Teach For America: Wendy Kopp (2017)

Hey everyone, just a quick note, this episode first ran back in October of twenty seventeen. Hope you enjoy it. When I walked into Ross Perot's office, I 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 I literally told myself

I won't leave his office. I'm gonna glue myself to the chair in his office and I'm not gonna leave until he commits. From NPR, it's how I built this. a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

Guy Raz and on the show today, how Wendy Cobb convinced graduates from some of the top universities to forget Wall Street. Forget law school. Forget big money. And instead Become a teacher. Mm-hmm.

So today's show is just a little bit different from other episodes you might have heard. For starters, you will not discover how Wendy Cop made her millions. Because she didn't. Money was never the point. But Wendy is still a really successful builder. You could say one of the most successful nonprofit founders in recent times. And in many ways, her story is a textbook case study for how to start a business. In fact, it's probably why there's an actual case study about her. At Harvard Business School. Because Wendy built Teach for America from an idea in her head to a huge operation with a budget in the hundreds of millions of dollars. And it's a program that sends thousands of college graduates to some of the most neglected public schools across the US each and every year. Now, TFA isn't without its critics, and you'll hear about that. But it's also a program that's changed lives and schools. And the idea came to Wendy during her time as a student at Princeton.

Even though she didn't really have any experience working with underserved students. In fact, her own upbringing in Dallas was practically another world. I mean honestly, I grew up in a community in Dallas, Texas that referred to itself as the bubble. you know, for its kind of lack of diversity and disadvantage. I mean my parents had

Really made it a point to buy a place in this community so that we could go to the, you know, kind of notably strong public schools there. And um Somehow I managed to grow up really without understanding the extreme disparities in our country and the fact that where you're born really does so much to determine whether you have access to an excellent education. Um, and I you know, you can never become aware of that really in its full extent at Princeton, but

On any campus and in Princeton included you can see you know, evidence of that that I mean my freshman year roommate had gone to public schools in in the Bronx and I mean honestly one of the most driven brilliant people um to make it to Princeton, but still through her and and through her friends, many of whom were kind of other first generation college students at Princeton, I realized how differently prepared they were to do well. So many things had turned me on to This this fact that our country that

Claims to be and really aspires to be a place of equal opportunity really isn't one. And were you just thinking about this stuff or or or did you Did you start to do something about it? Well Actually I had organized a conference alongside some other students at Princeton about

improving our education system. And it was at that conference where we had pulled together students from all over the country and they were some of the most incredible student leaders and they were saying we had no idea there was a need for teachers in in urban and rural areas. We would teach And it was really sitting there that I thought of this idea, like why aren't we channeling these people's energy into teaching? Um And what struck me was this idea that we would Essentially build a movement among the rising generation of leaders to channel their energy

to teach in urban and rural public schools, knowing that that would have a really important immediate impact in in classrooms and schools and and in the lives of kids. So I became obsessed. I mean the minute I thought of it, I just thought this would change our country. It would change the consciousness of our country and it became the answer to everything, like I need to propose this in my senior thesis. So you decide to turn this idea into into your thesis your like your research project? Yeah. I mean I you know, I looked at different things. I looked at

Other models like I looked at the Peace Corps and there was a federal teacher corps in the sixties and Vista. I mean I really went back, I analyzed the policy context, you know, would this actually work? Could we get these folks into classrooms? Um And also at the mood on college campuses, I mean it all the factors and ended up in this thesis. proposing the creation of a national teacher court. What's the idea like that

They were all of these talented college graduates every year who were willing and and could contribute s a few years to teaching kids in particular in low income areas. I mean and and that that just was uh that that resource was Being underutilized?

Yeah. You know, when I was thinking about my own self and and all of my peers at Princeton, you know folks were really searching for you know, what do we want to do? And not a whole lot of people knew exactly what they wanted to do. So they were doing what was in front of them. I mean, at the time this is late eighties, so

All the recruiters were literally investment banks, management consulting firms, and a couple of brand management firms. I mean, if I was at Princeton, liberal arts majors at Princeton, I mean those were the companies that were banging down our doors. And so My thought was, you know, how different would it be in our country if we had many of the most promising future leaders instead of you know, working on Wall Street for two years right out of college, teaching for two years in urban and rural areas.

And uh w how was the thesis received? Like when your advisor uh called even to give you feedback, what would they say? Well, um He called me and and said, Can you come into my office? And I was thinking, Oops

I guess this didn't go over. Um but he loved it. You know, he he said He thought this was brilliant. Wow. So he he was like let's let's make this happen for real? Well

In the last week of writing the thesis, I decided I'm just gonna say in the thesis that I'm gonna go do this. So he liked the idea, but he thought it was really crazy to think that I was really gonna try to go do this. So I had this plan. And one of the things I had looked at the origin of the Peace Corps, and there's this incredible paper, and uh the paper was this beautiful analysis that concluded that it had to start with five hundred 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 five hundred of them in, you know, five or six communities across the country. And I had a budget saying this was gonna cost two and a half million dollars in the first year. And my thesis advisor became really obsessed with that number. Like, how are you gonna raise two and a half million dollars? Yeah. And he said, You know, do you do you know how hard it is to raise twenty five hundred dollars? And he sent me down, he said, I'll tell you what, I'm gonna link you up with

the head of development at Princeton who's going to explain how hard it is to raise twenty five hundred dollars. Yeah. And this is nineteen eighty nine. Yeah. Yeah. And so so did that happen? Did you sit down with the head of development? Yes, I'm at the head of development. And you said, Hey, I've got this idea. I just need to raise two and a half million bucks. Yes.

He was very nice. He he did explain how hard it would be, um, but meanwhile I had taken I mean I I look back at this and I too wonder You know. What

possessed me, I I was blessed with the advantage of You don't naivete. And I was really obsessed with this idea. I mean, I just thought and 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. And you know, the fall of my freshman or of my senior year

There was a front page article in Fortune magazine saying corporate America takes on education reform. And so I I thought these people will fund this. So I wrote letters to everyone quoted in the article. Uh, and a few others, by the way. I would pick out like, you know, Delta Airlines and write to the CEO. I mean, this isn't you know the advantage of an experience. 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. And

One was the head of the business round table, um, who was the CEO of Union Carbide. Mm-hmm. And you know, the business round table was the group that had said we're gonna take on education reform, and they had no plan. So You know. 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. Then I met another executive at Mobile

Who was just love the idea. And said, you know. what do you need to to try to make it work? And I said I needed twenty six thousand dollars. I had developed a budget saying that's what I needed to do to you know, needed to spend three months like flying aro all over the country and really trying to put it together. 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 was the conduit of funds? What did that mean? Meaning like they could write the check to Princeton and then Princeton would just give it to

Me even though we didn't have our tax exempt status. Wow, oh so so but why was that important to him? Well, I had no credibility. And 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 start ups, but um

You know, you you have to jump through hoops to be able to do that. So you got Princeton to agree to c to to essentially launder this money to help you launch Teach for America. Yeah. I mean, r right off the bat you thought I've gotta just go to to corporations to get funding for this? 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 was oh yeah, that was very stressful. It's April

I'm thinking I've got two months to get some money. Um You know, a a a lot of A lot of students write college V C, right? Like mine was on Gladstone liberalism. That was the last time

I w expose myself to Gladstone liberalism, you know, two decades ago. Um but you here we are, you know, uh your thesis is is been your life's work. I mean you yeah. So Um What do you think it was that compelled you to stick with this idea and to to go out and graduate and say, I'm going to pursue this.

What is a really It is a good idea, right? Like I mean it's one of those ideas that if I hadn't pursued it someone would have figured it out in the 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. Um You know, somehow I just landed on on a good idea. Okay, so you've got

uh twenty six thousand dollars in in seed money and then you've got this office space from the from the business round table. And and are you guys at this point already calling yourselves Teach for America? Um Well, we 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. Teach for America. Thank heaven, right? Because Teach for America is such a better name. So y you you keep you keep saying uh we so I'm assuming that you and and I guess a couple of friends Uh like came up with a with a plan to launch this thing?

Yes, well our plan was let's show people that the college students want to do this. So I mean that was pretty much You know,'cause we were hearing no one was gonna do anything. The school districts were tell us, if you get these people from these colleges, we had a list of one hundred colleges. And they would look at the list. I remember meeting the head of human resources in Los Angeles and I mean he had his legs kicked back on the desk the whole bit and he started laughing when he looked at the list of a hundred colleges and said, Okay, I'll tell you what, you get five hundred people from these colleges to want to teach in my schools and I'll hire all five hundred of them. It's the LA unified school district. Yeah. So you went to meeting

the head of hiring there and said, I have this plan, I'm gonna get college students, do you want'em? And he said, if you can do it, sure I'll take'em. Yes. And and he wouldn't have to pay any of them because you were gonna get the funding for this. Well no, he was gonna hire them at regular teacher salary. So I had gone through and just was really testing the feasibility. Will the districts hire them? And 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 you know, it's not gonna work because the college students won't do it. So the whole plan became let's just show people that the college students wanna do it. So what we did was to decide, okay, we're gonna find two students at each of a hundred campuses. We're gonna find one and tell them to go find someone who represents a different you know, sort of diversity on that campus. Um and then those two people are gonna essentially put flyers under doors um and try to inspire people to apply. So you you said, hey, uh if you want to teach in a low income school, um we can train you and then place you in a school And then

And you put that out there and did applications start to come in? Yeah, I mean the pitch was even it was 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 You know, apply to this and you'll teach for two years and y then you'll be part of a group of leaders who work for the rest of their lives to 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 one hundred seventy voicemail messages on his answering machine. Saying, Hey, I wanna m I wanna know more about this. Yes. And and there was a man who some of your listeners will remember, Fred Hackinger, 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, it's 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, you know, making a decision decided some of them, okay, we'll get behind this. The school district started taking it more seriously. So everything was coming together. The only massive problem was that we were nowhere near raising two and a half million dollars. Here here's the thing that I don't get. You are going out and basically advertising to

students at the these hundred colleges saying apply for this thing But like you didn't really have a guarantee. a an ironclad guarantee that that you could actually place them in any jobs. You were really just kind of You were kind of just hoping that it would work out. 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. Um you know, we had talked to folks in many of these districts and realized that they really Wanted To hire these folks. Um, and so it didn't seem as precarious as it sounds now. So how many app applications did you get? We had twenty five hundred people apply. How many spots?

Could you could you Well we were aiming for five hundred. Wow, I mean how many of you were were now running this organization, like four or five? 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 twenty five hundred applications. Go through five twenty five hundred applications. Yes. That's a very good question that we hadn't thought through. But um I mean one thing we did was say, Okay, we're gonna send teams of two out in Yeah, actually.

I got the head of Hertz to donate rent a cars. So we had five rent a cars and we were gonna 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, you know, it 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 I mean, you know, we have these teams out on the road and they're Interviewing these folks. I'm thinking We don't have any money.

When we come back? The scramble for money? A mutiny in the ranks. And the struggle.

To stay alive. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This. From NPR. Hey welcome back to how I built this from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So it's the spring of 1990, and Wendy is about to train TFA's very first class of teachers.

The only problem is she's short on money, like two and a half million dollars short. So, in kind of a Hail Mary move. Wendy decides to contact Ross Perot, who at the time was one of the richest businessmen in Texas, and you might have heard of him because He ran for president in the early 1990s. He's from Dallas and I'm from Dallas and and he's really into education reform. I mean when I was growing up, Ross Perot, as a business leader in Texas, was, you know, really fighting for all this legislation to improve the school. So I had never met him and but I just had in my head he was gonna fund this. And and Ross Perot doesn't. doesn't think I wrote him eleven letters before he agreed to see me, but

You did. We have different memories. So you wrote him eleven letters and he finally agreed to Finally he called me up. I mean I actually thought it was a friend of mine'cause everyone knew I was trying to get to Ross Perot, and someone yells down The hall. Ross Perot on the line and I pick up the phone and say, Yep. I'm thinking this is one of my friends. Pulling a prank. Um and I hear his voice on the other end, you know, which is very recognizable. I'm like, Oh my gosh And and I said to him, I'm coming to Dallas, I'm gonna be there next week. Can I come see you? And he agreed. And w what happened when when you went down there?

Well, when I walked into Ross Perot's office, I 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 I literally told myself, and I've often wished I could be as persistent, but I won't leave his office. I'm gonna glue myself. to the chair in his office and I'm not gonna leave until he commits. Yeah.

Um you say to him, This is my thing, this is my program, and what did you ask him for? How much how much money? Well, I asked him for a million dollars. I needed, you know, 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 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. I will give you five hundred thousand dollars if you can raise the other one point five million. Huh. And that was the moment I knew it's done. Like I knew that his

His credibility And that kind of leverage I could just go back to everyone else and that they would all come in. You could go back to everyone else and say, Ross Perot has committed five hundred thousand dollars, guys. I need your money. Yeah. Uh in order to leverage that.

Yeah. All right, so so did you I'm assuming you raise the money after Ross Perot made the commitment? Yep. So one year after I graduated I was literally looking out on an auditorium full of four hundred eighty nine wow recent grads who were all in that auditorium at USC. Yeah. So a year after you graduate, a year after the thesis, you've done it. You've got these four hundred and eighty nine College graduates in this room. Ready for uh what, uh four or five week training program? Yeah, eight weeks at the time. And they were all gonna go to the LA unified school district? No well they were during the summer they were, but then they would go to the one of six places where we had decided to cluster them and where the school districts had agreed to hire them. Where was that? Where were they?

Um New York City and and LA, New Orleans, um Baton Rouge in southern Louisiana, and then two world sites in in world Middle Georgia and and eastern North Carolina. And they had to make a two year commitment, that was part of the deal. Yeah. So I mean I if I remember correctly, you were not a teacher. You did not study how to be a teacher. You did not have a teaching credential. Like how did you know how to train Well I didn't know and and you know, that's why we found these experienced teacher educators and and experienced teachers who had a specialty in

you know, preparing and supporting teachers in urban and rural areas. And we really just turned the whole thing over to them. So how did that first summer go of of training? Oh, it was terrifying. Um you know, I mean It was the first year. We had four hundred eighty nine people cooped up in dorms for eight weeks. Um a diverse group, not as diverse as, you know, we would all hope and as Teach for America has achieved at this point, but I mean, we had a mix of folks who had never been in an environment like this and were never had many of them who hadn't been working in

um, urban rural communities. So there was just a lot of tension and a lot of issues to sort through and it was it was very, you know, it was exhausting. 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 health care and nutrition and racial discrimination the whole bit. And it's very overwhelming. So the pioneering first corps 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.

Once that first class of teachers went you know, to their schools and start to start to teach. Did you just have to get right back on the fundraising? Hamster wheel. Um, I mean this and and on the recruitment side and you know, like it's 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.'Cause that was where all of your revenue was gonna come from, right? From fundraising, right.

Um It's a non profit, so it's very different from as I s as I mentioned the other companies we've done on the show. But it does you were running a business. I mean you were creating business. Yeah. I mean the hardest piece, as you say, was about 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. Um which now I might think maybe there's a path to some of that, but at the time this was just chaos. And and then ultimately, most importantly, I mean there were also the political learnings, you know, how do you navigate the politics of education, but probably most fundamentally,'cause you can't do anything without resources, like how are we gonna sustain this thing financially? Because none of those donors thought that they were gonna stick with it. Yeah, I bet. And we were losing donors in like half a million and 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, you know, like every paycheck, I every payroll, I you know, there's a question about whether we were gonna meet it. Was there something that happened during during that period that was particularly difficult? Oh, there was so much. Um Probably the most excruciating moment. was

When President Clinton Launched American. This national service initiative Teach for America was one of those first partners with American. So that federal funding really gave us a big boost.

But the second year, um There was well, all sorts of question actually about our financial viability and so the the folks who are operating Americor wouldn't approve a grant to teach for America and This is about June and we have five hundred teachers who think that they're gonna

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 five hundred people saying We can't make it. You're not gonna be able to come. And We could not get

anyone in the government. And I again like you know, I'm still in my twenties, twenty 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

Push sand 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. How m I mean, what how much money did you need to to meet payroll? Or to m to meet those costs? 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. And why did it come in at the last minute? I mean we we were calling every single

person and lever we could possibly come up with and ultimately I guess we wore them down. Hm. But you know, these things happen. Like this is what happens in big bureaucracies and it's what happens to social entrepreneurs, you know, I mean ultimately it all works out'cause 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. Like

you know, there aren't natural funding sources. So you 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. Wendy, I guess at at a certain point, maybe maybe it was about five years into Teach for America Um the the staff, like from what I've read, like they they they revolted, they rebelled. They all threatened to quit. What was going on? Oh gosh, that was even earlier. I mean, I think it was our second year actually. We were all at our training institute and um

I was still I had this notion of no hierarchy, but Which was a genuine notion. I just thought if we're all, you know, on the same you know, we're on the same mission. Why do we need a hierarchy? It was self directed. 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. How many people said that? Well, it was everyone sitting in a room that

Like ten people or fifteen people. Oh gosh, we had sixty people at that point. So they said if we can't vote on every decision made democratically, we leave. Yeah. And so what'd you do? Well, at this point I 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 hedged, like I should have said yes but no. So we all left and the next morning I sent out

of note saying You know. We're not gonna make decisions by vote, and you know what, no one left. I mean, was there any truth into what they were saying? Like were you autocratic in in your style? Um

Let's just say I wasn't autocratic in my intention. Um you 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. Yeah.

When you are, you know, twenty four or whatever, twenty five, how however old you were at the time and the whole team is like, Hey, we wanna You know, I mean it's essentially a like a vote of no confidence e e even even if it wasn't, but it ki kind of was Did you did it shake you? I mean, did you feel feel like did it Exacerbating self doubt.

Oh yes. It did. Um but I didn't know what to do. Um I mean part of what was leading me To Stay in it.

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 put my head down and keep going at it until we could get out of it. So once you did get out of it and and you know became more financially stable Were you able to s to start seeing the impact of Teacher America?

Well I think um I mean we were seeing even in 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 um 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. So

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. because we were seeing 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 you know, 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?

as Teacher America really started to take off and grow and grow and get more and more attention you also with more visibility comes more criticism. And I'm I just trying to think. I mean you were Still pretty young.

you had no teaching experience. And there were professional educators who were kinda going after you and and and criticizing Teach for America for everything from this is, you know, white paternalism of middle class wealthy kids going into poor neighborhoods of color to You know, there's not enough training to You know, they're only there for two years, it's it's actually disruptive.

Did that Did that criticism hurt you? Did it did it did it keep you up at night? Well You know, we were working very hard to get better, you know, and the criticism actually started pretty early on. I mean it You know, 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 gonna be better if we shut down Teach for America. So there's really only one option, which is to get better. So you just it didn't it didn't faze you?

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. Two justify a decision to go off to work for the consulting firm for two years'cause you don't even know like is Teach for America really a good

Like there's enough question out there in the blogosphere, you know, and and so it definitely made the work more difficult. But you know, a 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, DC, 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 graduation rates, enrollment rates, everything moving in the right direction. 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 teachers who are still in the system and the

the school principals and the last two schools chancellors who presided over the system for a decade and one of whom was a an alum of T. 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 gonna solve this. We need incredible teachers, but we also need some of those people who understand what you understand from teaching.

And decide I'm gonna go become a school principal and reshape schools. And some who say I'm gonna work at the system level, and some who say I'm gonna run for office because we gotta change the policy context, and some who say I'm gonna 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 in its full complexity. Um and the critics You know, I wish they'd dive in and help us do better, essentially. Wha what's Teach for America's um

budget today. It's about three hundred million. Wow. That's Huge. Mm-hmm. It's gone from two and a half million to three hundred million.

Mm-hmm. Teachers does it does it bring in does it. You know, seven to eight thousand teachers at any given time. And fifty thousand alumni at DFA. Most of whom I will say are still in the work.

Mm. Well Wendy, I mean I think anybody hearing this could conclude that you could have been a uh started a business, a c a for profit company

And probably m made three hundred million dollars. That y you have the talent and skill to do that. And and I wonder whether I mean, you could have gone on and d and done that and let's say you had three hundred million dollars now. You could have just been the huge philanthropist and given three hundred million dollars to Education.

projects and your name would be everywhere. It'd be the Wendy Cobb Building for Education Reform and people would be pissing up to you. I mean who knows, but I 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 and we're shaped by our early experiences, of course, but I don't even I have not one instinct to do that, right? Like I'm so to this day, I'm I've never been more energized, like twenty seven or however many years in. Um You know, like this is really all I've ever wanted to do.

That's Wendy Cobb, founder of Teach for America. In 2013, she stepped down as CEO. She also co-founded Teach for All. which partners with organizations all over the world to recruit teachers to work in needy schools. Today, that network has more than 14,000 teachers in 50 countries. Hey, thanks so much for sticking around because it's time now for how you built that. And today we're gonna update a story that we ran about a year ago. In 2015, Abby Kircher was a teenager with a food obsession. I've always loved peanut butter flavored anything. Peanut butter, um cups. Peanut butter ice cream. I loved peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, heavy on the peanut butter. But one day, Abby did something that you probably shouldn't do with a food you eat every day.

She looked at the label. And I was just like, Oh my gosh, this is so much sugar, tons of additives and preservatives. And so it just doesn't feel like it's almost peanut butter in anymore, you know? It just feels kind of like a sugar spread. So Abby decided to go cold turkey on peanut butter, but But of course, she missed eating it. So I was like, I might as well make my own. You know, there's no reason why I couldn't make my own, so that's when I just whipped out a food processor and just tried it out. This was, by the way, her mom's food processor into which she put some nuts and coconut oil and salt. And eventually took forever. It turned into a creamy texture. I was like, wow, this is so cool! I got very excited. Then I was like, okay, how do I want to flavor this or sweeten it? So I threw in some dates.

processed that a little bit and it was so good. So good in fact that Abby started spreading the nut butter on everything. Apples, sandwiches, pancakes, even salad. And she began sharing it with her family and friends, and then One night? I went into my room and it was quite literally an aha moment and I just ran back into the kitchen and said, Mom. I could start a business and she just kind of was like Oh right, yeah, absolutely. Now it's a good thing Abby's mom and dad were on board because remember

Abby was like 15 at the time, so she needed her parents' help to track down jars and labels and a commercial kitchen to make the nut butter. But Abby was still making a lot of the big decisions. Like early on, she actually decided to forget about peanuts and to branch out into other types of nuts. I wanted something a little different, and I realized there weren't a lot of pecan and cashew butters out there at the time. So Abby came up with five recipes, each with just a handful of ingredients, flavors like date pecan, or strawberry cashew, and coffee almond. And she and her mom Anna set up a stand at a big farmers market just outside Charlotte. And we would just, you know Call people over, they were all incredibly intrigued by the story and how young I was. They would always look at my mom and be like, so

You started this and she'd be like nope. Anyway, they kept selling out at the farmer's market, and people kept asking for more. That was getting hard because they were still packing the jars of nut butter themselves, and How are they doing that? Spoons, believe it or not. Many spoons, many many hands. That was the worst part for sure. It just took so long. So a few months later they got a machine to do the jarring for them, and soon they were pitching their nut butter at local grocery stores. For a a young girl and and her mom to walk in there excited about a product and it made them excited and I think that was

A huge factor in our growth. Less than two years after Abby started making nut butters, They were selling in like three hundred grocery stores in the Charlotte area. And over time, it wasn't just Abby and her mom doing this. Her older brother joined the business and her dad actually quit his job to join them as well. Technically I'm the boss of my parents and brother, yes. Which is

Definitely a learning experience trying to figure out okay what are our positions in the business regardless of our You know, positions in the family. Ebbie's been running the company for four years now, and her nut butters have spread to nearly 1,000 stores across the East Coast and the Midwest, including some pretty big chains like Wegman's and Lowe's. Ebbie's Nut Butter is expected to pull in$1.6 million this year. Pretty amazing for a CEO who is now just 19 years old. Being a young entrepreneur and starting at such a young age, you know, I didn't think that I can't do it, I just thought I could. It's such an incredible uh opportunity and a blessing. The business is called Abbey's Better. That's B-E-T-T-E-R. And if you want to find out more about it, or hear previous episodes, head to our podcast page, howIbuiltThis.npr.org.

And of course, if you want to tell us your story, go to build.npr.org. And thanks so much for listening to the show this week. You can subscribe at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're there, please do give us a review. You can also write to us at hibt at nbr.org and if you want to send a tweet. It's at how I built this. Our show was produced this week by Randa Abdelfata with music composed by Rabtina Rablui.

Thanks also to Julia Carney, Neva Grant, Sunaz Meshkin Poor, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is David Job. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening. to how I built this.

What you see above is a preview of the first minutes. One unlock costs 3 credits and covers this episode forever: full segment and word-level timestamps on this page, plus .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like.