Teach For America’s 2015 Plan

Teach For America’s 2015 Plan

Fueling an unstoppable movement to ensure that all children in this nation have the

opportunity to attain an excellent education

2

20 Years Ago, There Was No Such Movement

Stand and Deliver (1988)“The students accomplish such miracles that Stand and Deliver plays a little like a fairy tale, even if it is based on a real story.”

- The New York Times,

March 18, 1988

Lean on Me (1989)Principal Joe Clark, a dedicated educator, was celebrated for his leadership in improving the culture of Eastside High in Patterson, New Jersey, but there was no evidence that the school’s academic results changed.

“Let's stop lamenting the crisis and do something about it."

- November 7, 1988 Fortune Cover Story

The prevailing notion was that children's socioeconomic backgrounds determined their educational outcomes.

Schools Systems“Harlem charter students at schools like KIPP and Democracy Prep are outperforming their white peers in wealthy suburbs” – Wall Street Journal, March 7, 2010

“The Amistad charter school has become a mecca for reform-minded educators, a driver of change in New Haven public schools” - New Haven Register, May 10, 2009

“Network says ‘YES’ to college for all” - Education Week, Feb 25, 2009

“The gap is finally beginning to narrow substantially”

– New Orleans Times-Picayune, April 19, 2009

“Baltimore 4th-graders score better than expected on math”

– The Baltimore Sun, Dec 9,

2009

“District leaps forward in math” – Washington Post, Dec 9,

2009

“We can’t keep sitting idly by while parents send their kids to charters”

- HISD Superintendent Terry Grier, Feb 20, 2010

Today, Hundreds of Proof Points Show that Transformational Change is Possible

Wherever there is transformational change, there is transformational leadership.

3

4

Over the Past 5 Years, We’ve Grown the Pipeline of Transformational Leadership

2010• 3,600 corps members in 22 sites• Mathematica study shows that corps

members make more progress in reading and math than would typically be expected

• 8,800 alumni*, including:• 153 school leaders and 3 elected

officials• 5,800 in education, including 3,000

teaching and hundreds more working to improve the system from other positions

• 8,200 corps members in 39 sites• Growing evidence that corps members have a

positive impact on student achievement• Urban Institute / CALDER study• Louisiana value-added study• University of North Carolina study

• More than 20,000 alumni, including:• 554 school leaders and 45 elected officials• 13,000 in education, including 6,800

teaching and thousands more working to improve the system from other positions

• Nearly 4,300 in jobs related to education or serving under-resourced communities

Teach For America has played a crucial role in fueling the larger movement.

2005

*2005 and 2010 alumni figures are extrapolated from annual alumni social impact report data gathered in those years

50 percent of students in low-income communities will not graduate from high school by the time they are 18 years old*; those who do graduate perform, on average, at the level of eighth graders in higher-income communities**

Still, Much Remains to be Done

* Editorial Projects in Education/Education Week, “Diploma Counts,” 2009. ** On average, 12th graders whose family income makes them eligible for free or reduced lunch scored at roughly the same level on the 2005

NAEP reading assessments as 8th graders from wealthier families. ***“Bachelor's Degree Attainment by Age 24 by Family Income Quartiles, 1970 to 2008.”  Tom Mortenson www.postsecondary.org. 

By age 24, fewer than 10 percent of young people from low-income families have attained a bachelor’s degree, compared with over 75 percent of people from high-income families***

Despite all the progress and all the evidence that children in low-income communities excel when they are given the opportunities they deserve, the

achievement gap persists on an aggregate level.

5

6

To Fulfill our Potential as a Force For Change, We Must Become Still Bigger and Better

Grow in scale while

increasing diversity

Maximize corps

member impact on student

achievement

Foster the leadership of our alumni as

a force for change

Four Organizational Priorities

Four Supporting Initiatives

Build an enduring institution

Diversity & inclusiveness

Knowledge sharing

STEMEarly

childhood education

Accomplishing ambitious goals in these areas will fuel an unstoppable movement by generating a growing pipeline of transformational leadership.

By 2015 we will be one of the largest-scale interventions in public education, providing 20-25% of new hires across 60 of the highest-need urban and rural communities and building the foundation necessary to expand our leadership

force to nearly 155,000 over the next twenty years.

We Must Continue to Grow…

Incoming corps by year Total alumni by year

7

3,9008,800

21,100

44,400

80,400

153,900

0

40,000

80,000

120,000

160,000

868

2,121

4,485

8,100

0

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

7,000

8,000

9,000

Over 15,000 corps members will be teaching 930,000

students across 60 communities

2000 20102005 2015 20202000 20102005 2015 2030

To be successful, we must be more diverse than the campuses which provide the greatest numbers of students who are academically equipped for the challenge of

Teach For America.

While Increasing the Number of Corps Members Who Share the Racial and Economic Backgrounds of our Students

* Defined as corps members who have received Pell Grants** 2015 projections for the percentage of US college students in each demographic group graduating from the approximately 400

colleges that U.S. News and World Report defines as “most” and “more” selective. Includes international students

6.2%

24.9%

10.0%

33.0%

17.9%

5.0%5.3%

9.7%11.0%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

African American Latino

Diverse representation at “Most” and “More” Selective Schools**2009 Incoming Corps Representation Result2015 Incoming Corps Representation Goal

8

Unfortunately, we ourselves are confronting educational inequity in this pursuit, given the lack of diversity at nearly 400 of our nation's top colleges

Low-Income Backgrounds# of 2010 corps members of this backgroundProjected # of 2015 corps members of this background

480

320

1,400

1,220

818

2,700

2,700

900

Low-Income Backgrounds

African American

Latino

People of Color

Our Goals

By 2015, the incoming corps will have nearly twice as many African American corps members and corps members of color as in 2010, twice as many corps members from low-income backgrounds, and more than 2.5 times the number of Latino corps members

We Must Develop Transformational Teachers

9

We are aiming for our corps members to achieve as much student growth, on average, as 75th percentile teachers, for the sake of their students and of the

lessons they learn to inform a lifetime of educational leadership and advocacy.

Better Understanding and Predicting Teacher Success

• Researching the drivers of teacher improvement and impact

• Refining our Teaching As Leadership rubric for teacher development

• Improving predictive selection model and assessment tools

Evaluating and Measuring Student Progress Effectively

• Providing corps members with access to strong assessments

• Providing good benchmarks showing the growth of students in 75th percentile classrooms on the same assessments

Strengthening Direct Engagement with Corps Members• Improving one-on-one

coaching of corps members• Using technology to

improve methods for delivering training and support

• Enhancing content- and grade-level-specific planning and instructional tools

Through our alumni leadership initiatives, we aim to accelerate the pace of change in communities across the country and nationally as well.

We Must Accelerate the Leadership of our Alumni to Meet the Most Pressing Needs in Education Reform

10

Leadership Initiative Goals

By 2015, we will have more than 44,000 alumni addressing this problem from every angle,

including thousands in

leadership roles that we know are

particularly crucial

Broader Impact

• Thousands of alumni working in education nonprofit and for-profit ventures to execute and spread innovative practices

• 35 alumni will launch original, high-potential social ventures

Innovators

• 160 alumni will serve as advocacy leaders

• 170 alumni will serve as policy leaders

• 200 alumni will hold elected office

• Teachers making their voices heard in policy debates without leaving the classroom

• Thousands of alumni supporting advocacy efforts at the local, state, and national levels through their contributions, volunteerism, and engagement

Informed Political Leaders, Policy Advisors and Advocates

• 1,300 alumni leading schools• 90 alumni will serve as

superintendents and/or senior cabinet members in school districts or charter school network

• 15,000 alumni teachers leading their students to academic success*

• Nearly 14,000 in other education roles, including 5,000 in non-teaching roles in schools, districts, and system administration

• Hundreds of alumni serving on charter school boards

Strong Educational Leaders

* 2015 broader impact projections extrapolate from our current alumni base

We Must Build a Strong Organization In Order To Reach Our Goals

11

Satisfaction, inclusion, and stewardship of corps members and alumni

• 60% of alumni will donate time/money, which is on par with the highest levels of alumni giving at colleges and universities

• Average net promoter score* among corps members and alumni will be 50% (with no gaps by race/ethnicity), which aligns with top benchmarks at universities that use this measure

Staff, financial, and brand strength

• “Grand Mean” on Gallup’s organizational strength measures will be in the 90th percentile

• 9% of prospective recruits, 46% of parents of prospective recruits, and 6.3% of prospective donors, will express strong intent to apply, support their child’s decision to apply, or donate, respectively

• We will maintain an operating reserve that equals 25% of our projected expenses

Organizational diversity

• 33% of our staff will be people of color, including 11% who are African American and 8% who are Latino. 28% of our staff are from low-income backgrounds. No gaps exist for management

• 30% of national and 25% of regional board members will identify as people of color

* % of Promoters minus Detractors in response to the question, “How likely are you to recommend to a friend or family member applying to become a TFA CM?”

We must build an organization that is diverse, inclusive and engaged; financially, operationally and technologically sound; and well-regarded so that we are able

to thrive as long as necessary to address this problem.

We must build on the investments we’ve made to ensure our corps, alumni force, staff, and boards are diverse and engaged.

We Will Prioritize Diversity & Inclusiveness at Every Level

12

Ensure our corps, staff, and boards

reflect the diverse nature of our communitiesEnhance

awareness of and support for Teach

For America in communities of

color

Foster an inclusive culture

where corps members and

staff feel valued and can do their

best work

Provide corps members and staff with the necessary skills to thrive and lead within diverse

environments

Establish leadership and accountability structures that

ensure consistent focus and progress

We Will Continue to Share What We Learn About Excellent Teaching

To more broadly share our knowledge of what excellent teaching looks like, we recently published a Teaching as Leadership book and TAL Online Navigator (TALON) that encapsulate our in-house teacher development rubric. The TALON website contains video illustrations, written documents and other annotations to support the book content.

“Every teacher, principal, and superintendent should read this book. Over the last two years, we have seen our students’ reading, writing, and math skills improve significantly. The principles outlined in Teaching As Leadership have played a critical role in our progress.”

—Andres Alonso, chief executive officer, Baltimore City Schools

Sharing What Works

www.teachingasleadership.org

13

Teach For America can be an important source of innovation and research to inform broader efforts to strengthen the teaching profession.

We Will Place a Particular Focus on the Areas of STEM and Early Education

Growing the Force for ECE ChangeWe will help catalyze progress in early childhood education through expanding our placements in pre-K and K classrooms and doing even more to ensure these teachers are prepared to address the range of social, emotional, and academic needs of young children.

The Problem• Half of the achievement gap between

white and African American 12th graders is present before kindergarten starts*

• Infants and toddlers in low-income communities are exposed to around one-third the number of words as children from more affluent communities

Early Childhoo

d Educatio

n

The Problem• Fewer than four of 10 fourth- and eighth-

graders are proficient in mathematics• In science, our students fall behind

countries such as Canada and the Czech Republic

• As relative global performance lags, significant scoring gaps between white students and their Hispanic and African American peers persist.

We will continue to dedicate resources to attracting the most qualified math, science and engineering majors and enhancing our training and professional development resources. By 2015 over 4,200 corps members will be teaching math and science.

Math and

Science

Growing the Force for STEM Change

14

We will increase our effort to expand opportunities for today’s students while fueling fundamental reform in STEM and Early Education.

* According to Nobel Laureate of Economics James Heckman

Reaching Our Goals Will Be Very Challenging

We will only meet our goals if campus, community, and national leaders prioritize this effort, and with extraordinary staff and board leadership.

15

• On and off-campus support to generate as many as 90,000 applicants

• State, district, and school-level support across existing regions and 20 new regions to secure 15,000 placements

• Public and private sector championship to raise $440M annually

• Exceptional staff talent and leadership

• Exceptional regional and national board leadership

To reach our 2015 goals, we will need:

By 2015, we will see the needle moving against

educational inequity in more communities and

in aggregate terms nationally

But In Doing So, We Will Fuel an Unstoppable Movement to End Educational Inequity

Our 15,000 corps members will reach nearly 1 million students annually:

Our 44,000 alumni will further accelerate the pace of change:

•Making a meaningful difference in their students’ lives

•Building conviction that this problem is solvable

•Deepening their understanding of the solutions

The leadership of our corps members, alumni, and staff will bring us measurably closer to our collective vision.

•Leading their classrooms to academic success

•Running schools that exemplify what is possible

•Driving innovations within districts

•Effecting policy changes at the local, state and federal levels

•Generating new game-changing innovations that speed up the trajectory of our work

16

Our Collective Vision

One day, all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent

education.

Appendix: 2015 Goal Projections (1 of 2)

Priority Measure FY2010 Results FY2015 Goal

Grow in scale while increasing

diversity

Scale

# of incoming corps members who start teaching 4,485 8,100

% retention of first-year corps members into 2nd year

92.6% 92%

% of corps members who complete two years 91.3% 90%

Diversity% of incoming corps members who are people of color, African American, Latino, and from low-income backgrounds

31.0%, 10.6%, 7.1%, 27.5%

33%, 11%, 10%, 33%

Maximize the impact of corps members on student achievement

X% of benchmark, where “benchmark” is the average growth of students in classrooms at the 75th percentile

N/A1 100%

Foster the leadership of our

alumni as a force for change

Schools & School Systems

# of alumni who are school leaders and school system leaders (with no proportional gaps by race/ethnicity) 2

5543 (+6), 52 (-9)

1300, 90

Policy # of alumni who are policy and advocacy leaders and who hold elected office (with no proportional gaps by race/ethnicity) 2

63 (-8), 38 (-9), 45 (-1)

170, 160, 200

Innovations# of alumni recognized as social entrepreneurs (with no proportional gaps by race/ethnicity) 2 8 (-5) 35

1 In FY10, only one region, Eastern North Carolina, was piloting this new continuous measure of student achievement. In FY11 8 regions and more than 1,200 corps members are utilizing this metric. We plan to roll out the continuous measure across the entire network in FY12.

2 Numbers in parentheses indicate percentage point gaps for people of color3 FY11 is first year for separate school system leader goal. Accordingly, FY10 actual school leader count of 554 includes both

principals and the 52 school system leaders broken out under school system leaders.

Priority Measure FY2010 Results FY2015 Goal

Build an enduring institution

Staff satisfaction and diversity

“Grand mean” score of staff responding “strongly agree” on OSM (gap, people of

color)4.23 (-0.05)1

Gallup’s 90th

percentile

% of staff members who are people of color, African American, Latino, and from low-income backgrounds (with no gaps for management - band 5 and above -

vs. the rest of the organization)

32% (-2), 10%, 7%, 20%

33%, 11%, 8%, 28%

Board diversity% of national and regional board

members who identify as people of color27%, 16% 30%, 25%

Alumni engagement

% of alumni who donate time and money (with no gaps by race/ethnicity)

51% (-1) 1 60%

Brand strength/Corps & Alumni

Loyalty

% of prospective recruits, parents of prospective recruits, and prospective

donors expressing strong intent to apply, support their child’s decision to

apply, or donate, respectively

2.3%, 20.6%, 1.2%

9%, 46%, 6.3%

Average “Net Promoter Score” among corps members and alumni (with no

gaps by race/ethnicity)33 50

Financial measures

Corps member costs/(# of corps members * student achievement result)

$23,553 TBD

Maintain an operating reserve that equals X% of our projected expenses

25% 25%

Appendix: 2015 Goal Projections (2 of 2)

1 Numbers in parentheses indicate percentage point gaps for people of color