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Dear corps members and alumni,
I wanted you to be among the first to hear some exciting news. Yesterday the Teach For America Board of Directors appointed our President Matt Kramer and Chief Operating Officer Elisa Villanueva Beard co-CEOs of Teach For America, effective March 1. I will continue to contribute actively to the organization as chair of the board, succeeding Walter Isaacson, who will become chair emeritus
after his seven superb years of service. I will also continue serving as CEO of Teach For All. These changes strengthen Teach For America by elevating two exceptional, proven leaders while enabling me to spend my time where I can add the most unique value.
We are undertaking these changes to ensure that we have the leadership capacity necessary to tackle our rapidly growing needs and opportunities. Over the last five years, Teach For America has doubled in size, from 5,000 corps members to more than 10,000, from 26 communities to 46. Today we are investing more than ever in growing in scale and diversity, increasing the impact of corps members, and fostering the leadership of alumni. Meanwhile, in the six years since I co-founded Teach For All, it has expanded into a global network of 26 independent organizations that, like Teach For America, are enlisting their nations' most promising future leaders to become lifelong
advocates for educational excellence and equity.
For the past five years as I've led the development of the global network, I've relied significantly on Matt and Elisa, who have my deepest trust and respect. Along with the rest of the leadership team, they have been instrumental in shaping our direction and fostering our strong culture. Their conviction in this work, immense capabilities, character, and deep commitment to social justice will allow Teach For America to achieve even greater gains in the coming years.
Elisa grew up in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas and developed a passion for our mission as a student at DePauw University, where she was one of few Mexican-American students. She excelled as a 1998 corps member in Phoenix and then as the executive director of our program in the Rio Grande Valley. As chief operating officer for the last eight years, she has led Teach For America's dramatic growth in our regions, where our program plays out and where we raise 80 percent of our funding.
A proud Minnesotan, Matt studied economics at Harvard and was a partner at McKinsey & Company. His wife's experience as a corps member, which prompted Matt to start tutoring students in upper Manhattan, changed his life and his outlook. He began as Teach For America's chief program officer in 2005, and as president for the last five years he has managed our leadership team and day-to-day operations.
Elisa and Matt have worked closely and successfully together for many years and are eager to work together as a team. Elisa will continue to lead the work of the regions and will play a significant role in building public understanding and support for Teach For America. Matt will lead our central teams and drive our planning. Both will focus on building the strong organization we need to realize our mission.
As for me, no goodbye notes please! I'm not going anywhere. As board chair, I will work closely with Matt and Elisa and remain actively involved in Teach For America. I'll continue my regular visits with groups of you across the country and will keep speaking, writing and tweeting on behalf of our work. I'll be an active resource to the new co-CEO's in cultivating champions for our cause, informing our strategic direction, providing advice and counsel, and deepening public understanding of our values and theory of change.
I'm also excited to continue leading the development of Teach For All's global network. There are remarkable similarities in the nature of educational inequality around the world-which means that innovative solutions pioneered in one country can be shared and adapted across borders. I'm confident that in coming years we will see thriving movements for educational opportunity all over the world that are advancing more quickly because they are learning from each other.
We've been on such an incredible journey together over the past two decades, and I can't begin to tell you how much you all have inspired me. Your leadership has transformed our organization, the movement for educational equality, and the lives of so many children and families. I am grateful every day - not only that you chose to lend your abilities to our cause, but also for how much you have taught us and pushed us forward. You all fuel my optimism that we can solve the problem of educational inequity in our lifetimes, and my determination that we must.
As Matt and Elisa share in their own
letter, they will soon be kicking off a national listening tour to introduce themselves and seek your feedback to shape our priorities going forward. You can also read outgoing Chair Walter Isaacson's letter here
. Our letters and the press release announcing the news will be made public shortly. For the latest updates on this announcement, you can follow Teach For America (@TeachForAmerica), Matt (@kramer_matt) and Elisa (@VillanuevaBeard) on Twitter.
I'm immensely proud of what Teach For America has accomplished - thanks to the extraordinary commitment and contributions of each of you - and I'm even more optimistic about our future under Elisa and Matt's leadership. Please join me in wishing them a warm welcome as they begin their new roles! I look forward to continuing to work closely with them and all of you towards our shared vision.
Very best,
Wendy
@WendyKopp
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