From 2nd Grade Teacher to Spearheading an Educational Non Profit | Education Reformist Michelle Rhee

I was told to just talk and tell you my story. And so I will start from the beginning. I was raised in a pretty traditional kind of Korean-American family. My parents immigrated to this country from South Korea. And was born in sort of this very kind of traditional So I was the middle of 3 children. I had an older brother, a younger brother. And in the Korean culture, it's very sort of— it's all about the boys. And the girls are just there as sort of like background music. So I tell stories all the time about how my parents would make me get up in the morning and make my brother's lunch before we went to school. Or one time my younger brother— What was his name? didn't do well in school. This was when we were in high school and my parents were sort of saying, well, you're responsible for him because he's your younger brother. So if he doesn't do well, it's kind of your fault. So I got grounded and he got to go out. That was kind of the household setup we grew up in. So grew up in a very sort of privileged background. My father was a physician. My father was a doctor, my mother was an entrepreneur, went to private schools for most of my schooling, went off to Cornell University and majored in government. And I actually am one of these people who unlike you all who have a very clear idea of what it is that you want to do, I have never from one period of my life to another have never known what it is that I wanted to do or where I wanted to go. It sort of has just happened to me, like happenstance, right? So got to Cornell, had no idea what I should major in or what I should do. The most popular major at Cornell is government, so I majored in government because everybody else was doing it. Didn't really have any interest in it or anything per se. And then found out about this program Teach for America, which was a program that sent college graduates into inner-city or rural public schools to try to change the world. And so I thought, I don't know what else I would do. Changing the world sounds good. And I'd always liked kids, so I decided to join the program. Got sent to inner-city Baltimore, Maryland, where I was assigned to teach 2nd grade, 36 kids in my classroom. Was totally ill-prepared to do it. In fact, when I got there and the principal said, okay, I have 2 openings 5th grade or 2nd grade, which one do you want? I thought, well, 2nd graders, they're 8 years old. What could they possibly, you know, do to get themselves into trouble or to make my life hard? So I decided to take 2nd grade and had no clue what 8-year-olds can really do, especially with a clueless teacher. So it was definitely the hardest year of my life. Just went through incredible sort of challenges with this group of kids, but also at the end sort of saw a lot of rewards. Ended up staying for 3 years in that position, and over the course of that 3 years, just saw my students thrive. And these were kids who— society right now, I think, writes kids like my students off, right? They're growing up in abject poverty. You know, lots of parental issues, lots of familial issues. They're the kinds of kids who people say, well, how can we expect kids like this to succeed when they don't have, you know, the parental support, they don't have the social services they need, etc.? And what I found was that those things are absolutely challenges, but when you're creating the right environment at school for kids to come to every day, that it can absolutely make a difference. So, because of that, I sort of became obsessed with this idea of how do we improve public education for our kids? How can we make sure that every single classroom that our kids step foot into is one that is deserving of who they are and can actually take a group of kids who are born into less than ideal circumstances and give them an equal shot in life? And in my opinion, and because of sort of my upbringing and the good Korean culture, which is all focused on academics and education, I said if it's going to happen through education, it has to happen through improving the quality of teachers that we have. Because you can have great school buildings, you can have whatever, you know, great curriculum, technology, whatever, but if you don't have really high-quality teachers in the classroom, then that stuff doesn't matter. So, I taught for 3 years, went to graduate school at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, got a degree in— a master's in public policy with a concentration in education policy, and then I started an organization called the New Teacher Project. So, this again was this It wasn't an idea— not like you guys where you have this great idea and you're gonna go out and pursue it. It was more— I was trying to figure out what I was gonna do and Wendy Kopp, who was then the founder and president of Teach for America, came to me one day and said, OK, Teach for America is very popular. All the school districts want us to bring more teachers into their districts, but we're not in a growth phase right now. And she said, and what we're realizing is that these school districts are coming to us and saying, where are you getting these teachers and how are you recruiting them and how are you training them and can you bring us more? She's like, so somebody needs to start an organization where you work with school districts to bring in more high-quality teachers. I thought, okay, that sounds pretty reasonable, right? So I said, I— We'll see if I can try to do this. So I literally went to the bookstore and bought a book, the books— this one was called Business Plans for Dummies. We know. And it literally sort of charts out like what should your business plan look like and I created this business plan. And the interesting thing was that I knew I was gonna run it as a nonprofit organization. But I hate asking people for money. Like, I cannot stand— I just can't stand asking people for money. So I thought, if I'm gonna run this organization and I hate asking people for money, like, it's not gonna work, right? So I had this idea that I would start the organization as a revenue-generating nonprofit. So instead of going out and asking for grants— From rich people and foundations or whatever, that I would start it as a nonprofit, nonprofit but a revenue-generating nonprofit so that basically what we would do is the idea was I would go out, I would sign contracts with school districts who needed new teachers and I'd say, well, we can help you to recruit those people. This is how much you should pay us. A relatively modest sum of money because we weren't looking to make a profit, right? We were only charging what it is that it cost to run that program. But I thought to myself, I would rather shake my butt and hustle for a contract any day than ask somebody for a handout. And so this is good accountability, right? Because if I'm offering a real service that school districts need, then they should be willing to pay for it. And if I'm not providing any value, then they're not. So then this won't succeed. It was pretty sort of obvious. So I put together this business plan. And I didn't know a ton of— the only people I knew back then were all Teach for America nonprofit-y people, right? So nobody really to help me. So there was this program back then that was called SCORE. It was basically a program where retired executives, like successful executives, coached young entrepreneurs and people who had business plans and ideas on starting their business. So I made this appointment in New York City. I go to see this guy. I walk in. He's like this old white dude. And I sit down. He's like, okay, young lady, what's your idea? And so I explain it to him and he's like, So who are your shareholders? And I said, there are no shareholders. This is— it's not a for-profit company. It's a nonprofit company. And he said, well, where's the equity? And I was like, there is no equity because we're not a for-profit. So he asks me like 10 questions like this. And finally, he's like, this makes no sense whatsoever. Like, you are— You are heading down the wrong path. You don't have any of the basics of business in your head or on this piece of paper. And so I highly recommend that you leave and go figure out something else to do. I was like, oh, OK, thanks. So super frustrating. I then also had similar meetings after that with a whole lot of people who were like, this doesn't make any sense. And the reason why they were saying it didn't make any sense was because it didn't fit in the mold of what people sort of thought of as a nonprofit, right? Nonprofit, you go, you ask people for grants, they give you money to do good. But there was like, the whole concept around revenue generation in nonprofits just wasn't there. So all I got was a lot of grief. But to me, it made perfect sense. And so I said, well, I'm just gonna try it and see. Sure enough, it kind of took off. And probably the most pivotal moment early on in the organization that I was running was when I met with the then superintendent of the Compton School District, this guy named Randy Ward, who was like a no-nonsense guy. He's like, okay, I need 100 teachers. Can you bring me 100 teachers? I was like, oh yeah, absolutely. We're gonna run this program. It's gonna be great. We're gonna— Great. My model was we recruited mid-career professionals to make a career change to come into education. So it was very similar to Teach for America, but instead of the college students, we were recruiting career changers. And he— so he looks at me and he's like, well, so I'm gonna give you money to recruit my 100 teachers? And I said, yeah, and if you look at our costs, right, it's gonna cost you a whole lot less for our teachers than it currently does through your recruitment processes. He's like, yeah, but what happens if you fail, right? If you don't bring me my teachers? I mean, he's like, I would be willing to sign a contract with you if you made it a performance-based contract, right? So you bring me 100 teachers, I give you all the money that I owe you. You bring me 50 teachers, I give you half the money, right? And it was like a perfectly logical thing, but I was like, oh crap. Because it's not like we had any money, right? And we had to take this huge risk because I was going to take this money from— and then if I didn't produce, then I would have spent this money. He wasn't going to pay me. We were going to be screwed. So— but I figured like this is like one of those defining moments where you have to like decide whether you believe in what you're doing and you believe in this business and this business model or not. So we took it on and had some incredibly dark days along the way. I had 3 clients at first. That sort of ultimately grew to 6, 10, et cetera. And I had days where I'd have to call a superintendent somewhere and say, can you FedEx me your payment check because I need to make payroll? Or I'd have to ask a couple of my staff members, can anybody forego getting paid this payroll and that sort of thing. But ultimately, it was— the organization was successful. Now it has 400 employees, has a budget of about $40 million a year, and I think is one of the most successful nonprofit organizations in the education reform space. So that is just a lesson to you of like not don't listen to old white guys, but— Don't listen to old white guys who tell you you can't do what you want to do, because a lot of times it's just because it's not sort of within the constructs that they're thinking. What advice would you give to a young woman who wants to be a writer?