| The United States is hardly the "Land of Opportunity" for many children growing up and attending public schools in impoverished neighborhoods. Inequity in education continues to plague this country, as students in wealthy school districts consistently out perform those in lower-income communities. Teach for America (TFA), the national teacher corps, has been active in addressing this problem since 1990. Through recruiting the most gifted, committed and idealistic recent college graduates and placing them as teachers in public schools within low-income communities, TFA hopes to play a part in one day, ending educational inequity in the United States.; After completing their two required years of teaching, many Teach for America alumni continue to advocate for the program. One way in which alumni can continue to help TFA with its mission is to advocate and facilitate the development of new TFA regional sites. As one who has various connections to Hartford, Connecticut and as a so-called TFA "alumni champion," I have been involved in advocating for a TFA regional site in Hartford for the past year. This thesis, then, follows the new site development process in Hartford, Connecticut from February 2005 through February 2006.; This paper is a case study of the role of an alumni champion in the local diffusion of a national model. Through participant observation research, I argue that alumni provide a large, relatively untapped resource for TFA and other organizations in their efforts to expand. Further, I argue that Teach for America's new site development policies provide a helpful model for national nonprofit organizations interested in disseminating a model at the regional level. |
