Amanda McCormick

I joined Teach for America in 2010 near the peak of its prestige — ~60,000 applications, some 10% of Harvard's graduating class went into the corps it was hard work for low pay, but it also felt deeply meaningful, paid off a good chunk of my student loans, gave me a huge social network in a brand new city, and then made every single job I've ever had since seem easy in comparison. no research or report or analysis will ever compare to trying to figure out how to get 34 kids at one time up to grade level on reading. I'm grateful for it since then, the prestige of public service has been eroded at both ends. TFA first came under fire from the left for its optics, the idea that kids at elite schools would go teach in low-income classrooms held to be problematic, despite yearly teacher shortages numbering in the tens of thousands. since then, the entire edifice of public service has been in the crosshairs of the right for its ideological commitments all of which makes me think that in the vacuum created by a bad job market, polarization, internet poisoning, etc., making public service cool again seems like a valuable centrist and American project. I don't have a blueprint for how to do this, but I think we could use one