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Making change: understanding executive nonprofit leadership approach to systemic change – a case study on Teach For America

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Content Making Change: Understanding Executive Nonprofit Leadership Approach to Systemic
Change—A Case Study on Teach for America
Scott Richards
Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
A dissertation submitted to the faculty
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Education
August 2024

© Copyright by Scott Richards 2024
All Rights Reserved

The Committee for Scott Richards certifies the approval of this Dissertation
Alan Green
Xiomara Mateo-Gaxiola
Briana Hinga, Committee Chair
Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
2024

iv
Abstract
This study explored the experiences of Teach For America's executive directors and sought to
understand the challenges of working toward community-level change. This was done by having
executive directors discuss their theory of change, the obstacles and challenges they encounter,
and how they work within systems they hope to change or influence. Anti-colonial theory was
used as the grounding of this study and provided an analysis of systemic issues in society and
education (de Oliveira, 2021; Tuck, 2012). The study focused on the types of reform as outlined
by de Oliveria (2021) in her social cartography of reform. A critical case study methodology was
used and included 17 virtual semistructured interviews with executive directors from different
parts of the United States including rural and urban communities. The study findings show that
theories of change can include analysis of a problem that recognizes complexity but offers
simple solutions. The study provides data that shows executive directors experience complexity
as organization-facing and community-facing leaders that creates a sense of tension in their day
to day work. The findings also show that executive directors have different views on how
systems change and are aware of the insufficiency of current models and approaches to reform in
education. Based on these findings and conceptual framework, this dissertation offers six
recommendations that address the individual leadership of executive directors and the structural
conditions in which executive directors work.
Keywords: education, anti-colonial, social cartography, executive director, reform,
systems change, Teach For America

v
Dedication
To my partner, mango slice, honey bunches, mahal, because you gave up so much time for us to
provide space for me to make a dream come true.
To Cale, I have been proud of you since before you arrived.
To Kaeden, you are next.
To Grayson, my only regret is that I did not research Rhinos.
To Adyssen, your boundless energy breaks a thousand writing blocks.
To those who want to make a difference, my hope is that we see new horizons of possibility.

vi
Acknowledgments
This project would not be possible without my colleagues at Teach For America. They
work tirelessly for students in their community and are some of the most dedicated, committed,
brilliant, and talented leaders I know. Their time and willingness to share their perspectives,
experiences, vulnerabilities, and hopes for the future have made this project an invaluable
experience.
The OCL students and faculty have been an incredible source of support, challenge, and
encouragement along this journey. I would not be where I am or who I am as a researcher and
leader in my field without our discussions, questions, and laughter. The moments we had to share
our work, explore our wonderings and hesitations, and confidently define our problems of
practice are unforgettable. These moments gave me the strength to continue.
My committee provided the guidance, encouragement, and challenges I needed to keep
moving forward. Their advice, experience, and wealth of knowledge have helped me develop
these ideas and push myself not to settle for the easy answers. Thank you for giving me the space
to learn and grow and for holding a high bar of excellence. Thank you, Dr. Briana Hinga, for
giving me the chance to learn and explore transformative justice and understand the
contributions this research makes to the field of leadership and organizational change. This has
given me the opportunity of a lifetime, and I will be forever grateful for your guidance, support,
and space to follow my passion.

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Table of Contents
Abstract.......................................................................................................................................... iv
Dedication ....................................................................................................................................... v
Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................................... vi
List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. ix
List of Figures................................................................................................................................. x
List of Abbreviations (Optional).................................................................................................... xi
Chapter One: Introduction to the Study .......................................................................................... 1
Context and Background of the Problem............................................................................ 4
Purpose of the Project and Research Questions.................................................................. 6
Importance of the Study...................................................................................................... 6
Overview of Theoretical Grounding and Methodology...................................................... 8
Definitions........................................................................................................................... 9
Anti-colonial Grounding and Theoretical Frameworks.................................................... 10
Organization of the Dissertation ....................................................................................... 30
Chapter Two: Literature Review .................................................................................................. 31
Theoretical Grounding and Framework............................................................................ 31
Nonprofit Organizations ................................................................................................... 33
Education in the United States.......................................................................................... 44
Teach For America ........................................................................................................... 56
Conceptual Framework..................................................................................................... 71
Summary ........................................................................................................................... 77
Chapter Three: Methodology........................................................................................................ 78
Research Questions........................................................................................................... 78
Overview of Design .......................................................................................................... 78

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Research Setting................................................................................................................ 80
Participants........................................................................................................................ 81
Data Collection and Instrument Protocols........................................................................ 83
Data Analysis.................................................................................................................... 84
Positionality ...................................................................................................................... 85
Credibility and Trustworthiness........................................................................................ 88
Chapter Four: Findings ................................................................................................................. 90
Research Question 1: Exploring the Theory of Change ................................................... 92
Research Question 2: The Influence of Modernity......................................................... 125
Research Question 3: Navigating Modernity.................................................................. 148
Chapter Five: Discussion ............................................................................................................ 168
Findings........................................................................................................................... 168
Recommendations for Practice ....................................................................................... 182
Recommendations for Future Research .......................................................................... 195
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 197
References................................................................................................................................... 199
Appendix A: Interview Protocol................................................................................................. 222
Introduction to the Interview .......................................................................................... 222
Conclusion to the Interview............................................................................................ 157

ix
List of Tables
Table 1: Detailed Participant Information 92
Table 2: de Oliveira’s Theory of Change Elements 93
Table 3: Executive Director’s Views on Systems Change. 176
Table 4: HEADS UP Model 184

x
List of Figures
Figure 1: de Oliveira’s Social Cartography 74
Figure 2: Mapping Executive Director’s Theory of Change 169
Figure 3: Mapping Internal and External Complexity 175
Figure 4: Contingency Framework 188
Figure 5: Competing Values Framework 192

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Chapter One: Introduction to the Study
Teach For America has played a significant but controversial role in education over the
past 30 years. Teach For America’s (TFA) theory of change describes how they will build a
network of leaders in education committed to making educational equity a reality, beginning
with a two-year commitment to teaching in a classroom (TFA, n.d.). As a result of this
experience, TFA alumni will go on to lead meaningful careers in education with a focus on
eliminating racial disparities in academic outcomes among America’s students, commonly
referred to as the achievement gap (TFA, n.d.). There has been extensive quantitative research on
Teach For America evaluating its efficacy and approach to teacher development (Clark et al.,
2016; Darling-Hammond, 2000; Hammond, 2000; Mayer et al., 2003) and impact on student
learning (Backes & Hansen, 2015; Conn et al., 2020), as well as numerous qualitative studies
offering analysis of TFA’s discourse in education and approach to education policy (Anderson,
2020; Crawford-Garrett et al., 2021; La Londe et al., 2015; Scott et al., 2016). Teach For
America has evolved as an organization over the years and has made significant changes in
response to critiques from experts in education, experiences of participants in its two-year
program, and alumni (Anderson, 2020; Lapayese et al., 2014; Trujillo & Scott, 2014). Few
studies have focused on the impact of TFA in local communities and how TFA works through
regions located in over 40 communities in the United States to address contextualized issues of
educational inequity.
Since its founding in 1990, TFA has grown to recruit nearly 3,000 new teachers per year
and has an alumni network of over 65,000 alumni, the majority of whom work in education and
are teachers, school leaders, school system leaders, nonprofit founders, and social entrepreneurs
(Anderson, 2020; TFA, n.d.) While TFA accounts for less than one-tenth of one percent of the

2
national teacher labor force, they have been recognized for their outsized impact on the national
discourse on education and the potential of its network of over 60,000 alumni (Anderson, 2020;
Scott et al., 2016; Trujillo & Scott, 2014). While TFA continues to rely on its two-year corps
program as its primary approach to addressing educational inequity, they have begun thinking
about effectively leveraging its resources to address long-term issues in the communities where
they work. In a recent article on TFA’s Transformation, CEO Elisa Villanueva Beard concluded
that TFA needs to think “differently about how we do this work,” and this requires TFA to be
more “responsive to our communities” and have “an expansive lens on the external landscape”
(TFA, January 23, 2023). Villanueva-Beard also referenced TFA’s 10-year impact goal that “by
2030 we would double the number of kids who are on a path to economic mobility” as evidence
that TFA is thinking differently about what it means to be accountable and responsive to
communities (TFA, January 23, 2023). TFA recognizes that it has reached a limit in its ability to
contribute to change in education and will have to identify how it can evolve to increase its
ability to effect change.
The challenges of the 21st century will require significant effort to address a range of
complex issues in education (Valentinov, 2012). As a nonprofit organization, Teach For America
can play a critical role in channeling resources to understand the nature of these issues and
develop an approach that sustains long-term systemic change (Valentinov, 2012; Salamon, 2012;
Yasmin & Ghafran, 2021). However, they may also play a role in reinforcing the systems and
institutions they aim to change (de Oliveira, 2021, de Oliveira et al., 2015; Mignolo, 2007;
Nickels & Leach, 2021; Williams & Doan, 2021). In discussing types of reform, de Oliveira
(2021) describes the metaphor of saving drowning children from a river, compared to going
upstream to prevent them from being placed in the river, as a way to describe the necessary yet

3
insufficient work of organizations focused on social issues. de Oliveira (2021) developed a social
cartography as a pedagogical approach to understanding different types of reform. “Soft reform”,
which focuses on improving current institutions, may be necessary for the short term but will not
solve the underlying conditions that produce educational inequity (de Oliveira, p. 91, 2021).
“Beyond reform” is an approach to social change that requires a wholly different conception on
the horizons of possibility, which may be foreclosed by current epistemological and ontological
boundaries (de Oliveira, p. 91, 2021; Mignolo, 2007; Tuck, 2007; Tuck & Yang, 2018).
Numerous studies on nonprofit impact point to a need to think beyond current models and base
approaches to social change on what is known about power, relationships, and the context of
social issues (Bryson, 2020; Bryson et al., 2021; de Oliveira, 2020; Ibrahim, 2019). This study
will ground analysis in anti-colonial thought and de Oliveira’s model of modernity to situate
TFA as an organization known for perceived short-term solutions to educational equity and yet
aspires to realize broader change in communities.
As an executive director with Teach For America, I am confronted with the complexity
of education issues in the community where I work and the historical role of Teach For America
in education. I have witnessed the work of Teach For America staff, corps members, and alumni
who have led meaningful work in the lives of students and their communities. I have also
witnessed the harm caused by misguided ideas and actions under the banner of a mission to
eliminate educational inequity. In addition, despite enormous efforts to change education, not
only from Teach For America but from many well-intentioned organizations, our schools tend to
produce the same outcomes they have since the beginning (Anderson, 1988; Hanushek et al.,
2022; Seelig, 2020). In the analogy de Oliveira (2021), we perpetually save children from the
river. Through this study, I want to understand better how a nonprofit leader today can hold the

4
complexity of working towards the necessary yet insufficient short-term outcomes while
gesturing toward the type of work with the potential to end educational inequity and transform
society.
Context and Background of the Problem
In this study, I center Teach For America as a nonprofit organization working within the
historical context of the United States and influenced by the same social, economic, and political
patterns that shape all organizations in the nonprofit sector and education, if not all organizations
in the public and private sector as well (de Oliveira, 2020; Bromley, 2020; Mignolo, 2007).
Those leading nonprofit organizations work to change or address longstanding social inequities,
and while they can point to progress on the short-term outputs of their organizations, often they
are limited in their ability to identify how their work contributes to fundamentally changing
societal circumstances and conditions (Bryson, 2020; Bryson et al., 2021; Ebrahim, 2021; de
Oliveira, 2015, 2021). Teach For America recognizes that school systems in communities where
they work are not designed to meet the needs of low-income BIPOC students and acknowledges
that its two-year program is a necessary yet insufficient solution for the fundamental change in
communities where they work (TFA, n.d.). While there is extensive research on Teach For
America and its two-year teaching program, there is much less research on the role Teach For
America plays within communities regarding its mission to facilitate longer-term systemic
change in education.
Teach For America maintains that its theory of change is to find promising leaders,
support them over a two-year teaching commitment to be systems change leaders, and continue
to support and develop them through alumnihood as they pursue careers in education to eliminate
educational inequity (TFA, n.d.). Executive directors are primarily responsible for establishing

5
and stewarding Teach For America's mission and theory of change in local communities, which
involves building partnerships with schools, local philanthropy, community organizations, and
other community members with a stake in local schools. There are two key challenges to Teach
For America. The first challenge is how to effectively work toward systemic change within
education systems that are acknowledged as problematic while continuing to work within and
alongside these same systems. A second challenge is overcoming the limitations of its model,
which has been described as short-sighted or even undermining the mission of eliminating
educational inequity and developing an approach that extends beyond short-term solutions to
imagine new possibilities. Teach For America needs to identify how to move beyond the
constraints of its current model and increase its ability to contribute to substantive and
meaningful change in education.
In recent years, Teach For America has publicly discussed its need to learn, adapt, and
change (Villanueva-Beard, 2020, 2021, 2023). Through public communications, Teach For
America has openly discussed ways in which it has caused harm and has fallen short of meeting
its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusiveness and reinforced its commitment to taking
the actions necessary to transform the organization (Villanueva-Beard, 2020). While these
notions from senior leaders signal important messages to external audiences, the heart and soul
of this work takes place in communities and is largely stewarded by regional executive directors
in collaboration with a diverse collection of partners and stakeholders. Executive directors are
responsible for building investment from local communities and building coalitions around a
vision for educational equity. Understanding how executive directors navigate this type of
complexity can offer much-needed insights to nonprofit leaders responsible for developing
programs to create change in their communities. In addition, Teach For America plays an

6
outsized role in education in the United States, and given the influence and reach of the
organization, the results of this study can have a broad impact on approaches to systems change
in education in multiple communities in the United States.
Purpose of the Project and Research Questions
This study explores the role of Teach For America executive leaders as they work to
create change in their community while engaging with and participating in many of the systems,
structures, and institutions they seek to change. This study will provide a qualitative exploration
of the work of Teach For America executive directors who are responsible for stewarding its
mission in the communities they serve and will explore the following research questions:
1. How do Teach For American executive directors describe their theory of change in
the context of communities where they work?
2. How do modernity’s epistemological and ontological boundaries shape Teach For
America executive directors’ approach to work in their community?
3. How do Teach For America executive directors approach their work in a way that
acknowledges the inherent tensions of modernity and enacts a commitment to
transforming education?
Importance of the Study
Current research has examined the relationship between nonprofit organizations and
social change. For example, there is an ongoing debate on whether nonprofit organizations
uphold the current system or help create an alternative future of justice that is more equitable,
inclusive, and accessible (Williams & Doan, 2021; Nickels & Leach, 2021). In addition, there
are different views on what needs to change in society. For example, there is a difference
between whether the current systems generally work well and there is only a need for greater

7
efficiency and accountability or whether the systems are problematic and more radical change is
necessary (Alexander & Fernandez, 2021; de Oliveira, 2021; Eikenberry & Kluver, 2004;
Valentinov, 2012). Coule et al. point to a gap in the research where very little nonprofit research
has been done from a critical theoretical perspective in the last 40 years (2022). Most research
assumes the normality or neutrality of nonprofit organizations and focuses on private-sector
management practices to increase efficiency and effectiveness (Banerjee, 2022; Eikenberry,
2009; Maier et al., 2016; Miller, 2018). This leaves ideas around the history and structure of the
nonprofit sector, the influence of prevailing political and economic ideas, and the inclusion or
exclusion of marginalized voices and perspectives underexamined in the literature (Coule et al.,
2022; Alexander & Fernandez, 2021).
In addition, most research on Teach For America has evaluated the efficacy or impact of
its two-year program (Backes & Hansen, 2015; Conn et al., 2020) or offered critiques based on
the limited experiences of participants in its program (Scott et al., 2016). There has been less
research on community-facing work and the day-to-day experiences of executive directors who
are responsible for working within and alongside communities in pursuit of Teach For America’s
mission and vision. Furthermore, critical research tends to be theoretical and disconnected from
practice, limiting its application in nonprofit organizations (Coule et al., 2022). These gaps in the
literature mean we are missing insights from a critical perspective that could inform nonprofit
practice toward creating systemic change. By limiting research and practice to market-based
theories of efficiency and effectiveness, the field may miss important knowledge that can lead to
meaningful social change.

8
Overview of Theoretical Grounding and Methodology
This study will rely on anti-colonial theory to describe the origins and persistence of a
racialized social hierarchy organized around access and use of land and resources in the United
States that structures inequities in society (Alfred, 2005; Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2013;
de Oliveira, 2021). Anti-colonial theories move beyond methodological analysis that focuses on
improving the current system toward exploring the epistemological and ontological critiques of
modernity that open alternative horizons of possibility in education (de Oliveira, 2021). Since
Teach For America, and any nonprofit organization working to address and eliminate
educational equity, work within a colonial socio-cultural context, an anti-colonial approach is
useful for examining current practices and exploring the potential for social justice projects in
education (Hixson, 2013; Mignolo, 2007; Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2013; Wolf, 2006;).
Researchers in the field describe settler colonialism as an ongoing project that defines the
underlying social, political, and economic structure of US society and shapes contemporary
relations between White, European settlers, Indigenous Peoples, and African Americans. They
argue that the epistemology and ontology of settler colonialism legitimize and normalize unfair
social structures (de Oliveira, 2021; Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2013). These ideas provide
a theoretical definition of the status quo and illuminate how the dynamics of assimilation and
self-determination within an existing system can be applied to both education reform and the
nonprofit sector. In addition, they provide a framework for bringing forward an approach to
social change that addresses the root causes of persistent social problems and opens the
possibility of an alternative future of justice.
In addition, anti-colonial scholars have argued that several critical approaches have fallen
short by not addressing colonialization (de Oliveira, 2021; Mignolo, 2007; Tuck & Gaztambide-

9
Fernandez, 2012). As a result, this effectively disguises the material requirements for
decolonization and upholds the status quo. Ultimately, decolonization is more than an effort to
raise critical consciousness; it is an effort to “reimagine human power relations” and transform
society (Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2012, p. 28). To examine how nonprofit organizations
can address the root causes of a social issue, there is a need to conceptualize the status quo in
historical and structural terms, define an alternative future of justice, and distill learning and
insight for nonprofit organizations. Anti-colonial framing and theory will provide the critical
methodology to support this endeavor.
Definitions
▪ Nonprofit organization is an entity formed to provide goods and services in society
exempt from paying taxes and is accountable to internal and external stakeholders for
delivering on its stated mission (Salamon, 2012).
▪ Systems Change: an approach to solving societal issues requiring comprehensive,
cross-sector coordination to address root causes (Badgett, 2022).
▪ Status Quo: an arrangement of power in society shaped by settler colonialism that
establishes prevailing social, economic, and political ideas that shape the modern
world and create advantage and disadvantage along lines of race (de Oliveira, 2021;
Yasmin & Ghafran, 2021).
▪ Education Reform: a set of policies and practices that define a modern, market-based
approach to addressing the issues and challenges in a school system (Scott & Holme,
2016).

10
▪ Settler Colonialism: a process of exerting internal control over land, people, and
resources among indigenous people by a group initially external to a given society
(Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2012).
▪ Decolonization: the material repatriation of land and means of wealth to an
indigenous population that fundamentally transforms the human relations of power
(Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2012).
Anti-colonial Grounding and Theoretical Frameworks
Anti-colonial thought allows a historically grounded analysis of Teach For America’s
efforts to effect societal change. Anti-colonial thought connects the specificities of persistent
inequities in historically marginalized communities while drawing attention to structural and
cultural factors that undergird and link these inequities in specific historical moments and over
time (Mignolo, 2007). As a nonprofit organization, Teach For America intends to change
conditions that produce social inequities (Coule et al., 2021; Salamon, 2012; Valentinov, 2012).
In fact, in the face of persistent inequity in areas like education, health care, climate, and criminal
justice, to name a few, many different nonprofit organizations and their leaders face increasing
pressure to address the root causes and create systems change (Badgett, 2022; Bryson et al.,
2021). However, if they rely on the logic, tenets, and discourse engendered by colonial logic,
they may only reproduce the inequities that settler colonialism creates (Wolf, 2006; Glenn, 2015;
Alfred, 2005; Eikenberry, 2004; Valentinov, 2012).
An Anti-colonial grounding provides a lens for researching nonprofit organizations that
goes beyond traditional or critical theories to imagine alternative futures of justice rooted in
changed material and relational conditions (Tuck & Yang, 2012; Alfred, 2005; Andreotti, 2016;
Glenn, 2015). They allow for a deeper look at the purpose, history, and structure of nonprofit

11
organizations and provide an analysis of foundational elements in society that influence both
nonprofit organizations and K12 education. Current research on the efficacy of models of system
change in the nonprofit sector, like design thinking, collective impact, and community
organizing, has been critiqued based on a lack of evidence that these can lead to substantive
change (Bryson et al., 2021; Patton, 2019). In addition, this body of work calls for research into
new methods and approaches that would move beyond ways of promoting liberal inclusion in the
systems and institutions of modern society and toward theories of transformation that explicitly
address power, relationships, and resources (Byson et al., 2021; de Oliveira, 2021; Mignolo,
2007; Glen, 2015). Anti-colonial thought distinguishes colonial projects from justice projects and
points toward theories of change that reside outside the epistemological boundaries of modernity
that focus on greater inclusion or participation in a liberal democratic society (Mignolo, 2007;
Tuck & Yang, 2018). It offers insight and recommends actions nonprofit executive leaders can
utilize to create change in their communities.
Settler Colonialism and the Status Quo
Teach For America works in communities across the United States that have been shaped
by settler colonialism and interact with institutions established through settler colonial logic.
Anti-colonial theory identifies settler colonialism as the primary and foundational organizing
principle of US society and explains it as a structure, process, and epistemology that is both a
historical event and an ongoing project in the modern world (Brayboy, 2005; Alfred, 2005;
Andreotti, 2016; Tuck & Yang, 2012; Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2013; Wolf, 2006;
Veracini, 2014). Settler colonialism has been defined as “endemic” to society (Brayboy, p. 429,
2005), “cyclical, regenerative” and “like living in the eye of a hurricane” (Littletree et al., p. 411,
2020), a process that attempts to hide the dark side of modernity (Andreotti, p. 103, 2016), and

12
establish new tracks toward a non-Native future (Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2013). These
experiences of living in a settler colonial state will be brought alongside Teach For America's
efforts to understand better how to approach education transformation.
Settler colonialism is defined as a specific form of colonialism where the colonizer
becomes a permanent fixture on indigenous lands and does not plan to return home (Glenn,
2015; Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2013). The settler establishes law, norms and practices
that define who has power, how that power is displayed, and who has rights and privileges. The
process of staying is maintained through violence and removal and is supported by a
corresponding logic of elimination, to gain and control of land, and exploitation, to control labor
for the purpose of production and wealth accumulation (Glenn, 2015; Littletree et al., 2020;
Wolf, 2006). In the US context, this required White European settlers to establish an organizing
principle to support elimination and exploitation (Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2013; Wolf,
2006). This organizing principle established a regime that legitimized a racial hierarchy and
justified a social arrangement of power and privilege. Settler colonialism was not only a
territorial project but an epistemological project intent on defining social categories that
reinforced the White settler's ways of knowing and acting in the world.
The colonial project of replacement describes how the settler negotiates their place on
indigenous land by absorbing elements of indigenous culture, redrawing the boundaries on ways
of knowing and being, and then establishing a new society based on erasing the origins of that
knowledge (Alfred, 2005; Badarin, 2023; Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2013; Wolf, 2006).
Even though efforts appear to be inclusive and responsive, they may only reinscribe the unequal,
latent relations of the enlightened settler and the incomplete, unformed, unrefined indigenous
other. Relationships in a settler colonial society must be re-engineered because settlers need to

13
justify a rightful claim in light of not being indigenous (Badarin, 2023; Glenn, 2015; Wolf,
2006). In their use of James Fennimore Cooper’s Natty Bumpo, Tuck and Gaztambide explain
replacement as the process by which Natty becomes more native than natives among whom he
lived (2013). The identity of the settler is reconstructed as neither indigenous nor European and
takes on a new existence as an enlightened individual. Wolf describes this process as the logic of
elimination, originating with the European doctrine of discovery, which is the idea that the settler
carries the burden of civilization (2006). In the context of curricular studies, replacement occurs
when the work of non-white non-settlers is replaced by the ideas and knowledge of White
scholarship. The effect of this is to reinscribe latent relations of the settler and native by making
Whiteness, or the settler view, the norm and assumed way of knowing.
The justification was not that settlers were returning to their primordial lands but that,
ordained with the mantle of civilization, they would be better stewards of the land and resources
compared to Native Americans (Miller, 1984; Wolf, 2006). This logic extends beyond land
expropriation and into an entire set of assimilationist practices that came to include laws on
miscegenation, native land titles, native citizenship, child abduction, missions, boarding schools,
and entirely new vocabulary and agricultural practices that fundamentally changed the
relationship between people and their land (Wolf, 2006). As a result, scholars define settler
colonialism not only as a historical event but as a new colonial structure that continues to exist
and define the modern world.
The structure established as the new colonial society has been explicated by scholars in
the mythology of the fort (Alfred, 2005; Donald, 2012; Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2013).
The fort on the frontier is the romanticized version of the United States expansion into
indigenous land throughout the 18th century. Settlers were on an errand into the wilderness,

14
discovering new land and taming the wilderness in the pursuit of building civilization (Donald,
2012; Alfred, 2005; Miller, 1984). The fort, however, stands as a stark reminder of the
displacement, expropriation, and forced assimilation of indigenous communities.
Scholars have extensively documented the experience of Native Americans' confrontation
with White settler society as a choice between living in and assimilating to the logic of the fort or
being eliminated (Brown,1970; Dunbar-Ortiz, 2014). The choice was between completely
abandoning their culture, a way of knowing and existing in relation to people and land, in
exchange for settler constructs of family, education, and farming, or face removal and extinction.
In contemporary times, the frontier fort has come to symbolize the imposition of a hegemonic
logic that describes the process of colonization and substantiates power and relations among the
settler class and Native Americans (Donald, 2012; Wolf, 2006). The fort as pedagogy teaches
that anyone outside the fort must be subsumed within its walls or face exclusion (Tuck &
Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2013). To maintain the settlers’ dominant narrative of progress and
civilization, the only way for progress to unfold is through adopting and replicating the fort's
logic of elimination.
Settler colonialism is a historical and ongoing project (Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernandez,
2013; Wolf, 2006; Veracini, 2018; Badarin, 2023). There is always the need for settler society to
justify its existence as one that continually negotiates the relationship between settlers and
Native Americans. Tuck and Gaztambide-Fernandez describe the ongoing colonial project in the
context of curricular studies and explain how the field has practiced replacement by allowing
space for other ideas while centering White scholarship (2013). This can be seen in how the
efforts to incorporate multiculturalism and critical race theory in curriculum are circumvented by
White scholarship. Similarly, Alfred examines how the state reinscribes the colonial paradigm

15
through economic and public policy towards indigenous nations that continues to require
acquiescence, assimilation and ultimately perpetuates acts of violence that inhibit or eliminates
indigenous aspirations (2005). Anti-colonial theorists have extended analysis to education,
international organizations, and management studies to explore how Western, European, White
ways of knowing reify a colonial paradigm (Alexander & Fernandez, 2021; Banerjee, 2022;
Nickels et al., 2021; Sharma, 2021).
Settler colonialism persists in society by reinscribing colonial logic through projects
focusing on control, maintaining racial inequality, ensuring class hierarchies, and capitalist
production (Alfred, 2005; Tuck & Yang, 2018; Wolf, 2006). This reflects the logic and tenets of
the market that has continued into the modern era with neoliberal ideas of progress,
individualism, property, and inclusion in democratic institutions (Glenn, 2015). An anti-colonial
approach helps examine what is preserved and protected compared to what and who is excluded
and eliminated. The research shows there is a material and epistemological aspect to settler
colonialism. On the material side, there is the expropriation of land to extract resources and
eliminate indigenous communities, along with organizing principles that provide epistemological
justification for the settler view that they know better what to do with the land.
Settler Colonial Triad and Racial Construction
Teach For America's mission focuses on historically marginalized communities that have
their historical origins in the settler colonial hierarchy of race. The settler colonial framework
describes a triadic structure of relationships between White, Black and Indigenous people
constituting racial, gender, and class inequities (Glenn, 2015; Maldonado-Torres, 2011; Wolf,
2006; Tuck and Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2013). The identities and meanings of being White,
Indigenous, or Black were formed when European settlers occupied land by removing

16
Indigenous people and then relying on exploitation to build and maintain an economy (Glenn,
2015; Wolf 2006). In this context, assigning meaning to biological differences was the
organizing principle that ensured White settlers retained power, control, and advantage (Wolf,
2006). Through this triadic structure, settler colonialism established a racial hierarchy that
ensured White settler society maintained power through negotiating access to land, use of
resources and definitions of citizenship, rights, and identity (Glenn, 2015; Wolf, 2006). As an
ongoing political and economic project, settler colonialism continues to recast unequal structures
of race, class, gender, and sex between colonists and the colonized in current society. Research
has shown how this relational structure exists in different contexts over time and within the US
and other first-world settler colonial societies (Alexander, 2010; Johnston & Pratt, 2017; Glenn,
2015; Maldonado-Torres, 2011).
What emerged out of the colonial project was a racialized national identity that
normalized male Whiteness. This was accomplished through the mythological White
frontiersman who was imagined to be on an ordained mission to tame the wilderness and defend
freedom as a rugged yet enlightened individual (Wolf, 2006; Glenn, 2015). A difference between
British colonialism compared to French or Spanish is that British settlers came with families and
brought with them the assumptions of White colonial values that included things like gender
norms and roles, perspectives on arts and culture, and an ingrained sense of superiority as
members of a society that was building civilization (Glenn, 2015). They were the future. They
only had to convert the raw, unformed material on the continent, be that people, cultures, or land,
and complete their assigned project. The colonial project would eventually be intellectualized in
Tocqueville’s On Democracy, where his theory of the civilizational triad served as a treatise of
the American project that would center Whiteness (Ikuta & Latimer, 2021). In addition, with the

17
development of culture through literature, media, and eventually an education system, characters
like Natty Bumpo and Paul Bunyan, and historical figures like Daniel Boone, helped construct a
White national identity that rationalized settler claims as rightful occupiers of the land (Glen,
2015; Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2012).
In reality, settlers had encountered the outlying communities of the Incan and Mayan
empires, civilizations with complex political and economic systems that had sustained countless
millions for generations (Dunbar, 2014). Dunbar-Ortiz cites writings from French colonialists
that describe miles of cultivated fields around each native community, a complex transportation
and distribution system for agricultural products, and networks of communities with established
self-governance systems that surpassed the sophistication of European society (2014). In the
settler imagination, by contrast, natives were bands of savages whose civilization was incomplete
(Alfred, 2005). The settler creation story justified the practice of occupation and secured the
White settler as the arbiter of truth (Wolf, 2006). By the time of the founding in the eighteenth
century, whiteness had become the legal organizing principle of society. During the first
congress, the 1791 immigration law defined citizenship in the colonial state as belonging to “free
white persons … of good character” (United States, 1790). Citizenship ensured access to
political, economic, and social capital. Policy, law, cultural mediums, and philosophy enshrined
how settler colonial society would build and maintain its existence: exclusion and exploitation,
center whiteness as the organizing principle, then allocate or distribute resources. This is the
logic of the fort. As theorized in the settler colonial framework, whiteness helps explain the
origin and persistence of inequities in U.S. society.
In addition to theorizing Whiteness, the triad visibilizes the interconnectedness and
asymmetrical relations of the other in settler colonial society. The centrality of land as a

18
commodity to the colonial project made it necessary to conceptualize Black people and Native
Americans in distinct ways to legitimize settler claims to ownership, power, and rights (Glenn,
2015; Mignolo, 2007; Omi & Winant, 2014; Wolf, 2006). To ensure white settlers' access to and
use of land, Native Americans needed to be eliminated and erased, while Black people needed to
be incorporated into the economic functions of the land yet remain unfree and disenfranchised.
This was established and maintained through the rules of miscegenation that created a racial
classification system that mediated rights based on race (Hixson, 2013; Pascoe, 2009; Wolf,
2011). For example, one drop of white blood for an indigenous person meant the loss of
indigenous identity, while one drop did not change the identity of a Black slave.
For Native Americans, miscegenation meant they lost indigeneity, and tribal
membership, treaty rights, and land allotments were foreclosed (Glen, 2011; Pascoe, 2009). As a
strategy of elimination, this rule advantaged White settlers because it ensured fewer people were
covered by treaties and more land was available for capitalist growth and development (Glen,
2011). For Black slaves, the miscegenation rules meant the Black population would increase,
commensurable with White settlers' goals of acquiring and using more land (Hixson, 2013; Wolf,
2011). Black slaves as property held enormous value in the plantation economy and, in some
estimates, exceeded the total value of all US railroads and factories by 1860 (Hannah-Jones,
2021). Maintaining the interdependent and asymmetrical relations of the colonial triad through
miscegenation laws, property, and citizenship ensured a racial hierarchy with the White settler
positioned at the top. The settler colonial strategy effectively formed an ideology that governs
racial categories in the US and established a status quo (Glen, 2011; Wolf, 2006; Wolf, 2011).
As entities whose putative purpose is to disrupt the status quo, nonprofit organizations work in

19
the context of this ideology and face continual pressure regarding their role in transforming
society effectively (Eikenberry & Kluver, 2004; Coule et al., 2022).
If a line is drawn from the early colonial history to the modern era, that pattern of Native
American elimination and Black exploitation persists, and the historical experiences of new nonWhite others in US society, introduced through immigration and globalization, are influenced by
the same ideology (Alfred, 2005; Glen, 2015; Mignolo, 2007). The historical experiences of
Native Americans and Black people occurred through distinct historical phases as White settlers
negotiated the triadic interdependencies through government policy that strengthened relations of
the racial hierarchy. For Native Americans, the phases began in the mid-eighteenth century with
genocide and removal, continued with land allotments and assimilative education in the 19th
century, and by the 20th century continued with federal policy to eliminate tribal status and
incentivizing Native Americans away from reservations and to urban centers (Brown, 1970;
Glenn, 2015).
The Native American experience is bookended with the 1830 Indian Removal Act that
forcibly moved entire communities from the southeast to the Midwest, in the infamous trail of
tears, and the 1956 Indian Relocation Act, which moved them from reservations set up in the
19th century, to 9 urban areas including places like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, and
Dallas (Glenn, 2015). By 2012, 70% of Native Americans lived in cities compared to 8% in
1940, and nearly 1 million moved between 1940 and 1980 (Williams, 2013). In the 100 years
between the Indian Removal Acts, the US Federal government had written and broken treaties
and renegotiated land rights that decreased the total amount of land held by native communities
by over 100 million acres (Glen, 2015; McDonald, 1991). While Federal policy promised
vocational training and job placement support, most men ended up in low-wage jobs with little

20
opportunity for career mobility, and women primarily found work as domestic servants in White
neighborhoods (Glenn, 2015).
The 21st-century American city served as a type of colonial fort that demanded
assimilation and supported the process of elimination from native lands. The demands of Native
Americans in the 21st century do not center on greater inclusion in the democratic liberal order
but on recognition of sovereignty and restoration of stolen land (Alfred, 2005). While nonprofit
organizations working in urban or rural areas may develop programs or services that help people
cope with the effects of institutional or systemic inequities, without addressing root causes and
imagining a radically different future, they may only preserve the settler colonial status quo.
For Black people forcibly inserted in the colonial state, the historical phases reflect a
fundamentally different approach compared to the logic of elimination because the settler state
relied on exploited labor for the accumulation of wealth and economic development (Glenn,
2015; Mignolo, 2007; Wolf, 2011; Alexander, 2010). While the colonial fort articulates the logic
of elimination, the plantation explicates the logic of exploitation. Black chattel slavery served the
purposes of the settler state because the legal status of a slave foreclosed the possibility of
property rights and citizenship while at the same time, Black bodies as property secured an
unlimited supply of free, unpaid labor (Glenn, 2015; Mignolo, 2007; Omi & Winant, 2014;
Wolf, 2006). While the settler state initially practiced versions of indentured servitude that
included different White ethnic groups from Europe, convicts, and Native Americans, the system
allowed indentured servants to gain freedom at the completion of their contract (Hixson, 2013;
Glenn, 2015). Chattel slaves, on the other hand, were confined to a life of slavery. For the
colonial state, this held enormous economic value.

21
The historical phases of the Black experience in the US settler state begin with nearly 400
years of chattel slavery, where Black bodies were constructed in the American imagination as
non-human and exploitable, to legal and defacto segregation into the mid 20th century, and then
to marginalization through the late 20th century and beyond (Alexander, 2010; Kendi, 2016).
Alexander (2010) describes these historical periods as the development of the US racial caste
system that evolved from one of exploitation through the practice of slavery to subordination in
the Jim Crow south, and marginalization with the practice of mass incarceration that
disproportionately impacts Black men.
At the end of slavery, the settler state, as orchestrated through the plantation class in the
south, developed an entire set of laws that defined vagrancy as a crime where the punishment
was contract labor (Alexander, 2010; Glenn, 2015). The result was that thousands of Black
freedmen, former slaves, were forced back onto plantations to serve a sentence that included
free, unpaid labor. And, the practice was supported by the US Constitution, which ended slavery
but endorsed forced labor as justifiable punishment for criminals (Hannah-Jones, 2021; Kendi,
2016). Through the early 1960s, the collection of laws known as Jim Crow subordinated Black
Americans through discriminatory laws that touched every aspect of life, including schools,
churches, jobs, restrooms, restaurants, cemeteries, and many more (Alexander, 2010; Glenn,
2015; Kendi, 2016; Hannah-Jones, 2021). The civil rights movement of the 1960s mobilized
Black leadership, confronted White power structures in cities across the US, and fundamentally
changed the discourse on race in America. However, by the 1980s, through changes wrought by
globalization that increased unemployment in Black communities and a political climate defined
by tough on crime rhetoric reminiscent of Jim Crow, a new era of Black exploitation emerged
through mass incarceration (Kendi, 2016; Alexander, 2010).

22
The settler colonial triad theorizes racialization in US society and the historical analysis
shows how as an ongoing structure, the settler colonial project continues to recast these relations
as US society develops and expands (Wolf, 2006; Glenn, 2015). Policy, law, custom or practice
reifies the triad and extends it into the future (Glenn, 2015; Mignolo, 2007). As entities whose
role is to help address the impact of inequitable systems, nonprofit organizations have looked for
ways to move beyond only helping communities cope and work toward social transformation
(Bryson, 2021; Badgett, 2022). The triad conceptualizes who in society is impacted by
inequitable systems and theorizes the logic and discourse of colonial society that would need to
be confronted in order for alternative futures of justice to be realized.
Settler Futurity and Claims on the Future
Teach For America operates from a vision for the future that envisions an excellent and
equitable education for all students, which reflects its futurity and a claim on the future. In
addition to understanding settler colonialism as a historical event and ongoing project in society,
research has considered the role of the future in settler society (Anderson, 2010; Baldwin, 2012;
Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2013). The future has been an under-theorized idea as research
assumed historical linearity between the past, present and future (Anderson, 2010). However,
more recent research has shown a causal relationship where the future influences the anticipatory
actions of those in the present as they project fears, hopes, dreams, and imaginations forward into
the future (Anderson, 2010; Baldwin, 2012; Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2013). Baldwin
(2012) describes the future as virtuality because it informs the present in real, tangible ways even
as it is always in the state of not yet being reality. Since the future remains in a constant state of
virtuality, the present at any historical moment can be analyzed to explain how the discourses,
logics, or politics legitimize the hopes and fears of specific projects that lay claim to rightful

23
ownership of the future (Baldwin, 2012; Mignolo, 2007). According to Baldwin (2012), the
politics of the present make the future known through specific anticipatory logics that conjugate
the present and future and ensure the centrality of whiteness in society.
The temporal present is shaped by belief and values informed logics – precaution,
preemption and preparedness - that translate into concrete action in time and space (Anderson,
2010; Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2013). In the 18th-century historical moments of settler
colonialism, settler discourse, logic and politics were derived from the ideas of the doctrine of
discovery, manifest destiny and American exceptionalism and justified the real violence of Native
elimination and Black exploitation (Hixson, 2013; Wolf, 2006). In education, and education
reform in particular, discourse is based on a standard set of ideas that have shaped a definition of
the future and a path toward that destination (Amsler, 2018; Chang, 2019). From an anti-colonial
lens, the settler casts a vision of the future that mandates a particular worldview. For example, The
White settler viewed himself as the rightful owner of the land, on a mission from God, and part of
building a new society unlike any other in history. The future belonged to the settler exclusively.
The existence of Black and Native Americans interrupted this future and necessitated a version of
politics that guaranteed White settlers not only maintained land but rationalized inhumane
treatment of others while justifying self-appointed ownership. Researchers have shown how
futurity has continued to shape the way whiteness or White normative values perform in the present
to exclude or eliminate non-white others in curricular studies (Tuck & Gaztambide, 2013),
geography studies (Baldwin, 2012) and in a range of issues including terrorism, climate change,
and trans-species epidemics (Anderson, 2010).
Settler futurity as a theoretical construct suggests that colonialization is about the mind and
psychology in as much as it is about materiality and land (Alfred, 2005; Hixson, 2013). Hixson

24
(2013) describes this as settler fantasies where the settlers' dreams of doing ‘good works’
rationalize violence and genocide, and Alfred (2005) shows that while decolonization is material
it is also spiritual and includes deprogramming the mind of an individual. While historians have
questioned the validity of this type of psychoanalysis in history, scholars (McClintock, 1995; Eley,
2008) have shown its necessity given the prevalence of violence in settler colonial society and the
resultant forms of trauma, guilt, repression, and victimization (Nandy, 1983; Veracini, 2014). To
cope with the lived experiences of violence, White settlers canonized the idea of righteous
aggression that would be memorialized in things like the ‘American way of war’ and eventually
structured the US approach to foreign and domestic policy (Hixson, 2013). The Native and Black
American other intruded on the settlers’ future, and once conceptualized as an evil force impeding
progress, the present violence was necessary for civilization. For scholars of settler colonialism,
this logic and discourse continue to shape modern societies founded through settler colonialism
and have helped formalize a colonial epistemology (Andreotti, 2016).
Coloniality and Epistemic Blindness
As a product of the modern world, Teach For America operates within the epistemological
boundaries of the nonprofit sector, which frames how problems and solutions are determined. Anticolonial research shows how epistemology can limit, confine and normalize the modern Western
worldview (Andreotti, 2016; Mignolo, 2007; Veracini, 2014; Wolf, 2011; Quijano, 2007). So far,
this review of anti-colonial theory has foregrounded the reality of violence, genocide, and
exploitation that was endemic in laying the foundation of US social, economic, and political life.
However, the success, persistence, and influence of modern-day settler-colonial societies like
Britain, the United States, and Canada have relied on concealing the violence central to the national
project and creating a modern subject disconnected from the past (Andreotti, 2016). Mignolo

25
(2007) and Andreotti (2016) describe the process of normalizing modernity as hiding its darker
side, covering its perverse logic, and concealing the philosophical conundrum underlying modern
society's political and economic structure.
Andreotti (2016) defines modern subjectivity as neutral, universal benevolent and
possessing an unlimited capacity to understand reality. By forgetting the historical origins of the
nation, the modern subject refashions his self-image and identity in neutrality, by assuming the
contemporary moment is given or natural, and in universality, by assuming his knowledge of the
world is a Total apprehension of objective reality (Andreotti, 2016; Mignolo, 2007). This modern
subjectivity conceptualizes a Totality that negates, excludes, and occludes the possibility of any
other totality (Mignolo, 2007). For Andreotti (2016), this is an epistemic blindness that prevents
the modern person from thinking and being outside the boundaries of his own intelligibility. This
boundary is an abyss, according to Santos, who argues that modern thinking creates a chasm in
social reality that defines a realm for those on the other side and claims a monopoly on truth and
knowledge for itself (2007). In the context of international education (Andreotti, 2016),
international development (Kapoor, 2014), and the global project of social justice (Sousa Santos,
2007), the modern subject creates false narratives of the other, as unformed, unfinished or
incomplete, to divert attention from the impossibility of progress. Progress is a conundrum because
things like sustainable development or ecological restoration are impossible in that they exist
within a system that is the source of inequities these programs seek to solve (Kapoor, 2014).
However, the modern person, by maintaining an epistemological monopoly, defines problems and
solutions in ways that ensure their place in society.
In contrast to the process of covering up the dark side of modernity, the concept of
coloniality describes the continuation of the historical processes that created the patterns of

26
advantage and disadvantage of the modern project (Andreotti, 2016; Mignolo, 2007; Quijano,
2007). The current social discrimination and inequities in things like race, ethnicity, nationalism,
and the third world emerged and were codified in the colonial structures of the 17th and 18th
centuries (Quijano, 2007). Quijano (2007) and Mignolo (2007, 2011) show that when looking at
exploitation, poverty, and economic exclusion at a global scale, those places where the majority
of populations are marginalized are members of those same races or ethnicities from the earlier
colonial period. The colonial structure is the condition that produces discrimination and inequity.
From the perspective of the modern subject, however, the answer to social issues of
inequity is more modernity (Quijano, 2007). The underlying problem lies with the marginalized
other who has not learned or adopted modern epistemological and ontological truth and is the
source of their own subjugation. Coloniality as a construct, however, recognizes the insufficiency
of these solutions because they rely on colonial logic that requires things like racial categorization
and exploitation to safeguard its success. (Andreotti, 2016; Quijano, 2007). Even in some of the
historical decolonization efforts the focus was independence, but this independence occurred
within the current nation-state system, which was crafted through colonialism (Mignolo, 2007).
There was no de-linking from the colonial structure that would be necessary to undo the gordian
knot of European colonialism and create conditions of liberation (Quijano, 2007). The solution is
to bring other epistemologies forward and create an epistemic shift that leads to “otheruniversality” and to a “pluri-versality” as a new Totality (Mignolo, 2007, p. 453; Quijano, 2007).
The challenge to developing this type of epistemic shift is described as a problem of
intelligibility (Andreotti, 2016), delinking (Mignolo, 2007), and totality (Quijano, 2007). The
modern subject can read and understand the world through their own normalized view, but things
become less legible when confronted with any analysis that challenges this view or suggests their

27
actions may have caused harm (Andreotti, 2016). Andreotti (2016) identifies four categories that
define ways the modern subject prefers discourse on social issues. Surface-level discourse raises
awareness but may only inspire acts of charity. The second is an orientation to practical solutions
that can be efficiently applied and evaluated, allowing the modern subject to feel good about
contributing. The third category recognizes the historical context and power asymmetries but relies
on existing institutions, and marginalized voices are interpreted in ways that recenter modern
epistemologies. The last category defines a critique of the epistemological and ontological
hegemony inherent in modernity and looks for solutions outside the current system. The lack of
progress and the continuation of racial inequity, poverty, and exclusion exists due to the inability
to delink (Mignolo, 2007) from the colonial structure, and through ongoing surface-level
discourse, the modern ontological hegemony remains a totality (Quijano, 2007) that precludes
substantive change.
Indigenous Theories of Change
In recent years, Teach For America and the field of education have confronted the need to
reimagine school by looking beyond current models and paradigms. Research on Indigenous
theories of change provides a method of looking beyond the modern project of democracy and
capitalism, beyond current institutions and organizations premised on modern ontological
hegemonies, and envision culturally rooted social movements focused on the whole of society and
incorporate political action that aims to remake the relations of power in society (Alfred, 2005;
Deloria, 1999; de Oliveria, 2021; Grande, 2015; Tuck 2007, 2009). These look beyond legal and
economic reforms and violent insurgency approaches. Alfred (2005) describes the insufficiency of
efforts that focus on reforms through the legal system or assumed empowerment through the
accumulation of financial resources because these lead to further entrenchment in a system that

28
undermines Onkwehonwe (original people) cultures. There is no place for violence because like
Tuck & Yang (2013), the indigenous future is not defined by the removal or absence of the settler
but by a fundamentally transformed society based on the renegotiation of power and relationships.
Alfred (2005) defines a theory of change situated outside the paradox of reform, that proposes a
step-by-step change that slowly unfolds, and revolutionary change, that embraces civil
disobedience as the legitimate and only course of action. The path outside the paradox is defined
as the practice of creative contention (Alfred, 2005; Tuck, 2007). This orientation defines the
colonial structure as the core of the problem in current society and defines resistance as an
unwillingness to accept colonial configurations of justice. Creative contention is a necessary
process of bringing together opposing forces for the purpose of reconciliation and restitution if a
future beyond modern constructs can be realized (Alfred, 2005).
The research on Indigenous knowledge frameworks has conceptualized alternatives to
binary, colonial, and modern epistemology that reinscribes the status quo (Alfred, 2005; Littletree
et al., 2020; Tuck, 2009, 2007). Tuck (2009) explains four vantage points that are opened through
epistemic shifts that reflect indigenous theories of change and move beyond the binaries of change
and action. The first shift is from seeing sovereignty as a right or condition to seeing it as an
epistemology. Sovereignty includes what is known about the world and how that knowledge is
produced. A call for sovereignty is also real in the recognition of social, cultural, and political
identity and development. And, real in that it remains unrecognized for Native Americans.
Building on Alfred (2005), Tuck (2009) identifies contention as a process that includes selfeducation, interrupting hegemony, and ethics. There is an inner transformation that precedes
action, and action that will build a liberated future relies on certain ethics. Balance is an epistemic
shift away from liberal democratic notions of homogeneity, which assumes responsibility and

29
power must be equal or shared. From an indigenous perspective, there are different roles and levels
of power among elders, but when seen as part of a whole, they are in balance. Relationality
recognizes that ideas of the collective begin with the group, and individual identities are shaped
through mutual implications, where an individual's identity is formed through experiences with
others (Littletree et al., 2020; Tuck, 2007).
The research on indigenous theories of change shows how scholars describe the action and
change necessary in light of a system that functions to produce the conditions of their marginality
and oppression (Alfred, 2005; de Oliveira, 2021; Tuck & Yang, 2018). There are false choices
between reform and revolution that further embed the logic of the colonial system. However, there
are pathways through the false dichotomies and outside the parameters of the modern project,
which aims to reinscribe the values and logic of individualism, benevolence, and neutrality
(Alfred, 2005; de Oliveira, 2021; Littletree et al., 2020; Tuck & Yang, 2018). Tuck & Yang (2018)
describe social justice projects as an investment in an alternative path that combines a particular
worldview, strategy, motive, practice, and habits that completely de-center the White settler. While
they recognize that social justice tends to be an overused concept, it is an important signal that
distinguishes a project from positivist, developmental, or instrumental approaches. Similar to
Alfred (2005), Tuck & Yang (2018) refuse any specific project that relies on an appeal to white
settlers, centers compromise, requires proving legitimacy and humanity and assumes the neutrality
and benevolence of the settler colonial state.
While social justice projects are clearly defined, they can take on any number of forms and
represent different perspectives and visions for the future (Tuck & Yang, 2018). Tuck & Yang
(2018) acknowledge there may be competition between projects but prefer the term
incommensurability because the historical context and goals of one group may require different

30
standards of measurement compared to another. While they may be incommensurable, a key idea
from indigenous theories of change and indigenous knowledge frameworks is that they center an
alternative future distinct from the modern project (Alfred, 2005; de Oliveira, 2021; Littletree et
al., 2020; Tuck & Yang, 2018). In considering the work of nonprofit organizations whose intent is
to address or change the material conditions of historically marginalized groups in US society,
indigenous epistemology provides a lens with which to evaluate whether they extend the modern
project or effectively work to renegotiate the relations of power to create a future of balance and
relationality through epistemologies of contention and sovereignty.
Organization of the Dissertation
This dissertation is composed of five chapters. Chapter two reviews relevant literature on
education, education reform, nonprofit organizations, and Teach For America. The chapter will
end with a conceptual framework that describes an analysis of Teach For America using anticolonial thought and de Oliveira’s social cartography of reform (2021). Chapter Three will
discuss the methodology of this study, including the participant selection process,
instrumentation and the interview protocol, and data collection and analysis approaches. Chapter
four will discuss findings based on the data collected. Chapter five will draw conclusions and
make recommendations for future research.

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Chapter Two: Literature Review
As discussed in Chapter One, executive directors hold complexity in their roles, given
they participate and engage with the systems they want to change. They contend with a range of
dynamics as leaders in their communities as they determine how they will navigate these
systems. From an anti-colonial lens, they contend with issues related to the racial organization of
society, structural dynamics that produce social inequities, issues of intelligibility from various
stakeholders, and a tendency for the field to privilege a dominant, White, perspective on issues of
education and education reform. They have to recognize and navigate the fluid social, political,
and economic trends in their community, define and articulate the relevance and nature of a
problem, identify solutions that meet immediate and long-term challenges, and offer a
proposition for how a specific set of actions can lead to the vision they define. In language
common in the field, they need to develop and communicate a theory of change. Section one
begins with how I approached this research from an anti-colonial perspective and includes a brief
overview of the nonprofit sector's characteristics and history and research on social change
theories. In the next sections, I review current research on education reform and Teach For
America.
Theoretical Grounding and Framework
When developing this literature review, I wanted to emphasize several elements of anticolonial framing, including settler colonialism, the settler triad, epistemic blindness, and
indigenous theories of change. These ideas constitute what de Oliveira describes as the house of
modernity (2021). This analogy describes modernity’s promise of progress through endless
consumption and social mobility within existing systems and institutions of a democraticcapitalist society while concealing the colonial underside, which subsidizes the costs of

32
maintaining the modern house (2021). Anti-colonial scholars have examined the building of the
modern house from its origins in settler colonialism and have developed typologies of social
reform (de Oliveira, 2021), social justice projects (Tuck & Yang, 2018), and theories of change
(Alfred, 2005) that look beyond our current understanding of progress and foreground alternative
horizons of possibility.
In Hospicing Modernity, de Oliveira (2021) describes the modern world as suffering from
the consequences of its own condition. As participants in the modern world, we are either
mesmerized by the shine of modernity and deeply invested in the story of progress it promises,
or we recognize its insufficiency or harm. In either case, we choose or resist a course of action.
In this study, I situate Executive directors at Teach For America work within the complexity of
this reality as they work to steward a vision and theory of change to eliminate educational
inequity in their communities. They hold the reality that problems in education are complex,
along with pressure for practical, immediate solutions. de Oliveira (2021) offers a social
cartographical framework as a pedagogical tool to analyze types of reform relevant to Teach For
America and its theory of change. There are three places of reform in this cartography: soft
reform, radical reform, and beyond reform. The difference in these reform spaces is between (a)
seeing more inclusion or improvements in the existing system as progress versus (b) creating
entirely new systems now or believing new systems are only possible with the passing of the
current system. As a pedagogical tool, there is neither a right nor wrong space to be in, and these
spaces are not necessarily sequential. In fact, efforts for soft or radical reform may be necessary
as long as leaders see the whole picture and work with integrity to understand modernity’s
consequences (Oliveira, 2015; 2021). By situating the work of education reform in the sociocultural context of a settler colonial society and within de Oliveira’s social cartography of

33
reform, the experiences of executive directors can be explored to understand the complexity they
hold as they pursue social change in their communities.
Nonprofit Organizations
Research has shown how nonprofit organizations have played a role in constructing the
modern world by either concealing the underside of social, economic, and political development
or reinforcing the knowledge, practice, and methods of the modern world that define the how,
why, and what of social progress (de Oliveira, 2021; Bromley, 2020; Eikenberry et al., 2019;
Nickels & Leach, 2021; Valentinov, 2012). Eikenberry et al. (2019), Sandberg (2016), and KohlArenas (2015) document examples of philanthropic organizations funding nonprofit programs to
address social issues but also place limits on changing the political and economic relationships
that create those conditions. Kohl-Arenas (2015) argues that grant requirements mediate the
relationship between private foundations and social movements and results in concensus that
moves away from understanding the structural nature of inequity. Villanueva (2018) and Payton
and Moody (2008) describe the role philanthropy plays in maintaining an unequal distribution of
resources and argue for a complete transformation in how private foundations fund social
movements. In addition, other research has shown that researchers and practitioners will need to
look beyond existing models and current knowledge to make meaningful progress on social
issues (Badgett, 2022; Bryson, 2021; Bryson et al., 2021; Seelos, 2021). This research recognizes
the harmful effects of the nonprofit sector when accepted forms of knowledge in the field go
unquestioned and points to alternative paths for the nonprofit sector to address social issues from
a systemic and structural approach.
Recent research has examined and theorized how the nonprofit sector developed a
codified body of knowledge that formalized nonprofit practice. Bromley (2020) and Soskis

34
(2020) describe the historical and epistemological development of the nonprofit sector and show
how prevailing economic and organizational ideas of individualism, neoliberal ideology, and
scientific rationality gave authority to specific methodologies. These forms of knowledge
provided cultural templates that influenced how the activities of organizations should be
structured, including the definition of how organizations develop knowledge, imagine solutions,
evaluate progress, and establish legitimacy (Bromley, 2020; Eikenberry, 2009; Maier et al.,
2016). There has been extensive research on how the logic and values of the marketplace
influence nonprofit organizations (Backman & Smith, 2000; Einstein, 2012; Dempsey &
Sanders, 2010; Nickel & Eikenberry, 2009; Sandberg, 2016; von Schnurbein et al., 2018).
Research has shown the process and consequences of nonprofits becoming more business-like
(Maier et al., 2016), the impact of neoliberal ideology on nonprofit role in advocacy (Alexander
& Fernandez, 2020), and the role of large foundations and wealthy donors consolidating a
philanthropic agenda around their interests at the expense of organizations working toward social
justice and representing historically marginalized communities (Williams & Doan, 2021).
To consider the complexity executive directors face as they work toward change in a
system in which they participate and engage, it is important to understand research on the
development of nonprofit practice and theory. The following section will review research on how
the current nonprofit sector was formed and the relationship between knowledge in the field and
the practice and structure of modern organizations. This is important to the study because anticolonial thought requires analysis beyond methodology and toward an evaluation of the
epistemological and ontological foundations of nonprofit organizations.

35
Formalization of the Nonprofit Sector
The terms nonprofit organization and nonprofit sector are more recent and reflect the
formalization of the sector around modern capitalist ideas (Powell, 2020; Salamon, 2012; von
Schnurbein et al., 2018). Research has explored the ideological roots of the sector from as early
as the Greco-Roman era (Robbins, 2006), the Judeo-Christian ethos of sacrificial service
(Hodgkinson & Foley, 2003), the mutual aid societies and voluntary associations of the early
American colonial period (Hall, 2006), and the current legal foundations stemming from
Victorian era English Common Law (Dicke & Ott, 2023). A complete review of the history is
beyond the scope of this study. However, this research shows how prevailing religious,
economic, and political ideas influenced the knowledge and practice in what is otherwise known
as the nonprofit sector. For example, Soskis (2020) provides a comprehensive history that
focuses on how religious ideology, political movements, and current events shaped how
problems and solutions were defined in society and determined nonprofit organizations'
appropriate, legitimate role. Eikenberry et al. (2019), Soskis (2020), and Salamon and
Sokolowski (2016) describe charity, philanthropy, and commercialization as three broad
historical eras. In each era, what defined the right way to care for society evolved from a focus
on providing relief and helping others cope with existing systems in the charitable era, to using
social science, research, and evaluation in the philanthropic era, and to market-based logic in the
current era of commercialization.
The current shift toward a sector defined by commercialization (Eikenberry et al., 2019),
marketization (Salamon, 2012), and managerial professionalization (Maier et al., 2016) began in
the 20th century. Bromley (2020) describes this as the organizational transformation of civil
society brought on by the dominance of neoliberal ideology that formalized a cultural template

36
for how activities are structured. This shift provided a “cosmological frame” that imagines social
order and change through a set of universalistic principles (Bromley, p. 128, 2020). Bromley
(2020) builds on Salamon and Anheier’s (1997) seminal article on the social origins of the
nonprofit sector. Their findings show that existing research, like market failure theory or welfare
state theory, are inadequate to explain the form and structure of nonprofit organizations
(Salamon & Anheier, 1997). Nonprofit organizations emerge, evolve, and persist in the context
of social, political, and economic relationships, and particular forms result from a “constellation
of class relationships and pattern of state-society relationships” (Salamon & Anheier, 1997, p.
227). In other words, nonprofit organizations not only act on society but are also acted upon by
and play a role in coordinating and negotiating political, social, and economic capital.
Since the early 20th century, the formal, hierarchical organization has become the
dominant structure for social change or civil society work (Bromley, 2020). Bromley (2020),
Bromley and Meyer (2017), and Drori and Meyer (2006) describe the organizational
transformation of civil society that has normalized a single way of working in society, a process
that has affected not only nonprofits but the public and private sector through the scientization or
rationalization of the modern organization. This research concludes that there are many ways
people could organize around social issues, and the modern organization is just one form. As
Bromley points out, there has certainly been an exponential increase in the number of nonprofit
organizations even while many of the most critical social issues persist (2020). Bromley (2020)
and Drori et al. (2003) describe Western Liberal notions of individualism and scientific
rationality as the cultural roots of this transformation for nonprofit organizations. These ideas
constitute the new liberal ontology expressed in formal organizations and comprise the basis of
legitimate knowledge. In the charitable era, people may organize around a social issue informally

37
but the modern era requires a systematic approach that includes accountability, evaluation,
efficiency, and effectiveness. This organizational form has become institutionalized and diffuse.
Formal law and regulation, standardization of accounting practices, and higher education
nonprofit management programs are vehicles that channel modern organizational ideologies and
transform a mode of existence into a singular, universal, legitimate, and established social fact
(Bromley, 2020; DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Drori et al., 2003).
As a product of modernity, the organizational form has become a totality that makes
invisible or unintelligible other ways of knowing or being in the pursuit of social progress (Drori
& Meyer, 2006; de Oliveira, 2015; 2021; Mignolo, 2007). As a result, modern organizations can
limit how executive directors imagine change through institutionalized ways of knowing and
being that assume a singular epistemological and ontological reality (Andreotti, 2016). They may
also hold contrasting ideas together, that as stewards of an organizational mission, they have
responsibilities to a range of internal stakeholders while, at the same time, they work from a
sense of accountability to their community. While the organizational context can influence the
complexity of the executive director's role, the logic and discourse around performance and
impact are important to understanding executive directors' work.
Performance and Impact
Executive directors at Teach For America are responsible for the performance, impact
and accountability of their organization in their communities. Once the nonprofit sector became
formalized around a singular organizational model, early research on private-sector
organizational management assumed these entities could adopt frameworks from the business
community (Ebrahim, 2019; Salamon, 2012; Eikenberry et al., 2019). Miller’s (2018) study
shows that nonprofit organizational strategy has focused on for-profit strategy and practices in

38
response to increasing pressure to adopt private sector methods. However, research has shown
that nonprofit organizations operate in very different environments from for-profit companies
(Ebrahim, 2019; Akingbola, 2006). Ebrahim (2019) and Ebrahim and Rangan (2014) explain that
while there are always challenges to identifying the outcomes or impact of any organization, this
is more pronounced for nonprofits because they operate in complex environments. Nonprofit
organizations have multiple stakeholder groups to which they are accountable, which makes
defining ownership and identifying who can make a claim on the organization challenging
(Ebrahim, 2019; Herman & Renz, 1997; Salamon, 2012). Akingbola (2006) describes them as
having multi-dimensional goals because as social organizations that are a by-product of a
“complex set of historical forces” while also seeking to create social change (p.267). This makes
determining a strategy's impact or effectiveness difficult to assess because a nonprofit leader
must assign causality in a complex social, political, and economic environment (Akingbola,
2006; Herman & Renz, 2004). This reality has led the field to develop models to identify how
nonprofit organizations impact social change.
As leaders of a modern organization in a complex environment, executive directors must
be able to describe both the short- and long-term outcomes of their work and do so in a way that
clearly identifies how their intervention will contribute to social change. The logic model or
results chain is the dominant model used to describe performance and evaluation in modern
nonprofit organizations (Ebrahim, 2019; Bryson et al., 2020). These types of models are derived
from program theory, which emerged in the mid-20
th century as governments and international
organizations wanted to assess and evaluate the impact of international aid (Blalock, 1999;
Funnel, 1997; Rogers, 2008). The logic model became popular in the US nonprofit sector in the
1980s when the United Way and the Kellogg Foundation began using this to distribute funds and

39
create accountability (Ebrahim, 2019). The logic model has 6 components – inputs, activities,
outputs, individual outcomes, and societal outcomes – and each component has corresponding
measures. It is a causal model designed to predict the outcomes of an organization by identifying
the causes (inputs and activities) and the immediate goods or services (outputs), and the longterm results for either individuals or society (outcomes). Ebrahim (2019) acknowledges that
while the logic model has become the authoritative way to determine the impact in the nonprofit
sector, there are challenges to these models, given the complexity of the environment in which
nonprofit organizations work.
The logic model describes the complexity a nonprofit organization faces as it seeks to
develop goods or services that meet immediate needs while also claiming these activities create
social change (Ebrahim, 2019). The model assumes a causality between an organization's inputs,
activities, and outcomes and a simple, linear cause-effect relationship (Ebrahim, 2019; Rogers,
2008). According to Ebrahim (2019), the model has two causal chains: organizational
performance and social performance. There are inputs and activities that translate to specific,
immediate outputs that have to do with the organization's strategy. Then there are individual and
social outcomes that happen outside the boundary of an organization influenced by the level of
certainty of a cause-effect relationship and the level of control over outcomes (Ebrahim, 2019).
The challenge is that when a nonprofit organization has little certainty on cause-effect
relationships, it will be difficult to identify the interventions necessary for the stated outcomes,
and they likely have little control over dynamic, complex social outcomes as a single
organization. Ebrahim (2019) concludes that not all organizations can assess outcomes even if
they can evaluate activities and outputs and developed a typology to support nonprofit leaders in
determining the most appropriate, responsive strategy. Similarly, Rogers (2008) developed three

40
categories of causal logics- simple, complicated and complex - to address the reality that not all
social change is linear. Rogers (2008) concludes that even when an organization is working on
more complex social issues they can often opt for simple causal logic. The long-term effect of
opting for simple solutions is that we do not fully understand the complexity of the issues and as
a result make minimal progress (Ebrahim, 2019; Rogers, 2008). In other words, we’re treating
deep wounds with band-aids.
While logic models have become the authoritative method for nonprofit performance,
they are constrained by the “complex and often poorly understood nature of cause-effect
relationships in creating social change” (Ebrahim, 2019, p. 16). Too often, executive directors
are pressured to meet donor expectations, niche grant requirements, and reporting expectations
that may be responsive to market-based tests but will become substitutes for what is most
relevant to stakeholders and the problems being addressed (Ebrahim, 2019; Herman & Renz,
1997; Salamon, 2012). Akingbola (2006), Ebrahim (2019), and Ebrahim and Ranga (2014)
conclude that nonprofit leaders like executive directors lack the time and capacity to develop
strategies that map onto complex social environments and, as a result may not examine the
unquestioned assumptions in their theories of cause and effect that would support a more
rigorous, explicit and testable hypothesis. In addition, while there has been a proliferation of
methods, rituals, and procedures to measure and evaluate nonprofit effectiveness, there has been
minimal evidence of improvement throughout the sector (Ebrahim, 2016; Espeland & Stevens,
2008; Hwang & Powell, 2009).
Accountability and Legitimacy
In addition to their role in navigating the tensions of defining the short and long-term
outcomes of their regions, executive directors are responsible for navigating multiple stakeholder

41
demands through various forms of accountability (Akingbola, 2006; Ebrahim, 2009; Suchman,
1995; von Schnurbein et al., 2018). There is extensive research on accountability for nonprofit
organizations that describes the complexity executive directors face (Gray, 2001; Messner, 2009;
O’Dwyer & Unerman, 2007; Roberts, 2009; Yasmin & Ghafran, 2021). Yasmin and Ghafran
(2020) build on the seminal organizational accountability study by Suchman (1995) and link
accountability and legitimacy in their study to examine how nonprofit organizations build trust
and who the most salient audiences are for nonprofit leaders. Nonprofit organizations operate in
a legitimating environment where organizational leaders balance demands for structural and
social accountability by focusing on specific relationships (Yasmin & Ghafran, 2019).
Structural accountability is concerned with short-term, functional areas largely influenced
by those who have control over resources needed by the nonprofit (Yasmin & Ghafran, 2021).
Accountability is facilitated through formal processes and based on best practices in accounting,
management and evaluation. On the other hand, social accountability is concerned with
perceptions and meanings and is oriented to societal concerns. Other literature refers to this as
holistic accountability (O’Dwyer & Unerman, 2008), relational accountability (Ebrahim, 2003),
and socializing accountability (Jacobs & Walker, 2004). This is accountability to beneficiaries or
those who are served by the organization and how the work of the nonprofit is perceived by
others in the community. According to Yasmin and Ghafran (2021), nonprofit organizations
prefer legitimacy with donors, government, and other stakeholders that control resources
compared to social accountability, which requires time-intensive stakeholder engagement.
However, there is emergent research on the value of proactively engaging with beneficiaries to
build trust and moral legitimacy, which is seen as a critical area for nonprofits to develop as they
work to develop ideas and programs (Costa et al., 2019; Kingston et al., 2019). These tensions

42
are present with executive directors at Teach For America who work in a legitimating
environment that includes political opposition, government requirements, and donor
expectations, all in the context of working in historically marginalized communities.
Similar to structural and social accountability, the literature on nonprofit accountability
distinguishes between upward (donor), downward (beneficiary), and lateral (employee)
accountability (Coule, T., 2015; Ebrahim, 2003; Kingston, et al., 2019; Jiao, 2020; O’Dwyer &
Unerman, 2006). This research looks beyond functional definitions of accountability and
examines how issues of power, beliefs about the nature of organizing, and social relations are
constitutive of nonprofit accountability. Coule (2015) uses critical management theory to
describe how current epistemologies of governance and accountability based on principal-agent
theory narrow the concept of accountability to compliance with existing norms and practices.
Literature in this area shows how an instrumental approach to complex social issues is at odds
with the values and mission of many nonprofit organizations but that a pluralist logic can create
alternatives defined by broad accountability and can be a source of legitimacy that produces
complex relationships more relevant to social change (Coule, T., 2015; Gelfand et al., 2004;
Kingston et al., 2019; Jiao, 2020). O’Dwyer and Unerman (2006) discuss partnership-based
approaches that can create mutual accountability and conclude that nonprofit leaders remain
skeptical because funders lack the commitment, resources, and expertise needed to implement
the tenets of social accountability.
In addition, there have been calls for more research on the socio-cultural context of
accountability in nonprofit organizations, given the complex nature of the organizational
environment and the multi-faceted and pluralistic demands on nonprofit leaders (Gelfand et al.,
2004; Hall et al., 2017; Jiao, 2020). Gelfand et al. (2004) developed a model to examine culture

43
and accountability and explain how individuals, groups, and organizations develop cognitive
maps of how answerability works through socialization in a particular social-cultural context. In
this context, accountability is a perception of being answerable in accordance with socially
constructed standards and violations (Gelfand et al., 2004). In a field dominated by market-based
ideology, it is not surprising that answerability is constructed around the values of production,
efficiency, and effectiveness. This places executive directors in a challenging place as they
navigate the broader social-cultural context of the assumed standard while experiencing the
ineffectiveness of accountability methods contrary to their values and mission. Research has
shown the tensions this creates. Koppell (2005) and Yasmin and Ghafran (2019) discuss the
dysfunctional and myopic behaviors that result from competing accountability. Dixon et al.
(2006) and Hyndman and McConville (2018) examine how these behaviors can disrupt the social
environment in which nonprofit leaders work, and they propose a framework for multiple
stakeholder engagement that clarifies how leaders talk about impact and whom they need to
involve. This research on the complexity of accountability recognizes the cultural context in
which organizations work and the influence of prevailing ideas on the practice of nonprofit
leaders.
This review of literature on nonprofit organizations covered a brief history of the sector,
how nonprofit organizations were formalized around a set of ideas that standardized practice and
research, and the inherent tensions and complexity nonprofit leaders face as they work to create
social change. From an anti-colonial perspective, nonprofit organizations have been part of
building the modern world by adopting the logic and discourse of the market and have played a
role in covering the harmful side of modernity by often opting for market-intelligible solutions
that provide overly simple solutions to complex problems (Andreotti, 2016; de Oliveira, 2021).

44
The next section will review relevant literature on K–12 education in the United States,
education reform, and Teach For America.
Education in the United States
This section will review the literature on the origins of schools in the United States,
education reform, and the era of market-based reforms. Since Teach For America works within
the current education system, a review of this literature is important for this study. Executive
directors make the case for change in schools in their communities and call attention to current
issues. In addition, schools are an essential part of the modern project. Understanding how
schooling is currently developed is important to understanding the complexity executive
directors hold as they work to create social change.
The Origins of Schooling
There are volumes of research on the history and development of education in the United
States. This literature recognizes that socialization and social reproduction were the main
purposes behind establishing schools and that social and historical context shaped how and why
schools developed (Anderson, 1988; Bowles & Gintis, 2001; Katz, 2001; Patel, 2016; Tyack &
Cuban, 1995). Anderson (1988) explains that historians often draw attention to themes of
democracy, citizenship, and education's role in the nation's progress. Katz (2001) also identifies
these themes and describes an inextricable link between economic and political forces in society
that drive conflict and contest around education issues. However, Anderson (1988) speaks
specifically to a dual purpose in schools where there is schooling for both democratic citizenship
for White people and second-class citizenship for Black and people of color. Progress in
American society is premised on the idea that education and a free society go hand in hand,
while at the same time “repressing literate culture among its enslaved population” (Anderson, p.

45
1, 1988). In addition, Anderson (1988) argues that the patterns of conflict and oppression in the
early nineteenth century continue to the current time and are present in school communities
today. This reflects the logic of a settler colonial society that builds narratives of progress to
ensure its own futurity while blurring its “purposeful inequitable violence” (Patel, p. 400, 2016).
The historical context of the North and South in pre-civil war America led to different
trajectories in the development of schooling but essentially reflect the conflict between two
social systems – slavery and peasantry in the South, free labor and capitalism in the North –
around the issue of education (Anderson, 1988; Katz, 2001). Former slaves were the first to
imagine free, public education in the South and, after emancipation, began systematically
building schools to ensure ex-slaves were learning to read and write (Anderson, 1988). While the
ideas that slaves lacked the moral and intellectual capacity to learn or participate as citizens in a
democracy were dominant ideas in plantation ideology before the Civil War, there were already
informal schoolhouses where thousands of slaves were learning to read and write (Anderson,
1988). Former slaves were able to effectively campaign for publicly funded education, which
eventually was written into state constitutional law. However, the planter class worked to
effectively slow things down by advocating for lower taxes and opposing attendance laws
(Anderson, 1988). In addition, Anderson (1988) also argues that the planter class was less
interested in education than elites in the North because the planter class preferred the labor
exploitation system necessary for agricultural production. Anderson (1988) concludes that while
former slaves were independently responsible for conceptualizing and systematizing publicly
funded education, as the reconstruction era came to a close, freed Blacks lost substantial power
and control over their schools, which then developed into a second-class system. While former

46
slaves had successfully developed a school reflective of and responsive to Black needs, they
eventually became subjected to schools intentionally designed to repress blackness.
The model that came to define public education in the United States emerged in the
Northeast, was influenced by the needs of industrial capitalism, and emerged over contests for
power and influence (Bowles & Gintis, 2001; Katz, 2001; Kliebard, 2004; Rury & Mirel, 1997;
Tyack & Cuban, 1995). Similar to Anderson (1988), Katz (2001) challenges a common narrative
about public education that it emerged organically as a way to transfer the cultural values of
democracy and citizenship. Through analyzing primary source material from board meetings and
media, Katz (2001) argues that schools developed in the middle of the nineteenth century
through advocacy from business leaders who believed that education was correlated with the
economic prosperity of their communities, and it was lower-class families that were in
opposition. These were families living outside urban areas in small agricultural communities
around large urban populations. Katz (2001) and Tyack and Cuban (1995) point out that
Northern states were developing as industrial and manufacturing economies that relied on a
stable supply of disciplined labor. Bowles and Gintis (2002) developed the correspondence
theory, which explained that the norms and values students learn in school correspond to those
norms and values required for success in a modern capitalist society. The purpose of formal
schooling was to socialize people so they function well and acquiesce to their role in a stratified
and hierarchical society organized around race (Bowles and Gintis, 2002; Katz, 2001; Patel,
2016).
Tyack and Cuban (1995), Angus et al. (1999), Enomoto et al. (1995) examine the features
of the form of schooling that emerged in the nineteenth century and discuss how the underlying
assumptions of that era created enduring institutional norms. Tyack and Cuban (1995) describe

47
how little has changed in over one hundred years of schooling: the shape and design of a
classroom, the way time and space are divided, the way students are divided and classified, and
how knowledge is divided into subjects. Tyack and Cuban (1995) and Angus et al. (1999)
discuss the graded school, or categorizing students in age groups, and the Carnegie unit, or what
is commonly referred the high school class period, as the underlying grammar of schooling.
While many other things have changed in and around schools, the underlying grammar has
persisted and is assumed to be the right way to teach students (Tyack & Cuban, 1995). However,
this structure reflects more the reality of the factory floor, according to Bowles and Gintis
(2001), and ensures students learn the rhythms and expectations of industrial capitalism. In
addition, Tyack and Cuban (1995) discuss how these ideas originated through the Carnegie
Foundation with a $10 million grant to reform education in the early 20th century. In a meeting
with the foundation president and the college presidents of several elite universities, they decided
on the definition of a college, the requirements for high school credits, and the content of
subjects that would meet those requirements.
The literature on the history of education in the US describes a system that emerged from
conflict around issues of power and influence, developed through a process of privileging access
to the White settler class that invisibilized the contributions, needs, and aspirations of those seen
as the other in society, and formalized into an enduring institution that has largely gone
unchanged (Anderson, 1988; Bowles & Gintis, 2001; Katz, 2001; Patel, 2016; Tyack & Cuban,
1995). However, there have been challenges to this system. The eight-year study in the 1930s
challenged the core of this system by testing what would happen if schools refused the graded
school and Carnegie unit (Tyack and Cuban, 1995). After comparing control and treatment
groups of students, the researchers concluded that those without traditional schooling performed

48
just as well in college and beyond. Patel (2016) distinguishes between schooling and learning,
where schooling is designed for social stratification and social reproduction, and learning is an
experience of suspending belief in accepted knowledge, embracing unpredictability, and
knowing failure. This reflects an alternative future from the dominant vision portrayed in the
tradition of US education and a vision beyond reform (de Oliveira, 2021). The next section will
review the literature on education reform. This literature is important to the study because
executive directors work in the context of an education system designed to marginalize people
and hope to create change.
Education Reform as a Modern Project
While there have been calls for improving schools since the beginning of a universal
approach to schooling, the logic and discourse of education reform have focused less on a radical
departure from the status quo than on maintaining a system that reinforces a racialized social
hierarchy and the social production role of school (Bowles & Gintis, 2001; Brownlee, 2013;
Katz, 2001; Patel, 2016; Rury & Mirel, 1997; Saltman, 2014; Sarason, 1997; Scott & Holme,
2016; Scott, 2011; Tharp, 2008; Tyack, 2004). This research shows that while consistent
attention has been given to issues in schools and districts, the driving force behind change often
comes from political interests invested in an existing socioeconomic order (Katz & Rose, 2013;
Rury & Mirel, 1997). In his influential study, Katz (2001) documents the conflict between the
working class and political and economic elites in determining the role of education in the early
19th century. The common story is that the working class advocated for access to education.
However, Katz (2001) shows how business leaders imposed their ideas on the broader
community and argued that schools were needed to ensure a disciplined workforce for a growing
industrial economy. From the earliest moments of public education, the case for improvement or

49
reform relied on the argument that education and economic prosperity are linked, and the
purpose of education was to ensure students have the knowledge and skills to participate in the
economy (Katz, 2001; Katz & Rose, 2013).
There is an endless list of reform efforts or initiatives addressing student learning,
governance, accountability, curriculum, and pedagogy (Fullan, 2007, 2016; Tharp 2008). Tharp
(2008) analyzed key reform efforts between 1806 and 1984 and found that while these efforts
addressed immediate needs that were widely acknowledged, they could not change persistent
issues because they relied on the “entrenched structure of traditional schooling and the
encapsulated classroom” that was developed in the early nineteenth century (p. 126). Tharp
(2008) concludes that after 100 years of reform, schools still struggle to support students in
passing tests, advancing to the next grade level, and graduating. Tharp’s (2008) study builds on
research from Sarason (1997), who concluded that the modern construct of the classroom and
school will be impervious to all types of change initiatives, including curricula, spending,
assessment, or diversifying the educator workforce. Sarason (1990, 1997) predicted that the
inequities between White and low-income students of color would persist for decades unless
reforms changed the fundamental power dynamics between schools and communities. Similarly,
Fullan (2007, 2016) and Byrson et al. (2020) explain how efforts to change school systems are
fundamentally flawed when they only consider one-dimensional, technical solutions at the
expense of not addressing the dynamic social-political environments in which schools operate.
From an anti-colonial perspective, the discourse on education reform relies on
“sociotechnical imaginaries” that reinforce existing categories of meaning on modern progress
and conceal the structural inequities that exist within and around schools (Amsler, 2019; Chang,
p. 30, 2018). These imaginaries are not objective frameworks but are enacted by education

50
reformers that deploy visions of the future along modernist logic that forecloses the possibility of
alternatives. In his study, Chang (2018) analyses how different education reformers invent and
mobilize visions of education reform with meta-narratives of progress and distinct political aims
that ultimately uphold modernity. Amsler (2019) discusses how education reform ideas exist
within the modern colonial imaginary that centers the preservation of the system. While these
reform ideas address certain aspects of the education system, they operate from a blind spot that
assumes injustices in a system can be reduced without addressing the “underlying logics of social
organization” that produce and maintain those injustices (Amsler, p. 926, 2019). In other words,
the solution for school improvement in the modern project of society is to enact more modernity
(Quijano, 2007). Executive directors work within this level of complexity and often contend with
whether their work addresses the underlying logic or relies on meta-narratives of modernist
progress in a capitalist society.
Executive directors contend with the symptoms of deeper issues in schools, like teacher
shortages and academic achievement gaps, while confronting the historical nature of educational
inequity. There is extensive research on how the social and political context influences education
and school reform (Ladson-Billings, 2006; Rury & Mirel, 1997; Scott and Holme; Tyack, 2004).
In a seminal article, Rury and Mirel (1997) develop a political economy of education that
describes how schools are situated in a complex social-political context and within a politically
constructed geography. They argue that unless reforms address how social and economic
interests influence educational activities, they will unlikely solve core problems in education.
They note the shift in urban studies from an ecological approach, which assumed the
environment was neutral and naturally occurring, to a new urban sociology that recognized
issues of power and justice. From an ecological perspective, the issues in schools were the result

51
of systems adapting to capitalist growth and development, and schools had to contend with
increasing competition for resources that disadvantaged urban centers and disproportionately
Black communities (Rury & Mirel, 1997). The assumption was that society was naturally
evolving, and from a structural-functional logic, the increased social issues were a natural
consequence of the mechanics of development. With new urban sociology, researchers began to
draw attention to how space is used to create socio-racial hierarchies, and education researchers
applied these insights to examine the function of schools as part of politically constructed
environments (Gottdiener & Feagin, 1988; Rury & Mirel, 1997). From an ecological perspective,
technical solutions can address short-term issues, but without attention to the underlying
conditions that produce these circumstances, efforts may only further reinscribe the system as it
currently exists (de Oliveira, 2021; Rury & Mirel, 1997).
There is an accumulative effect on educational outcomes for Black, indigenous and
communities of color through trends of political and economic development (Katz & Rose, 2013;
Ladson-Billings, 2006; Omi & Winant, 1994; Rury & Mirel, 1997; Scott, 2011). Ladson-Billings
(2006) famously reframed the achievement gap issue as an education debt. According to LadsonBillings, the achievement gap describes the disparities on standardized tests between White
students and Black, Latina/o, indigenous and recent immigrants (2006). Ladson-Billings (2006)
argues that a focus on incremental progress on test scores year over year sidesteps the reality that
Black, Latina/o, and indigenous communities have contended with numerous historical
injustices. She documents the irreparable harm from slavery and post-slavery society that
instituted legal apartheid, mission schools that dehumanized indigenous students through forced
assimilation, the disproportionate spending on schools with White students, and the exclusion of

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communities of color from the civic process as factors that accumulated a debt carried by Black,
indigenous, and communities of color.
Similarly, Rury and Mirel (1997) and Omni and Winant (1994) discuss the demographic
shift that created predominately Black cities and White suburbs in the 1960s that accelerated a
trend of racial segregation in US cities dating from the pre-World War II era in ways that
reinscribed the settler triad. This structured a new iteration of the racial hierarchy that transferred
economic benefits to White suburban communities, benefitting suburban schools, and further
entrenching predominately Black urban areas in lower property values, higher taxes, and higher
unemployment (Rury & Mirel, 1997). According to Katz and Rose (2013), the paradox is that
public education is expected to lessen these inequalities when it was public education that
created them and, in some cases, continues to reinforce those same inequities.
In this context, executive directors must develop knowledge and skills that enable them to
work within a system designed to foreclose alternative horizons of possibility (Amsler, 2019;
Andreotti, 2016; de Oliveira, 2020). Drawing on insights from ‘Gesturing Towards Decolonial
Futures’ (GTDF), Amsler (2018) explains how leaders need an orientation that acknowledges
complicity in the system they critique while staying aware of the tendencies of systems to
reproduce harm. Without this orientation, leaders can develop a pattern of circularity where there
is a tendency to opt for immediate solutions for a changed future at the expense of understanding
and addressing deeper problems (Amsler, 2018).
The practice of education reform has proceeded through many phases of circularity
(Amsler, 2018). For example, Jackson et al. (2016) reviewed decades of school spending data
assuming that more spending correlates to increased student outcomes but showed minimal
evidence of a positive relationship. Similarly, Hanushek et al. (2022) studied educational

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outcomes over a 50-year period and find little change in student achievement when
disaggregating data by race and socioeconomic status. While these studies consider the system as
it currently exists and not from a critical theoretical perspective, the conclusions point to a need
to understand the persistence of educational inequity despite years of investment in solutions in a
wide range of reforms for school improvement. Executive directors can be caught in this logic of
circularity unless there is attention to how systems can reproduce harm even while applying
remedies if they do not consider the deeper problems of school systems.
The Logic of Market-Based Education Reform
The literature on education reform identifies several distinct eras where a new model of
reform was developed along the lines of providing education opportunities while ensuring the
overall social structure of society remained in place (Brownlee, 2013; Kantor & Lowe, 2013;
Kantor & Brenzel, 1993; Rury & Mirel, 1997; Saltman, 2014; Scott & Holme, 2016). Building
on the research of critical scholars, Brownlee (2013) shows how economic actors have shaped
education policy by analyzing evidence from three periods, including the mid-nineteenth
century, early twentieth century, and post-World War two. In each era, education reform brought
curriculum and pedagogy closer to the needs of industrial capitalism and assumed opportunity
could be afforded through the market (Brownlee, 2013). For example, vocational education
became popular in the early twentieth century, and while it provided some elements of social
mobility, it left the broader social structure intact (Brownlee, 2013; Katz, 1971). Scott and
Holme (2016) identify four distinct eras in education reform through the twentieth and twentyfirst centuries and explain how societal transformations, including urbanization, white flight,
income inequality, and geographical segregation, directly influence school systems and created
conditions for market-based reforms. They argue that not only did market-based reforms

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reinforce inequality, but without significant regulation, these policies often perpetuate social,
political, and economic inequality (Scott & Holme, 2016).
While research has recognized that economic logic or a market-based approach to
education has been prevalent since formal schooling began in the nineteenth century, the 1990s
witnessed a marked shift toward market-oriented education reform (Brownlee, 2013; Kantor &
Lowe, 2013; Saltman, 2014; Scott, 2011; Scott & Holme, 2016). This research acknowledges a
1983 report titled ‘A Nation at Risk’, which argued that the United States was falling behind in
global competition due to its underperforming school systems and that schools needed to operate
more effectively and efficiently to prepare students to compete in the global marketplace. The
business community and big philanthropy introduced reforms in education that focused on
improving how schools operate by applying market principles to the education system
(Brownlee, 2013; Scott & Holme, 2016). Proponents believed that choice and competition
through charter schools and voucher programs would increase school quality and pressure school
systems to improve (Saltman, 2014; Scott, 2011). Critics argued that this would lead to
privatizing education and transferring resources from disadvantaged schools and communities to
those communities that can adapt and change. Scott (2011) and Scott and Holme (2016) show
how market-based reforms intersect with racially segregated communities and reinforce this
social organization through the distribution of resources.
Market logic in education reform became a dominant paradigm that defined how
problems and solutions were identified in US public schools (Brownlee, 2013; Saltman, 2014;
Scott & Holme, 2016). Public education was viewed as suffering from inefficiency, bureaucracy,
and regulation and could be effectively addressed by employing principles from the private
sector, including standardization, benchmarking or testing, accountability, and competition

55
(Brownlee, 2013; Kantor & Lowe, 2013). This was part of a broader trend that influenced the
entire public sector and is typified by the adoption of New Public Management, similar to trends
discussed above concerning nonprofit organizations (Eikenberry et al., 2019; Bromley, 2020;
Salamon, 2012; Saltman, 2014). The logic of the market became an epistemological totality that
foreclosed any alternatives to solving societal problems (Brownlee, 2013; Mignolo, 2007). In
education, this fundamentally transformed the meaning of learning and created a market where
students consume and produce knowledge in line with pre-determined standards (Amsler, 2019;
Brownlee, 2013; Chang, 2019;). This approach to education was accelerated with the passage of
No Child Left Behind in the Bush era and Race To the Top in the Obama era, which established
the paradigm of school improvement around standardized test scores (Brownlee, 2013; Scott,
2011). Brownlee (2013) shows that this approach was so dominant that there was unity among
conservative and progressive leaders who shared a vision for the state's role in providing public
goods and were determined to redefine social spending. For example, Brownlee (2013) explains
how the passage of No Child Left Behind modified Title I funding that was initially intended to
equalize funding and penalized schools and students who did not make sufficient yearly
progress. In addition, Brownlee (2013) and Scott and Holme (2016) analyze the role of large
philanthropic organizations in funding and advocating for market-based reforms and show how
these organizations influenced education policy in districts across the United States.
Teach For America was established during this era of business principles' increased
influence in addressing or solving social issues. In this context, executive directors contend with
a dominant paradigm of reform as they develop regional strategies to address educational equity
within their communities where the market paradigm can clash with effective strategies to
address educational inequity. While market-based reform has been the dominant paradigm in

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education, the research also shows the inadequacy of this approach in addressing long-standing
issues in education, including racial segregation, inequitable funding, and schooling focused on
preparing students for their economic role in society (Amsler, 2019; Brownlee, 2013; Kantor &
Lowe, 2013; Scott & Holme, 2016). Amsler (2019), Brownlee (2013), and Scott (2011) show
that market-based reforms reinscribe racial and economic inequities through the implementation
of policies and practices that assume a single teleological view of progress and distribute
resources in ways that uphold the current system. These reform efforts focus on the short-term
issues of narrowing the achievement gap and preparing students for a future in the world as it
currently exists. However, the mission of Teach For America is to eliminate educational inequity
– the reality that race and socioeconomic status can predict a student's academic and life
outcomes. Based on the literature review on education and education reform, this will require
much more than narrowing the gap on standardized assessments (Ladson-Billings, 2006). In the
final section, I will review the literature on Teach For America’s mission, the Teach For America
debate, and the role of executive directors.
Teach For America
Teach For America (TFA), a nonprofit organization, was established in 1990 to eliminate
educational inequity by building a network of leaders committed to working inside and outside
education systems (Kopp, 2008; Kopp & Farr, 2011). The theory of change is explained as
finding promising leaders, supporting educators in classrooms, developing systems change
leaders, and fostering collective leadership (TFA Our Approach, n.d.). This approach is
grounded in lessons TFA describes as drawn from historical examples of what change requires,
including leaders working inside and outside the system, the effort being led by those most
impacted and with proximity to the issues, and a broad and diverse coalition with a common

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purpose and vision (TFA Our Approach, n.d.). Kopp (2008) points out that a significant measure
of TFA’s impact is that although less than 10% of TFA corps members say they would have
considered education as a career, over 60% of alumni, those who completed their two-year
commitment, work full time in education as a result of their experience. While the focus of most
research has evaluated the effectiveness of Teach For America’s two-year program or the role of
alumni in education, there has been minimal research on the role of regional executive directors
working in the capacity of nonprofit leaders within their communities to address the long-term,
systemic issues in local school systems. Teach For America embodies the inherent tension of
soft, radical, and beyond reform that de Oliveira discusses, and looking closely at how front-line
full-time staff negotiates these tensions can offer valuable insight into the role Teach For
America plays in disrupting or upholding the colonial structure of society.
Teach For America Debate
The literature on Teach For America covers a diverse set of studies that examine the
effectiveness of the two-year program, the impact on schools and communities, and the role of
alumni in advocating for education reform initiatives (An & Koedel, 2021; Backes and Hansen,
2015; Conn et al., 2022; Darling-Hammond et al., 2005; Dobbie and Fryer, 2015; Edelman et al.,
2017; La Londe, et al., 2015; Penner, 2019; Scott et al., 2016; Trujillo & Scott, 2014; Wright et
al., 2019). This literature reflects the dimensions of the ongoing debates on the impact and
influence of Teach For America corps members and alumni in education.
Teach For America Critiques
One of the primary critiques of Teach For America is that the organization places
inexperienced and underprepared teachers in the most high-needs schools with minimal support
(Blumenreich & Rogers, 2016; Darling-Hammond et al., 2005). Darling-Hammond et al. (2005)

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note that the debate on teacher education is split between those who argue there is a strong
correlation between teacher preparation and student outcomes and those who argue that teacher
effectiveness is a function of more general academic ability. Darling-Hammond et al. (2005) use
longitudinal data from a seven-year period to correlate teacher certification status, experience
and degree levels with student characteristics and achievement between TFA and non-TFA
teachers. Their findings show that TFA teachers are less effective than certified teachers and are
at least as effective as other uncertified teachers. Several other studies have examined the
relationship between preparation and effectiveness. Laczko-Kerr and Berliner (2002) and Pilcher
and Steele (2005) also compared TFA teachers with fully certified teachers in low-income
schools and found that TFA teachers were less effective than certified teachers. These studies
respond to other research that found TFA teachers to be as effective as other teachers (Raymond
et al., 2001; Decker et al., 2004). However, as Darling-Hammond (2005) and Anderson (2013)
point out, these studies compared similarly untrained teachers and likely shows that there is a
positive relationship between preparation and teacher effectiveness.
Teach For America’s approach in its early years was to attract the best and the brightest
into education with the belief that those with records of academic success and leadership
experience would be effective teachers (Blumenreich & Rogers, 2016; Krawford-Garrett et al.,
2021; Kopp, 2008). Blumenreich and Rogers (2016) critique TFA’s approach to recruiting the
best and the brightest as a strategy that claimed to address a growing teacher shortage and a
quality issue in America’s schools by placing students from elite colleges and universities in
low-income urban districts. Through in-depth oral interviews with thirty TFA alum Blumenreich
and Rogers (2016) elicit how individual life stories of those with a more privileged background
intersected with broader cultural assumptions to examine the socially constructed notion of the

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best and the brightest. They conclude that while TFA had effectively recruited the best and the
brightest, as defined in the 1990s, these teachers struggled to teach and lacked the preparation
they needed to create common materials like lesson plans, units of study or assessments.
Similarly, Krawford-Garrett et al. (2021) examine the discourse of meritocratic mythologies
among TFA participants in both the United States and Teach First New Zealand and show how
despite different socio-political and economic contexts, there is a similar logic used by
participants and program leaders around effective leadership and good teaching. This research
shows how the dominant ideas of individualism and market-based ideology are reflected in the
experiences of TFA participants.
Opponents of TFA argue that participants in the two-year program do not positively
impact student achievement (Boyd, 2006; Darling-Hammond, 2005; Laczko-Kerr & Berliner,
2002; Pilcher & Steele, 2005). These studies are a response to Raymond et al. (2001) and Decker
et al. (2004) which showed that TFA teachers were more effective on average than their peers in
elementary reading and mathematics. Laczko-Kerr and Berliner (2002) argued that because
previous research on TFA compared two groups of under-certified teachers, these studies
obscured the reality that certified teachers are more effective. In their study they created pairs of
certified and under-certified teachers in Arizona and showed that fully certified teachers,
compared to those with either emergency, temporary, or provisional certifications, outperformed
these under-certified teachers. However, later research pointed out that this study assumed
students in classrooms were at similar academic levels and did not acknowledge that often times
under-certified teachers are placed in lower-performing classrooms (Xu et al., 2011). Pilcher and
Steele (2005) studied a small group of TFA teachers in Atlanta, Georgia and compared
effectiveness, as measured by achievement tests, and efficacy, as measured by the Hoy and

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Woolfolk Teacher Efficacy Scale. Their study showed that regularly and fully trained teachers
had higher levels of student achievement and a greater sense of efficacy compared to TFA
teachers.
Critiques of Teach For America point to retention as a critical flaw in its organizational
model (Boyd et al., 2009; Darling-Hammond, 2005; Donaldson & Johnson, 2011; Heineke et al.,
2014; MacIver & Vaugn, 2007; Noelle & Gansle, 2009). This research documents the turnover
of TFA teachers after their two-year commitment compared to traditionally trained teachers. The
literature has shown the historical problem of teacher retention and its impact on the education
system. Nearly one-third of the teaching force turns over yearly, predominately affecting lowincome students of color (Haberman, 2004; Hunt & Carroll, 2003). In her study on Houston
Independent School District, Darling-Hammond (2005) showed that attrition for TFA teachers
between 1995-2002 was nearly double that of traditional teachers. MacIver and Vaughn (2007)
found that while TFA teachers were less likely to leave during their two-year commitment,
nearly 60% left their school after their third year, and after 5 years, 80% had left their school.
Heineke et al. (2014) used qualitative interviews in addition to school district data across 43 TFA
regions and found that just over 50% left the classroom after the third year. Researchers have
argued that since TFA only requires a two-year commitment, the program creates a “revolving
door approach” to education which undermines school sustainability and ultimately eliminating
educational inequity (McConney et al., p. vii, 2012)
There is growing research on the role Teach For America plays in the broader education
reform movement (Anderson, 2013, 2019; Crawford-Garrett et al., 2021; Kretchmar et al., 2014;
La Londe et al., 2015; Scott et al., 2016; Trujillo et al., 2017). The literature recognizes that
TFA’s greatest influence may lay outside the classroom and is in its ability to shape public

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education by facilitating entry into leadership roles. Scott et al. (2016) introduce a conceptual
framework for analyzing TFA’s influence beyond the classroom that focuses on the role TFA
alum play as policy entrepreneurs who leverage elite power networks to promote corporate
models of managerial leadership. They document the relationships between philanthropy and
TFA’s development of an elite network to advocate for neoliberal education reform policies that
focus on market-based reforms. Their research shows that advocacy for reform focused less on
inputs and the historical context that influence educational inequity and pointed to issues of
management, efficiency, and accountability as solutions for school improvement (Scott et al.,
2016). Kretchmar et al. (2014) use policy network analysis to visually represent TFA’s role in
building a network to influence federal charter reform. In their study, they show organizations
that have been founded or are staffed by TFA alum and map these connections to political and
financial networks that have supported and facilitated the growth of charter school reform.
Similarly, La Londe et al. (2015) use a critical discourse analysis to review documents from TFA
and Teach For All to show how TFA, as an intermediary network organization, spreads the ideas
of market-based reform beyond the United States to transform teacher development in other
countries based on pedagogical assumptions of individualism and competition around raising test
scores.
While there is extensive research on TFA effectiveness and conceptual debates on the
model, fewer studies focus on the experiences of current corps members and alumni. Trujillo and
Scott (2014) and Trujillo et al. (2017) interviewed 117 alumni and 47 current corps members as
part of a longitudinal study on TFA’s leadership model. They concluded that ‘TFAers’ mostly
viewed educational inequalities as the result of poor management, lack of financial resources,
and ineffective teachers. Trujillo and Scott (2014) defined this leadership model as identifying

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managerial problems that require managerial fixes rather than an acknowledgment of broader
policies that perpetuate these inequities. There were few from their sample of interviews that
recognized how policies around finances, access, or segregation created these inequities. Over
80% said that school problems could be fixed with higher expectations, more accountability, and
a commitment to results. In their article titled Superheroes and Transformers, Trujillo and Scott
(2014) document themes of heroism and individualism through interviews with TFAers that
reflected a model of leadership defined by the image of a “morally virtuous, epic hero” (p. 57).
They note that experts on the topic of educational leadership warn against these types of
technical or managerialist approaches to leadership because they can detract from the
“pedagogical, socioemotional, and civic aims for schools” (Trujillo & Scott, p. 59, 2014). At the
same time, Trujillo and Scott (2014) recognize the need for passionate, courageous and
committed educational leaders and encourage future researchers and TFA alumni to work closely
on effective ways to transform education.
Trujillo and Scott (2014) signal a theme in the literature that recognizes the potential
harm caused by Teach For America with its focus or preference for a specific, singular
epistemological view of education reform while also seeing the potential for TFA to be a part of
addressing persistent issues in education (Anderson, 2013, 2019, 2020; Lapayese et al., 2014).
Anderson (2019) draws on Ladson-Billings' (2006) education debt framework to evaluate TFA’s
approach to eliminating educational inequity. Anderson (2019) argues that research has shown
how the neoliberal approach to reform relies on discourse about social justice while at the same
time advocating for reforms that actively work against policies that address historical inequities.
Anderson (2019) notes that TFA’s focus on students who have been impacted by inequitable
policies suggests a “concern with the elimination of structural inequalities” (p. 5). According to

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Anderson (2019), TFA could be one potential way to address Ladson-Billings' (2006) concept of
education debt. However, Anderson’s (2019) key argument is that TFA’s approach requires a
persistent influx of recruits and undermines its perceived intention to want long-term change.
Lahann and Reagan (2011) refer to this approach as progress neoliberalism which means
adhering to private sector methodologies while also working to change the systems that produce
the inequities needing change. Anderson (2019) concludes that TFA cannot be a solution for
long-term educational change without addressing the historical, economic, sociopolitical, and
moral ideas from Ladson-Billings’ education debt framework. Similarly, Lapayese et al. (2014)
use a critical race lens and Bell’s (1980) interest convergence theory to understand the lived
experience of people of color in TFA. Through their analysis, Lapayese et al. (2014) show how
TFA benefits the racial and economic interests of White teachers and make a number of
recommendations to address organizational inequities in the areas of recruitment, admissions,
training, and alumni career support.
The review of literature on critiques of TFA show the complexity executive directors
hold as they steward TFA’s mission in their local communities. They are primarily responsible
for defining how the organization bridges the short and long term aspects of TFA’s theory of
change and contend with the insufficiency of the two-year program to address the complex
dynamics of educational inequity.
Support for Teach For America
The literature in support of TFA has shown that TFA teachers produce similar
educational outcomes as comparison teachers (Backes & Hansen, 2015; Conn et al., 2022; Clark
et al., 2013, 2015; Decker et al., 2004; Raymond et al., 2001; Xu et al., 2011), school partners of
TFA value the placement of new recruits (Edelman et al., 2017), and alumni develop the

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knowledge and skills to address the complex nature of educational inequity (Penner, 2019; Conn
et al., 2022). Aside from research on TFA alumni, most research in support of TFA is
quantitative or quasi-experimental designed studies focused on isolating the academic
achievement of a group of students in a TFA classroom. While this offers useful insight into the
relative effectiveness of a TFA teacher in a particular context, the mission of TFA is to eliminate
educational equity, and research shows, as mentioned above, that the cause of educational
inequity in the United States stems from a range of social, political, and economic factors part of
settler colonial society. However, given the dominant critiques of TFA, there has been significant
research on students' academic achievement in TFA classrooms.
The first studies that suggested TFA teachers were just effective, and in some cases more
effective, than traditionally trained teachers were done by Raymond et al. (2001) and Decker et
al. (2004). Raymond et al. (2014) studied TFA and non-TFA teacher comparison groups between
1996 and 2000 in Houston Independent School District. They collected data on the Texas
Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) for reading, language arts, and math. Raymond et al.
(2001) found that TFA teachers were more effective than their peers and their performance was
more consistent over time compared to non-TFA teachers. While this study found positive
evidence for supporters of TFA, the authors, and critics acknowledge some limitations. The aim
of the study was to assess learning in elementary and middle school but due to complications in
isolating the effect of one teacher for middle school students was difficult. In addition, the study
revealed that TFA teachers were more likely to be placed in high-poverty schools than novice
non-TFA teachers, and it was not clear if non-TFA teachers were similarly under-certified.
Decker et al. (2004) completed the first national study of TFA and given its geographic
scope and experimental approach, it is known as one of the most rigorous studies to date. This

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study included five regions, seventeen schools, 100 classrooms and 2,000 students. The central
difference between Decker et al. (2004) and Raymond et al. (2001) is that former study kept
control and treatment groups within the same school which allowed a stronger counterfactual for
the hypothesis regarding TFA teacher effectiveness. Decker et al. (2004) concluded that students
in TFA math classrooms moved from the 14th to the 17th percentile, compared to non-TFA
students who remained at the 15th percentile, which equals roughly one additional month of
learning in TFA classrooms. Decker et al. (2004) and Raymond et al. (2001) provided strong
evidence against critiques that TFA teachers lack of preparation would negatively impact
students and led to the subsequent studies by Darling-Hammond et al. (2005), Laczko-Kerr and
Berliner (2002), and Pilcher and Steele (2005) mentioned above.
Teach For America has largely been viewed as a static organization in the literature and
assumed that TFA’s program or intervention in education is unchanging and produces singular or
uniform outcomes (Conn et al., 2022; Penner, 2021). However, recent research shows a different
pattern. Penner (2021) argues that research tends to treat TFA as a static organization and
overlook how TFA responds to critics by reorganizing and improving its program. Penner (2021)
examines different periods of significant change within TFA that addressed critiques of its
recruitment, admissions, training, and ongoing support for TFA teachers. Penner (2021) explains
that TFA moved from a focus on “closing the achievement gap” to “altering educational
trajectories” while continuing to improve teacher effectiveness (p. 1051). Penner (2021) analyzes
two time periods within these periods of reform and concludes that the effects on student
achievement were sustained over time and, in some cases, increased, but there was variation
across subject and grade levels. Penner (2021) defines a third period as a focus on diversifying
new recruits' racial and socioeconomic profiles. White (2016) admits that TFA’s diversity

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initiative addressed concerns from critics about how its recruitment efforts overlook BIPOC
recruits but argues that the strategy is undermined by TFA’s broader policy stance on reform that
may push educators of color out of schools. However, White (2016) offers several
recommendations to strengthen TFA’s commitment to diversity.
More recent research has countered the earlier claims that TFA produces managerialist
education leaders focused on efficiency and efficacy based on principles of market ideology
(Trujillo & Scott, 2014; La Londe et al., 2015; Conn et al., 2022). Trujillo and Scott (2014) and
La Londe et al. (2015) argued that TFA’s market-based approach to education reform was
creating a cadre of education leaders that were well-intentioned but short-sighted. They were
concerned that TFA was creating influential “social and political actors” solely committed to
neoliberal education reform (p. 359). Conn et al. (2022) found that TFA teachers were more
likely to explain poor student outcomes from structural rather than individualistic explanations.
Their study defined eligibility criteria for 120,417 participants who comprised a sample of those
who advanced to the final stage of admissions in TFA but were not made an offer and those who
were given an offer to join TFA. This allowed a comparison of how the TFA experience shaped
perspectives on education. Conn et al. (2022) conclude that participation in TFA reduces beliefs
that innate characteristics of low-income students contribute to differences in income-based
educational attainment. Specifically, Conn et al. (2022) show that “TFA participants focus on
situational or environmental factors that low-income students face, rather than their traits or
dispositions” and, compared to non-TFA participants, they are more likely to disagree that “poor
families do not value education” (p. 16). Other research has shown TFA teacher influence on
non-test outcomes, including fewer absences and suspensions in TFA classrooms (Backes &
Hansen, 2018) and positive effects on high school completion (Penner, 2014). As Penner (2021)

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argues, research has tended to treat TFA as a singular, unchanging entity with a narrow
perspective on education while overlooking how TFA has changed in response to legitimate
critiques.
Teach For America executive directors play an important role in stewarding TFA’s
mission in communities and in helping the organization navigate the complexity of issues around
education and TFA’s role in reform. The majority of research on TFA has focused on teacher
efficacy, conceptual debates on the program model, and its influence in education. There is
minimal research on the perspectives or experiences of staff who lead work in communities and
contend with the inherent tensions, paradoxes, and dilemmas of Teach For America while
simultaneously working to steward its mission. The next section will briefly review the literature
on nonprofit executive directors and TFA’s conception of the executive director role.
Nonprofit Executive Directors
Executive directors are pivotal in nonprofit organizations (Dicke, L., & Agard, K., 2011).
While leadership is well-researched, the literature on nonprofit executive leadership as a distinct
field is relatively small (Kearns et al., 2015). In their study, Kearns et al. (2015) used an in-depth
interview protocol designed to elicit beliefs, values, and assumptions without projecting bias.
Their study built on Herman and Heimovics (1990) and Heimovics and Herman (1989), which
focused primarily on technical skills and the importance of the executive directors' relationship
with the board. Kearns et al. (2015) identified 285 unique skill constructs under three broad
categories: technical skills, interpersonal or social judgment, and conceptual skills. Previous
research suggested that conceptual skills, or the ability to solve ill-defined, novel and complex
problems, would be more heavily weighted for nonprofit executives (Bennis, 2003; Kearns et al.,
2015). However, Kearns et al. (2015) found that interpersonal skills and social judgment,

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particularly building trust, were weighted heavier than technical or conceptual skills.
Respondents in the study consistently identified skills related to perspective-taking, convening
and consensus-building both internally and externally, and communicating with diverse
audiences as more important than technical or conceptual skills.
While this research builds on seminal texts on leadership, the literature recognizes that
nonprofit executives lead in unique contexts from private or public organizations (Block, 2023;
Frumkin, 2002; Kearns et al., 2015; Salamon, 2012; Sanders, 2012). Sanders (2012) and Nikel
and Eikenberry (2009) argue that the marketization of the nonprofit sector reveals the inherent
tensions nonprofit leaders contend with as they balance the tension between the financial
imperatives of the market with the private yet unprofitable needs of a social mission. According
to Sanders (2012), this “organizing tension” is integral to a nonprofit organization and is not
something to be resolved but accepted as an ontological feature of nonprofit organizations in a
market economy (p. 182). Sanders (2012) suggests that nonprofit organizational success may
depend on recognizing and managing this tension common to nonprofit organizations and allow
for the development of more complex theories relevant to nonprofit executives' leadership
practice. Sanders (2012) relies on Ashcraft & Trethewey (2004), who suggest a different
epistemological boundary for organizational leadership theories and argue leaders should move
away from assumptions of rationality that bind leaders to expect linear or unidirectional goals.
According to Ashcraft and Trethewey (2004), tension and contradiction is a normal part of
leading nonprofit organizations and the focus of research and practice should be helping
nonprofit leaders manage and live with these tensions.
The literature describes the nonprofit executive role as covering a broad range of
responsibilities that show the complexity of executive directors' work (Carlson & Donohoe,

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2003; Lewis, 2001; Linnel et al., 2002). This literature recognizes that the executive director role
has become increasingly complex, stressful, and oftentimes misunderstood. These authors define
12 dimensions of the executive director profile that include being the principal architect for
organizational planning and stakeholder coordination, building external understanding and
investment in their organization, managing resources, being aware of and navigating external
change that influences the organization, and creating culture and setting the tone with internal
and external stakeholders around strategy, performance, and impact. Lane (2004) argues that the
majority of literature on nonprofit leadership overlooks the complexity of the executive role and
focuses too narrowly on technical components such as board management, real estate, financial
management and technology. While these are important aspects of managing an organization
Lane (2004) argues that the executive director role is less about mechanical functions of an
organization and more about being a community creator. Carlson and Donohue (2003) make a
similar argument and explain that an executive director’s primary roles are to be a visionary, a
change agent, and a relationship builder. The challenge of the executive director role is how to
bring together diverse and even divergent stakeholders around a common vision for a community
that highlights how current systems or structures fail to meet the needs of different people. For
example, executive directors often engage the business community as donors whose companies
may contribute to the very inequities a nonprofit addresses within a community (Kingston, et al.,
2019; Mailhot et al., 2020).
Executive Directors at Teach For America
Teach For America developed an external-facing executive director role profile prototype
intended to clarify executive directors' role for internal staff, external supporters and regional and
national board members (TFA, 2021). Executive directors at TFA lead an organizational unit

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referred to as a TFA region, and the region could be defined by city, metropolitan area, or state
(TFA, n.d.). Each region operates programming for corps members and alumni, works with local
school partners, develops local fundraising capacity, and leads a full-time staff. The primary role
of executive directors is to develop a localized vision and strategy that reflects TFA's role in
advancing toward their 10-year goal in their assigned region (TFA, 2021). Their primary
responsibilities include four areas: 1) strategic inquiry, vision and direction, 2) community and
coalition building, 3) fundraising and resource stewardship, and 4) team and organizational
leadership. Strategic inquiry is defined as continually evolving and animating activities that
reflect a responsive and comprehensive local strategy. Executive directors have historically had
significant autonomy in building and iterating local programming in addition to TFA’s two-year
corps program. Community and coalition building is focused on the executive directors' role in
influencing local conversation on education and catalyzing local champions to advance systems
change. Fundraising and organizational leadership are components that contribute to the financial
and human capital capacity of the region.
The profile of a TFA executive director aligns with the literature on nonprofit executive
leadership and reflects the complexities inherent in the role. The role of convener, coalition
building, and strategic inquiry match the change agent construct from Carlson and Donohue
(2003) and Lane’s (2004) idea of a community creator. Most research identifies fundraising,
board governance, and finances as necessary components of the executive director role but
places an emphasis on the ability of executive directors to build relationships, navigate complex
environments and steward their mission with diverse audiences (Carlson, et al., 2003; Lewis,
2001; Linnel et al., 2002). TFA’s executive director profile includes these components as well as

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a commitment to racial equity, a component not included in the literature on nonprofit
executives.
In 2021, TFA completed a racial equity audit with the Racial Equity Institute, resulting in
publicly available recommendations on its website (Villanueva-Beard, May 13, 2021;
Villanueva-Beard, August 6, 2020). While the work around racial equity at TFA has continued to
evolve, the initial actions included adopting a racial equity orientation, deepening accountability
to communities, and building internal capabilities to transform its culture. The executive director
role was revised as part of these efforts as TFA considered new approaches to deeper
relationships in communities and greater accountability to students in those communities. There
has been extensive research on TFA’s approach to teacher preparation (Darling-Hammond et al.,
2005), the diversity of its corps members (Anderson, 2020; Lapayese et al., 2014), and the
influence of alumni (Scott et al., 2016), but there has been limited research TFA’s work in
communities and how recent changes in the organization will influence its ability to effect
systemic change in education.
Conceptual Framework
The following section reviews anticolonial theory (Alfred, 2005; Andreotti, 2016; Tuck
& Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2012) as a theoretical grounding for this study. It considers de
Oliveria’s social cartography as an analytic framework for evaluating how Teach For America
works within or without the frame of modernity and how the organization can move beyond
reproducing inequities in education and toward alternative futures of justice. While TFA has
recognized it has reached a limit in its ability to create change in education effectively, leaders of
the organization may be bound by epistemological and ontological models that foreclose the
possibility of crossing the frontier of its current capacity to create change.

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Anti-colonial Grounding
The literature on anti-colonial thought recognizes that settler colonialism is an ongoing
project in US society and continues to shape and influence social, political, and economic
relationships (Brayboy, 2005; Alfred, 2005; Andreotti, 2016; Mignolo, 2007; Tuck & Yang,
2012; Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2013; Wolf, 2006; Veracini, 2014). Settler colonialism is
an ongoing project that reifies racial relations between White settlers, who occupy the top of a
social hierarchy in relation to Black and Indigenous people reflected in the material conditions of
society like housing, education, healthcare, and landownership, while also inscribing a logic that
forecloses alternative ways of knowing and understanding the world. Mignolo (2007) calls this a
totality the excludes and occludes other forms of intelligibility and controls the use and access to
material resources in society. Andreotti (2016) describes this as epistemic blindness that results
from a modern subjectivity that assumes a view of the world as neutral, universal, and
benevolent. This logic persists as part of the colonial project and reinscribes modern subjectivity
as the solution for progress while maintaining the other in society as unfinished and unformed.
This logic is revealed in education and the role formal schooling plays in the production of social
inequities (Bowles & Gintis, 2011; Patel, 2016), in the nonprofit sector and the ways nonprofit
organizations reflect the discourse of the modern market economy (Eikenberry, 2009), and
through an organizational model that normalizes scientific rationality and gives authority to
specific methodologies (Bromley, 2020). From a anti-colonial perspective, the limitations on
organizations like TFA are historically rooted in epistemological and ontological assumptions
that normalize a worldview and foreclose alternative horizons of possibility. Indigenous theories
of change look beyond current institutions and organizations premised on modern ontological
hegemonies and envision movements focused on remaking the relations of power in society

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(Alfred, 2005). Bryson et al. (2021) recognize the limits of recent efforts in advancing social
transformation, like community organizing or collective impact strategies, and argue these have
proven insufficient in addressing power relations in systems as they exist.
Anti-colonial theoretical grounding situates TFA in the context of a society that is
structured by settler colonialism and, as a result, contends with the inherent tensions,
contradictions, and paradoxes of operating in that structure. TFA operates a two-year program
that it acknowledges is insufficient in light of the deep structural issues in education but relies on
the program in response to the need for teachers. TFA’s theory of change is not about solving the
teacher shortage but is about developing leaders in education that are locally focused and
committed to ending education inequity. However, TFA has not identified how to leverage its
network's resources to move beyond its current model's limitations and realize its potential to
create this type of change. From an anti-colonial perspective, educational inequity is a
consequence of unequal power relations sustained by the inherent logic of modernity and TFA
would have to move beyond existing power structures that assume modernity’s neutrality,
universality, and benevolence to realize the end of educational inequity.
Soft-, radical-, beyond reform social cartography
de Oliveira (2021) and de Oliveira et al. (2016) provide a social cartography of responses
to modernity as a pedagogical approach to understanding different perspectives on modernity. de
Oliveira (2021) explains there are different responses to crises like educational equity that fall in
four categories: 1) the current system can be improved and expanded 2) current institutions can
be fixed with better policy 3) there is a need to create new systems and 4) new ideas will only be
possible once the current system becomes impossible. Current approaches to education have
largely focused on creating more access or inclusion in current systems and can be seen in TFA’s

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approach to recruit more teachers into schools as they currently exist even while acknowledging
these systems themselves are a cause of the inequities they want to address. de Oliveira et al.’s
(2015) map of reform accounts for this reality by acknowledging that working to improve current
systems may be necessary in the short term but insufficient in addressing the bigger picture. The
social cartography maps four discursive locations in reform that suggest a range of ideas for the
way forward and have distinct “commitments, analysis, and orientations” (de Oliveira et al., p.
25, 2015). These four places are: 1) everything is awesome 2) soft-reform 3) radical reform, and
4) beyond reform. See Figure 1 for a complete description of de Oliveira’s social cartography.

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Figure 1
de Oliveira’s Social Cartography
Note. Reprinted from “Mapping Interpretations of Decolonization in the Context of Higher
Education,” by V. Andreotti, S. Stein, C. Ahenakew, & D. Hunt, 2015, Decolonization:
Indigeneity, Education & Society, 4(1), p. 25. Copyright by Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti.
The game is awesome space is defined by the view that society has never been better than
it is today, and any existing problems can be solved by expanding the current system and making
it more efficient (de Oliveira et al. 2015). This space recognizes any critique as a distraction and
impediment to progress. The soft-reform space assumes that greater inclusion in the current
system will lead to transformation, and it is through personal development and empowerment
that individuals will experience success. Similar to the everything is awesome space, soft reform

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overlooks the structural issues of power and resources that exclude or occlude individuals and
groups in society. The radical reform space recognizes the influence of epistemological
dominance on unequal societal relations that affect the uneven distribution of material resources.
While this space sees structural issues, it views them as disconnected and argues that change is
possible by focusing on individual systems or structures. In the beyond reform space, ontological
dominance persists as multiple inequities and oppression of modernity are seen as
interconnected, and the overall modern system is inherently unsustainable. In this analysis,
additional ways of knowing are insufficient since different and varied ways of knowing cannot
undo ontological dominance.
There are different readings of de Oliveira et al.’s (2015) social cartography that include
seeing this a cognitive progression from one place of knowing to another, seeing the beyond
reform space as improbable and foreclosed, and recognizing that we are located in all these
spaces at once as we work to “address incommensurable demands of a system in crisis” (p. 29).
While Teach For America recognizes the harm of its work and aspires to evolve in a way that
fundamentally transforms how they work, as an organization originating within the
epistemological and ontological paradigm of modernity, it has played a role in maintaining the
harmful effects of modernity. de Oliveira’s (2021) social cartography acknowledges that it may
be necessary to focus on soft reform, and movement in these locations may be more fluid, but
leaders must maintain integrity to an understanding of broader project of modernity and its
predilection for harm. Executive directors occupy a unique space within TFA as they work to
identify how to deepen their commitment to communities, increase accountability to students and
families and steward the mission of TFA while acknowledging the broader structural issues of
educational inequity.

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Summary
The literature above discussed the history and origins of education, education reform,
nonprofit organizations, and Teach For America through an anti-colonial grounding that
identifies settler colonialism as the foundation and root cause of educational inequity in the
United States. The constructs of modernity, settler futurity, epistemic blindness and indigenous
theories of change were employed to consider how these theoretical ideas influence Teach For
America in the context of education and education reform. Teach For America was considered as
a nonprofit organization that operates in the current epistemological and ontological paradigm of
a market economy, and the literature reviewed showed the complexities organizations and
leaders face as they navigate the tensions of proving efficiency and effectiveness while honoring
their commitment to their social mission.
This literature showed that nonprofit organizations often struggle to identify the evidence
of long-term impact and develop strategies to effect systemic change. This review described
changes at TFA in recent years and how senior leaders have identified how TFA needs to evolve
as an organization to deepen community relationships and center its work in greater
accountability to students and families. This chapter concluded with a conceptual model for this
study that is grounded in anti-colonial thought and utilizes a social cartographical map to explore
the potential paths for TFA to increase its ability to foster meaningful change in communities

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Chapter Three: Methodology
The following chapter describes the research methods used to explore how Teach For
America can move beyond the constraints of its current model and increase its ability to impact
educational equity in local communities. The following sections will define the methodological
approach and importance given the theoretical framework used in this study, the selection of
participants, the research setting, and the procedures for data collection and analysis. This
chapter will conclude with the approach to ensure an ethical and trustworthy study.
Research Questions
1. How do executive leaders at Teach For America describe their theory of change in the
context of communities where they work?
2. How do modernity’s epistemological and ontological boundaries shape TFA
executive leaders’ approach to education reform in their community?
3. How do executive leaders at Teach For America approach education in a way that
acknowledges the inherent tensions and paradoxes of modernity while enacting a
commitment to transforming education?
Overview of Design
This study seeks to understand the work of Teach For America in local communities
through the experiences of regional executive directors. The proposed research strategy is a
critical qualitative case study designed to provide an in-depth description of the role of executive
directors with a focus on critiquing the way things are to make visible inherent tensions and
conflict in order to create change (Alvesson & Deetz, 2021; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). The
critical qualitative case study is appropriate given the use of anti-colonial thought as a theoretical
grounding for this study (de Oliveira, 2021). This grounding questions the efforts for social

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change and problematizes theories of change used by nonprofits by critically evaluating the
extent to which these organizations work to improve institutions and systems as they are or
recognize the modern system as inherently unsustainable. Teach For America executive directors
work in the space of seeing the insufficiency of the current education system while recognizing
its immediate needs. As a result, the in-depth description offered by a critical qualitative case
study will provide the rich description needed to understand how Teach For America can move
beyond the constraints of its current model to effect change.
Critical Qualitative Case Study Approach
A qualitative design's essential characteristic is understanding the meaning people make
of their circumstances through describing and decoding phenomena in the social world (Merriam
& Tisdell, 2016). The case study approach is distinct in its in-depth description within a bounded
system (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Merriam and Tisdell (2016) describe a bounded system as a
“single entity” focused on “understanding one thing well” and something you can “fence in”
conceptually (p. 38). They contrast this with selecting a topic or focus area where there could be
innumerable experiences or participants as part of a study. In a case study approach, a particular
group, person, organization, or program is selected, and a defined boundary exists on who is
included in the study (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016; Patton, 2002). In addition, Yin (2014) explains
that a case study is designed to examine a contemporary situation in a real-world context. This
approach can yield particularly useful insights given that the boundaries between the variables of
a situation and the specific context can be so interlinked that it would be difficult to study one in
isolation from the other (Yin, 2014). In this study, the case will be executive directors at Teach
For America who currently lead a TFA region. This study's participants will offer rich, in-depth
descriptions of their work in communities. According to Cassell and Symon (2004), the overall

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goal of this approach is to distill insights from a specific context that can provide insight into the
theoretical ideas identified in a study.
Merriam and Tisdell (2016) and Alvesson and Deetz (2021) describe critical research as
an approach that seeks to see phenomena in historical and cultural contexts to critique and
challenge what we think we know about reality to make change happen. Merriam and Tisdell
(2016) explain that a critical lens can be applied to most qualitative research, and the theoretical
framework used in a study makes that study critical research. This study utilizes decolonial
theory as its theoretical framework to examine the tensions, complexity, and paradox of a
nonprofit organization working towards educational equity. As a result, a critical qualitative case
study approach is appropriate in that it allows the study to make visible the inherent tensions in
the work of Teach For America with a focus on creating change. According to Merriam and
Tisdell (2016) and Patton (2002), the ultimate goal of critical research is to bring about change.
Lastly, a critical approach focuses less on the actions or behaviors of an individual than on the
social, political or economic context of a situation or phenomenon (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
Critical qualitative research questions about “how power relations advance the interests of one
group while oppressing others”, “the nature of truth”, and the “construction of knowledge”. This
study has centered analysis in a critical view of education, education reform and nonprofit
organizations to understand how power, interpretations of truth, and the production of knowledge
influence organizations like Teach For America.
Research Setting
TFA is the sole organization focused on in this study and was selected because of its role
and influence in education. While TFA accounts for a fraction of teachers and leaders in
education, the literature has recognized its outsized impact on education (Anderson, 2020).

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Teach For America operates in 42 regions in the United States, and each region is staffed with a
regional executive director and full and part-time staff and is locally governed by regional
advisory boards (TFA, n.d.). The regional executive director is responsible for local fundraising,
coalition building, school partnerships, and overall regional operations. As a result, regional
executive directors are deeply familiar with their local context and are accountable for
developing strategy, priorities, and goals that reflect TFA’s mission and vision in that
community. TFA regions are in large metropolitan areas, including Los Angeles, New York and
Atlanta, as well as small rural areas in places including Appalachian communities, South Dakota,
and California’s Central Valley (TFA, n.d.). TFA regions have existed for 30 to 10 years, and the
tenure of executive directors varies from 1 year to over 15 years.
This research setting allows for diverse experiences within the defined case of TFA
regional executive directors. While their community context may vary, each works within
existing K12 education systems, leads and manages TFA-based programs, and holds the same
responsibilities as executive directors at TFA. Executive directors rely on shared tools and
resources to identify locally contextualized strategies and comprise TFA’s national executive
body with shared goals and priorities across the organization. This context provides rich data that
can be used to answer the research questions in this study that are designed to explore TFA’s
work in a local community along with the inherent tensions, paradoxes and challenges in
working toward change in education.
Participants
Yin (2018) and Merriam and Tisdell (2016) found that selecting participants for a
qualitative case study does not rely on the logic of probabilistic sampling common in quantitative
research that is designed to generalize results to a broader population. Merriam and Tisdell

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(2016) define non-probabilistic sampling as purposeful sampling based on the idea that a
researcher wants to “discover, understand and gain insight” through the experiences and
perspectives of participants. Yin (2018) argued that the power of a case study is not to identify
and separate unique variables but to understand how these variables are constructed in the
context of the phenomena the researcher wants to study. In addition, Patton (2002) explains that
qualitative research aims to learn about the terminology, judgments, and contextual complexities
as participants describe their own experiences and perspectives.
This study selected participants based on purposeful maximal sampling (Maxwell, 2013;
Merriam & Tisdell, 2016; Patton, 2002). According to Maxwell (2013), maximal sampling
means selecting participants who represent the setting and have diverse experiences from within
their group. Participants in this study were regional executive directors and match this criterion
since they were part of a well-defined group within TFA, came from different communities in
the United States, and had varying levels of experience within TFA and education. Participants
in this study worked in rural and urban communities across the United States and were from one
of TFA’s 42 regions. Patton (2002) explained this type of sample as having maximum variation,
which enables the limits of a smaller sample size to yield rich information for a study. Merriam
and Tisdell (2016) show how maximum variation allows patterns to emerge and supports the
researcher in identifying experiences, insights, and perspectives central to the study's setting and
purpose. In this study, there were two criteria. First, the participants had to be current executive
directors serving within one of TFA’s 50 regions. Second, participants had to be in their role for
at least three years. This second criterion s important because an executive director would need
sufficient experience to engage with a study that explores TFA’s work and impact within a

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community. In this study, I interviewed thirteen executive directors from thirteen TFA regions
representing urban and rural communities from across the United States.
Data Collection and Instrument Protocols
Data was collected through individual interviews. Since participants were located in
thirteen different communities, the Zoom video conferencing application was used to conduct
interviews, given the timing and budget constraints. Interviews were an appropriate method in
this study because the purpose was not to examine behaviors but to explore experiences,
perspectives, and interpretations of participant contexts (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Patton
(2002) explains that interviewing is designed to “capture how those being interviewed view their
world” and learn about how they define, describe, and perceive the world around them (p. 348).
The interview format was semi-structured to allow a mix of focused questions on key topics and
provided space for participants to define the dimensions and variables in their context. Patton
(2002) explains that this format is effective because the interviewer is not providing the
categories or phrases that participants use, and they are free to respond in ways that express their
own experiences. The semi-structured interview allowed participants to describe their theory of
change in the context of their community, reflect on the complexity and tensions they
experience, and provide data on recommendations for increasing TFA’s impact in their
community.
Participants were selected by first identifying the current executive directors with a
minimum of 3 years of experience. From this list, a set of executive directors were identified who
come from different geographical and regional contexts. This sample included executive
directors from rural and urban regions and different regions in the United States. Once a sample
was identified based on the criteria, an email was sent inviting executive directors to participate

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in this study. The email explained the purpose of the study, detailed the commitment, and
described confidentiality and anonymity. While this study is specifically about Teach For
America and the organization will be named, participants will remain anonymous, and their
responses will be kept confidential. To participate, recipients consented to the study and
acknowledged their decision to participate through email.
Interviews
Interviews were the primary data collection tool for this study. As discussed above,
interviews allow a person-to-person conversation on a defined topic and are conducted
systematically to collect data for a study (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Interviews were 90 minutes
utilizing the Zoom video application. The interview was semi-structured with questions aligned
to each of the study’s research questions. An interview protocol was used that defined the main
topics for the interview, with open-ended questions in each section and potential follow-up
questions. Participants were identified using the criteria described above and invited by email
with a brief description of the purpose of the study. During the interview, the purpose of the
study was explained, the researcher asked for informed consent to proceed, and the participant
was invited to ask any questions or raise issues or concerns. Participants were notified that they
may be invited for an optional 30-minute interview that would provide an opportunity to ask
follow-up questions based on ongoing analysis or clarify participant responses from initial data
collection.
Data Analysis
Anti-colonial thought was used as an analytical framework in this study to explore how
TFA can move beyond the constraints of its model and increase its impact in communities (de
Oliveira, 2020; Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2012). As a type of critical research, anti-

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colonial thought questions a phenomenon's underlying values, knowledge, and being and
advocates for change in its epistemological and ontological foundations (Alvesson & Deetz,
2021, de Oliveira, 2020). This study utilized a constant comparative method (Charmaz, 2014;
Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Merriam and Tisdell (2016) describe this as a process of creating
categories from interview data by identifying discrete pieces of information and creating codes
for specific terms, phrases, and ideas. Corbin and Strauss (2015) explain the next step as axial
coding, where data is organized descriptively and done through interpretation and meaningmaking. A code in qualitative research is defined as “a word or short phrase that symbolically
assigns a summative, salient, essence-capturing” value based on collected data (Saldana, p. 3,
2013). Merriam and Tisdell (2016) show how this process reflects the nature of qualitative
research, where the researcher constantly collects and analyzes data. This process is done
iteratively as the researcher conducts interviews, analyses the data, and adjusts their approach to
account for emerging ideas or trends in subsequent interviews.
This study analyzed interviews to identify keywords and phrases to create codes. These
codes were used to designate corresponding categories and themes that supported constructing
assertions and propositions developed in Chapter 4 (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016; Miles et al.,
2014). This approach to data analysis was appropriate for this study because the purpose was to
explore and understand executive directors' perspectives in their work to contextualize TFA’s
theory of change in their community and develop recommendations for how TFA can increase its
impact in that community.
Positionality
Positionality is defined as the “dynamic ways an individual is defined by socially
significant identity dimensions” (Secules et al., p. 2, 2019). Secules et al. (2019) explain how a

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researcher's identity influences the research process and describes different approaches to
practicing reflexivity that can promote socially just research. Similarly, Merriam and Tisdell
(2016) explain how research is a dialectical process between the participant and the researcher
where both are influenced by the other. The major issues to be considered are whether a
researcher is viewed as an insider or outsider, the socially constructed identities of race, class,
gender, or sexual orientation, and the practice of reflexivity (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Each of
these aspects of positionality influences the research process since, in qualitative studies, the
researcher is the primary instrument and requires attention to how a researcher's identity can
influence a study.
Similar to Patel (2015), I take several pauses in my interest in studying Teach For
America. First, I currently work for TFA as a regional executive director. I started my career in
education as a TFA corps member and have been on staff with the organization for eleven years.
Throughout this time, I have held many positions in the organization and worked in several
different communities. I can identify ways TFA has changed to better address the issues of
educational equity, and I can see how TFA has been slow or resistant to change. As a researcher,
I am an insider, which allowed me access to people that informed my study. At the same time, I
was conscious of how this status could influence bias in my approach to this research. To address
these, I practiced critical reflection to identify my personal biases and their impact on my
research (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016; Secules et al., 2019). Throughout the interviews and data
analysis, I worked to stay aware of the well-worn paths of TFA discourse and centered my
interpretation and meaning in anti-colonial thought used in this study.
Second, I am relying on anti-colonial thought as a non-native, and my approach will be
incomplete in many ways. In the process, my own understanding and analysis have shifted to a

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fuller understanding of the broader context of educational inequity. My intention was to use a
critical analysis of TFA and education reform to understand how we could continue to see such
disparities in education despite so much investment in ideas, solutions, and reforms (Seelig,
2020). As a practitioner and now researcher, but even before this, I have wanted to better
understand how so many people could generate so much activity and see so little change. My
initial inspiration stemmed from Seelig’s (2020) conclusion that the approach to “improving
education…has been unable or unwilling to distinguish between moving an organization forward
and moving a society forward” (p. 42). From an anti-colonial perspective, I am better able to
understand the distinction and better equipped to complete this study even though I have more to
learn about anti-colonial thought.
And lastly, I am conscious of my identity as a White male working as an executive in the
nonprofit sector for an organization primarily focused on low-income communities of color.
These identities afford me access and privilege in a world that is socially constructed around
Whiteness (Guess, 2006). Participants in this study held any number of identities different from
my own. I was conscious of how I may have been considered an insider since I have a similar
organizational role as participants, and where participant identities differed from my own, I was
conscious of how I may have been viewed as an outsider (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). This
required me to be critically aware of how these different identities can influence the research
process, and in response, I regularly took inventory of my existing preconceived ideas, implicit
and explicit biases, and my connection to this study through logging thoughts and reflections in
personal memos and notes throughout this study.

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Credibility and Trustworthiness
The key difference between qualitative and quantitative research is assumptions on the
nature of reality. According to Merriam and Tisdell (2016), quantitative research assumes there
is an objective reality that can be empirically known, while qualitative researchers assume reality
is not fixed but socially defined. Qualitative research is designed to understand the multiple
dimensions of human experience and, through particular events or moments, understand the
broader patterns of a phenomenon (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Merriam and Tisdell (2016)
recognize how the field of qualitative research is evolving but have identified the characteristics
of research that ensure the findings of a study are valid, in that they match reality, and reliable, in
that findings can be replicated in future studies.
Merriam and Tisdell (2016) explain how qualitative studies can maintain credibility,
transferability, dependability, and confirmability. Credibility is the extent to which a study
matches reality and must be assessed within the context and purpose of a given study. To ensure
a study is credible, the researcher can utilize member checks, triangulation, and adequate
engagement in terms of either the length of observation or the number of interviews. This study
utilized adequate engagement by ensuring sufficient interviews representing diverse participants
in the research setting. Transferability is the extent to which findings can apply in other settings.
Merriam and Tisdell (2016) point out that whether the findings of a study are relevant is
determined by the “receiving context” and not the researcher (p. 255). To aid the transferability
of this study, thick description was utilized to provide rich description of the research setting,
context, and findings. Dependability refers to the consistency and trackability of the research
design process. This study relied on collaboration with other researchers to review coding in data
analysis and ensure a clear line of logic between the research analysis, findings and design

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methodology. In addition, interviews were recorded with a mechanical device in addition to the
Zoom application software and notes were collected throughout the research process.
Confirmability is the extent to which data can be tracked back to original sources. To ensure
confirmability, this study maintained original raw data from interviews and records of the data
analysis process, including coding and creating categories and interview protocols.
Limitations and Delimitations
There are several limitations and delimitations to this study. In 2023, TFA completed a
significant organizational reorganization that has known and unknown implications for regions,
regional executive directors, and the future direction of TFA. This research began before these
changes took place and could influence interview responses on a range of topics to be explored
in this study. During this study, executive directors will be in the process of learning about the
new organizational structure and determining what this means for work in local communities.
While this is a significant contextual element, this research setting remains relevant to the
purpose and design of the study.
This study is limited to current executive directors with two or more years of experience
at Teach For America. As a case study of a single organization, it can provide recommendations
to TFA but may be limited in its ability to be applied in other contexts. The questions will be
specific to the role of executive directors at TFA and not reflective of the more general role of
executive directors in other nonprofit organizations. The study will include 17 participants who
represent diverse geographical locations and may or may not represent diverse demographic
profiles.

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Chapter Four: Findings
The purpose of this study was to explore the work of Executive Directors at Teach For
America and understand how they navigate the complexity of working within systems they hope
to change. This study was grounded in anti-colonial theory and Vanessa de Oliveira’s social
cartography (2015; 2021) to explore how the boundaries of modernity shape the work of
executive directors focused on making educational equity a reality in their communities. The first
three chapters of this dissertation introduced the research problem, provided a review of relevant
literature, and described the methodology of this study. In this chapter, I will review the data
collected through individual interviews and discuss the findings as they relate to each of my
research questions. The following research questions guided this study:
1. How do Teach For America executive directors describe their theory of change in the
context of communities where they work?
2. How do modernity’s epistemological and ontological boundaries shape Teach For
America executive directors' approach to work in their community?
3. How do Teach For America executive directors approach their work in a way that
acknowledges the inherent tensions of modernity and enact a commitment to
transforming education?
This study involved sixteen current executive directors who participated in semistructured qualitative interviews to share their experiences of working towards Teach For
America’s vision in their community. Pseudonyms were selected for each participant, and all
reasonable efforts were made to change potentially identifiable information to protect
confidentiality. However, in some cases, the experiences or perspectives offered through
interviews may lend themselves to some identifiable information. In these cases, participants

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were consulted, and any potentially identifiable information was included with the consent of
participants.
The experiences of these participants represent 17 different communities in the United
States, including large metropolitan areas and rural places, communities where Teach For
America has worked for several decades and communities where Teach For America has worked
less than ten years. The communities reflected in this study are located on the East Coast, the
West Coast, the Midwest, and the South of the United States. Of the 17 participants, 12 identified
as women and five identified as men. Participant experience in the executive director position at
Teach For America range from three to 10 years and their total years in education, including as
an executive director with Teach For America, were between 13 and 23 years. See Table 1 for
detailed participant information.
In addition, these findings represent the views of executive directors who participated in
this study. While I also serve as an executive director with Teach For America, I intentionally
designed this study and the interview protocol to elicit their experiences and perspectives as free
as possible from my personal views of Teach For America. As mentioned in my positionality
statement above, I acknowledge I am conducting this study as an insider to the organization and
as someone who is deeply familiar with the executive director role. I worked to intentionally
bracket my personal experiences and engaged in regular reflection on the process and content of
these conversations (Miriam & Tisdell, 2016). These findings represent the views expressed by
participating executive directors. My approach in discussing these findings was to ground them
in direct quotes and use them as the basis for identifying subsequent categories and themes.
Lastly, my theoretical grounding and framework allowed me to approach this study without
preconceived ideas on what ideas or insights may emerge.

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Table 1
Detailed Participant Information
Participant Race/ethnicity Rural/urban U.S.
geographical
location
Executive
director
tenure
(years)
Tenure in
education
(years)
Daniela Latinx/Hispanic Urban South 5 13
Serena Black Urban East Coast 5 16
Makayla Black Urban South 4 23
Javier Latinx/Hispanic Urban Midwest 5 22
Maya Black Urban East Coast 8 20
Emma White Urban/Rural South 10 14
Natalie White Rural Midwest 5 13
Zack Middle
Eastern/North
African
Urban West Coast 8 14
Joseph White Urban/Rural Midwest 9 18
Imani Black Urban East Coast 3 20
Hana Asian Urban/Rural Midwest 3 14
Sierra Biracial/
Indigenous
Rural Midwest 3 10
Victoria Latinx/Hispanic Urban Midwest 8 18
Aaliyah Black Urban Midwest 2 10
Thomas White Urban South 3 17
Daniel Asian Urban Midwest 2 13
Crystal Black Urban/Rural East Coast 3 20
Research Question 1: Exploring the Theory of Change
Research question one was designed to understand how executive directors describe the
current state of education, define the problems and challenges of education in their context, and
define a path toward addressing these dynamics in their community. This is commonly referred
to as a theory of change (Bryson et al., 2021; de Oliveira, 2021; Ebrahim, 2019). However,
executive directors were not asked directly to describe their theory of change. Through an open
discussion in the semi-structured interview, executive directors took time to discuss 1) the

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current state of education, 2) its underlying or root causes, 3) their vision for education in their
community, and 4) their core value proposition as executive directors at Teach For America. de
Oliveira (2021) describes these four areas as a theory of change and problematizes common
understanding by explaining how modernity influences the ways we answer these core questions.
See Table 2 for a comparison of the semi-structured interview questions and de Oliveira’s
elements of a theory of change. Several patterns emerged from participant interviews. In the
following section, I will identify each pattern in relation to de Oliveira’s four-part theory of
change.

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Table 2
de Oliveira’s Theory of Change Elements
Theory of change elements Definition Interview questions
Identify the Problem A definition of the scope of
the problem and its
consequences
How do you describe the state
of education in your
community?
Problem Analysis An analysis of the nature of
the problem that can include
historical and/or root causes
How do you define the causes
of the current state?
Vision A broad description of how
the larger improvement or
transformation can take place;
an imagination of what could
be
How do you describe your
vision for education in your
community?
Proposition The steps taken toward a
broad vision; a description of
what will be done towards
that vision
How do you describe the role
Teach For America plays?
Note. Adapted from Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for
Social Activism, by V. M. de Oliveira, 2021, North Atlantic Books. Copyright 2021 by Vanessa
de Oliveira.

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The State of Education
Six themes emerged as executive directors discussed the current state of education.
Executive directors described a broad and holistic view of the current state of education,
including events stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 and a range of systemic issues
related to economics, historical patterns, political dynamics, and disparities in student outcomes.
While there are themes across executive director responses, there are also many variations within
each theme likely related to the unique context of each community. Executive directors showed
extensive knowledge of the complexity of issues in education and how interrelated other social
issues are with schools and education in their community. To summarize and organize these
findings, I identified five themes: the current moment, historical racial issues, student outcomes,
institutional and organizational structural issues, and talent and leadership. In the following
sections, I will provide a description of the findings across each theme.
The Current Moment
Several executive directors started their description of the current state by reflecting on
the impact of COVID-19 from the 2020 school year and how the pandemic disproportionately
impacted specific communities, revealed existing systemic inequities, and has continued to have
a lasting impact on students. Maya described the “continuing impact of COVID-19, which has
led to learning loss across the board” and explained how these effects were more acute in
specific parts of her community, especially those areas that are experiencing a large influx of
migrants. While Maya’s reflection began with the immediate impacts of COVID-19, she moved
to describe how education was complicated by this, along with several other emerging social
issues like immigration and the current financial situation in her state and city. We are in “a very
dire situation,” Maya concluded.

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Similarly to Maya, Aaliyah, who also leads in a large urban area, explained how students
in her community had not returned to pre-pandemic results in reading, math, and college and
career readiness measures. “Right now,” Aaliyah concluded, “we’re struggling to recover and get
back on track.” Another part of the problem that COVID-19 presents, according to both Maya
and Aaliyah, is the increased financial strain on schools and districts to maintain services to
students most in need of support. They each described an increase or flow of resources through
the federal government that helped schools address some critical areas, but as these dollars
started to decrease and issues in their communities only grew more difficult, long-standing
inequities were compounded. “We need new policy” to address these things, Maya emphatically
explained, and “we need to rethink how it is we are supporting schools to deal with this.” “The
teacher shortage doesn’t break evenly; it's absolutely in Black and Latinx communities and lowincome communities,” Aaliyah described. The issue for Aaliyah was the disproportionate impact
on communities of color through the pandemic, the ongoing issues of new immigration patterns
into her community, and whether schools would have the resources needed. As both executive
directors discussed the impact of COVID-19, they were drawn to describe the interplay of a
range of issues complicated by the pandemic as they described the current state of education.
Beyond the immediate and long-term impacts of COVID-19, several executive directors
talked about financial issues in their schools, districts, and communities. While each context was
unique, executive directors described how financial or budgetary decisions and policy have not
kept pace with or, in some cases, have been out of step with the needs of a community. “Schools
are financially struggling significantly,” Daniela explained, and “if we don’t get more money in
the next couple of months, [some] schools will have to stop operating.” Daniela described this in
the context of noticing that people are not really paying attention to the depth of financial issues

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and the potential consequences. While Joseph described how schools needed investments in
early learning, he lamented that his state does not provide any funding for kindergarten or
preschool. Like Joseph, Emma described a lack of alignment between known academic priorities
in the rural areas of her community and what is included in district budgets. Maya described how
hundreds of millions of dollars will be cut in the next year, in addition to a loss of COVID relief,
which will only exacerbate problems in schools that were under-enrolled during the pandemic
and are now oversubscribed.
While several executive directors discussed current events, such as the pandemic,
financial issues, and social issues like immigration, one executive described the current moment
as one in which there is a need to define or clarify what education is. “There’s this conversation
about like academic preparedness…that is, I think, just the wrong question to be asking about
[or] for our communities,” Sierra reflected. To begin thinking about the state of education meant
first to define what education means. Sierra described how academic preparedness can serve a
purpose, but it’s not how her community defines education. Education is about selfdetermination, and that “is different than the colonial concept of success…it’s being able to care
for one another, knowing who you are, and where you’re from,” Sierra explained. In Sierra’s
response, as well as several other executive directors, there is a current moment, whether that is
shaped by discrete events or a recognition of the need to re-evaluate what education means.
Throughout their discussion, the executive director’s views displayed a broad and holistic
understanding of the current state of education.
Current Racial Issues
Every executive director in this study described current racial issues as a critical aspect of
understanding the current state of education. As Imani described what her community is known

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for in the world of education and education reform, she pointed out that people often forget or
just do not know her state’s role in slavery and how that continues to have a hold today through
practices and policies rooted in the slave trade. “Some kids in our state are having an amazing
educational experience,” Imani explained, while “on the absolute other end of the spectrum,
we’re seeing it actually hurting, and we’re still trying to figure that out.” Maya shared a similar
perspective by saying her community has always been a tale of two cities. “The rich get richer,
the poor get poorer,” Maya admitted. Maya explained that districts can be less than two miles
away and have drastic differences in student outcomes and resources. And these are essentially
racially segregated communities, she pointed out. Javier described the same dynamics in his
community. “We’ve literally carved inequity into the landscape by developing [home plots] in
different communities differently,” Javier explained. These historical patterns are important,
executive directors explained, because schools operate within these socio-economic boundaries
and have a direct influence on the opportunities students do or do not have.
The descriptions of the historical racial issues suggested executive directors view schools
and school systems as largely unchanged over many decades in terms of student outcomes and
performance. While the history and demographics of Zak’s community were different from those
of Javier, Imani, and Maya, the broader history of his community meant that the “education
system is not producing equitable results for all kids and definitely not for low income and
students of color.” Sierra is more to the point and shared that, as she thought about school
systems and K12 education, they “have been the same state that they have been for the last
century.” The introduction of boarding schools in her community and the separation of children
from families as a particular tool of genocide in the past is the exact state in which schools
currently exist, although it may look different today, Sierra admits. In contrast, systemic racism

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follows a unique pattern in the community where Emma works. White families send their kids to
primarily private schools, and so when it comes to addressing issues in public schools, there is a
lack of proximity to what the needs really are. These are the same people directing private
investment into education with an agenda often at odds with the needs and aspirations of the
community. Similar to the understanding of the current moment, executive director perspectives
on historical racial issues were broad and holistic and offered a view of the current state of
education as more nuanced and complex.
Student Outcomes
Executive directors described student outcomes as key to understanding the health of
schools in their community and viewed a range of indicators as a critique of the system and the
extent to which students had resources specific to their needs. Makayla acknowledged that recent
scores for the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) were “record-setting” for her
state, but “when you drill down to the results of [specific]subgroups, particularly children of
color, [they] are still not doing well.” Similarly, Javier, Maya, Natalie, Zack, and Joseph shared
this reflection on students' academic outcomes in their communities. “NAEP scores aren’t great,
they’re not super,” Natalie explained and continued, “NAEP scores are far below the national
average.” Emma explained that progress ebbs and flows over time. “Like we’ll see an increase in
a few percentage points, and then it will slide back again.”
However, several executive directors pointed to bright spots of individual schools or
districts that have shown significant changes in student outcomes, even if overall academic
results were still lower than state or national averages. “But I have to say,” Emma interjected, “in
one school, they doubled their third-grade reading from 21% to 42%, which puts them right at
the state average or very close.” Zak explained that there are some higher-performing schools in

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his community due to opportunities for kids to enroll in early career and technical academies that
connected to what students wanted to do post high school. But overall, Zak believes “the average
student who wakes up in [my community] and goes to a school where more than half of students
are not performing academically.” He added to this by saying this is not only his perspective, but
as he talks to those in higher education or industry leaders, they say that schools in this
community are not preparing students for the workforce. Joseph and Hana shared a similar
perspective. “When we look at NAEP scores, we’re just always ranked at the bottom,” Hana
remarked. “We have a pretty stagnant K through 12 education system,” Joseph explained, where
pretty consistently, over time, “less than 30% of high school students are going to college.”
Serena was proud of the progress in her community in previous years but explained that since the
pandemic, “in communities with the highest concentrations of residents of color, that progress
has been almost completely wiped out; a double-digit decline.”
While academic outcomes were important to nearly every executive director in terms of
describing the current state of education, these reflections on student outcomes were one part of
the picture of how students are doing. Hana went on to explain that beyond student learning she
thinks about “chronic absenteeism, mental health and wellbeing and how pervasive these issues
are today.” Zak was more direct and said that “by and large our kids are really pissed off, they’re
unhappy, they’re bored. Kids don’t want to be here.” He was conscious of sounding pessimistic
and countered that, at the same time, there were a lot of really promising things happening. “It’s
harder to quantify because some of it is emerging,” but he shared there are places in his
community where people are trying to figure things out. Victoria had a broad story of progress in
student outcomes, and she identified distinct periods of progress where students moved from
30% to just over 40% of students reading at grade level. This was accomplished, she explained,

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through comprehensive reforms, but by “the early 2010s, things started to stall, and then by
2015, we had completely hit a wall.” Similar to Emma, Victoria described a state of education
where progress might move up a little and down a little, but overall, things have stalled. Through
their reflections on student outcomes, executive directors were clear on the most common
indicators of success but also acknowledged the limited perspective these gave and the
importance of a holistic view in trying to describe student outcomes.
Institutional and Organizational Structures
Executive directors discussed how the range of issues they identified in their
communities do not happen in a vacuum. They are a result of decisions and policies in as much
as they are the result of the beliefs and narratives that exist in a community that lend legitimacy
to the system as it is. When Natalie talked about the current state of education, she put things in a
broad social, economic, and political context that has deeply influenced the lives of people in her
community. As I asked her to explain, she replied, “I will try not to get emotional, so forgive me
ahead of time.” Natalie explained, “When you walk into our schools, nothing is wrong. There are
nice-looking buildings; teachers are trying pretty hard. But you have to ask yourself, why is this
part of the country persistently underperforming on every measure of human wealth and wellbeing.” This was not a problem of those who were in the buildings, whether that is students,
teachers or others, but it’s the “structures I always think of, the silent, creeping structural
inequities that may not scream at you but are palpable when you stay here long enough.” The
issue for Natalie was that the lack of opportunities or investments in her community was due to
persistent narratives on the value and potential of people in her community.
Emma and Victoria described how existing governance structures inhibited or
complicated the work necessary in their communities. “We haven’t seen growth that’s stabilized

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over time. We see pockets of growth, but you know, it’s not sustained over the next year,” Emma
discussed. She explained how there are often new strategic plans, either at the state or district
level, with promising ideas but things change before people can see or learn from what works.
As Victoria described the periods of progress or regression she explained how leadership
influenced what could or could not get done in ways that inhibited progress. “We had a really
dysfunctional school board, superintendents who didn’t have the support of the board” which led
to less momentum in making progress. Victoria explained that in that context there is a tendency
to focus on “tweaking around the edges” and undoing or reversing decisions from previous
administrations, but no real significant plan to address the core issues related to student learning.
Maya offered a similar reflection on organizational dysfunctions and described how the
“clunkiness of large bureaucracies” prevents the realization of some of the plans developed to
support schools in addressing a range of critical issues. A core challenge, according to Maya, is
the “lack of a mechanism to ensure some type of continuity between [changes] in leadership.”
For Emma, Victoria, and Maya, there is no lack of new ideas or programs that come and go, but
there is a structural and institutional reality that gets in the way of moving things forward.
Talent and Leadership
As executive directors talked about talent and leadership, they pointed to significant
teacher shortages, issues with senior-level leadership changes over time, and an overall lack of
teacher diversity. “We have the highest level of vacancies in the United States,” Makayla
commented and continued that “of the 4,700 vacancies at the start of this year 70% came into
teaching without an education background.” Later in our conversation, Makayla talked about this
context and how that led Teach For America in her state to begin supporting the state department
of education in supporting all new teachers, not just those from Teach For America. The issue for

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Makayla was that even the solutions currently available to address the teacher shortage have their
own issues that complicate the teacher shortage issue. Hana explained that in her state, “the
teacher shortage has tripled, and even right now [December 2023], there are still vacancies.”
Hana went on to explain that her state is struggling so much that they are giving emergency
certifications to people with zero training just because they need people in the classrooms.
Aaliyah described the lack of bilingual educators who are trained to support the changing
demographics of students is a pronounced need. “The teacher shortage is absolutely where Black
and Latinx students from low-income communities are.”
While teacher shortages are an acute area of pain in nearly all descriptions of the current
state of education, several executive directors talked about leadership gaps throughout their local
school districts. Thomas noticed that in the past 20 years, there have been numerous
superintendent transitions, which has led to a constant ebb and flow of results and strategy.
“There’s a constant flex between results, no results, then results and a kind of tension between
test scores as the most important thing and then [measuring] life outcomes,” Thomas explained.
This type of vacillation in how a system operates was similar to how Maya described the
discontinuity of leadership in her context. “So when you have a new superintendent or a new
mayor, they have their own agenda,” she explained. “There is nothing to stop you from throwing
away everything and starting over.” Maya described a situation where this lack of continuity
prevented people from learning about what was working or not and being too quick to move on
to something different. Crystal had the same reflection as she described senior leadership in her
context and the numerous changes in superintendencies among her states largest districts. Across
all these examples, executive directors described the lack of consistency as a major contributor to
instability that was part of how they viewed the current state of education.

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The lack of teacher diversity was a common theme as executive directors described their
communities' talent and leadership issues. “And lastly,” Daniel exasperatedly explained, “how
do we think through a pathway to get educators that children deserve?” His frustration stemmed
from the reality that 95% of teachers in his state are White while 90% of students in the districts
where he works are “Black and Brown kids.” Serena described this reality of a disconnect
between the teaching force and student population as “a lot of pain because the teaching force
has gotten less and less diverse.” Similar to Aaliyah, Serena commented on the changing
demographics of her community with an increase in the immigrant population and the lack of
resources to meet the needs of these students and families. This is more than just the lack of
diversity in talent but a realization that school communities are dealing with real racial trauma
reminiscent of her community’s segregation era. “I’m not saying we’re going back to the 1940s,
but things are happening that people would be shocked to hear.” Serena described current events
where some students chanted racial slurs at a sporting event and discriminatory policies in
schools that tended to keep administration teams primarily White. The idea from executive
directors was that there was certainly a need for more diverse talent, but the lack of diverse talent
was a symptom of longstanding issues in their communities for which there were not simple
solutions.
In this section, I previewed how executive directors described the current state of
education and identified five themes, including a number of variations among their responses.
Through these conversations, executive directors displayed a deep knowledge of the community
where they worked and tended to view a range of issues in education as interconnected to
broader issues in their community. In the next section, I will review data on the second part of
the theory of change.

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Problem Analysis
In this study's theory of change model, problem analysis is the process of describing the
nature of a problem and the underlying causes. This is an important element to consider for
research question one because in these questions, executive directors identify problems unique to
their context. Similar to their description of the current state of education, executive directors
identified underlying causes that were holistic, complex, and nuanced. I identified four themes
across these interviews: historical racism, economic development, school systems, and local
coalitions. In the following section, I will provide a description of the findings across each
theme.
Historical Racism
Nearly every executive director responded to the question on problem analysis with some
description of their community's racial history. Zack, Imani, Maya, Hana, and Crystal all started
their response with a version of the statement that said their communities have the same
historical inequity as every other community in the United States as the fundamental cause of
current education issues. Zak went on to say that his community “used to be known derogatorily
as the Mississippi of the West because of the redlining and segregation that happened here.” Zak
concluded that generational inequity has been built in from the beginning. “We have over 600
school districts,” Imani explained, “and that is because of redlining, exactly.” “I mean, it is really
rooted in just historical racism,” Hana said, “and like, we were one of the last states to
desegregate.” She described how that mentality lingers in her community and how people talk
about schools and kids in communities of color. “There is a complacency,” Hana described, “in
how I hear people talk about current outcomes, and there’s got to be something underneath that.”

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In her reflections, Hana seemed to wrestle with the ideas she was sharing as she explored the
lingering effects of historical racism in her community.
Other responses to this idea of historical inequities involved executive directors in very
different communities who recognized unique expressions of marginalization. “The national
narrative has always been these are backward stupid people,” Natalie explained as she described
a type of marginalization for students in her community. She went on to explain how in popular
media this community had been represented as less valuable and undeserving. In contrast, Sierra
described a very different experience as she talked about settler colonialism in her community as
the main root cause while also seeing this continue to metastasize today. “And then throughout
time,” Sierra explained, “we’ll start to see like different and more strategic ways of continuing
colonization and education just being a tool of that.” While the idea of race played out differently
for Sierra and Natalie compared to other executive directors who mostly discussed Black and
Latinx students, it was clear in these instances that a type of historical marginalization played a
role in the state of education for both.
Economic Development
Executive directors explained how economic realities played a role in the current state of
education. They described how these realities shaped the opportunities and pathways available
for students while also acknowledging pathways were intentionally designed in some cases.
According to Zak, part of the problem was just the sheer scale and pace of growth in his
community that has impacted education and many places in the public sector. “In the past 50
years we’ve grown from like 50,000 to over 1.3 million residents,” Zak explained, and “it just
happened to our city, it wasn’t planned.” As he described this context, he pointed out the lack of
human infrastructure or investment in human infrastructure to support the community as a whole.

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This has left a toll not just on education and the lack of a sustainable teacher workforce but also
on how his community manages various issues requiring human capital.
Another aspect of economic development that executive directors discussed was the
significant demographic shifts in their community and the extent to which these dynamics put a
strain on education. Joseph talked about the growth in his community from migrant students and
English Language Learners (ELL), which puts a strain on resources and a sense of identity in his
community. Given the current trends, they would have to open over 100 new schools in his state
over the next ten years just to meet the need. He was not sure how local education systems would
be able to accommodate this kind of growth. And as equally important, he was aware of how the
changing demographics are requiring people in this community to reconsider who they are as a
community.
As Natalie reflected on the state of education and the root causes, she talked about the
role poverty played in her community and how this incentivized people around work versus
education. “We have had [historically] these cycles of really urgent poverty,” she explained,
“where people were incentivized to, rather than going to school, drop out and go work in a coal
mining camp.” This was not a community responding to rapid economic growth and
development but downturns and significant changes in the local economy that required people to
think of survival. However, it was more than survival, Natalie explained. “Our communities
value learning; there’s an incredible history of learning, wisdom, and intelligence. But formal
education was never valued because it wasn’t what led to good money.” These economic
perspectives were important to executive directors because they expressed that the current state
of education was not the fault of students or families but systems. The examples of economic

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realities show how executive directors think of the causes and nature of the problem in ways that
are complex and interrelated with other systems in their communities.
School Systems
As executive directors talked about the causes of the current state of education, they
offered perspectives on the lack of change in how schools operate historically, a range of
financial issues, and political dynamics that overlook the priority of student outcomes as the
ultimate measure of success. Makayla, Natalie, and Joseph each shared a perspective that the
way schools operate today was designed in a bygone era and does not support the needs of
students. “The root cause of how I describe education in my state is that schools haven’t changed
tremendously,” Makayla commented. She went on to describe how school systems have not
shifted to meet the needs of students today in ways that reflect how the world has changed in the
last 50 years. Natalie shared a similar point of view and added that although there was a shift
from the one-room schoolhouse over time, the large, more centralized schools in her community
function the same way. “A big part of my own theory of what is driving [current education] is
that the education system is doing what it was designed to do,” Joseph added. They each shared a
perspective that the education system today is not preparing students for opportunities as they
exist now in their communities. Similar to what each of these executive directors shared, Serena
explained that there has been a lack of investment in pathways for students. “We don’t have clear
pathways that lead to careers in our community,” she concluded. While each saw an outdated
system, they each identified ways the system operates in ways that meet its own needs in contrast
to the needs of students.
Executive directors discussed how school systems largely operate to maintain the status
quo. Joseph explained that “the way our traditional districts operate by and large is slow to

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change and resistant to change.” Daniel described how unions play a role in this arrangement, in
his opinion, and are part of focusing on adult-centered discussions or bureaucratic political
arguments at the expense of working for students' outcomes. For Serena, the status quo is
maintained through a “fear of innovation at times.” She was not talking about technology or AI
but thinking differently about things like teacher development. Serena saw this as true in
education and different sectors like the workforce and healthcare. These were all seen as part of a
similar problem where there is a comfort with how things currently work without noticing how
this may perpetuate inequities.
Crystal, Daniel, and Serena discussed how current district or state policy regarding school
funding is a key part of the problem. Serena reflected on her state's funding formula that
essentially reinforces an inequitable distribution of resources between lower-income and more
affluent schools. “Even though the ACLU sued the state and won,” she recounted, “the formula
itself is still outdated, and that has led to widening inequity.” As she described the issues around
the funding formula, she said she sees less attention on how these issues are going to be
addressed. Daniel shared similar thoughts as he described the way districts in his community are
“quibbling over a $2,000 difference between charter and district schools while overlooking the
big picture that overall we spend less than $14,000 per student than other similar districts.”
Crystal pointed out the issue of teacher pay, a topic mentioned by the majority of executive
directors, and described how local policy tended to direct more resources to wealthier districts
relative to lower-income districts. In these responses from executive directors, there are issues in
how finances flow through a district that creates inequities that contribute to the current state of
education, and they identified how this dynamic worked to maintain a status quo in their
communities.

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Local Coalitions
There was a consistent reflection on the importance of collaboration among a variety of
different stakeholder groups in a community and how the presence of, or lack of, coalition
influences the extent to which progress in schools could be realized. While most executive
directors talked about these dynamics, Serena and Makayla made clear points on how there are
so many people working in the same issue area, but there is a real lack of coordination, which
they viewed as undermining the potential for progress. “People are doing a lot of things to help
education,” Makayla explained, “but we often go on tangents and don’t work as a unified body
of people or coalition.” “Everyone is trying to solve the same problem,” Serena noted, “instead
of working together. No one is working together.” They both talked about moments when there
was a moment of collaboration but only when there is excitement around one thing that can
quickly fade as people change leadership roles or positions in their organization.
Hana and Zak shared similar perspectives on the extent to which there is momentum
around working collectively and what they see as hindering this type of work. Hana talked about
how there is a tendency to want to do things independently or on their own and not as much
openness to new ideas or learning from others. She went on to explain how this is connected to
what she perceives as complacency around the current state of education and lack of will to
address some of the entrenched issues in schools. “There just seem to be some biases or beliefs
about what kids can achieve,” She concluded. Hana described how when she has been in certain
places where there is discussion on how students are doing or what is happening in schools, there
is a lack of outrage, and people are making excuses or rationalizing unacceptable outcomes. She
has worked to build more awareness of student outcomes and understanding of what contributes
to this and how things can be addressed. In talking about his community, Zak described a lack of

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infrastructure in the nonprofit space that makes this type of collaboration or coalition possible.
There is an absence of investment in the nonprofit sector that traditionally supports a wide range
of services or support for low-income students. While he gave examples of the work he does to
build relationships and help create conditions that allow this type of work, he acknowledged the
infrastructure wasn’t there, and, as a result, students and schools were missing out.
In sum, as executive directors discussed their analysis of the problem, they tended to
explain broad, systemic issues as deeply related to the state of education. The problems in
education were not isolated to classrooms, teachers or districts, even though these topics were
discussed in some cases. As they discussed their individual analysis, they reflected on a wide
selection of interrelated factors they ultimately viewed as contributing to the state of education.
Vision
In this section, I will review how executive directors discussed their vision for education
in their communities. This is step three in the theory of change model, which describes how
someone envisions what will be improved or transformed. It is a picture of an imagined future. I
identified four themes throughout these discussions: personal vision, student-centered,
community-based, and school systems. In the following sections, I will provide a review of each
theme.
Personal Vision
Each executive described their vision for education in their community with distinct
ideas, words, and pictures. I want to start this section by displaying the distinct ideas of each
executive director’s vision. Table 3 provides a list of the words and phrases they used during our
conversation.

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Table 3
Executive Director Vision for their Community
Name Personal vision for education
Daniela “My vision is if you were to ask any parent tomorrow that they would be
able to say they have the opportunity and choice to send their child to a
school that will provide them with exactly what they need”
Serena “I want students to be thriving and not surviving toward economic
empowerment and toward the future they want for themselves”
Makayla “That we ensure every student has a quality teacher that is clear on who they
are and that teachers make sure every student understands the access
points toward a future of their choosing”
Javier “I want to be part of a group that’s working to create a world where the place
you’re born does not predict your life outcomes, a world where that’s just
not true anymore and kids thrive and choose a life path that makes sense
for them”
Maya “Liberation for kids. Freedom, liberation, power, agency. Interrupting
intergenerational poverty and not limiting ourselves to how it is defined
by Teach For America or others, but thinking expansively and creatively”
Emma “I want every kid in my community to be equipped for a life of their
choosing”
Natalie “This is America’s hidden secret, literally a beautiful spacious, abundant rich
place. I think my vision is that students lead the way by telling stories that
reverses the national narrative of what this place is”
Zack “I used to want us to be the fastest improving state but I’m not interested in
that anymore. My vision is that we are one of the places where we create
the future of education”
Joseph “What has always motivated me is the belief that education is the most
powerful tool to transform ourselves and our society”
Imani “I just aspire for us to be able to step back and say, like, are we doing right
by our kids and for the answer to be yes”
Hana “We should have all students be able to achieve education milestones, but
also be seen, valued and build the leadership capacity in themselves
because they’re our future leaders”
Sierra “My vision is that we reclaim our ability to care. I don’t mean just like
simple acts of care but an in depth ability and action to show care and
hold it”
Victoria “I want to get to the day where every kid gets the education they deserve”

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Every executive director described their vision for education in their community by
imagining what would be true for students. This vision included academic preparedness, feeling
seen and valued, and developing knowledge and understanding of how they can pursue what
they want in life. In addition, many executive directors talked about their community as a whole
and were expansive in thinking about what they wanted to be true, not just for students but for
schools, families, and a broader way of life. In the flow of these interviews, this question on
vision came after significant time talking through how they viewed the current state of education
and its root causes. The question around vision prompted executive directors to step back and
imagine a different future. These phrases and pictures of that future were the beginning of each
conversation on what this means in their community. In the following sections, I will review the
remaining three patterns that emerged from that extended conversation on their vision for
education in their community.
Student-Centered
The most common way executive directors talked about students in the context of their
vision was through envisioning a future where every student has exactly what they need. Daniela
thought about this through the lens of special education and expanded this to include any student
who does not fall within traditional pathways. “This looks like every child with the opportunity
to be in a place that best fits them…whether that is from special education,” she explained, “or
whether that is graduating high school and heading to college or being able to go to complete
some sort of certification.” Daniela thought expansively about what it means that every student
has what they need and lamented that right now, this is just not the case. Like many executive
directors in this study, the system is just too one-size-fits-all. Zak imagines a future “where every
kid wakes up and goes to a neighborhood school… that has all the supports they need to thrive

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however they define it.” His vision for what kids could experience was outside the traditional
setting of schools. As our conversation continued, he recounted his work in his community to
help bring this vision to life by collaborating with others in his community to create novel
experiences for students.
Similar to both Zak and Daniela’s views on schools that meet the diverse needs of
students, Maya and Thomas talked explicitly about students having more access to diverse postsecondary opportunities. “We need a much more comprehensive idea about education in terms of
what it means to prepare kids for economically sustaining lives,” Thomas explained. He
expressed that high school graduation cannot be the “end all be all” and there has to be more
thinking about how these years prepare students for what is next. Thomas expressed some
caution about the expectation for college for everyone and thought we should be thinking more
expansively and concretely about other career paths that can afford students opportunities. Like
Thomas, Maya shared the same ideas about post-high school success. “If we accomplish all the
things I envision,” she animated “we would see markedly different results for what young people
are doing in the post-secondary world.” This included going into a trade business, starting their
own business, going to college, or getting jobs where they made a living wage. For Maya and
Thomas, every student getting what they need was about every student having access to a career
pathway that aligned with their interests and motivations and not one pre-determined or based on
what someone else expected they could or could not do.
While many reflections from executive directors centered on some type of preparedness
for the future, whether academically or in terms of access to resources, others viewed studentcenteredness more holistically. Javier talked about more affluent and less affluent communities
and noticed that even though the more affluent areas had higher ACT or SAT scores, he wasn’t

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convinced these students were any better prepared for a life of choice and opportunity. “So, they
may have more,” Javier explained, “but this isn’t about let’s get to the same level so much as we
need to rethink how we're giving them voice and agency.” His vision was for students in upperincome places just as much as lower-income schools, and he noted that “these things matter as
much in disenfranchised communities as in historically enfranchised ones.” Emma continued the
theme of wanting “every kid in her community to be equipped to live a life of their choosing.”
But she also had a vision that extended beyond this idea and toward a deep, rich, and rewarding
experience that instilled a love of learning. “I want them to experience a joy, a love of learning
and be constantly surrounded by adults who believe in them and care deeply.” This vision of
education beyond academics was similar to Sierra's, who envisioned her community reclaiming
the ability to care. When I asked her to expand on what this means, she painted a picture of
Indigenous children taken from their homes and placed in boarding schools. “Imagine,” she said
“looking out from the rectangular boarding houses and seeing an encampment of teepees near the
school.” She explained how indigenous families followed their children and waited to be with
them. “And that is an act of care,” she concluded.
Community
The vision executive directors described extended beyond students to include ideas about
how they envision a community that is transformed in ways that create opportunity and address a
range of inequities beyond education. Serena, Joseph, Hana, Zack, and Maya all envisioned
fundamental changes in their communities along the lines of common measures of community
well-being. Zak talked about a process he led in his community to listen to what families and
students want for their future and said “they want a better life for themselves economically.”
Serena shared her vision and went on to explain that students and schools need to be willing to

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have difficult conversations that make it possible to tackle some of the more entrenched issues in
her community. “We need to have real conversations around mental health. Housing is the other
big thing,” Serena commented, “we just don’t have enough housing.”
Maya talked about how every community would have not just the resources but a type of
infrastructure that allowed organizations to come together and identify more systemic solutions.
She explained that her community needs “some sort of backbone organization to help convene
stakeholders and really think holistically about kids in that community.” As executive directors
described their vision for education in their community, they tended to start with imagining a
different reality for students but also went on to explain how a community would be different.
Their vision was not just about students learning, although that was a clear pattern, but about a
completely different social context in which students and families had access to a wide range of
resources that helped them succeed.
School Systems
The way schools and school systems should operate was another theme in how executive
directors described their vision for education. Hana and Joseph each talked about how the vision
they explained would not be possible without schools that ensured students had access to a broad
range of opportunities and there were a variety of school models in their community. Hana
explained this by saying, “when I say we need more quality seats [I mean] just like different
models of schools and opportunities” so that families have more options for their children.
Joseph described this by saying that it should not matter where a student comes from, but they
“should have access to educational opportunities that allow them to achieve their possibility.” To
bridge the distance between what they wanted to be true for students and the current reality,

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these executive directors viewed innovation within schools and school systems as a necessary
part of making that vision a reality.
Serena and Maya discussed what needs to be true about existing systems to ensure the
vision they described could be realized. After describing her vision, Serena went on to say “what
that looks for me is that schools are adequately funded and teachers are adequately supported.”
Her vision focused on economic empowerment and students choosing a future for themselves.
As she described what this looks like, she imagined schools and teachers had the resources they
needed. Maya thought about this in a similar way and described that her vision in action looked
like schools and the district not just having a plan but building the systems and processes that
actually make the plan a reality. Since she talked about students identifying and accessing a
variety of career pathways, the systems in place would actually align with making that happen
for students. “[Students] would have a plan, and there would be infrastructure in place within the
district to support them and get them to and through the plan,” Maya explained. As executive
directors talked about their vision, they moved from talking about an ideal future for students to
discussing how current systems would also be different.
Overall, as executive directors talked about their personal vision for education in their
community, they all started with a statement or belief about what they wanted to be true for
students. These ideas largely had to do with student agency, economic mobility, and some
elements of self-determination. As they continued discussing their vision, they moved to talking
about how things would need to work differently in their community and within schools and
districts. As an element of a theory of change, vision is an intentionally broad concept but does
begin to narrow the focus from what is wrong in the world to start talking about what can be
done.

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Proposition
The fourth element of a theory of change is the value proposition, or the description of
the steps or actions taken toward a vision. Every executive director described Teach For
America’s core value proposition as developing leaders in their community. While the definition
of the problem was broad and holistic, the proposition of Teach For America was almost
singularly focused on leadership development in one way or another. Executive directors talked
about the corps program, alumni initiatives, and other projects in the context of employing a
talent strategy in their community through partnership and collaboration with schools, school
districts, and other community-based organizations. I will review two main themes that emerged:
leadership development and Teach For America’s organizational role in the local ecosystem.
Leadership Development
As executive directors talked about the role of Teach For America, they discussed the
actions or steps they take to address the context of education as they described throughout these
conversations. Overwhelming, executive directors described the main contribution as recruiting,
developing, and supporting leaders in education. Emma said this best when she explained that
“our contribution to the world is to channel more talent and leadership into education and other
systems that inform the experience of children in low-income communities such that they can
live a life of their choosing.” Joseph’s comments added context to this description by saying that
“we are all about talent and people.” He went on to explain this by saying they work to find
people with a certain set of beliefs, match them to opportunities where they have a direct impact
on students from low-income communities, and develop them as leaders through coaching and
reflection on their experience. I chose these two comments because they reflect over 16 other
comments that described how executive directors define the work they do in their community,

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given the vision they have for education. They described talent as the core capability of the
organization and as the value proposition in their community. “Talent is our core capability,”
Imani concluded, and “if we don’t deliver on that, I think the credibility of our work here is
diminished.”
Executive directors explained how they envisioned the impact of talent in their
community and the role this played in making change. After talking about her vision, Makayla
described the way they do that as through their “corps program, ignite [tutoring program], and
alumni.” These are programs that operate on the ground in her community and address the acute
challenges she described earlier, and she believes that Teach For America is uniquely positioned
to do this work in her community. “There is no other organization that can recruit talent the way
we do,” Makayla concluded. She continued by describing the role this talent plays in her
community by adding that “no other organization can think about innovation and testing
strategies in the way that we do in a way that shows results.” Daniela explained that “our job is
to recruit people who we can then build the leadership skillset” needed in her context. Daniela
had earlier described a complex set of circumstances in her community and connected this to
how a focus on talent was necessary. Overall, the talent strategy is important to many executive
directors because of the work participants do while they are in a Teach For America program.
“We ask our corps members to challenge the status quo,” Javier explained. He described
their approach to leadership development as asking participants to identify how they want to
impact their classroom or school throughout their two-year commitment and using these
experiences to develop a plan for after that commitment. His team had recently completed some
data analysis and found that 70% of those who stayed in his community after their commitment
continued in education, and of those, most were teachers or in other school-based leadership

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roles. Similarly, Daniela talked about how they support leaders in “building and plugging into a
network that can focus on and solve these issues.” These ideas of programs that develop leaders
who then go on to continue in education were the most common description executive directors
gave for Teach For America’s value proposition. Natalie described this best when she said, “I
believe at my core that TFA exists to change the trajectory of brilliant people’s lives.” For
Natalie, a talent strategy finding people who may not otherwise have thought about education
and supporting them in doing some inspiring work in her community.
While several core programs they offered in their community were described as key to
the work they do, they each described the long-term impact of this work as extending beyond
these regional programs. When Aaliyah talked about how things improved in her community,
she explained the reason people value Teach For America “has little to do with corps members
but really actually because of the leadership of our alumni.” She described research that showed
how the exoskeleton, or wrap-around support organizations for schools, helped families and
students weather difficult times. She pointed out that many of these organizations were either
started by or are currently led by Teach For America alumni.
Emma shared the same thing about her community and explained that “the roles that are
making the largest impact in education, and other areas that impact students, are Teach For
America alumni.” Similarly, Maya and Makayla described alumni as “system-level leaders” who
make decisions, influence policy, and lead some of the most productive organizations that get
results in their community. Imani described seeing the “education landscape fundamentally
change” in her community and how “TFA has contributed to that in some way, whether directly
or indirectly.” As they described the long-term impact of their work, it was through senior-level
roles like superintendents, departments of education, leaders of nonprofit organizations, or

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elected leaders. These were people or organizations that they described as having initiated new
programs, established policy or in some way created an environment that was meeting the needs
of students. In describing alumni in her community, Hana explained that “whether it’s in
business, schools, or non-profit leaders,” they are the ones who are “standing up, and like,
they’re the ones vocalizing against the status quo.” This, she felt, was what Teach For America
contributes in her community.
Organizational Role in the Ecosystem
Executive directors described talent or leadership development as Teach For America’s
value proposition in their community. They also explained how Teach For America played a role
in convening and mobilizing resources, being a source of new ideas and practices, and
participating in local coalitions. Natalie discussed how Teach For America has evolved in her
community over the past few years. “We’ve moved from a programmatic leader to a teacher
recruitment, to a convener around our 2030 [impact] goal.” This was an important distinction
most executive directors made, that Teach For America is not a teacher recruitment agency but a
leadership development organization. As Natalie described this role, she said it's much more
holistic compared to the past, where now she thinks about how to “partner interventions or
organizations” in her community around schools in ways that can “accelerate progress.” Teach
For America is the lead convener of a symposium of seven other organizations in her
community, and together, they are pooling resources like tutoring, peer mentoring, and college
coaching for rural schools.
Zak discussed how he worked with local organizations to hone in on an acute community
problem and work collaboratively to solve it. “Our community said we need to prepare young
people not just for today, but for the future,” he recounted what he learned and said “when we

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looked around and no one was really doing that we stepped.” As Zak described, stepping in was
not through imposing an idea that he had but in taking a lead in convening people and leading the
work to define the future of learning in his state. “We’re a convener, you know, at our best”
Daniel explained. In his context, he is working across three school sectors and can create
opportunities for learning and collaboration across all these systems. These reflections were a
direct connection to how executive directors described the state of education and their personal
vision. They described both the existence and lack of coalitions or collaboration in places that
influenced what was possible. Here, they described ways in which Teach For America was part
of meeting a need in those ways.
Another role executive directors identified was as a source of new ideas and practices that
added value to partners in their community. Serena explained how they have “been able to
elevate new ideas, solutions of things from other communities, and push the thinking” around
what is possible. Aaliyah offered a concrete example by explaining how they were able to pilot a
new program for evaluating teacher health and wellbeing because of the Teach For America
network in her community. “It is often the case,” Aaliyah explained, that “we are kind of a
laboratory for testing, researching things, like ideas and innovations” that can benefit others. This
idea of Teach For America as a place of innovation was consistent for many executive directors.
Very practically, Michael described how when a district wants to implement a new curriculum,
they prefer schools with a concentration of Teach For America teachers because they are likely
to maximize the impact of new materials and learn what really works.
While nearly every executive director described the role of Teach For America in
positive and constructive ways, there were others who were more cautious about the role the
organization can play. “When I think of this question [TFA’s role] I think I’m careful of saying

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TFA plays any role in our community,” Sierra offered. She centered this on the idea that the
people who are there in her community, those who are dedicated to the people there and what we
want for ourselves play a role. “And then there’s the resources that are TFA” Sierra concluded.
She made a distinction between those who do the work and the material resources of the
organization. “I’m careful to say that any organization, including nonprofits, or maybe
particularly nonprofits, are responsible in such a grand way because I don’t think that’s what our
community would say.” She explained how people in her community would always point to
people, not organizations, and how Teach For America can be seen at times as contributing to the
other side of education they want. And in some cases, Sierra explained, Teach For America has
“done harm” by enacting colonialism in different ways. Maya shared a similar perspective as she
described her vision for kids in her community. She imagined her work to be about “interrupting
intergenerational poverty…and doing so in a way that is not limiting to how this is defined by
Teach For America or others.” While both had pointed to a role that Teach For America can or
does play in their community they were cautious in defining this in ways that overlooked people
within their community.
With the four components together there is a complete picture of how executive directors
describe their theory of change within their context. Research question one was intended to hear
how executive directors describe this in the context of their community. Table 4 below presents a
synthesis of findings from across these conversations and displays an archetype of how executive
directors conceptualize their theory of change in their community.

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Table 4
Executive Director Theory of Change Archetype
Theory of change
elements
Synthesis Supporting quotes
Identify the problem Disparities in student outcomes
complicated by current
issues (i.e. Covid) and
structural issues in a
community.
“The education system is not
producing equitable results for
all kids and definitely not for
low income and students of
color.”
Problem analysis Outcomes for students
influenced by a range of
systemic issues in their
community including those
related to the economy,
values and beliefs, and lack
of leadership
“We have over 600 school
districts and that is because of
redlining, exactly.”
Vision Students prepared for a future
they identify and supported
by systems that provide
resources aligned to that
purpose
“Liberation for kids. Freedom,
liberation, power, agency.
Interrupting intergenerational
poverty and not limiting
ourselves to how it is defined
by Teach For America or
others, but thinking
expansively and creatively”
Proposition Develop leaders committed to
a vision for equity rooted in
a community
“Our contribution to the world is
to channel more talent and
leadership into education and
other systems that inform the
experience of children in lowincome communities such that
they can live a life of their
choosing.”

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Research Question 2: The Influence of Modernity
In research question two, I wanted to understand how the epistemological and ontological
boundaries of modernity influence the work executive directors do in their community. I use the
idea of modernity’s boundaries to describe the thresholds de Oliveira (2021) illustrates in her
social cartography between soft, radical, and beyond reform. I came to understand these as
boundaries because something exists on either side, and viewing the other side of a boundary
from one location conditions what is knowable. Andreotti (2016) explained this as intelligibility,
which can produce an epistemic blindness that assumes one’s way of seeing and understanding
the world is ‘right’. In the following sections, I will share themes on how executive directors
describe their role, the challenges or complexities they identify in the role, and how they
navigate these challenges.
The Executive Director Role
To understand the influences of modernity, I wanted to situate this in how executive
directors define and conceptualize their roles. The purpose of this approach was to center an
understanding of modernity’s influence in the actual lived experience of the role and not in
preconceived notions of what the executive director does. The data collected here is not based on
job descriptions or internal definitions of how Teach For America describes this role but on how
executive directors understand what they do. I identified three themes, including communityfacing leadership, organizational-facing leadership, and strategic leadership. In the following
section, I will review these findings and provide examples from interviews.

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Community Facing Leadership
As executive directors described their role, they viewed it as primarily about bringing
Teach For America’s vision to life in their community. This idea meant different things to
different executive directors, but nearly everyone explained some version of being the face of
Teach For America in their community. “I am responsible for making sure that Teach For
America has the greatest impact that it can have on kids,” Joseph explained. He went on to
explain that of all the things they have to do to have an impact, he is the “primary storyteller, or
the person creating the opportunity for people to tell the story.” Javier, Zak, Victoria, and Hana
each described a version of their role as making the vision a reality. “My job is to make a good
faith effort to the vision realized,” Javier explained. Zak was specific that his role was to develop
strategy alongside his team and community, and ultimately, he felt “accountable to my local
community to bring those things to life.” Victoria described her job as “to make sure we have a
vision for our work that aligns with the vision for what community wants.” Hana explained that
in addition to all the work of aligning goals with local partners, the role is about “ensuring that
what we’re actually doing through programs, staff, and everything” is focused on making those
goals happen. Of all the comments describing their role, every executive director discussed their
role in their community, working with partners, building relationships, and creating trust and
credibility. They felt a responsibility to honor the commitments they made to the people in their
community.
Executive directors talked about the conditions necessary to bring the vision to life.
Emma had described her role in similar ways as others and included that she has to focus on
“building the conditions, like partnerships, relationships, that are necessary to achieve that. Sierra
also talked about a responsibility she felt around vision but centered this responsibility on

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“carrying out the type of education that our community wants” and then finding ways to
strengthen that as resources come into her community. She is conscious of the balance between
resources that can help people navigate the Western system and ensuring her community is at the
center. This is a distinct type of building conditions because it requires her to consider how she
uses her voice on what works, what the community should be open to, and what does not work.
“Part of my role is being like this reputable voice,” she explained, “that people can trust.” She
described this as a unique part of her role because people in her community have entrusted her
with this work, and she feels a responsibility to ensure that resources that could be beneficial are
available while also recognizing the potential harmful effects.
The most practical aspect of community-facing work that executive directors described
was fundraising. To quote Javier again, while he described his role as to see that this vision is
realized, he included the phrase “slash fundraise” at the end of his comment to humorously point
out there are some very practical things he is responsible for. “I always jokingly tell folks,”
Serena recounted, “my job is to find the money.” Natalie was a matter of fact and said, “I have to
make sure we’re never – knock on wood – never worried about if we can pay for stuff that
matters to us.” Donor stewardship was a big part of how Hana described her role externally and
the work in her community. “We [need to] champion more supporters to care about the work, to
believe this is something that needs to be addressed, and believe TFA needs to be a part of that,”
she explained. She talked about the need to have people in the community who want to invest
monetarily or through their own advocacy. This idea reflected a lot of how executive directors
viewed their role as generating public will and making the cause of educational equity a priority
in their community.

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Organizational Facing Leadership
The second most common way executive directors described their role was as managing
people and internal organizational issues. Daniela said “managing people” is the next thing that
comes to mind after describing a short list of external responsibilities. While Joseph had talked
about his role in realizing Teach For America’s vision, he said his “first responsibility is to make
sure we have the people in place to do the work that will allow us to be able to accomplish that.”
Imani, Victoria, Maya and Natalie talked about the role they have to inspire their teams, unlock
their potential, remove organizational barriers and ensure they are positioned to have as much
impact as possible. “I have to hire, train and retain people who can run our programs and that’s
like four or five programs,” Natalie explained, “that are really critical and that I don’t run.” She
talked about the trust she has to have in people that can run these things well. People and teams
were important for executive directors because they spent a significant amount of time
externally, and they needed people to run the day-to-day programs.
The internal environment created a need for executive directors to spend time helping
people navigate policy or other expectations that were viewed as distracting from the work in
their community. “Part of it is doing some blocking and tackling from the internal environment,”
Victoria explained, and added that she spent time removing barriers to people would be able to
their work with as much ease and efficiency as possible. Maya talked about this as “resisting the
urge to be a middle manager and fall into the middle management type role where you just
constantly mediating along the chain." Like Victoria, Maya said her job is to “block and tackle
and to make sure I am equipping my team to make good on our promise to kids.” Executive
directors felt a responsibility to Teach For America as an enterprise and understood this required
them to be involved in managing the day to day operations. Victoria viewed this as the “less

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sexy” aspect of her job, but important. Zak viewed recent changes as a downgrade in
expectations for his role. “Before this past year,” he explained, “we had the ability to dream,
work in partnership, and create what was right for our community. He referenced a change in
how teams are organized that was very present in each executive director conversation. For Zak,
his responsibility has changed to be more about stewarding top-down decisions and figuring out
how to “contextualize a national vision in a local context.” The biggest difference for him is that
he feels “much more accountable to some sort of centralized office at Teach For America.”
Although the experiences are different, organizational leadership was part of how executive
directors explained their roles.
Strategic Leadership
To understand how modernity influences executive directors, I wanted to learn how they
approach their work as strategic leaders, which was a term they used to define their role. The
research suggests that executive directors are relational stewards and work in complex
environments defined by stakeholder groups with varied and competing interests. With this
context, we can better understand the challenges and complexities executive directors face and
begin to answer the research question about the influence of modernity.
Executive directors talked about their approach to strategy, beginning with a focus on the
needs and opportunities of the community. Sierra, Zak, Natalie, Emma, Maya, and Serena each
shared practical examples of how they begin with what the community needs or wants and
develop ways to work collaboratively with a range of partners. “One main initiative we have is
how we approach math, and this relies heavily on a partnership approach,” Maya explained. She
and her team had spent months learning from others in her community about the most acute
needs of students and found that math was a critical area. This was not just about teachers and

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students, but she said they needed an “end to end” process that included “creating or helping to
foster the enabling conditions for students to succeed.” She went on to explain how a number of
partners were collaborating in specific neighborhood schools and together were committing a
range of support and resources focused on math. Natalie explained they reshaped their role in her
community to focus on “convening a group of actors in a broad multi-state system around shared
metrics and goals.” Her work was centered on hearing the aspirations of students who wanted to
make money, go to college and stay in my community. These insights led her to begin a program
focused on mentoring students in high school and raising awareness career pathways that
supported those student aspirations. Sierra talked about an initiative she called “youth
wayfinding” which was designed to address acute problems with school attendance. “The kids
are gone,” Sierra explained, “like we have no idea where they are. And we just responded to
that.” Youth wayfinding was about actually finding the kids, but it was also about helping those
students find their way in the community. “We always need to keep one heart in the work of
youth,” she explained.
In recent years, executive directors had developed impact goals that are essentially a
description of what would be different in 10 years after sustained effort around specific
strategies. Executive directors talked about how this approach required them to think about
coalitions and the role that working alongside other community partners was essential. Emma
described coalition work as central to the way she approaches her 10 year goal related work. She
explained that her focus was on how to “get practitioners who are closest to the literacy efforts,
or who are students experiencing these efforts [involved] and organize around that.” She
described a coalition effort that developed a literacy system map to understand all the variables
related to literacy and together they could learn insights and identify those actions that may most

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contribute to progress. Similarly, Zak explained work he and his team do on a statewide project
that requires them to bring together and coordinate with superintendents, teachers and students.
“Being the author of this is a huge responsibility,” Zak concluded. He went on to explain how
this was work critical to not just Teach For America but for every student and school in his state.
While Teach For America was playing a role, it was through coalition building and working with
many diverse organizations and leaders across that state that was leading to progress.
Executive directors talked about a number of stakeholders that were critical for moving
work forward in their community. There are a range of stakeholder groups that were identified
including donors, higher education leaders, nonprofit leaders, political leaders, school system
leaders, Teach For America staff, students, teachers, and Teach For America alum. Of these that
were identified the most common were school system leaders, students, and local community
leaders, in that order. “You know, our district is what I think first and foremost,” Javier
explained, “because they’re sort of the representative of our parents and families.” “I would say
districts,” Makayla said, because “at the highest level, they are the people making decisions and
who really shape our work.” Daniel, Serena, and Victoria shared anecdotes about their
relationship with specific district leaders and noted this was a key part of their work in the
community because districts encompass where most of their work takes place. “Like I can
remember when we were out of favor with [our district] and it sucked,” Imani recalled. “It made
it hard to do our work and it hurt our image,” she added. Victoria explained how she focuses on
“making sure we have just like incredibly tight relationships with our district partners,” which
included the superintendent, the board of trustees and anyone in the cabinet. Since schools
played such a central role in where Teach For America works, this stakeholder group played a

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central role in how executive directors thought about who they are working with in their
community.
Executive directors talked about specific members of their community, organizations and
other community leaders who are central to the work they do. While I will include those names,
Serena and Imani talked about individual leaders who had been part of work in education for
decades, were known for agitating or advocacy, and had the credibility and trust of many others
in their community. Serena described one person by saying “I trust her emphatically and she’s
also one of the people who took me under her wing when I first got here.” She mentioned this
person along side others and explained that they were important because “they put me at tables
very early in my tenure, that was a big deal, and helped me learn how to influence and change
the conversation.” “So when I say this, she’s the Olivia Pope of [my community],” Imani said
describing a community leader who was an important stakeholder in her community. “She’s the
person who knows everything and everybody” Imani explained.
There are a range of other organizations and community members that executive directors
names as important partners and stakeholders. These were organizations with similar mission
and philosophy as Teach For America. These were important to Javier because as he thought
about the 10 year impact goal in his community “when we’re trying to take on something that
big, there’s just now way I can do that by myself.” Sierra talked about the importance of
community elders in her community. “It’s funny to think about,” she said, because “I don’t know
that I’ve ever thought of them as a stakeholder.” She described elders as the closest to where we
come from and in their journey they are the wises and carry a profound history. “They’ve seen
things before. We’re in a place of possibility for sure but also we’ve never been here before and
we need this type of wisdom and knowledge to help us along the way.” Local community

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members played an invaluable role for executive directors by opening doors, providing context,
and helping point the way forward in their communities.
In each conversation, executive directors talked about students as an important, if not the
most important stakeholder group, while also acknowledging ways this is complicated. “I mean,
if its not students, I don’t know why were doing this,” Joseph as he acknowledged that so much
of his time and energy is spent in places where he engages infrequently with students. Imani
shared a similar idea, saying, “I mean aspirationally, hopefully, I think kids,” and went on to say
that ultimately, her work is focused on ensuring there are teachers. “Ultimately,” Maya shared,
“all of this is to help students, but I think the way you get at that can look very different.” Each
executive director talked through how students were the ultimate stakeholders but acknowledged
that the work they do often influences what is true for students through other layers of the
education system. “In my head,” Victoria explained, “the right answer is that the most important
stakeholders are our students because that is the reason we do all this work.” However, she went
on to explain that given her role, the place where she can most influence things in her community
is through board members, donors, and district-level leaders. Victoria captured the complexity
many executive directors wrestled with as they sought to find balance in naming the most
important stakeholders. Zak shared an example of how he makes students central to his work.
“The way we’ve lifted up the voice of students is by hiring them.” He described a project where
students advise Teach For America on their strategy, help define priorities, and create solutions
together.
Overall, executive directors described their role as a mix of community-facing leadership,
organizational-facing leadership, and strategic leadership in their community. By understanding

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how executive directors describe their roles, we can better understand the complexities they face
and answer research question two on the influence of modernity.
Challenges and Complexity of the Executive Director Role
As executive directors talked about their work in broad terms and in the specifics of the
day-to-day, they began to identify places where there were challenges or barriers to moving their
vision forward. In this study, I wanted to ground an analysis of modernity’s influence in the
context of the work as described by executive directors, so it was important to begin with
understanding their experiences and perspectives. I assumed, based on the anti-colonial
grounding, that as people are working toward some type of social change, whether defined in the
language of social activism or the language of making a difference more broadly, the limitations
or boundaries of modernity would be present, whether they are cognizant of these or not. I also
assumed these boundaries would appear as tension, complexity, or paradox as people hold a
vision for their community that seems distant from or at odds with the way things are. In the
following section, I will review how executive directors talked about the challenges to moving
their vision forward and the things that make their work complex.
Challenges to Realizing the Vision
There are a wide range of things the executive directors described as challenges to
moving their vision forward. While each executive director could give unique examples specific
to their context, there were some themes in their responses. I identified three themes, including
community, organizational, and political.
As executive directors talked about their community, they described a tendency for
people to work in silos, competing priorities across education leaders, bureaucratic inertia, and
different views on the purpose of education. “We often think of very tactical things that will

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move the needle for our organization,” Makayla explained, versus being in the community and
having a collective approach. Emma explained that groups have different motivations even
though they all want what is best for students, and “we’re often bumping up against one another
in ways that are confusing.” Zak concluded the biggest barrier is just inertia and the status quo.
“It’s hard to do that [change] anywhere.” Joseph and Natalie saw that different opinions on the
purpose of education were a challenge in their communities, and this comes into play as different
generations or different interest groups get involved to influence the type and direction of change
in education. “Our systems are designed against each other,” Joseph explained, “and designed to
perpetuate themselves. They’re not built for change.” While each of these executive directors
had earlier talked about the assets and opportunities in their community, they were also clear on
how there are things about these places that make the work difficult.
Teach For America as an organization was also a source of challenge for executive
directors. Several talked about recent changes to organizational structure and the strain this put
on local teams. “Teach For America’s changes make it difficult,” Zak explained. In so many
ways, Zak commented, Teach For America enables so much work in his community. But he
added that “the way we are operating now is going to be a barrier to us realizing our vision.” In
his view, Teach For America is focusing on maximizing the organization as a whole and not
maximizing a system of individual communities. In talking about Teach For America, the
organization, Maya said that what makes things hard is “resource allocation and bureaucracy.”
Maya continued by saying, “I don’t have the resources I need both financially or people-wise to
truly go after my vision.” Similarly, Makayla talked about the challenge of meeting the needs in
her community due to the lack of “enterprise infrastructure” to support a local strategy that was
critical to maintaining viability as an organization in her community. Victoria discussed whether

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Teach For America was too tied to its model and not really exploring the conditions for success
and what that means for how the model could evolve. She recognized there were opportunities to
learn but wasn’t sure whether Teach For America was doing so in a way that allowed the
organization to evolve.
The political context in which executives worked made things challenging because
finding agreement on core issues that influence the material conditions of students has become
more difficult. “The biggest barrier I see is the political divisiveness around education,” Victoria
explained. She acknowledged that people probably do not disagree and that there is a desire for
kids to read, write, and do math. But when you consider issues like teaching history, charter
schools versus traditional schools, she explained, then “political divisiveness tells you which side
of an issue you have to be on.” She recounted an earlier period when it did not matter what side
of the aisle you were on, “you were on board with getting kids the education they deserve when
it comes to education.” Natalie talked about how politicians have “very intentionally created a
very polarized political environment that makes change hard.” She gave an example of language
or discussion around charter schools being politically charged because they are viewed as “very
urban and anti-union in communities that are very much pro-union have been for a very long
time.” For Natalie, this issue was not about advocating for charter schools or against them. “I
really don’t think these are a lever for change in this community,” she added. However, the issue
was the level of political rhetoric that created divisions and animosity that prevented authentic
dialogue and collaboration.
Complexity
Executive directors identified complexity in several different areas of their work. They
responded to an interview question that prompted them to consider the complexity of their work,

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given that they are working within or proximate to systems they ultimately want to change. I
defined six total themes that fall under two categories: the external and internal environment. In
the following sections, I will review the patterns that emerged, along with examples of what
executive directors shared in their interviews.
External Environment. In describing the external environment, executive directors
talked about fundraising, political dynamics, and structural issues that made their jobs complex.
Fundraising. Executive directors talked about several different aspects of fundraising
that made their role more complex. Serena, Maya, Emma, and Natalie each talked about a
misalignment between the priorities or interests of donors and needs in a community. As they
shared these examples, there was a sense of things being outside their direct control when it
came to directing donor interest, but this defined a core part of what they did because securing
resources is a priority of the role. Maya described the challenge of replacing a significant amount
of funding to support what is needed in her community, but donors have their own ideas about
how things should work. “Those with finance backgrounds and ascribing to this venture
philanthropy approach that wants to find, fund and grow” may not be interested in Teach For
America, she explained. “We are 35 years old and not the shiny new thing anymore.”
Emma shared that earlier in her time as an executive director, she may have been more
inclined to follow what funders wanted to support. However, as she grew clearer on her strategy
and where there are opportunities for impact, she thought about how she could influence what
these funders care about and build investment in what she and her team are doing. “It's gotten
easier to say no to funding opportunities that were not aligned with our goals.” Natalie shares
honestly that she has become used to adjusting her message to what she knows about donors who
will give in her community. “Sometimes it feels just really shitty and fake,” she explained. “I

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know I’m going to have to be in a room where I know the winning pitch is going to be poverty
porn.” She makes a tradeoff, she explains, because she could spend 45 minutes lecturing people
or make an appeal, which she knows will result in resources her community needs.
Political Dynamics. Daniela, Javier, and Serena talked about the balance they have to
find between staying true to their personal values and stewarding the work of Teach For
America. Daniela discussed how this “shows up in big politics, state legislature, and as an
organization of us always trying to walk a very fine line of staying in the middle.” She went on
to explain that she has a responsibility to protect state funding for the organization even when
she knows those they are trying to protect this from are not aligned with her long-term goals.
Javier shared a similar perspective as he recounted experiences where he needs to “be very
careful [on] what policies he can come out very strongly for or against.” He talked about a range
of policies regarding book bans, whether schools or districts should have offices of diversity,
equity and inclusion, and school choice. Part of the challenge for Javier was acknowledging that
as part of a single national nonprofit, he has to be conscious of how a position he takes on any
issue could reflect on Teach For America regions in other states. Javier explained that while he
may not be able to advocate for certain positions publicly, he talked about work happening
behind the scenes through the local alumni network that is pushing the boundaries on a range of
issues. “I think the biggest tension,” Serena explained, “is when I’ve had to stand alone as a
leader,” while other leaders of color opt to stand with a funder. She talked about a sense of
accountability she has to her community and the people she knows, that while they may not be in
the room at the time, she felt a personal responsibility to stay true to herself. “I think that’s
probably the hardest part,” she concluded, “staying true to my vision.” In each example,
executive directors were clear on their personal vision and values while at the same time

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acknowledging that navigating and negotiating fundraising dynamics was a source of complexity
with no easy answers.
Local and statewide politics was another area executive directors discussed as a source of
complexity. Imani, Serena, and Victoria talked about the dynamics in their local communities
and the complexity of moving certain initiatives forward. In talking about building strategic
relationships in her community, Imani said, “You have to be really careful how you talk about
things because everything is a landmine.” Her reflections were on the steps she had to take early
on in her tenure as an executive director and the need to know the right people and understand
the stories people held about education and education reform. “It is about, like, you’ve got to put
in your time, you have to show respect, you have to show deference,” Imani explained. As she
recounted her experiences, she acknowledged that she could not have made traction in her
community without understanding these local dynamics. “The tension is that [my state] is so
small and everybody knows everybody.” She described this as creating a type of familiarity that
can make it hard to have real conversations that are important to core issues in her community.
Victoria described the arc of her time as an executive director and concluded, “I was not
expecting to have to have such political savviness.” She remembered the intense battle of
negotiating a district contract and the work that went into getting the contract approved. Like
other executive directors, she had to learn the local political landscape and develop skills in
managing relationships, as well as learn about how systems worked in her community.
Executive directors talked about the broader political context in their state or community
that made the day-to-day work more complex. Makayla talked about how everything in her state
has “turned very center-right,” and Teach For America is perceived as being a “very left-leaning
organization.” “We have to dial everything down in [my state],” Makayla explained, especially

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with regard to equity or social-emotional language. She described how the work has to continue
since these things are related to the core mission of Teach For America, but they have had to
adjust how they talk about these things publicly. Zak discussed his recent appointment to a statewide committee through the governor's office and acknowledged this would put him in a place
where he would have to rock the boat if he was to stay true to his values. However, he said, “I
can’t push as hard as I’d like because other people on the committee are from the district where
we work, and we need to contract in order to place teachers there.” “At the end of the day,”
Daniela explained, “it all comes down to politics, like capital p, democrat and republican
politics.” Like many other executive directors in this study, the political debates around
education issues shaped how they engaged and led them to be strategic and thoughtful about the
way they work to advance their mission. Daniela summed up the complexity of politics by
saying the challenge is “not to be seen as too much of one side versus the other.
Structural. Several executive directors reflected on the complexity of their role in
relation to the broader structural arrangements of power and relationships in their community. In
these responses, the challenges were not so much about the specifics of fundraising or working
within political systems but acknowledging ways of knowing and being that made the work
difficult.
“The biggest tension I face is that I fundamentally believe the public education system in
this country needs to be blown up and reinvented,” Maya explained. This idea was not unique to
Maya but was a common view among several executive directors about the nature of the system.
Maya went on to describe how the system does not serve Black, Brown, or poor students at all.
“And this is by design,” she continued, “it was never designed to meet their needs.” She
described how the system continues to produce the same inequities over time that lead to the

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same patterns of inequality in things like housing, jobs, and health care. While she acknowledged
the design of the system, she explained that her role was to work within the system as it exists
and take steps that reflect her vision for transformation.
Zak shared that knowing the system is not working while working within it is hard
because “so much of your focus is on meeting existing needs, like propping up the system, and
all your energy is drained by that and takes away from thinking about reinvention.” Victoria
made a distinction between gentle and courageous boundary pushings as she described how she
works within systems she knows are not working to meet the needs of all students. “As an
individual, I may be able to push more courageously in certain spaces,” she explained. However,
as an organizational leader, “I have a responsibility to preserve the institution, and I believe this
needs to last in order for us to do the work long-term.” Through these reflections, executive
directors described feeling pulled in different directions, between wanting to fundamentally
change how things work and feeling overwhelmed by the needs in their community from existing
systems.
In sum, the external environment included fundraising, political dynamics, and structural
complexities executive directors content with that make the work challenging. Through these
responses, they offered perspectives on how these issues influenced their work and created
conditions that required them to think strategically about how they approached specific situations
in advancing the mission of Teach For America.
Internal Environment. In describing the internal environment, executive directors
discussed organizational dynamics, programmatic dynamics, and personal challenges that made
their jobs complex.

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Organizational Dynamics. The most common organizational dynamic that executive
directors talked about was working within a complex national organization while trying to meet
community needs. “I do think a very fucking real reality of all I do is thinking about Teach For
America as probably the primary constituent of everything I do,” Joseph explained. He was
exasperated by considering the time he spent contending with internal organizational issues
while trying to accomplish everything he wanted to be true for students in his community. He
explained a tension he feels between a deep sense of responsibility to his community and to
Teach For America as an organization that does make so much possible in some ways. “In many
ways,” he concluded, “we’re not executive directors, we’re glorified middle managers.” Teach
For America, the organization played a significant role in shaping what he is able to do, and at
times, he described moments where the needs of the organization came before those of the
community.
Zak and Imani shared similar ideas as they discussed the tension they experienced
between the needs of the national organization and what they viewed as the reality on the ground
in their community. “I feel much more accountable to some sort of centralized office at Teach
For America,” Zak explained, “I’m a middle manager now.” He offered his experiences over the
past few years where the strategy of the organization shifted from one he described as
contextualizing a national vision to his local community to one where he is primarily responsible
for managing change through a top-down approach. As he explained this complexity, he valued
the organizational impact goals. However, he said he “cannot map out from program
development to strategy to our 2030 goal. Teach For America’s package does not meet the goal.”
Zak explained that before these changes, his job felt hard, but now it's on the verge of becoming
impossible.

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Imani wondered whether she really had the support from the national organization to do
the work on the ground in her community. She described a range of decisions around strategy
that were challenging to implement in her community because the context on the ground felt
incompatible with national priorities. In talking about Teach For America’s new approach to
placing teachers, she said, “This is like not how it works.” An expectation Teach For America
had for her missed the broader goal she had of building relationships with her school partners.
While these executive directors expressed a deep commitment to stewarding Teach For
America’s mission in their community, organizational policies made community-facing work
challenging.
Sierra talked about the constant negotiation she makes between the time she spends on
internal things and being in the community. “My theory, my vision, my connection to the people
has to be so strong so that I can advocate for what our community needs,” she explained. She
understood the importance of attending to the internal work because she wanted to ensure she
was aware of how these organizational decisions could impact her community. “It may be stark,”
she commented, “but I have used the historical metaphor of, like, I’m worried I’m going to sign a
treaty that I didn’t mean this time.” Similar to other executive directors, Sierra was working to
apply organizational decisions about how resources are distributed among Teach For America
regions in a way that meets the needs of the community. There were things her team did in
previous years that were needed in her community, but with recent changes in policy, they would
no longer be able to do. While she understands the internal organizational dynamics, she said,
“We’re constantly trying to figure out how we make sure our teachers who are educating our
students are not going to replicate [colonial] education.”

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Lastly, as executive directors talked about the change they wanted to see in their
community, they talked about how they are also working to create change in the organization in
ways that support their vision. “There are multiple systems I’m striving to change and maybe,
whether it’s right or wrong, Teach For America as a system that needs to change in order to have
the impact I want to have in the school system,” Aaliyah explained. She did not initially think
this was a place where she would spend time as an executive director, and she acknowledged this
is one of the things that makes her job hard now that she has been in the role for a while. As a
newer executive director, Daniel saw these same dynamics and summed up the complexity of
working in a large national organization that wants to focus on community-level impact. “The
difficulty of being a region is melding the regional needs, the local needs, with the national
narrative, being a team player, and making all of that make sense locally.” While executive
directors viewed the organization as playing a role in the work they envisioned, their examples of
these dynamics illustrate the challenge they face in directing resources to meet community needs.
Programmatic Dynamics. Executive directors discussed a number of issues related to the
two-year corps program and how this program contributes to the type of systems change they
envision in their communities.
Javier talked about their approach to placement of corps members and how this maps
onto places where there is a need and places where the conditions for teachers to succeed exist
that reflect the experiences of most executive directors. They could place the majority of new
corps members in a small number of charter schools where retention rates are higher, but this
approach doesn’t meet the need for teachers in traditional schools where the shortages are more
acute. “So we bring in this really idealist corps, and then they get put in a campus that doesn’t
give a shit about their experience.” In contrast, in some charters, where they are focused on

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behavior monitoring, corps members expect him to address concerns with school leaders and
district staff. This is a conversation he is open to, but he acknowledges that “this feels more like
coaching, and honestly, I don’t feel like I have the luxury of being perceived as a coach for most
partners.” Through his discussion on placement, he talked about the challenge of ensuring corps
members have the conditions in place to succeed but acknowledged that it becomes challenging
when balancing this with the needs among districts for new teachers. If they want people to stay
in education, they need to be in schools that support them and provide opportunities to learn and
grow, while at the same time, many schools that need teachers may lack resources that allow that
to happen. Like most executive directors, Javier saw the role of the two-year program as playing
a role in his vision despite these challenges. He also acknowledged that long-term change will
not be a result of the work corps members do over their two years.
The two-year program served the purpose of bringing more people into education but was
not seen as the primary way executive directors envisioned making change in their communities.
“I’ve never put systems change on the back of our corps members,” Javier explained. He went on
to say that “in fact, corps members don’t really factor into any of the plans that I have for the
systems change that we’re working on.” As he talked about those things happening in his
community, he identified several alumni who had stayed and gave examples of work they did
within the school district to build new programs. “I want to prepare enough people who will be
around long enough to contribute meaningfully when their time comes,” he concluded. Maya
shared similar thoughts on the corps program and its relationship to change in her community.
“Corps members have not been the driving factor, or like, they are not the stakeholder group to
help get this done.” Like Javier, Maya saw alumni in her community as a stakeholder group who
is most likely to be part of driving change. As she described the work she is leading, it was with

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alumni in influential positions in schools or districts or who were leading organizations that were
getting results. In both these examples, Teach For America operates as a talent pipeline that
identifies people through the corps program with the hopes that they stay and continue building
in the community.
While executive directors acknowledged the role and value of the corps program as a
talent strategy, they identified work that needed to happen beyond this to effect change. “One
lesson I’ve learned,” Hana reflected, “is that if we have all the talent in the world, it will not get
us to systems that will change unless we do all the other stuff.” She described the other stuff as
creating opportunities for alumni in her community to convene and collaborate with other
organizations, build relationships with other leaders in the community, and be involved with
work in the community alongside others. “The talent play can only go so far if we really want to
achieve our 10 year goal,” she concluded. Imani agreed on the limitations of just meeting the
teacher shortage. “We shouldn’t actually put ourselves on the hook for trying to solve the teacher
gap at all. Like, there’s a bigger program,” Imani shared. Like Hana, Imani described the need to
be out in the community more as a partner and thought leader engaged in doing work on the
ground alongside others. Both Crystal and Aaliyah talked about how they work to position Teach
For America as “beyond the corps program,” which means Teach For America is more of a
talent partner with districts working on strategies to support and retain teachers in addition to
recruiting. This also meant redefining the role of Teach For America in their community as a
convener, innovator, and agitator in support of students.
Personal. Executive directors explained different personal challenges they faced that
included aspects of their identity, perceptions of the ideal profile of an executive director, and
contending with their personal values. Maya and Victoria discussed how their identities

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influenced the ways they navigate and hold the complexity of their role. They each viewed their
identity in the context of their role and were aware of how their individual social locations
intersected with the work they do. “The politics of all the isms as it relates to education and
being a person with my identity and background, needing to hold that while also holding that fact
that I represent an organization irrespective of those things” is how Maya considered her identity
in the context of being an executive director at Teach For America. Overall, the vision she has
for students supersedes either of these things, and she concluded that often, this vision she has is
more important than what it means to hold responsibilities as an organizational leader. Victoria
reflected on her work as a self-identified female Latina from a low-income background who had
to get used to being in places with powerful White men. As she thought about her upbringing,
she remembered feeling not fully equipped when she first started, but she has learned to
overcome these things the longer she has been in the role.
Hana, Emma, and Joseph each shared aspects of the role that were personally challenging
for them in terms of the ideal profile of a successful executive director or finding a way to lead
through the complexity of their context. Hana shared how some recent experiences helped her
refine her point of view on what it means to influence or change the system, but also
acknowledged that, at times, this role she plays feels inauthentic to her leadership style. Hana
described the expectations she felt for leading in a particular way and having an archetype of
what an executive director does. The mix of expectations and the archetype she held raised
questions about her efficacy as a leader in her community.
Emma identified a challenge in “metabolizing” the very different perspectives people
have on education and Teach For America in her community. She valued the opportunity to hear
different perspectives and enjoyed the chance to challenge her own ideas and preconceptions.

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She described this as “hard work” to be able to take in all the different points of view and make
meaning of it in a way that can inform her work. The hard part of the job was to have space to do
this type of metacognitive work, redefine what she thinks, and translate that into action. While
Hana and Emma talked about personal challenges in terms of external engagement, Joseph talked
about the complexity of being an organizational steward. He said he spends too much time
navigating internal things but is trying to help the organization be at the forefront and challenge
things he disagrees with. He is balancing the belief he has in Teach For America’s potential with
the issues he has with its shortcomings.
In sum, the findings in this section show a number of internal and external dynamics that
reflect the epistemological and ontological boundaries of modernity. Executive directors
described several organizational dynamics that add complexity to their work in their community
and identified how the external environment created challenges to advancing their vision and
mission. In the next section, I will review the findings of research question 3 and how executive
directors navigate the boundaries of modernity.
Research Question 3: Navigating Modernity
In research question three, I wanted to understand how executive directors approach their
work in ways that acknowledge the boundaries of modernity and maintain a commitment to
transforming education. In the sections that follow, I will review the findings on how executive
directors view systems change, their approach to navigating the tensions or complexities
identified in research question two, and their perspectives on how Teach For America could
evolve to address the issue of educational inequity in their community.

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Executive Director’s Views on Systems Change
Executive directors described systems change in three distinct ways: as change within the
existing system with a focus on making things better, changing as rethinking the way things
work, and conceptualizing change as existing outside the way things currently work. I think it is
important to note that individual executive directors’ responses often fell across different
categories throughout the conversation. The purpose of my presentation of these findings is to
help illustrate the different ways that systems change was described by executive directors.
Change within Existing Systems
There were several examples of how executive directors thought about change within
existing systems to make things work better or more efficiently. Daniela identified a lack of
cohesion and collaboration within her community, specifically with Teach For America alumni.
She described systems change as happening through creating spaces for people to work together
and begin identifying the potential impact of their network coming together. Daniela explained
that doing this year after year would lead to a greater sense of connection and ultimately
increased impact in the community. Joseph described his own personal theory of how systems
change and evolve as working with people and working with things in the system to make them
better. In his example, he explained how they work to find places in the student experience that
are not currently working and then work with others to address these areas. “And so we ask, how
can we work within the system with the people who ultimately make up the system to figure out
what it is we want to be different,” he explained. Earlier, he talked about his vision as centered in
people and talent, and so he saw change happening by ensuring people have the resources they
need in the context of their school or community and are able to use these to see meaningful
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Other executive directors described systems change in more mechanical terms and
viewed change happening incrementally through smaller adjustments to the system. Imani talked
about the relationship between inputs and outputs and defined systems change as a state in which
the results of a process are different. In her view, systems change is not necessarily dependent on
the specific inputs but on how the machine operates to create something different. “It’s like,
whatever the machine is doing, whatever the cogs are doing, right, it actually changed even if by
two degrees to the right or to the left, that’s systems change,” she explained. Natalie shared an
example of a change to her state’s funding formula as an example of systems change. While she
did not use similar language around inputs and outputs, she described how the system worked in
different ways to produce a more equitable result for communities that had been historically
overlooked. In her example, people worked in different ways through organizing and advocating
within the system as it exists, but this led to different outcomes for schools.
Change as Thinking Differently
Executive directors explained their approach to systems change as finding new ways to
define or discuss the issues of education in their community. Javier acknowledged that he is still
learning what systems change means and said, “I don’t think as an ED I’ve been part of a true
transformational systems change,” even though he could describe how things have looked
different over time. He made a distinction between transformational change that fundamentally
altered current predictive realities for students and systems operating differently. Javier shared
how he learned about systems change from a scholar who described it as a process of changing
the narrative, bridging differences, and then unleashing human energy. “We’ve talked a lot about
education in XYZ way in [my community], but there is this other way that we can think about it,
this idea of flipping the script that can change our current discourse,” Javier explained this

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orientation has been important to him as he meets with people in his community and talks with
current partners and works to be open to the possibility of something different and
acknowledging the way things have been going do not have to be the same in the future.
“I think systems change is understanding how everything is connected,” Emma
explained. She described system change as a complex process where there may not always be
simple solutions, and oftentimes, what appears to be a solution at one point may end up
complicating things later on. She imagined systems change as yarn that “if you pull on one piece,
even if it comes out readily, you may actually be tangling up the interior.” In her view, not
everything can move at once. She explained that you have to be willing to move at the pace of
the system, appreciate the complexity of the system you are working in, and not overwhelm
people in the process.
Change is Unimaginable
As executive directors discussed system change, they acknowledged that the change they
envisioned in their communities exists beyond how the world currently operates. “I just know in
my bones, I’m like, this isn’t it. I just know this ain’t it,” Imani concluded. She imagined a
completely different future for her community where there were no more disparities and
inequities, and schools operated in such a way that every student and family had exactly what
they needed. “If I could really take a paintbrush and create something, it wouldn’t look like how
we’re doing education right now,” Imani explained. This was in the context of a state and city
that had championed school choice and charters and had been the epicenter of nationally
recognized education reform. Imani could point to examples of how things had changed, but
when she compared this to the vision she held for her community, she knew they were not close.
“What’s going to actually get us to [Teach For America’s vision]? I don’t think I know, like I

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don’t have the answer to that question,” Victoria explained. While she was clear on what needed
to happen in the immediate context and had a clear point of view on what needed to change,
when asked about a future without educational inequity, she was not sure there was an answer.
Like most executive directors, Imani and Victoria were clear on the issues and challenges; they
had a perspective on what should be different, but when considering a future where educational
inequity is eliminated, it was unimaginable.
As other executive directors discussed change and the potential to see the end of
educational equity, they explained that the way things work may only perpetuate what currently
exists. Emma talked about how she has seen solutions implemented in her community that have
come about through extensive work and collaboration ultimately only regenerate the system.
“Even when something changes,” Emma explained, “because of the way the system works, like,
it's only going to try and flip itself back again.” When asked if she could imagine an end to
educational inequity, she said yes and no. She could explain the necessary work of ensuring
every student has what they need for a life of their choosing but admitted that this work will be
constant because the system seems to regenerate itself. Zack and Thomas shared a similar
perspective on the nature of the ongoing work to create more equity but saw this as complicated
by the reality that as the world continues to change, there will always be another issue of
inequity. “I’m sure there’ll be plenty of shit that’s even worse in society that we’re gonna have to
solve because an equitable education won’t be enough,” Zak concluded. In both these views,
executive directors identified an underlying logic of the system that would inevitably prohibit the
type of change they envisioned, even if they didn’t recognize this as the logic of modernity or as
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As executive directors talked about change in their community, they recognized that the
depth of the issues they were describing required a change not just in their community but across
all communities due to the nature of systemic issues. “This question put me in a real existential
place,” Aaliyah commented, because “when you say in my community, I actually don’t think it
can happen in my community if it’s not happening in other communities.” She went on to
explain that as she considered things like hyper-segregation in her community, she saw this as a
manifestation of the broader issues of racism and classism in the country. And education, she
explained, “intersects with so many other things like healthcare, jobs and so many other things”
that she cannot imagine Black boys in her community growing up to be 21 years old and not
having to contend with all these issues. The change was unimaginable for her because, in similar
ways that others had described the perpetuation and regeneration of the system, Aaliyah viewed
the underlying logic of the current system as limiting the ability to realize an alternative future.
In sum, there was no single view of how executive directors described systems change
work. For many executive directors, change was described as possible within existing systems,
change as thinking differently, and change as unimaginable. Despite the variation in how
executive directors thought of a theory of systems change, nearly all viewed the existing system
as inadequate and in need of a complete replacement. Natalie and Daniela captured the essence
of the executive director's perspective on how to create the change they envisioned in education.
“You’d have to break the model, erase the books, and build again.”
Executive Directors Navigating Complexity
Executive directors identified several different ways they managed or navigated
complexity in their work. In the following sections, I will review two patterns that emerged from
their interviews, including leadership orientations and actions.

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Leadership Orientations
Executive directors acknowledged they worked in an environment that required them to
evaluate how their work contributed to eliminating educational inequity. “I need to acknowledge
the complexity and work with the complexity,” Emma explained, “but I always want to ask
myself – am I ever propping up the complexity.” She and her team explored whether their
partnership with a local school was helping or hurting by allowing them to rely on Teach For
America in their staffing shortages. Emma recognized the role they could play in ensuring
students had a qualified teacher but was also aware that in this situation, they may have
contributed more to dependency than helping the school solve some deeper issues. Makayla was
aware of how her approach to navigating state politics that are resistant to talking about equity
may be challenging for some but ultimately viewed her orientation as necessary to continue the
work she believed was important for students and families. “It’s like the underground railroad in
some aspects,” she commented, “but we’re not hiding our work.” She described her orientation
as a nuanced ability to bounce back and forth while staying true to the mission and the work.
Ultimately, for Makayla, how she talks about what they are doing in her state may change, but
the work remains the same, and navigating the complexity through a nuanced approach was part
of doing the work.
Building relationships and coalitions were key elements of how executive directors talked
about navigating the complexity of a system they were working to change. Zak explained that he
did not think he should operate from a place of antagonism with others but figure out how to
build a coalition around the issues he wants to move forward. “It’s sometimes harder, it takes
more energy, it takes more work, but I actually think that’s how you get sustainable change,” he
concluded. At the same, he was aware that working within the system could potentially dilute his

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ability to effect change. “I’m always thinking about, like, what the repercussions of working
inside a system are, which will inevitably make you less radical.” Like other executive directors,
he was aware that the system could have an impact on him and was reflective of how his
orientation to the complexity of things could influence his ability to effect change.
Joseph shared a similar approach and explained that his orientation to working within
systems is to start by co-defining a problem and then work collaboratively to address it. “You
have to really try and understand the perspective that either the person or institution has, and then
you really just have to sit with that,” Joseph explained. His approach was to understand the
problems schools or districts were up against deeply and not try to sell Teach For America or
propose easy solutions. He acknowledged that schools have their own goals and priorities, and
they understand the challenges they are facing. Ideally, the work Teach For America does in his
community should be part of addressing those areas collaboratively. This approach was similar
to other executive directors who explained that a starting place to address the systemic issues
was to begin with understanding how things work. Makayla explained that not only does she
need to understand the system, but she sees herself and her work as part of the system, whether
she agrees with it or not, in order to influence change. Joseph and Makayla described an
orientation to navigating complexity that required them to work within the system as it exists,
build credibility and trust, and then use that position to pursue changes they want to see.
Executive directors discussed how clarity on their values is key to how they navigate the
systems they hope to influence. As he considers the various spaces he engages in his community,
Zak said the biggest question he asks himself is, “Do I want the change to happen, or do I want
to be right?” His values were about de-centering his personal perspective and being willing to be
“louder or quieter” about his views, depending on what will most effectively move things

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forward. Serena talked about the importance of patience and strategic relationships in her work
because she noticed that it takes longer for things to happen. “It takes way more conversations
than I’m used to to get things done,” she explained. She has learned to be very conscious of who
she is involved with and when they are involved, as she worked on a number of policy
recommendations in her state. Like Zak, she was less interested in being seen or recognized than
in seeing important work move forward. And at times, it was more advantageous for her or
Teach For America to be less visible in the context of moving forward with any change she saw
as beneficial for her community.
Similar to the orientations other executive directors discussed, which balanced existing in
the system as it is with advocacy, Sierra described her approach as survivance. She described
survivance as being able to survive and resist at the same time. In contrast to how other executive
directors explained their approach to navigating complexity, Sierra explained this as “playing the
status quo so things don’t implode.” For other executive directors, navigating the status quo was
a matter of strategy and negotiating their ability to influence the system. For Sierra, the status
quo served a specific role because schools, as they exist, house, feed, and, to some extent,
provide a safe place for students to survive. “We’re not going to close down schools; we can’t
abolish schools tomorrow. I actually need them right now because they carry a unique role for
kids,” she explained. However, as enactments of colonialism in her community, she is clear that
schooling would look fundamentally different if centered on self-determination and sovereignty.
Leadership Actions
Executive directors discussed a range of actions or steps they take to navigate the
complexity or tensions they identified. These actions included finding ways to practically be part
of a solution in a community, finding ways to stay in the middle or compromise, finding tangible

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actions that can lead to transformation, and finding others in the community to work with outside
Teach For America.
Every executive director talked about the importance of working with others in the
community, building partnerships, and trying to find places of common ground. For Makayla,
this began with fully understanding the scope of an issue or problem, identifying who is working
in that area, and determining if Teach For America can play. As she described her approach,
Makayla explained that she is certain there are some ways in which Teach For America can help
solve a problem. She offered several examples of working with her state’s lead agency on
teacher recruitment and preparation, as well as with local school districts. “I make us part of a
strategic decision to be able to be a solution for whatever the problem is within that part of the
system,” she concluded. Makayla’s approach was centered on the idea that you have to see
yourself as part of any given system to understand how things work and then be able to influence
change. Serena has a similar strategy in the way she approaches building relationships and being
thoughtful about how she balances her priorities with understanding those of others. She
discussed working with members of her community on some legislation and her willingness to
allow others to receive credit even as she had done a lot of the work to move things forward.
This was her approach to building trust and credibility by lending her expertise to support the
work others are doing in her community. “I’m always, like, how can I help you?”, she explained.
Serena also explained that there are times when interests are aligned and times when they are not
and she has grown more comfortable in saying no in ways that still honor those relationships.
Executive directors described the choices they make that preference Teach For America
as an organization over or against what they may personally value. As they discussed examples
of where this comes up in their work, they explained these moments as tradeoffs that, over the

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long term, support their ability to continue the work in their community, even if those moments
do not feel great. “It’s an inauthenticity compromise that frankly is super exhausting,” Natalie
explained, “but I found it necessary to get the resources we need.” Hana described similar
decisions she faced with supporting or not supporting specific policies in her state and explained
that this is something she has to be okay with because this is part of her role. Like Natalie and
other executive directors, Hana saw this as necessary because of the belief she has in the longterm value of Teach For America and the need to ensure they are able to operate in her
community beyond short-term battles over specific policies. Daniela described this as “staying in
the middle” when it comes to deep political divisiveness around specific issues because her and
her team need to protect state funding. She explained how they have approached meeting with
stakeholders who have very different perspectives that can also be at odds with Teach For
America’s long-term goals. “To bring one side to the table, we highlight that, and to bring the
other side to the table, we don’t ever bring it up,” she explained. Similar to other executive
directors, funding and access to resources were motivators for needing to find a way to
compromise so that the long-term work of Teach For America could continue.
Maya had a distinct point of view on how she navigated these tensions and the actions
she took to move the work forward. She identified three approaches to reconciling these types of
tension: conform, reform, or transform. “So I’m seeking transformation and trying to understand
ways that I can promote and pursue transformation,” she explained. Maya described her
approach to breaking down the complexity of the education system in her community and
focusing on a limited number of areas where she can really approach things in a radically
different way. Earlier in our interview, she talked about community partnerships, collaborative
projects related to specific content areas and grade levels, and tapping into new models of change

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in her community. “Even though I can’t blow up the system, I can blow up our contrived, limited
ways of how we do things right now,” Maya explained. Maya had identified the steps she would
take while working in the system to begin a process of moving things closer to the vision she had
for students in her community.
Similar to Maya, Sierra talked about how she navigated the complexity of her work by
finding ways to engage with other organizations in her community. She talked about the
complexity of working within an organization that can enact colonialism and the need to find a
way to process and understand organizational decisions or policies from different perspectives.
Sierra reflected on the increased responsibility she felt as an executive director, not only from
Teach For America but from her community as well, and the need to protect her community
from harm. “I am very lucky that I got to be part of a local organizing group,” Sierra explained,
“because having access to different theories and ways of looking at issues has been so
important.” The action she took as a leader was to be deeply engaged with the responsibilities
she holds as an executive director while also proactively learning from other groups in her
community about new ways of seeing these responsibilities.
Overall, executive directors' navigation of the complexities in their role depends on how
they have identified those complexities. In this review of findings, I identified a range of
leadership orientations and actions to illustrate the variation in how executive directors approach
the complexity they have defined. Executive directors identified a unique set of orientations and
actions that helped them manage the complexity of their roles.
Understanding Teach For America
As the interviews concluded, I wanted to understand how the various perspectives on
Teach For America influenced executive directors’ work in their communities and how Teach

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For America could evolve in ways to increase their impact toward making educational equity a
reality. Given Teach For America’s model, I assumed this came with its own unique complexity,
and I wanted to understand how various views and critiques of Teach For America shape how
they work in their community.
The Teach For America Model
Executive directors talked about acknowledging where Teach For America has fallen
short and expressed a willingness to engage with people in their community to discuss how it can
improve. Sierra, Joseph, Zak, Natalie, and Javier each shared that as they listened to and engaged
with others about critiques, they tended to agree while also acknowledging how things have
changed. “I think, like, there’s sometimes critiques that are just like, yeah, that’s spot on,” Javier
said. His approach is to own up to those moments and be transparent about ways that Teach For
America could do better. He shared examples of participants in the two-year program who had
quit or were just not up to the bar of what was expected from either his team or the local school.
“If our model was that transformational change is going to come from [new teachers] that would
be a real problematic approach,” Javier explained. Executive directors explained that the twoyear program was not designed to be the long-term solution but a necessary part of enlisting the
next generation to choose education as a career. Joseph explained that the question of whether
Teach For America is solving or perpetuating the problem is one of the things that keeps him up
at night. “Are we perpetuating the problem? Are we delivering on $2 million of impact?” he
asked. However, he did not see this as a binary between one or the other; rather, he saw it as a
matter of identifying the ways Teach For America is and is not part of the problem. Similarly,
one executive director looked back on their own corps experience and acknowledged there were
ways they both did some great things and caused harm. “I don’t know how to reconcile that to

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this day,” they concluded. Each of these executive directors chose to lead through these moments
with transparency and own the ways Teach For America needed to improve.
Executive directors also explained how important it is to acknowledge the critiques and
discussed Teach For America's approach to learning and evolving. Imani and Serena explained
how things have changed regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion in response to feedback from
a variety of stakeholders. “Do we always get DEI stuff right? No, we don’t” Imani explained.
She added that this is the same as other White led organizations as well as Black and Latino
organizations. Imani described an orientation to learning and evolving that makes Teach For
America different in terms of being willing to engage in the more challenging topics related to
racial equity. “Yes, we’ve had challenges historically,” Serena said, continuing by saying, “and I
won’t sugarcoat that.” Like Imani, she reflected back on how Teach For America missed the
mark on racial equity and then pointed to more recent examples of how things have improved.
Emma explained how people perceive Teach For America, which reflects different eras of the
organization. She contrasted the experience people may have had from the 1990s, when the
organization was predominately White, compared with those in more recent years. “People have
different iterations of Teach For America they anchor on,” she explained, and said, “I just bring
us back to TFA being a learning organization.” As executive directors talked about the model
and approach of Teach For America, they acknowledged the issues and critiques but also
identified ways it had evolved in response to feedback and learning.
Executive directors talked about how these critiques or views on Teach For America
often overlooked other aspects of the organization and the value it adds to their community. “I
would say one of the common misconceptions about Teach For America is that we believe we
are the full solution to the problem,” Makayla explained. She discussed how she spends time

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explaining to partners in her community that Teach For America is not the “silver bullet, but we
have a unique role we can play.” Executive directors explained other misconceptions like Teach
For America’s role in privatizing education, making teaching a temporary career, and using
education as a stepping stone. While the response to each of these ideas is beyond the scope of
this study, it is important to note how executive directors navigate these issues in their
community. The majority of executive directors acknowledged the areas that needed to improve
but also did not just want to take the full blame for the problems of education. “Whenever I hear
something, I often agree and believe the critiques are valid and want to be able to respond to it
but not in a defensive way,” Sierra said. Sierra explained an example of learing about the impact
of a Teach For America decision from a community member and acknowledged she was
unaware but was willing to listen and take responsibility.
At the same time, executive directors described how sometimes Teach For America is too
willing to hear criticism and identify how these views can be inaccurate. Imani, Victoria and
Natalie each shared how Teach For America can be an example of what it looks like to evolve
and adapt to a changing education landscape. Victoria discussed how the workforce has changed
compared to previous generations, and it is not as realistic to expect people to stay in a job or in a
career beyond a couple of years. In her view, Teach For America has figured out how to recruit
within the current generation and be part of helping address acute teacher shortages in her
community. Imani shared that “we can’t be the scapegoat for everything” because the problems
in education have been around since before Teach For America. While Imani recognized some of
the downsides to particular education reform efforts in her community, she also explained that
people learned about things that work as well. “I’m not willing to accept blanket criticism for
blanket criticism,” she concluded. These executive directors explained how Teach For America

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is not about a single solution or advocating one particular policy in their communities. “If we get
our heads on right we can be part of building a solution,” Imani explained, and “we are
constantly putting a mirror to our work to find ways to change.”
Evolving Teach For America
Executive directors discussed ways Teach For America could evolve to better serve their
communities and accomplish the vision for educational equity. The changes they discussed
included both internal and external changes.
External Changes. Executive directors explained that Teach For America needs to find
ways to practice real accountability to communities. Natalie talked about how there tend to be
vanity metrics that reflect how the organization is running and a need to move beyond looking
exclusively at things like satisfaction surveys and dollars raised. “Right now, we have no way of
knowing whether kids in an Algebra 2 class got better at Algebra 2 and until we know that we’re
wasting $300 million per year,” one executive director explained. They discussed how a solution
is to be accountable to different kinds of data that could reflect how things are different in a
community because of the work they are doing. Zak shared a similar idea, describing the current
operational model as a barrier to regions operating according to the vision for their communities.
“The way we’re operating is designed for maximizing the whole and not a system of individual
communities.” The strength of the Teach For America network for Zak resides in the uniqueness
that every community brings and finding ways to leverage this as part of developing solutions
that can work in education.
For other executive directors, real accountability was about relating differently to
communities. For Victoria, this was about moving away from being seen as a vendor for new
teachers and more of a strategic talent partner that is working in close collaboration with local

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schools and districts. She discussed how they are building relationships in different ways that are
not just about meeting the immediate needs in their schools but also include working together
around shared goals where Teach For America has some “skin in the game.” For Sierra,
proximity was not just about partnership but living and being in the community. “It’s like you
have to be in our community, like part of a family, even if you’re not from here.” This was not
an idealistic platitude about feeling part of something. Sierra described this as literally becoming
part of a family and being considered a relative. Each of these executive directors explained the
importance of being in the community or relating differently, acknowledging how recent
organizational changes made this more challenging.
Executive directors were clear on the need for accountability and what this looks like in
practice. However, they were not as clear on how the organization was supporting work to be
more community-centered. Natalie shared that if Teach For America is serious and committed to
the ambitious impact goals they have asked executive directors to set in their community, then
“we need to be clear on what it would take to do that in all 52 places across the country.” She
went on to explain that Teach For America should zero base all their budgets across regional and
national teams and allocate resources in ways that reflect the vision for communities. “I think
we’re trying to figure out how we can differentiate ourselves as a national organization,” Joseph
explained, “and identify an approach to [resourcing] that aligns with what different regions are
set up to do.” He acknowledged that trying to figure out a differentiated strategy that leverages
the unique characteristics of each region seems right, but it is the harder route to go. His point of
view expressed the complexity executive directors felt as they discussed the need for real
accountability to communities. “But I think, I don’t know, probably the way we need to evolve is
just to simplify and do fewer things. I think that’s just the easier way, but I’m wrestling with

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this,” Joseph explained. Executive directors recognize that every place is different, and there is
not a single thing that can be applied everywhere all the time.
Internal Change. There were several ideas executive directors explained were needed to
address internal organizational dynamics that would need to change for Teach For America to be
better positioned for addressing community level change. Executive talked about whether they
had the resources needed in their community to do the type of work necessary in their
community. “I do not believe that people who make decisions are proximate enough to the 52
places where work to understand the needs of different communities,” Makayla explained. She
described the need for a system that acknowledges both the universal approach as an
organization and a differentiated structure that can address the problems in a specific community.
Several executive directors talked about the universal approach as “standardizing” Teach For
America’s approach in a way that overlooks the reality on the ground. While this standardization
has freed up some resources and created efficiencies, it has led to “fewer people on the ground
that feel on the hook for what’s happening locally,” Hana explained. “Are we oriented to the idea
that most of our work happens in the context of the local community,” Imani asked. In her view,
with a more community-centered focus, resources would allocated to time and effort that reflects
that reality. Similarly, Victoria explained that there are too many layers and this “takes away
from us to be able to have people on the ground who are doing the work.” Throughout their
conversations, executive directors had identified a wide range of work they focused on in their
communities, and they identified an over-reliance on standardization and lack of proximity of
decision-makers as limiting the ability to allocate resources effectively.
Other executive directors described how Teach For America needs to develop systems or
processes that allow regions to flexibly adapt to and address needs and opportunities in their

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community. Makayla and Emma talkeda bout creating space and incentive for executive
directors to take risks. Makayla explained the importance of Teach For America evolving in
ways that allow for regions to “test, innovate, iterate on strategies that may not be in the broader
umbrella of TFA’s enterprise strategy.” She went on to discuss how there needs to be a
comprehensive understanding of the needs of each community where Teach For America works
to be responsive to community needs “otherwise we’re just creating a formula or prescription
that might not work.” Sierra explained that, at times, the organizational approach feels like
“being steamrolled,” which can make it challenging to fit universal priorities into a local context.
She described an urgency communicated through Teach For America’s current approach that is
antithetical to the way things work in her community. “Change [in my community],” she
explained “is like deliberate and slow, while moving with intention.” In some ways, the case for
change around Teach For America’s approach does not reflect the experiences of kids in her
community or mirror what has been happening in her community for the last hundred years.
Executive directors talked about the need for a different orientation to the work since they
are expected to be system-change regional leaders. Maya explained the need to be coalition
leaders and partners because no one organization can push on the system enough to create the
change that is needed. “We have to show up in different ways,” Maya explained, and “do it in a
way that doesn’t support the patriarchal perception of who Teach For America is and how we
show up.” Similarly, Natalie discussed how the orientation of being a system change leader is
different from a current focus she saw as “Teach For America being a big media presence with a
big voice for educational innovation.” She was considering how Teach For America needs to
orient to identifying the enabling conditions necessary for making the 10-year impact goal a
reality in a specific community. She was clear on Teach For America’s role as curating an

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experience that can fundamentally change the course of a person’s career and supporting them as
early career leaders in their community. Like Makayla and other executive directors, regional
leaders and their teams are seen as critical for identifying those channels for leadership talent and
working collaboratively with those in their community to facilitate that work.
Summary
This chapter provided detailed summaries of findings from each of the 3 research
questions in this study. The interviews provided rich insights into how executive directors
conceptualize their theory of change in their community, how they identify complexities and
tensions in their work, and how they contend with these realities as they work to pursue their
vision in their communities. Key themes included a variety of views on a contextualized theory
of change, internal and external dynamics as a source of complexity, and a range of leadership
actions and orientations relied on and necessary for navigating the work of community-level
change in pursuit of educational equity.

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Chapter Five: Discussion
In Chapter 4, I reviewed the major themes from conversations with sixteen executive
directors from Teach For America. The purpose of this study was to explore the work of Executive
Directors at Teach For America and understand how they navigate the complexity of working
within systems they hope to change. I identified a variety of ideas, perspectives, and beliefs about
educational issues in their communities, how they work to address these, and barriers to realizing
their vision for their community. The study utilized a critical case study methodology and an anticolonial framing to situate these experiences in relation to transformative theories of social change.
The following research questions guided this study:
1. How do executive leaders at Teach For America describe their theory of change in the
context of communities where they work?
2. How do modernity’s epistemological and ontological boundaries shape TFA
executive leaders’ approach to education reform in their community?
3. How do executive leaders at Teach For America approach education in a way that
acknowledges the inherent tensions and paradoxes of modernity while enacting a
commitment to transforming education?
Findings
This study identifies how executive directors at Teach For America lead in their
communities and navigate various challenges, complexities, and barriers toward realizing their
vision for education. I organize the findings by each research question. In terms of research
question one, executive directors describe a theory of change that identifies complex and
entrenched issues while also describing simplified solutions in their community. In research
question two, the boundaries of modernity were present in the challenges executive directors

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identified as community-facing leaders and in relation to their role as organizational-facing
leaders. Lastly, in research question three, executive directors described different definitions of
systems change, recognized the inadequacies of the education system and limitations within
current reforms, and believed that any path forward would require closer proximity to
communities where they work. While there is a range of views and perspectives represented
among the 17 executive directors, I organized these findings to represent categories that include
the variability that exists within each theme. In the following sections, I will review these
findings and their connection to the literature.
Research Question 1: Theory of Change
There are two notable findings in RQ1. 1) Executive directors have a theory of the
problem that is complex, and 2) executive directors have a solution or value proposition that is
simple. These findings can be mapped onto de Oliveira’s (2021) Social Cartography and reflect
the literature on program theory (Ebrahim, 2019), systems transformation (Bryson et al., 2020),
and models of complex theories of change (Rogers, 2008).
As executive directors defined the problem and root causes of educational inequity, they
viewed issues in their community as deeply entrenched and entangled across multiple sectors and
institutions that reflected a radical reform orientation. They talked about economic issues like
housing and unemployment, political divisiveness, the historical legacy of slavery and settler
colonialism, and urban or rural planning. However, as they described Teach For America’s value
proposition as part of their theory of change in their community, it was singularly focused on
recruiting and developing more leaders and primarily recruiting new teachers. For example,
when they discussed the long-term impact of Teach For America in their community, they
focused on the work of alumni as principals, school system leaders, and elected and nonprofit

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leaders as individuals responsible for stewarding change. There was not a consistent, clear
connection between the actions or behaviors of these leaders and their impact on society in
relation to the problems they identified. While executive directors deeply understood their
context and local communities and had a nuanced understanding of the nature and causes of
educational inequity, when it came to the solution, it was consistently about talent, leadership,
and recruiting more leaders. These findings map to the soft-reform space and methodological
approaches to change, whereas their problem description mapped toward the radical reform
space (de Oliveira, 2021). See Figure 2, which shows how the theory of change described by
executive directors falls along de Oliveira’s social cartography.

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Figure 2
Mapping Executive Director’s Theory of Change
Radical
Reform
The diagnosis of injustice
as a problem of exclusion
from access to the
benefits of existing
systems and institutions
The diagnosis of injustice
that views oppression and
marginalization are byproducts of existing
systems and institutions
The diagnosis of injustice
as the necessary conditions
that sustain and uphold the
systems and institutions of
modern society
The solutions assume
systems and institutions are
structurally sound and we
need to update practices
through continuous
improvement
Beyond
Reform
Soft
Reform
The solutions focus on
making more space for
different knowledge,
people, and experiences,
reallocating resources to
support their presence
The solutions move
beyond addressing existing
systems and institutions to
find ways to work outside
these boundaries, redirect
resources, and detach from
investments in modernity
Epistemological Boundary: Recognize limitations of cur ent knowledge
Ontological Boundary: Recognize limitations of cur ent ways of being
Executive Director Definition of the Problem
Executive Director Definition of the Solution
Note. Adapted from Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for
Social Activism, by V. M. de Oliveira, 2021, North Atlantic Books. Copyright 2021 by Vanessa
de Oliveira.

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This is an important finding since the organizational focus of Teach For America has
centered on increasing impact in communities where they work. de Oliveira (2021) explains that
her Social Cartography is not linear, so it may be that one can identify with different locations.
There may be legitimate and necessary reasons to approach reform from different places on the
map. However, centering solutions exclusively in the soft reform space, which relies on the
current system's logic, methods, and knowledge to effect change, will only perpetuate how the
system works (de Oliveira, 2021; Mignolo, 2007).
These findings also relate to the research that describes the insufficiency of current
frameworks and models for measuring or describing impact through nonprofit organizations
(Bryson et al., 2020; Ebrahim, 2019; Rogers, 2008). This research explains that nonprofit leaders
tend to opt for simple solutions to complex problems because these solutions are easier to
understand and easier to measure. The disadvantage to relying on simple models of complex
problems is that it prevents a deeper understanding and appreciation of the reality of a problem in
society (Salamon, 2012; Ebrahim, 2019). Executive directors in this study grappled with this
reality. For example, they recognized the immediate needs in their community, alongside the
responsibility of acquiring resources and deploying these to a convoluted landscape shaped by
history, politics, and race, while implementing the Teach For America program. The literature in
this area explains how solving complex problems requires a new conceptualization for the
meaning and process of change that allows for acknowledging complexity and defining new
paradigms for action (Bryson et al., 2020; Rogers, 2008).
Research Question 2: Boundaries of Modernity
There are two notable findings in RQ2. 1) Executive directors define their role as a
balance between community-facing and organizational-facing leadership, and 2) the nature of the

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executive director role creates inherent tensions and complexity in holding these communityfacing and organizational-facing responsibilities. The second research question explored how the
epistemological and ontological boundaries of modernity show up in the work of executive
directors. These findings relate to the literature on the organizational form, common practices,
and knowledge of nonprofit organizations (Akingbola, 2006; Bromely, 2020; Eikenberry &
Kluver, 2004; Salamon & Anheier, 1998; Soskis, 2020). As this literature shows, executive
directors describe the challenges and obstacles of working within the formal structures of a
nonprofit organization and balancing their responsibilities as organizational stewards with the
responsibilities they identified as community-based leaders. Bromley (2020) discussed this as a
cultural template that came to dominate the practices and knowledge in the nonprofit sector and
established boundaries around how problems, solutions, and organizational work are defined.
Salamon (2012) and Eikenberry (2004) explained how the motivations and operations of an
organization in a market-based economy can be at odds with their constituents and lead to a
disconnect between organizational success and organizational impact in an issue area.
Executive directors in this study identified internal and external environments as shaping
how they approach their work and described how this was a source of tension and complexity.
They described their role as having a community-facing and organizational-facing dynamic that
oftentimes pulled them in different directions. The internal environment, described as
organizational policies or expectations by executive directors in this study, created ways of being
that made it challenging to do work on the ground in their community. For example, they talked
about needing to tend to programs, initiatives, or people in their community but they had limited
time due to internal organizational demands for meetings, projects and expectations for
enterprise responsibilities. One clear example of internal and external tension was new policies

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around the placement of new teachers in the two-year program that were at odds with local
schools' needs in their community. This new approach made sense from an organizational
perspective and created more efficiency for the organization, but it did not meet local schools'
specific, contextual needs.
In addition, the organization’s focus on community impact created a need for more
investment in regional teams and increased capacity for work related to coalition building and
designing new programs. However, organizational bureaucracy and lack of infrastructure to
support this meant executive directors lacked the resources aligned with a focus on community
impact. Executive directors discussed the depth and nuance of their theory for what would
contribute to progress in their community that required time spent on relationship building,
participating in initiatives or projects with others in their community, and devoting resources to
programs outside the core two-year program. However, organizational strategic priorities and the
recent restructuring of national and regional teams led to fewer resources and people, which led
them to prioritize organizational needs over community-based strategy aligned with their vision.
Based on the social cartography, organizational policies, and expectations were a type of
ontological boundary that created a way of being for executive directors that constrained their
ability to meet the responsibilities they perceived in their community.
These findings also illustrate the relationship between knowledge and power and the
dynamics of intelligibility in the interactions with political leaders, donors, and other community
leaders (Andreotti, 2016). In contrast to internal challenges that created complexity around ways
of being, external challenges created complexity around different forms of knowledge. Executive
directors described multiple examples of tailoring or modifying their message or action for
different stakeholders. They acknowledged that for some, they were only interested in practical

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solutions and favored those that could be easily implemented and measured. While executive
directors understood power relations in their community and the historical context behind
inequities in things like school resources, they knew some audiences were not ready for this type
of analysis. When it came to donors or elected leaders who held power that privileged one way
of understanding educational problems in their community, executive directors accommodated
these audiences based on their assessment of what people could digest. For most, this was a
reality of the job, and while it created internal conflict and tension, they were willing to make the
tradeoff to privilege sustaining the organization.
The literature on nonprofit organizational forms (Bromely, 2020; Eikenberry & Kluver,
2004) and types of reform in an anti-colonial framing (Andreotti, 2016; de Oliveira, 2021)
examine these types of choices as necessary, even if harmful, due to the nature of the system and
the limitations it imposes on what is knowable and what are acceptable ways of being in the
world. Executive directors described experiences of adjusting how they engaged with different
audiences and acknowledged the tension of holding a vision that imagined a transformation in
education alongside using ideas or language to accommodate others’ intelligibility. Overall, the
challenges of working within a nonprofit organization's bureaucratic structure and navigating
between types of intelligibility with different external audiences contribute to a multifaceted
complexity for executive directors. Figure 3 below maps the internal and external dynamics that
executive directors discussed in de Oliveira’s social cartography as locations within its
epistemological and ontological boundaries (2021).

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Figure 3
Mapping Internal and External Complexity
Radical
Reform
The diagnosis of injustice
as a problem of exclusion
from access to the
benefits of existing
systems and institutions
The diagnosis of injustice
that views oppression and
marginalization are byproducts of existing
systems and institutions
The diagnosis of injustice
as the necessary conditions
that sustain and uphold the
systems and institutions of
modern society
The solutions assume
systems and institutions are
structurally sound and we
need to update practices
through continuous
improvement
Beyond
Reform
Soft
Reform
The solutions focus on
making more space for
different knowledge,
people, and experiences,
reallocating resources to
support their presence
The solutions move
beyond addressing existing
systems and institutions to
find ways to work outside
these boundaries, redirect
resources, and detach from
investments in modernity
Epistemological Boundary: Recognize limitations of cur ent knowledge
Ontological Boundary: Recognize limitations of cur ent ways of being
Executive Director Internal Complexity
Executive Director External Complexity

177
Note. Adapted from Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for
Social Activism, by V. M. de Oliveira, 2021, North Atlantic Books. Copyright 2021 by Vanessa
de Oliveira.
Research Question 3: Navigating Toward Unimaginable Futures
There are four notable findings in RQ3. 1) Executive directors at Teach For America
have varying definitions of systems change, 2) these definitions shape executive director
leadership orientations and actions, 3) Executive directors recognize Teach For America needs to
operate with a greater community-centered focus, and 4) executive directors struggled to define
what it would take for a possible future of justice. The third research question explored how
executive directors navigated the complexities or challenges they identified and how they
described their commitment to transforming education in their communities. These findings
relate to the literature on systems change and social transformation (Akingbola, 2006; Bryson et
al., 2020; Ebrahim & Rangan, 2014), the complexity of solving entrenched social issues
(Ebrahim, 2019; Rogers, 2008), and the inherent tension and complexity of the nonprofit
executive director role (Ashcraft & Trethewey, 2004; Sanders, 2012).
Executive directors defined systems change in different ways. Some viewed it as a
change within existing systems, others viewed systems change as thinking differently, and others
saw systems change as unimaginable. Table 3 shows sample quotes from each category to
illustrate how executive directors’ defined systems change differently.

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Table 3
Executive Director’s Definition of Systems Change
Change within Systems Change as Thinking
Differently
Change as Unimaginable
“So…thinking about how my
personal theory about how
systems change and evolve
and working with people and
working with things within
the system to make them
better, and that's how you
that's how you make change.”
”I think you know, we've
talked about education in
XYZ way, but there's this
other way that we can think
about it or there's this other
way that we could partner so
this idea of flipping the script,
[and] reframing discourse is
how change happens.”
“I just know in my bones, I’m
like, this isn’t it. I just know
this ain’t it [and] if could
really take a paintbrush and
create something, it wouldn’t
look like how we’re doing
education right now”
These findings map to de Olivera’s Social Cartography (2021) and illustrate how different
change conceptualizations relate to different actions and orientations. Executive directors
explained ways they want local schools to function better and more efficiently, the need for new
paradigms and different discourses to develop a meaningful path toward change, and some saw
existing models as inadequate. Bryson et al. (2020) and Ebrahim and Rangan (2014) talk about
the lack of clarity that exists among nonprofit practitioners in defining impact and the difference
between outcomes and impact. This lack of clarity was evident in how executive directors
discussed their views on systems change and shaped how they navigated the complexity of doing
this work in their community.

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Executive directors discussed leadership orientations that aligned with how they viewed
the way systems change. In their discussion, they identified the need for adaptation, learning and
applying insights, and patience as they described navigating tension. Sanders (2012) and
Ashcraft and Trethewey (2014) explain that nonprofit leaders need to accept the inherent
tensions as an ontological reality of the role and move away from assumptions of rationality and
linear or unidirectional goals. Executive directors were attentive to this type of complexity in
their work while acknowledging they did not hold all the answers as they considered what it
would take to make educational equity a reality. They shared examples of negotiating the
political landscape in their community by adopting leadership orientations and actions that
balanced short and long-term goals. In these examples, they relied on relational tactics, the
ability to read the room, discern the motivations of different stakeholders, and recognize the need
to speak up and when to hold their opinions. Depending on their individual orientation to
systems change, executive directors viewed these choices as necessary and acceptable or as
insufficient and inadequate.
Executive directors discussed lessons learned over many years, a willingness for Teach
For America to evolve, and identified specific ways the organization needs to adapt. The most
significant recommendation from executive directors was for Teach For America to create
greater proximity to communities through investments in regional strategy unique to specific
communities. Executive directors recognized this was more difficult because it required a
differentiated approach, and there was a lack of organizational infrastructure to support it. There
were various examples of region-specific strategies unique to the cultural context of their
communities. They also recognized that each region had a unique history in terms of its tenure
with Teach For America and its cultural and political context as either a rural or urban region or

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other demographic characteristics. Executive directors tended to see the broader organizational
strategy as prescriptive and at odds with the opportunities or needs of their community. They felt
a deep sense of responsibility as representatives of Teach For America in their community and
wrestled with how to realize a community-centered vision with the perceived constraints of these
responsibilities.
The most significant findings in this section are about how executive directors
conceptualize systems change and the potential for eliminating educational inequity in their
community. While there was a clear commitment to the work they lead in their community, there
was a tentativeness around whether education could actually be different and whether existing
models of reform were effective. The existing models they talked about included charter schools,
standardized testing, school finance reforms, and curriculum reforms (i.e., ethnic studies, dual
language). They acknowledged that, to a certain extent, things could evolve and change over
time but that the underlying system would largely remain intact. As they talked about change,
every executive director was aware of the inadequacy of the education system and the potential
limitations of current initiatives. de Oliveira (2021) explains this as a starting place for imagining
an alternative future in which we let go of attachment to how things work, identify how we are
complicit in how things work, and find an opening to imagine different ways of knowing and
being.
Executive directors talked about Teach For America’s role in their community in nuanced
ways that acknowledged limitations and also perceived its unique contributions. Anti-colonial
framing identifies settler futurity as a preference or privileging of White settler culture, language,
and knowledge (Andreotti, 2016). In education, this assumes a pre-determined path of progress
and development that contributes to the broader racial capitalist system and forecloses alternative

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ways of knowing and being (Andreotti, 2016; Mignolo, 2007). The findings in this study
illustrate how executive directors understand the contributions and limitations of their work. At
times, executive directors explained some of Teach For America’s contributions as being
singularly responsible for progress in their community. However, they viewed these
contributions as necessary and effective only in relation to the work of other organizations.
Executive directors acknowledged that Teach For America is not the sole solution for education.
However, they described Teach For America as uniquely contributing to education regarding the
diversity of recruits to the two-year program and accomplishments of alum principals and
systems leaders who demonstrated success based on student achievement measures.
Finally, when it came to the question of what is ultimately possible in education and
whether educational equity is attainable, the path to this alternative future of justice seemed
unimaginable and unknowable at the current moment for two reasons. First, executive directors
could not make a clear connection between their community-based impact goals to which they
are accountable and the decisions, strategies, and priorities of senior leaders. The organizational
context in which they worked contributed to an inability to see the path to an alternative future in
their community. Second, the reality of inequity in their community and the nature of systemic
issues of race made a future of justice unimaginable. While they maintained their commitment to
the programs in their community that meet the immediate and pressing needs of local schools
and shared examples of how things had changed, they wondered whether inequity would likely
persist in the long term. These findings relate to de Oliveira (2021) and the idea that relying on
the current logic and knowledge of the system, as defined in Bromely (2020) and Eikenberry and
Kluver (2004), limits the potential and ability to realize transformational change in education and
may only uphold a harmful system that creates social injustice. While executive directors did not

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use the language of de Oliveira’s (2021) social cartography, their ideas and thinking reflected the
idea that the underlying logic of the system was the fundamental problem of perpetuating
educational inequity.
Implications for Practice
The implications for practice I discuss below address the challenges and complexity of
the executive director role from the perspective of this study's anti-colonial framing. The anticolonial framing was selected because of the transformational vision for society and education
and its comprehensive definition of the status quo in society rooted in the historical context of
U.S. settler colonialism. The literature on nonprofit organizations recognized the limitations of
current approaches and theorized the need for new paradigms of thought and action in creating
social change (Ashcraft & Trethewey, 2004; Bryson et al., 2020; Ebrahim, 2019; Sanders, 2012).
By framing the challenges in education and the complex nature of executive directors through an
anti-colonial lens, this study can help open new lines of inquiry that challenge assumptions and
knowledge in this field (Coule et al., 2022).
These recommendations align with this study's conceptual framework, which identifies
modernity as the fundamental issue in educational inequity (de Oliveira, 2021). I will include a
quote from de Oliveira (2021) that explains the types of reform and their relationship to the
underlying problem of modernity:
In the beyond reform space, social injustice is understood not merely as a matter of
unequal resources or exclusionary ways of knowing but rather as the condition of
possibility for modernity itself. Thus, colonialism is identified as the constitutive
underside of modernity: inherently extractive, relationally unethical, and ecologically
unsustainable – and therefore, modernity cannot be reformed. (de Oliveira, p. 90, 2021)

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The orientation to a beyond reform space requires “hyper-self-reflexivity,” which acknowledges
how our thinking is culturally conditioned, limits our ability to apprehend reality, and realizes
how our attachments to modernity affect actions and decisions (de Oliveira, p. 133, 2016).
Defining modernity as the core issue in communities illustrates the need for executive directors
to move beyond traditional or historical approaches to social change.
In addition, Bryson et al. (2021) discuss the need for leaders in social change work to
move beyond traditional theories of change that rely on causal mechanisms that overlook the
complexity and dynamism of social issues. According to Bryson et al. (2021):
Effective leadership of social transformation requires a different kind of theorizing than
does typical strategic leadership or leading strategy management at scale. It requires a
theory of transformation, which is different from a logic model, strategy map, or theory
of change for an organization or collaboration. Leading social transformation requires a
form of leadership that goes far further out, down, and up than the strategic leadership of
a single organization. [Social Transformation] requires leadership that is deeply
relational, visionary, political, and adaptive. (p. 198)
Like de Oliveira (2021), Bryson et al. (2021) recognize the limitations of current practice when it
comes to social change. The traditional approaches have been effective at measuring and
evaluating the use of inputs and outputs of programs and initiatives but have not helped deepen
understanding of the root causes of many issues and have led to limited progress on many social
issues (Ebrahim, 2019; Ebrahim & Rangan, 2014). In the following section, I will identify six
implications for practice. I have categorized these implications for practice into two groups. The
first category I titled executive director leadership since this study focused on the role of

184
executive directors. The second category I titled structural conditions, since this study showed
how the environment executive directors work in shapes their experiences and leadership.
In addition, I grounded these recommendations in the literature review from
Chapter 2, the theoretical framework for this study, and the experiences of executive directors as
expressed in this study. I worked to consistently hold my personal views and perspectives
separate from these ideas and relied on the data and literature to guide my analysis of these
implications. Lastly, while there is a range of views from executive directors in this study, these
recommendations recognize that any leader can further develop their knowledge and skill in a
particular area and that working towards transformation in education requires consistent habits
that can develop and grow over time.
Executive Director Leadership
Recommendation 1: Build New Mental Models for Defining the Relationship between
Problems and Solutions
The first recommendation recognizes that executive directors may understand the
complexity of a problem but rely on simple solutions because they are easily digestible by a
range of stakeholders (Ebrahim, 2019; Salamon, 2012; Andreotti, 2016). The solutions adopted
are a common prescription that situates social problems within the epistemological boundaries of
modernity when it is these boundaries that need to be challenged. de Oliveira (2021) describes a
number of pedagogical tasks that leaders can use to unpack assumptions on the nature of social
issues through metaphors. The metaphor of “going up the river” asks leaders to examine the
relationships between the roots of a problem and the downstream effects in order to identify how
all the parts of a system operate to reproduce harm (Andreotti, p. 136, 2016). With this
understanding, leaders can explore how interventions designed to promote change may only

185
perpetuate the underlying logic of the system. In addition, the metaphor of the “field of corn”
invites leaders to explore their attachment to the modern world and its assumptions of progress
(Andreotti, p. 132, 2016). Through this pedagogical exercise, leaders can identify how epistemic
blindness legitimizes a pre-determined definition of progress and limits the potential
identification of multiple, alternative, and plural paths toward a future of justice.
Developing mental models is an important aspect of social transformation theory (Bryson
et al., 2021). Leading for social transformation requires leaders to think beyond individual
theories of change and the mechanics of logic models to understand how transformation happens
in their context. Mental models are important because they are the foundation of power and
relationships in a community and determine policies, practices, and resource allocation (Bryson
et al., 2021). To build new mental models, executive directors need to practice hyper-selfreflexivity to support ongoing learning about their self-implication, accountability, and learning
to unlearn (Andreotti, 2016). According to Andreotti, this practice of hyper-self-reflexivity
requires consistent engagement with the historical conditioning of our thinking, understanding
the limitations of knowledge and language, and our ability to apprehend reality and awareness of
how the unconscious aspects of our experiences shape our decisions (2016). Executive directors
will need to dedicate time and space for this type of ongoing reflection. They will need access to
experts who can facilitate high-quality learning experiences to guide them through meaningful
learning and build the capacity to sustain and integrate this practice as part of their ongoing
work.
Recommendation 2: Imagine an Alternative Future of Justice in Education beyond Predetermined Pathways of Progress

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The second recommendation speaks to the incomprehensibility of seeing an end to
educational inequity by executive directors in this study. To imagine an alternative future of
justice in education is not just to recognize the root of the problem as a lack of relevant or
appropriate knowledge and skill but to see the root of the problem as a harmful way of being that
excludes and occludes other modes of existence. Andreotti’s (2016) challenge to those working
in education is to imagine education as an “uncoercive re-arrangement of desires” that is
different from transformative or emancipatory education because there is no pre-determined will,
direction, or destination (p. 133). Executive directors can use Andreotti’s (2016) HEADS UP
model to assess how their work addresses ways of being in their community and begin to
imagine an alternative future of justice in education. See Table 4 for an adaptation of Andreotti’s
(2016) HEADS UP model.
Table 4
HEADS UP Model
Historical Pattern of Engagement and
Representation
Whose idea of education and/or progress?
Hegemony What assumptions and imaginaries inform the
ideal of education and progress?
Ethnocentrism What is being projected as ideal, normal, good,
moral, natural, desirable?
Ahistoricism How is history and its onging effects addressed
or not in the formulation of problems and
solutions?
Depoliticization What analysis of power relations has been
performed? Are power imbalances recognized?
How are they addressed?
Self-congratulatory/self-serving How are marginalized peoples represented?
How are interventions represented? How are
these relationships represented?

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Um-complicated solutions How has the urge to make a difference
weighted more than critical systemic thinking
about origins and implications of solutions?
Paternalism How are those at the receiving end of efforts to
make a difference expected to respond to the
help they receive?
Note. Adapted from “The Educational Challenges of Imaging the World Differently,” by V.
Andreotti, Canadian Journal of Development Studies, 37(1), p. 108. Copyright 2016 by the
Canadian Association for the Study of International Development.
Executive directors can collaborate with their peers to identify answers and reflections on
these questions and compare responses. They can use these as inputs to evaluate work in their
communities and identify strengths, weaknesses, and commonalities in their approach. With
these data, they can identify the tools and resources they would need to imagine and work toward
an alternative future of justice in education in their community.
Recommendation 3: Develop Practices to Contend with Accepted Ways of Knowing and
Being Beyond Self-education and Toward Action
The third recommendation recognizes the complexity executive directors identified as
they worked to balance incremental reform and an absolute break from how things work.
Indigenous scholars identify the practice of contention as a middle path between this double bind
and describe two aspects of contention (Aflred, 2005; Tuck, 2008). The first is a process of
education that gains knowledge in “defiance of the conventional reality” (Tuck, p. 57, 2008). The
second is the process of interrupting the status quo, which is defined as hegemony, linearity, and
unilateralism – the basic tenets of modernity (Tuck, 2008). Executive directors need to use the
knowledge they have of education, systemic inequities, historic patterns of racism and exclusion,

188
and their positions of influence to openly contend with assumptions, rhetoric, and social
arrangement of inequity in their community.
This type of leadership aligns with social transformation theory, which assumes that
engagement and progress toward social transformation will engender opposition and resistance
(Bryson et al., 2021). The political nature of transformation requires leaders to not only rely on
some of the more traditional leadership skills common in organizations but also foster broadbased leadership and create space to contend with mental models that uphold the status quo
(Bryson et al., 2021). Executive directors will need to supplement their organizational leadership
skills with six skills that reflect the practice of contention (Bryson et al., 2021). This includes:
• Collaboration
• Organizing and mobilizing ability
• Visualization and strategy mapping
• Skilled facilitation
• Storytelling about humans in complex systems
• Coalition building and advocacy
Bryson et al. (2021) identify research that further explores the knowledge and skills in each area,
which is beyond the scope of this study. However, executive directors will need access to highquality resources to support ongoing development in these areas. In addition, this research aligns
with Ashcraft and Trethewey (2004), who discussed the role of an executive director as a
relational steward and negotiator of a community's social, economic, and political capital. By
developing along these six areas, executive directors will strengthen their role as relational
stewards in their community and have the tools by which to contend with the assumptions,
rhetoric, and social arrangement of inequity in their community.

189
Structural Conditions
In addition to the individual leadership of executive directors, to realize a
transformational vision in education at a community level, there are implications for the
structural conditions in which executive directors work. In contrast to the practices executive
directors can develop at the individual level or among their peers, these structural conditions
would require substantive changes at an organizational level.
Recommendation 4: Develop New Models to Re-conceptualize Teach For America’s
Theory of Change
The fourth recommendation recognizes the variation in ideas executive directors had
about how systems change and a lack of clarity on the cause-and-effect relationship between
Teach For America's primary program and the long-term change in communities. Reconceptualizing a theory of change is beyond the responsibility of an individual executive
director. Still, the lack of coherence in how systems change and the role Teach For America
could play requires substantive change to the conditions in which executive directors work. Reevaluating and revising a theory of change is a normal part of nonprofit management as an
organization learns and adapts to changes in the external environment (Ebrahim, 2019; Rogers,
2008). Ebrahim (2019) and Rogers (2008) provide a framework to evaluate the causal models of
social change. In this framework, they identify a typology of logic models based on the degree of
certainty about cause and effect and the extent of control over outcomes by a nonprofit
organization. The result is a matrix that categorizes organizational strategy most relevant to
simple, complicated, and complex causal logic. See Figure 4 for an overview of Ebrahim’s
(2019) Contingency Framework.

190
Figure 4
Contingency Framework
Note. Adapted from Measuring Social Change: Performance and Accountability in a Complex
World, by A. Ebrahim, 2019, Stanford University Press. Copyright 2019 by the Board of
Trustees of the Leeland Stanford Junior University.
In Chapter 2, I introduced simple, complicated, and complex logic models (Bryson, 2020;
Ebrahim, 2019; Rogers, 2008). In this recommendation, I draw on this research to illustrate how
this framework can be used to evaluate Teach For America’s approach to social change through
its mission and revise its strategy to accommodate the level of uncertainty between cause and
effect and relative control over outcomes. Each quadrant identifies a strategic orientation based
on the degree of complexity of its causal logic. In addition, the framework assumes that
organizations work in open systems where the external environment influences the outcomes and

191
impact an organization hopes to influence. Developing an assessment of the degree of certainty
and control over outcomes is beyond the scope of this study. However, executive directors
identified a number of complexities and challenges with connecting organizational priorities,
metrics, and decisions to expectations for community-level impact. Assessing and revising Teach
For America’s theory of change can clarify the causal logic of its theory and add coherence to
the day-to-day work of executive directors and their teams.
Recommendation 5: Adopt Methods of Measurement and Evaluation Aligned with
Transformative Change
The fifth recommendation recognizes that changes in strategy and theory require new
methods for measurement and evaluation (Bryson et al., 2021; Ebrahim, 2021). Executive
directors in this study described working in a context that required demonstrated progress on
quantitative metrics, like fundraising, programmatic outcomes, and other internal organizational
measures. However, executive directors need clarity on how to identify and evaluate metrics
aligned with community-level change. In this study, executive directors talked about their
regional 10-year impact goals, which described progress as twice as many students in their
communities reaching academic milestones. They recognized this type of goal required deep,
systemic change in their communities. Patton (2019) explained that since designing and
implementing system change initiatives are innovative, adaptive, and responsive, “evaluations
under such circumstances must be emergent, developmental, adaptable, dynamic, and
responsive” (p. 301). Traditional program theory and simple logic models will be insufficient
because they rely on evaluating projects and programs that limit learning to short-term outcomes
(Byrson et al., 2021; Ebrahim, 2019; Patton, 2019). Executive directors will need new methods

192
of measurement and evaluation to understand organizational performance in light of
transformative change.
Teach For America could explore several new approaches to measurement and evaluation
to determine which are most aligned with the strategy and theory it identifies. Matching
evaluation methodology to the nature of the situation is a well-researched area in measurement
and evaluation (Ebrahim & Rangan, 2014; Bryson et al., 2021; Patton, 2019). Principles-focused
evaluation and system change evaluation are two methodologies that have been established in the
research and offer new insights into how to think beyond standard program or project-based
evaluation methods (Patton, 2019). These do not have to replace traditional summative
evaluations that may be necessary for funders and other stakeholders. However, for building
social movements through collaboration, coalition building, and fostering work between and
across organizations, these methodologies can support executive directors in aligning their
regional work around learning and insights related to how systems change.
Lastly, emerging trends in trust-based philanthropy offer new insights into how nonprofit
organizations can move from accountability focused on managing financial assets and
programmatic outputs to learning and innovation in pursuit of systems change (Hehenberger,
2023). Some of these ideas require changes to how foundations work with the organizations they
fund. However, they provide insight into how organizations can define their contribution to the
collective work necessary for systems change. The rubric methodology sets a shared standard
and language around what change looks like using both qualitative and quantitative evidence
(Hehenberger, 2023). Rubrics can be helpful in disaggregating the difference between the
process-related aspects of initiatives (design, implementation, monitoring), the early changes that
create the right conditions (stakeholder pressure), the change in behaviors resulting from the

193
right conditions (schools or districts transform), and the long-term impact of new behaviors
(student and community agency) (Hehenberger, 2023; Patton, 2019). Executive directors need
access to this type of learning and the insights these methodologies provide to lead in their
communities toward a transformational vision in education effectively.
Recommendation 6: Define the Role of Regional Communities in a National Organization
as Drivers of Community-level Change
The sixth recommendation recognizes the executive director’s perspectives that Teach
For America should evolve in ways that leverage the unique attributes of the diverse
communities where it works. Executive directors need resources that support their work to build
coalitions, design programming unique to their regional context, and develop ways to measure
and evaluate progress and impact in their community context. In this study, executive directors
explained a disconnect between what was described as national priorities versus regional
community-based needs. There needs to be a clear articulation of the role of regions in the
broader enterprise of Teach For America and how these regional communities inform, shape, and
influence the overall vision and direction of the organization. This is important to the work of
creating and contributing to systems change in communities because community-level change
requires adaptability, flexibility, and experimentation (Bryson et al., 2021).
As this study's findings show, executive directors recognized that the organization is
taking steps to transform its way of work but lacked clarity on how current decisions were
increasing or deepening proximity to and impact in communities. Extensive research exists on
organizational transformation and creating autonomy, innovation, and alignment among teams,
departments, and organizational field units (Gong & Ribiere, 2023; Tallon & Pinsonneault, 2011;
Weber & Tarba, 2014). To articulate an effective role of regional communities within a national

194
organization, Teach For America will need to assess how they can balance autonomy with
alignment between regional communities and national or centralized teams in a way that
empowers regional teams to accomplish the work for which they are accountable.
The Competing Values Framework offers a useful way to identify organizational culture,
leadership, and change (Quinn & Rohrbaugh, 1983). The framework explains that organizations
can be defined along two axes. The first axis describes culture as a spectrum of flexible to
adaptable. The second axis describes an organization as having either an internal or external
focus. There is no right or wrong quadrant, but an organization needs to understand its culture,
leadership profile, and conditions in which it operates in order to lead effectively through change
and ultimately maintain or increase performance. This framework can be used to assess Teach
For America’s profile and determine the steps it can take to change, adapt, or enhance its way of
operating. See Figure 5 for an overview of the Competing Values Framework.

195
Figure 5
Competing Values Framework
Note. Adapted from https://agilevelocity.com/centralized-vs-decentralized-agiletransformations/. Copyright 2024 by Agile Velocity.
Recommendations for Future Research
This study provided valuable insight into the experiences of Teach For America's
executive directors and their work toward educational equity in their community. In addition, it
opened new areas for inquiry as it relates to nonprofit theories of change and the value of
applying a critical theoretical perspective. It also benefited from the contributions of indigenous
scholarship on education, social change, and leadership. There are a number of areas for future
research that would further address the challenges executive directors at Teach For America face.
First, as Teach For America continues to evolve, future research should consider how
organizational changes within a single national organization with distinct regional offices

196
influence the experience and effectiveness of the executive director in local communities.
Participants in this study discussed the potential impact of some of these changes and offered
different perspectives on their value and efficacy. Since Teach For America is considering how it
can evolve in ways that enable greater and more sustainable impact, and given that executive
directors are considered instrumental in community-level impact, future research can help
identify how decisions have led to greater and more sustainable impact.
Second, future research should explore the relationship between fundraising and the
regional strategy executive directors discussed. Some participants in this study identified the
need to modify or adjust their message to different audiences based on perceived or assumed
donor motivations. Other participants identified a relative amount of autonomy or flexibility with
expectations from donors but also acknowledged donor perspectives were a key variable to
contend with. Future studies could explore and identify new funding models that allow executive
directors the flexibility needed to address community-level issues.
Third, as the field of education continues to evolve with advances in digital technology
and artificial intelligence, future research should consider how this external environment
influences Teach For America's approach to its work. Teach For America publicly talks about
the need to reinvent education and transform how education works. Future research in this area
should explore the contributions Teach For America makes, the role of regional executive
directors, and how this influences community-level change.
Fourth, future research should explore the role of Teach For America alumni as lifelong
advocates for educational equity in their community. Since Teach For America’s theory of
change relies on the long-term commitment of alumni, as explained by every executive director
in this study, future research should explore how alumni work collectively toward change in their

197
community. This research could build on the insights from this study and identify how change
was pursued, how this addresses underlying issues, and the necessary leadership actions and
orientations.
Finally, this study was conducted within the context of a large, national, federated
organization and focused on the perspective and experience of front-line leaders in particular
communities. Future research should explore the views and perspectives of senior-level leaders
of federated organizations to consider how they conceptualize a theory of change and impact in
communities where their organization works. In addition, further research could apply the
methodology and framework from this study to explore how these findings relate to other large,
national, federated nonprofit organizations.
Conclusion
The purpose of this study was to understand what makes the executive director's job
difficult and to provide insights for executive directors and those who are leading or working
towards any transformational vision for society. As I discussed in Chapter 2, nonprofit
organizations can play a role in either interrupting or maintaining the status quo in society. The
findings of this study validate the wisdom of Indigenous scholarship, which recognizes that the
challenges, complexities, or tensions executive directors face result from modernity. To interrupt
the status quo – to eliminate educational inequity – requires understanding our attachment to
the current system, our complicity in how things work, the willingness to accept our limitations,
and the discipline to contend with how things are given our position, power, or privilege. This is
true for executive directors at Teach For America and those leading any effort toward a radically
different future. I hope this study provides a framework and makes a meaningful contribution to
assessing the extent to which leaders interrupt the status quo.

198

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Appendix A: Interview Protocol
Three research questions guided this study:
1. How do executive directors at Teach For America describe their theory of change in
the context of communities where they work?
2. How does modernity’s epistemological and ontological boundaries shape Teach For
America’s approach to education reform?
3. How can executive directors at Teach For America approach education in a way that
acknowledges the inherent tensions and paradoxes of modernity and enact a
commitment to transforming education?
Respondent type: regional executive directors in a national nonprofit organization
Introduction to the Interview
Thank you for taking the time to talk with me today. Your experience, expertise, and
perspective as an executive director with Teach For America will be a valuable contribution to
this assignment, and I appreciate you taking the time to talk about your organization’s work in
[enter participant’s community]. This study aims to understand how executive leaders at Teach
For America describe the impact of their long term work in a community. Through our
conversation today I’m hoping to learn about how you describe the problems your organization
identifies and the strategies/solutions/theories you have that you believe support change. With
your permission I’d like to record our conversation. I want to be sure that I capture all of your
ideas as accurately as possible. Do I have your permission to record this conversation?

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Thank you. In addition, I may take notes while we’re talking. I have about 12 questions
for us to discuss. I want to begin with learning about your role as executive director and
understanding your main responsibilities.

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Table A1
Interview Protocol Questions
Interview questions Potential probes RQ Key concept addressed
Preliminary questions:
I want to ask a couple questions at the
beginning here just so I am not
making any assumptions and know
that you may not want to answer
and this is completely ok.
Would you be open to sharing how you
identify racially?
How long have you been an ED?
How long have you worked for TFA?
Understanding community context/TOC
(1) How would you describe the state
of K12 education in your
community.
What things do you think contribute to that
state? Like what is the cause of inequity in
education?
What are the historical roots of these issues?
(ie, educational inequity)
How have you come to develop that
perspective? Who has helped shape this
perspective? Or what experiences have
shaped these views?
1, 2 Types of Reform + Indigenous
theories of change
(2) Based on how you described the
state of K12 education – how would
you describe your vision for X
community?
What are the barriers to realizing this vision?
What openings do you see?
What change are you working toward?
What makes this hard?
1, 2, 3 Social Cartography + Types of
Reform + Indigenous
Theories of Change
(3) Tell me about the role TFA plays
in addressing those barriers and/or
openings in your community.
How does this work contribute to change?
(Ask about the corps in corps regions)
What lessons have you learned that helped
improve the work of TFA in your
community?
1, 2, 3 Social Cartography + Types of
Reform + Indigenous
Theories of Change

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Interview questions Potential probes RQ Key concept addressed
If you accomplished the vision/priorities of
your region what would be different in
your community?
Role of executive director
(4) How do you describe your role as
an ED at TFA? What are you
responsible for?
What were your motivations for becoming an
ED?
What makes this role challenging or
complex?
(5) Executive Directors at TFA are
responsible for developing a
regional strategy.
What projects do you currently have
that reflect your vision in your
community?
Project: an individual or collective
enterprise that is carefully planned
to achieve a particular aim
How does this work contribute to the change
you envision?
Who benefits from this work?
How do you assess the impact of these
things?
1, 2 Indigenous Theories of
Change/anti-colonialism
(6) As an executive director, I imagine
you work with a number of
different stakeholders. What
stakeholders are critical to you to
get the work done?
Stakeholder – those who have an
interest in or who will be affected
by your work
How are these people/groups/orgs involved
in TFA’s work in your community?
Who are you in solidarity with? Who are you
working with?
How are you actively resisting the status
quo? Are there subversive aspects of your
work? Subversive to who?
2 Settler Triad/Social Cartography
and Types of Reform
(7) Some people (research) have
explained nonprofit executives
work in highly complex
environments that can create
tensions or complexities for
executive leaders as they work
Are there other tensions or complexities you
face as an executive director?
Can you share an example of how you have
experienced the tension or paradox of
working to create change within systems
as they currently exist?
Social Cartography + Types of
Reform

155
Interview questions Potential probes RQ Key concept addressed
within systems they ultimately want
to influence or change.
How do you think about this in your
work as an ED in x community?
Are there tensions or complexities
you experience?
How do you personally navigate the
reality of working within systems
that are also acknowledged as part
of the problem?
Social service v. Social Change
Funder interests v. community issues
TFA model
(8) How do you describe what TFA
exists to do?
How do you describe/define the long
term impact of TFA in your
community?
How do you describe/define the long term
impact of TFA in your community?
How do you assess this impact? Like what
things do you “measure”?
Are there things you think should be
measured that aren’t currently measured?
2 Settler Futurity, Social
Cartography + Types of
Reform
(9) There are various views on TFA
with both positive and critical
perspectives on the extent to which
TFA works. How do you think
about these perspectives? How
might this play out in your
community?
How has TFA’s program/TOC/Approach
shaped/influenced educational equity in
your community?
2, 3 Epistemic Blindness, Social
Cartography + Types of
Reform
(10) In recent years, TFA has publicly
expressed the importance of
evolving and/or transforming the
way it works given patterns/trends
in education and in the world more
broadly.
How can or should TFA evolve?
What patterns or trends in education shape
the work of TFA in your community?
Have you considered new and/or different
approaches to how you work?
Do you have examples of how TFA has
evolved or innovated in your community
that has led to increased impact? What
2, 3 Settler Futurity, Epistemic
Blindness, Social Cartography
+ Types of Reform

156
Interview questions Potential probes RQ Key concept addressed
was that impact? How did you assess this
impact?
(11) In recent years, TFA has
described the need to extend and/or
deepen its impact in communities
where it works.
What would need to be different about
your work to accomplish this?
What resources would you need to make that
happen?
What would need to be different about
TFA’s approach to support you in making
changes?
How does TFA as an organization currently
support you in working differently in your
community?
Can you imagine an end to educational
inequity in X place? What would it take?
Indigenous Theories of Change,
Social Cartography + Types
of Reform
(12) Given what you know about this
study, and our conversation so far,
are there other questions you would
have hoped to be asked? Are there
new questions your interested in as
a result of this convo?

157
Conclusion to the Interview
Thank you for your time today. I enjoyed learning more about your work as an executive
director and X community. I may have some follow up questions in the next few and would like
to follow up with you. This would be a shorter conversation between 15–20 minutes. Would you
be open to that? Great, thanks. Enjoy the rest of your day!

Abstract (if available)

Abstract This study explored the experiences of Teach For America's executive directors and sought to understand the challenges of working toward community-level change. This was done by having executive directors discuss their theory of change, the obstacles and challenges they encounter, and how they work within systems they hope to change or influence. Anti-colonial theory was used as the grounding of this study and provided an analysis of systemic issues in society and education (de Oliveira, 2021; Tuck, 2012). The study focused on the types of reform as outlined by de Oliveria (2021) in her social cartography of reform. A critical case study methodology was used and included 17 virtual semistructured interviews with executive directors from different parts of the United States including rural and urban communities. The study findings show that theories of change can include analysis of a problem that recognizes complexity but offers simple solutions. The study provides data that shows executive directors experience complexity as organization-facing and community-facing leaders that creates a sense of tension in their day to day work. The findings also show that executive directors have different views on how systems change and are aware of the insufficiency of current models and approaches to reform in education. Based on these findings and conceptual framework, this dissertation offers six recommendations that address the individual leadership of executive directors and the structural conditions in which executive directors work.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Richards, Scott Barrett Andrew (author)

Core Title Making change: understanding executive nonprofit leadership approach to systemic change – a case study on Teach For America

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Organizational Change and Leadership (On Line)

Degree Conferral Date 2024-08

Publication Date 08/05/2024

Defense Date 07/12/2024

Publisher Los Angeles, California (original), University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag anti-colonial,Education,executive director,reform,social cartography,systems change,Teach For America

Format theses (aat)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Hinga, Briana (committee chair), Green, Alan (committee member), Mateo-Gaxiola, Xiomara (committee member)

Creator Email sbarichards@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC113998T4Z

Unique identifier UC113998T4Z

Identifier etd-RichardsSc-13333.pdf (filename)

Legacy Identifier etd-RichardsSc-13333

Document Type Dissertation

Format theses (aat)

Rights Richards, Scott Barrett Andrew

Internet Media Type application/pdf

Type texts

Source 20240805-usctheses-batch-1192 (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright.

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu