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This week, Co-CEOs Matt Kramer and Elisa Villanueva Beard��announced��two new initiatives on a live webcast about what’s next at TFA. Below is a partial transcript from the webcast. ��

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Nine years ago, I was facing one of those “two roads diverged in a wood” moments.�� When I graduated from college, I had gone to work as a management consultant – I had wanted to work on the challenges facing big organizations.�� But seven years later, I was overcome by the feeling that ����Ӱҵ wasn’t moving in the right direction, and I wasn’t holding up my end of some cosmic bargain to contribute.

When Wendy called me that year to ask if I would come work for Teach For ����Ӱҵ, it felt for a moment like the universe was speaking to me, but it didn’t take long before I was straining to hear it over the din of practical considerations.�� I was scared.�� This felt like a really big life decision – a move from a place of comfort and lots of options into a very serious commitment.

But as I considered the idea, I thought back to the years I spent in New York, where my wife Katie was a corps member.�� She taught middle school social studies in Washington Heights for three years, and she would come home every day and collapse from physical and emotional exhaustion.�� But then, every day, she’d get back up and start planning and grading.�� She knew that she and her students were doing something special together, and it fueled her.

I thought back to the projects I worked on for the NYC Board of Education.�� It was full of incredibly talented and hard-working people who cared about kids, and yet somehow the system normalized the academic struggles of so many children.�� Somehow, the system just never seemed to change.

But then I also thought back to the pro-bono projects I did for Teach For ����Ӱҵ.�� Most of the people I met through those projects and through Katie somehow resisted the urge to call their daily challenges normal.�� They were angry, and they were hopeful all at once, and they inspired me.

I couldn’t get myself all the way to an unqualified yes, so I took a two year sabbatical from my job to work as Teach For ����Ӱҵ’s Chief Program Officer, and those two years were enough to make me understand my end of the cosmic bargain.�� In 2007, I made the decision to jump – to make a lifelong commitment, as all of you have.�� I’ve never regretted it – not once.�� Today, I know I am right where I’m supposed to be – here with you – fighting alongside our many partners in this work, for our children and our communities, and for our integrity.��

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Teach For ����Ӱҵ is now 24 years old and like any other 24-year-old looking at a changing world, we’ve got some questions, some doubts and even some fears.

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