the only exceptions are some remote rural regions and some new regions where boards are still in formation). These boards help ensure that on a region-by-region basis, Teach For America builds strong relationships with district and charter school partners, raises sufficient financial resources to continue to grow and sustain its program, and reaches key performance goals. Moreover, the chairs of each regional advisory board sit on our National Council, which meets with the national board twice a year to report on regional needs and performance Expanding Existing Sites and Launching New Sites To grow in scale, we must carefully monitor the intersection of both supply and demand. We measure supply based on the number of qualified applicants that we receive each year. In 2011, we received enough qualified applicants to meet our growth target of 5,100 incoming corps members; we currently have a waitlist of about 800 highly qualified individuals - talented future leaders who met our bar for admissions but for whom we want to make sure we have a placement before admitting. Given recent trends in application volume and very high matriculation rates (typically around 75 percent), we do not see barriers to growth on the supply side, though our recruitment and admissions teams very closely monitor changes in the environment. At the same time, we closely monitor, manage, and respond to demand from new and existing communities, districts, and charter schools. Looking to 2015, we will focus initially on 20 prospective regions that have expressed interest and demonstrated need. In addition, we will work closely with our current regions to maximize placement opportunities, including responding to increases in demand for effective teachers related to Race To The Top. Funding for human capital strategies that include Teach For America were proposed by 11 of the 16 finalists (CO, DC, DE, FL, GA, IL, KY, LA, NC, RI, and TN) 11, 11 In all of these instances, Teach For America was either explicitly mentioned in state budgets or would be competitive for human capital funding pending a state level procurement process. 19

20 including both of the first-round winners. In many of the winning states, including Georgia and North Carolina, we now have increased demand for our teachers, and are therefore undertaking expansion plans both in our Atlanta and Eastern North Carolina regions. Launching a New Site: Our Approach In order to establish a presence in a new region, we must first ensure: - Alignment with our mission based on the existence of a significant achievement gap that persists along socioeconomic and/or racial lines - District, charter, and pre-k institutional commitment to placing a critical mass of corps members across the full range of subject areas and grade levels (including elementary and secondary social sciences positions) - Feasibility of assigning corps members to the site, given a) applicant preferences; b) the existence of state-approved alternate route to certification that has no or minimal prerequisite barriers and enables our corps members to teach; and, if needed, c) workable ongoing certification coursework requirements with a university partner or other certification provider - Ability to fully fund the site at scale in a sustainable way via local and state support Since 2000, we have successfully launched 25 new sites. We closed our Detroit site several years ago due to extenuating circumstances, but have since re-established a presence in this community. New Site Prioritization Framework There are many communities that meet the baseline criteria; we therefore prioritize possible expansion regions based on three criteria: 1) attractiveness to the organization; 2) readiness to launch; and 3) organizational capacity given overall growth landscape. To measure 1) attractiveness to the organization, we have created an index from weighted averages of several indicators that we have found to be key in new site decisions: Depth of need: Prevalence of free and reduced-price lunch students and non-graduation rates; total number of free and reduced-price lunch students (depth of need is the most heavily weighted of all factors) State help: Potential for additional state funding or less restrictive certification requirements Admissions effect: Relief of or pressure on nearby regions Champion support: opportunity to increase or deepen investment of champions Applicant preferences: Number of high-potential candidates with interests in a given region (measured by local college graduates and surveys provided to applicants) Funding opportunity: Potential to generate private revenue from individuals, corporations, and foundations Currently, our list of prospective new sites includes the following: Alaska, Appalachia, Austin, Central Florida, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, El Paso/Southwest Texas, Greater Salt Lake, Iowa, Louisville, Oklahoma City, Pittsburgh, Portland/Oregon State, Sacramento, South Carolina, Southern California, Tampa Bay, and Upstate New York. How We Partner with Communities Teach For America maintains a national new sites team that works closely with local leaders to assess the potential for placing corps members in the region and, if selected, to create and execute a plan for launch. This plan includes execution of the following key activities: 20