Elevating the Teaching Profession with STRIPES
One of the biggest problems that we face in education today is the seemingly endless quest to elevate the teaching profession. Back in 1989, Wendy Kopp had a vision of taking gifted college students who weren't education majors, but wanted to teach and sending them out to learn how to teach on our country's neediest children. The result has been Teach for America and one need only watch a talk show or listen to musicians like Common and John Legend to know what a success it has become.
Unfortunately, 23 years later, Teach for America feels like a relic of an earlier time. Things like smart phones, the internet, and HDTV didn't exist in 1989. In today's cyber age, gifted young people don't want to wait through a laborious five week training period and then commit to a two year teaching period. You only have to wait 48 hours to get a gun, why should you have to wait five weeks