Published: September 1, 1991

The New Recruits

Wendy Kopp's senior thesis at Princeton University raised its share of professorial eyebrows.

It embodied a sweeping, idealistic vision of a national teacher corps that would lure recent graduates of selective colleges to teach in inner-city and rural classrooms plagued by teacher shortages. The idea was also greeted with some skepticism later, when Kopp sought corporate and foundation support for the plan after her 1989 graduation.

But her thesis got an A, initial funding rolled in from the Mobil Foundation and Union Carbide Corp., and today, Kopp's teacher corps, known as Teach For America, has grown into...