Grading Teach For America, 20 Years On

Teach for America, the non-profit that recruits top college graduates to commit to teach for two years in low-income schools, turns 20 this year.

When founder Wendy Kopp first proposed the concept in her senior thesis at Princeton, her adviser told her she was "quite evidently deranged." Now Teach for America has a $212 million budget and a staff of 1,400.

But many education experts dislike the program, largely because the college graduates only go through five weeks of teacher boot camp instead of lengthy education master's degree programs.

We assess the program with Andrew Rotherham, who writes the Time magazine column "School of Thought" and the blog "Eduwonk." He also works with Bellwether Education, an educational consulting firm.