Headline Dec 27, 2015/ ''' GREAT STUDENTS : *GREAT PROBLEM-SOLVERS* '''

''' GREAT STUDENTS : 

*GREAT PROBLEM-SOLVERS* '''

IN 1989, Wendy Kopp was a  *university student*,   searching for a topic for her senior thesis. What she found was a calling.

As a public policy major at  Princeton University, Kopp couldn't help noticing the educational disparity between students who had gone to public schools in low-income communities and those who had attended private schools.

''I saw students from from under-resourced communities who were incredibly driven but struggling to meet the academic demands, and I saw kids from privileged backgrounds calling  Princeton  a cakewalk.

That got me turned on the fact that while the  United States  aspires to be a a great land of opportunity,  where  you're born does a lot to determine your educational prospects in life.''

At the same time, Kopp was anxious about finding a meaningful topic for her thesis. And she was getting irritated by the popular assumption that pegged her fellow  Gen Xers-  

***As self-involved money-grubbers who only wanted to work for investment banks and management consulting firms***.

Then, at a conference on the sad state of education, Kopp realised she had a solution to all three problems:

''Why don't we have a national teaching corps that recruits young graduates to work in poorer communities the way we  were being recruited to work on Wall Street?''

SHE CALLED HER BRAINSTORM   Teach for America. In 15 years, this ''Peace Corps for teachers''  has placed over  10,000  recent graduates in more than  1000  schools.

In 2005, no fewer than  one out of every eight seniors at Yale University and Spelman College competed with some  17,000  applicants for  2,100 slots.

Their training and the salaries for their  two-year  stints were paid out of a multimillion-dollar budget, derived  from both  government and private funds.

The donors included many of the same  heavy-hitting  Wall Street institutions and foundations where  Teach for America   alumni might once have been offered high-paying jobs.

The seeds for success were all in  Kopp's original proposal, as well as a deadline of one year in which to recruit teachers, find schools to place them in and raise several million dollars.

Of this ambitious plan, Kopp's thesis adviser said, ''Listen, kid, this is obviously deranged.''

But Kopp wasn't discouraged, ''I believe so strongly in this idea, it just had to happen. And I was blessed with Naivete. Inexperience was my greatest asset at the time because I just did not know why it couldn't be done, and why I couldn't be the one to make it happen.''

In fact, Kopp wasn't completely naive. While at Princeton, she had served as President of the  Foundation for Student Communication, a campus organization that linked students and business leaders.

In that position, Kopp oversaw a $1.5 million budget and met dozens of CEOs.

''Everything I do is based on that experience,''  Kopp once told The New York Times. ''It taught me how to strategize and manage people. I realized that there's an incredible amount of money in the world and people who are looking for good things to support.

If you just get in the door, you have a good chance of making your idea fly.''

The Honour and Serving of this  ''Great accomplishment Research " continues. Thank Ya all for reading. And see you on the following one.

With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of the World. See Ya all on !WOW!   -the World Students Society:

''' DNA For Success '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless