Teach For America Summary

Teach For America is a nonprofit organization that recruits college graduates and professionals to teach for two years in the neediest communities in the United States. Wendy Kopp came up with the idea of Teach For America while writing her thesis during her senior year at Princeton in 1989. Kopp may have been successful with the program, where others such as the Department of Education, state and local government, even the National Parent Association were not. This success was accomplished by first establishing a clear and concise mission that appealed to many young people, who themselves wanted to give back to their community. Secondly, she made the hiring process highly selective. By making TFA highly selective changed the social perception

The strategic management process describes the method by which Koop conceived of and implemented a strategy that lead to a sustainable competitive advantage. Strategy, by definition, is an organization’s plan that allow them to accomplish their desired mission. By applying the frameworks and concepts of strategic management Teach For America achieved its mission of enlisting, developing, and mobilizing as many as possible of the nation’s most promising future leaders to grow and strengthen the movement of educational equality and excellence. TFA is the First of its kind: a “twenty-first century hybrid”, writes Donna Foote, author of Relentless Pursuit: A year in the Trenches with Teach For America. TFA developed a mission to end educational inequality, and needed a strategy that made a statement to the world. Kopp decided upon an aggressive recruitment strategy, one that consists of recruiting the most recent gifted graduates and professionals in the country to teach for two years in areas educationally challenged and TFA would make teaching in low-income communities more appealing; “surrounding it with and aura of status and selectivity”. A clear and concise strategy is vital to any organization, first it helps create a competitive advantage, positioning the company. Second it gives clear guidance to what the mission, goals, and value of the company are. The application of the strategic management process has allowed success and growth for