Ellen Quigley is the Vice President of Programs at the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation An interview with Amar Patel, Executive Director, Teach For America Indianapolis (TFA) Background TFA has a vision that all Indianapolis children will lead lives of their choosing and collectively contribute to a more vibrant and just city. As a leadership development institution, TFA seeks to develop collective leadership for educational equity, excellence, and broader systems change – in its students and its corps members. Annually, TFA recruits over 60 diverse individuals as corps members who commit to teach for two years in an Indianapolis public school. Nearly 40% identify as people of color and 85% relocate […]

Alex Cohen is the Director of Learning and Evaluation for the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. High-performing school leaders have a substantial impact on student achievement. Studies that aim to isolate the impact of leaders on student test scores find that moving from a low- to a high-quality principal can mean several additional months of learning. And the impacts are larger for low-income students. But can schools do anything to boost the quality of their school leaders? Or are the traits that lead to better leaders too difficult to predict or develop and the best leaders too hard to retain? To help answer these questions, the Wallace Foundation funded and provided […]