Wendy Kopp argues that transforming education for low-income students requires leaders to commit to a distinct mission: putting disadvantaged kids on an upward trajectory, not just guiding already-privileged ones to college. Success demands the same energy, discipline, and audacious goals as any high-performing organization, plus strong teams, accountability, and relentless focus on improvement.
Chapters
And what I come to believe is that the most— maybe the most, well, certainly the most foundational difference in those places where we see transformational change happening is that the leader of those systems has committed themselves to a different mission than most of our public public schools and even private schools commit themselves to. They have committed themselves to the mission of transformational education. Like they have said to themselves, we are going to put our kids on a different trajectory. And that is a mission— I mean, I went to a public school in Dallas, Texas. It was always on those top 10 lists of top public schools in the country. You think that was a transformational school? No. Bunch of people. Bunch of economically privileged, pretty privileged kids showed up at school on a path to graduating from college and came out the other end 4 years later on a path to graduating from college. Perfectly good school, not a transformational school. And we have the same thing going on in our urban and rural schools, right? We've got lots of kids showing up on a path not to graduate from high school, let alone college, and they're coming out in the same way. So in order to make a difference in this, the most important thing we need is people to say, We're going to commit ourselves to a different mission for our public schools in economically disadvantaged communities. And then to accompany that commitment with a level of energy and discipline that you would find in any organization or any endeavor where people are taking on big audacious goals. So all— what you realize when you spend a lot of time in these contexts is that all the things that maybe many of you have seen in other sectors, leaders who are obsessed first and foremost with building strong teams, with building a strong culture of excellence and achievement, with building systems where every adult in the system holds themselves accountable and then is committed to continuous improvement, an ethic that, look, we're going to do whatever it takes to get to the end goal.
