Alex Cohen is the Director of Learning and Evaluation for the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. Can a young, 20-something who just walked off the stage, college diploma in hand, step into a classroom and, with relatively little training, effectively teach in one of our nation’s more challenging K-12 environments? Finding talented teachers for high-need schools is a perennial issue. While there are plenty of organizations working to address this problem, perhaps the most well known—and hotly debated—is Teach For America. Teach For America, or TFA, selectively recruits recent college graduates to teach in high-need public schools. TFA generally attracts graduates who did not major in education and provides several weeks […]

Claire Fiddian-Green is the President & CEO of the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. A recent report about tobacco use in the U.S. noted that adult smoking rates in 12 contiguous states exceed not only the national average, but that of many of the world’s most tobacco-dependent countries, including China, Indonesia and Brazil. Unfortunately, Indiana is one of these 12 states, which together comprise “Tobacco Nation.” In Tobacco Nation states, health outcomes are poorer than the national average. Incidences of preventable diseases linked to smoking – like lung and other cancers, and heart disease – are also higher. So it’s not surprising that life expectancy rates are lower in these states, […]