WENDY KOPP

Whenever we've seen the kids in the most disadvantaged context truly excel, always it's been in classrooms and in whole schools where there is a clear vision of where the kids have the potential to be.

The U.S. has a long history of walking up to the precipice of rigor and then walking away. As voters, let's support leaders who were courageous enough to make the hard decisions necessary to move our system forward. And as parents, let's put our faith in our educators, our children and tests that hold them to their highest potential.

We aspire to be equal opportunity, but all across the country where a student is born, their race, their class affect where they end up.

I myself was completely torn by the decision to start Teach For America. There was a voice in my head telling me not to do it - to take a more normal path. I did have one thing going for me, which was that I had been rejected from all the other jobs I'd applied to.

A core part of Teach For America's mission has always been affecting positive change in the traditional public school system.

School boards can be a steppingstone to higher forms of political leadership.

In the long run, we need to build a leadership force of people. We have a whole strategy around not only providing folks with the foundational experience during their two years with us, but also then accelerating their leadership in ways that is strategic for the broader education reform movement.

Imagine how different those classrooms could be if hundreds of Nigeria's most talented recent graduates and professionals channeled their energy not only into the country's banks, but into making education in the country a force for transformation.

It gets to whether we're a teacher-education model or a movement for social justice. I would say we're about the latter.

It's possible to train great people, but a person with great training who doesn't have certain characteristics is only going to go so far.

Research shows that whether you are low-income or not, mindset is a bigger predictor of success than academic skills, and how students gain great academic skills and persevere in the face of challenges.

While I started out with a vague understanding that diversity would be important, my own observations have led me to realize that achieving greater levels of diversity is in fact vital to our long-term success.

I think Teach for America has suffered from the fact that I did not teach, in a major way. I also think if I had taught, I wouldn't have started Teach for America.

Teach For China recruits top American and Chinese college graduates, like 26-year-old Yang Xiao, to teach in the country's most disadvantaged schools.

When I started Teach For America, I wasn't trying to come up with an idea that would change the world. I was trying to solve a problem much closer to home: I was a senior in college, and I had no idea what I was going to do with my life!

Charter laws do something really important. They give educators the freedom and flexibility that they need to attain results. But we also have to invest a lot in the leadership pipeline to take advantage of that freedom and flexibility.

As a founder of two organizations that recruit top college graduates to expand educational opportunity, I've spent a lot of time examining what's at work in successful classrooms and schools over the past two decades.

Ending educational inequality is going to require systemic change and a long-term, sustained effort. There are no shortcuts and no silver bullets.

I think people are attracted to teaching because they want to make a real impact.

Every time a child's promise is cut short by their legal status, our country wastes precious resources and loses talent we need.

There is a perception in our communities that we have low educational outcomes in low-income communities because kids aren't motivated or families don't care. We've discovered that is not the case.

Cultivating more leaders who reflect our heterogeneous society depends on universities' transparent use of race as one of many factors in an admissions process that is accessible to all.

Education is the gateway to the American Dream. But today our immigration laws make higher education - a virtual requirement for financial security - out of reach for more than one million undocumented students.

Technology has enormous potential to address educational needs more efficiently, help teachers improve their performance, and enrich and individualize student learning.

We're looking for people out there who have demonstrated that they are leaders, have track records of achievement, and want to be part of a force... of a much larger force of determined people who want to bring about, ultimately, institutional change.