The Tall Tales of Wendy Kopp
Yesterday, Anthony Cody had a question for Teach For America's founder, Wendy Kopp: he wanted proof that her teachers really do stay in teaching for an average of eight years. I looked at the facts for a bit and came to the conclusion that it's very unlikely Kopp's claim is accurate.
Cody asked his question because he is a thinking person with an actual, working brain in his head. When he hears a claim like Kopp's - a claim that stands in contradiction to all of the evidence we have about TFA - he's inclined to be skeptical. He'd like to see some actual proof before he joins in the happy, reformy sing-a-long.
But we live in a world where journalists and pundits regularly refuse to fact-check reformy claims of awesomeness. And no one knows this better than Wendy Kopp.
All the way back in 2008, Kopp did a long interview with Charlie Rose. The interview was a mess; worse, no one seemed to care, save blogger Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler:
Cody asked his question because he is a thinking person with an actual, working brain in his head. When he hears a claim like Kopp's - a claim that stands in contradiction to all of the evidence we have about TFA - he's inclined to be skeptical. He'd like to see some actual proof before he joins in the happy, reformy sing-a-long.
But we live in a world where journalists and pundits regularly refuse to fact-check reformy claims of awesomeness. And no one knows this better than Wendy Kopp.
All the way back in 2008, Kopp did a long interview with Charlie Rose. The interview was a mess; worse, no one seemed to care, save blogger Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler:
You see, this second tale, which served well for years, had recently hit some
