Homeroom with Sal and Wendy Kopp - Wednesday, September 15

Hi everyone! Sal Khan here from Khan Academy. Welcome to the Homeroom live stream! It's been a while since we did one, but we're back and we have an amazing guest, Wendy Kopp, CEO of Teach For All, also the founder of Teach For America.

We're going to talk about her journey and all of her learnings about education and where we might be going. But before we do that, I will give my standard announcements. First, a reminder that we are not-for-profit here at Khan Academy, so if you're in a position to do so, please think about going to khanacademy.org/donate and making a donation of any size. It really does make a difference, and it's what allows us to serve millions, tens of millions, of students around the world.

The next thing I'd like to make sure we recognize is many folks who have stepped up, especially when the pandemic hit and more folks than ever were dependent upon Khan Academy. Special thanks to Bank of America, AT&T, Google.org, Novartis, Fastly, and General Motors for really stepping up. As we all know, unfortunately, we're still in this pseudo-pandemic mode, but even post-pandemic, this is where Khan Academy might be even more important, to make sure that we can get everyone back up to speed and have a strong foundation, having everyone learn at their own pace.

Last but not least, there is a version of this live stream in podcast form wherever you get your podcasts: Homeroom with Sal, the podcast.

With that out of the way, I'm so excited to introduce Wendy Kopp, who I consider a good friend and someone who I genuinely look up to in all things in my life, including founding organizations and all the rest. Wendy, welcome!

Wendy: Thank you! So good to be here. Looking forward.

Sal: So maybe a good—and I'll remind everyone who's watching on Facebook or YouTube: any questions you have for Wendy about her journey or about education generally, put them in the message boards. We'll be able to look at those questions, and I'll try to surface as many as I can during our conversation. But Wendy, maybe a good place to start. I think a lot of folks have heard of Teach For All, maybe not everyone has. A lot of folks might have heard of Teach For America—some might not have. What is Teach For All and what is Teach For America?

Wendy: So, I'll start with Teach For All. Teach For All started just about 14 years ago, and it was—I mean, I had my head down—and I'll get back to this in a minute—just working to grow the impact of Teach For America, which I had started maybe 30 plus years ago. And I wasn't thinking at all about the rest of the world, but there was just something in the water, and I started meeting amazing people—social entrepreneurs from all over the world who were interested in seeing something similar happen in their countries. They were looking for support and help, and that led to the launch of Teach For All as a network of independent, locally-led organizations, now in 60 countries around the world, that all share a common purpose, which is to develop collective leadership, to ensure all kids fulfill their potential.

And we all share a common approach for doing that, which is really kind of the approach that we pioneered initially at Teach For America: enlisting promising leaders—people of all different academic backgrounds and career interests—in committing at least two years to teach in under-resourced communities, investing in their leadership, supporting them as they commit really their lives to working as leaders and advocates for the systemic changes necessary to create a fair and equitable and excellent education system.

Now there's so much in there—I hope to unpack. Well, let's go to the—you know, you just explained a little bit about how Teach For All came to be and its theory of action, and it really did, to some degree, emerge out of the work that you've been doing for many decades at Teach For America. Tell us a little bit about that journey, because you were quite young when you started, and I know there's a lot of young people listening who for the most part, everyone wants to find purpose in their life. Everyone wants to know, how do I provide for my family? But even more important, potentially, make a dent in the universe—make a difference. How did you find your purpose through Teach For America and then Teach For All?

Wendy: It's so interesting, Sal, because this started when I was a college senior, and I was in a funk for the first time in my life, really. I mean, I had been completely driven, taking on one issue or another. And then I got to my senior year and I realized I have to figure out what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. You know, our generation was called the 'me generation.' Supposedly, we all just wanted to go out and work for banks and management consulting firms, and I just—I didn't want to do that.

I just found myself searching for a way to assume a big responsibility and make a real difference in the world. I got this sense that I wasn't alone, that there were thousands of other people out there searching for exactly the same thing. As I went through all of that, I'd also become just a very concerned college student focused on, you know, the inequities in our country, and particularly on the issues in education—the fact that where kids are born does so much to predict educational outcomes and life outcomes.

One day, all that just came together, and I thought, why aren't we being recruited as aggressively to commit just two years to teach in urban and rural public schools in our country as we were being recruited to commit just two years to work on Wall Street? I just became completely obsessed with this idea. I thought it was going to change the country, you know, like it was going to channel all this energy into classrooms, which was going to be really important for kids growing up today. But I also thought, how different would the country be if we took all these "promising leaders" and had their first two years out of college be teaching in low-income communities instead of working at banks? I thought that would change our priorities, our consciousness as a country.

So that was the big idea. I needed a thesis topic. It was an idea that was very quickly far beyond me. Yeah, that's the beginning of it, at least.

Sal: Well, I think, to some degree, it has changed America. I think many of those people might have gone into banking or something—not that there's anything wrong with that too. There are many people who do very powerful things and very important things after that. But I do think, you know, the number of people I know who are Teach For America alumni—who know something about education and care about the issue—some of them stayed in education, some of them have gone into other professions. But I think it has changed them, and it has changed how they lead. It has changed how the other organizations that they now lead think about education.

But I want to go back to that moment because I too, as a senior—and I think senior year, I was probably—we were probably similar in certain ways. I felt like I had all this energy; I felt like I had all of the stuff for the world. I was like, where do I get the maximum impact on the world? And I did also sometimes have big dreams, but then I was like, well, how do I make that happen? So what did you do that allowed you to take that pretty bold vision and turn it into actual action that eventually did get pretty close, or even better than that bold vision? Because eventually, you went global—that wasn't even part of your original vision.

Wendy: Yeah, so I think I had a gift in that I had a thesis requirement. I mean, you know, I had to write an undergraduate thesis, and I was also really searching for a topic. I decided this would be the topic, and that really forced me to think a lot about this. I mean, I researched the policy context, the previous models on which we could learn from, like the Peace Corps or there was a federal teacher program in the '60s or VISTA in the U.S.

I looked at the mood on college campuses, and honestly, I spent a lot of the thesis research looking for this. The more I got into it, the more it just was so clear the timing was perfect and this must be happening. I was looking at who's doing this, because at the time, first of all, there were huge teacher shortages—I mean huge headlines—like 1200 teachers short in New York, a thousand teachers short in LA. There was also a real interest in the country for the first time—like Fortune magazine cover stories on how corporate America was going to take on education.

And I just thought, yeah, anyway, that became how I did it. Honestly, like I ended up becoming—I realized no one's doing it and the time is going to pass. Someone has to do it. So I developed a four-page plan saying this is how we're going to do it and turned in the thesis, boiled it down into 30 pages, and I sent it to all those executives quoted in that magazine article. I was mailing letters, calling, following up, and I got a few meetings off of that. Those letters, again, it was one of those ideas that was capturing people.

I got a seed grant. I spent my summer just trying to meet anyone who would meet me. Of course, I had no credibility. I mean, I would send 100 letters and get a meeting or two. But as I tell everyone, you can get 98 no's or 99; if you get one person saying yes, and that sort of became how we gained a little traction.

But honestly, I mean, one more thing to share: everywhere I went, I was getting into superintendents and potential donors and various people. Again, I would meet one person and they would lead me to others. Everywhere I went, people said, this is a great idea; it will never work.

The reason they thought it wouldn't work is they thought the college students would never do it. I had a list of 100 campuses—public and private, historically black colleges and Ivy League schools—and people looked at the list and said you'll never get kids from these schools to want to teach in low-income communities.

That was the one thing I had a reason to have conviction about, and so that became the plan. We're going to show people. So we launched a grassroots recruitment campaign—flyers under doors, again no email—and we had 2500 people apply within three or four months. That generated media.

Sal: What year was that?

Wendy: Yeah, I mean, one year after I graduated it all came together. We had 500 people in an auditorium embarking on a summer training institute. We had experienced teachers from all over the country—urban and rural areas—come together to be trainers for them. We had school systems in six places agree to hire them, and somehow we raised two and a half million dollars to fund it anyway.

That was the first year. But I always tell people that's when the learning curve began because these folks started teaching and we realized how hard this would be. That's what's kept me in it, you know—just the incredible learning curve and learning journey about how to actually do this well: like how to recruit and select people who are ready for this, and train and support them to succeed with their kids, to learn the right lessons to ultimately fulfill their potential as a force for the systemic changes that we need.

Sal: Yeah, and I want to get into that in a second, but I also want to make sure we don't glaze over some things that I think you just glazed over. You have this thesis, and that does seem like a powerful forcing function to doing your research, thinking through the plan, etc., etc. But then I'm really fascinated about that moment from idea to actually starting to get a little bit of traction. So you were literally took copies of essentially your thesis or a version of your thesis, you put them in like manila envelopes, figured out somehow the mailing address—like you just say like, you know, Big Corporation X, which you could find the address, and you just put the name of the CEO on top and hoping, and it did actually work!

Wendy: Okay, so I had a mix of people. I took the names in the article quoted about how we needed the head of the Business Roundtable at the time or the next person, and yeah, I looked up their addresses and mailed them letters. Then I would call and follow up, and I also added some other CEOs from random companies out of like the book of big corporations. I mean, honestly, I had the advantage of naivety.

And I had been—I got seven meetings off those letters. That's one thing to note—I said I got seven meetings, not necessarily with the CEOs, by the way, but whoever they handed them down to. One of those meetings, someone said you can use our office in Manhattan, so I got some office space.

The other said it was just taken with the idea. And it's a long story, but he said if you can get Princeton to be the conduit of funds, I'll make the seed grant. I had met the Princeton development director because my thesis advisor had insisted on it. This man was going to explain to me how impossible this was going to be, and I called that man and he was like, I cannot believe you got a grant, and he made it happen.

Sal: So anyway, and this—I'm just curious.

Wendy: How much was the seed grant?

Sal: Twenty-six thousand dollars. I mean, this twenty-six thousand dollars, I said I'll come up with a budget; these were my expenses for the summer—in today's money, that might be 40 thousand. But not like an enormous amount of money, but this was enough money—was this, you know, you—was it like you could start taking a salary to start fleshing it out more? You could start, what other costs you might do?

Wendy: Today, I don't even know if I had a salary, but I had no money, so I needed to live. So it was like expenses for a summer of exploring whether this could work. That was how I framed the whole thing.

Sal: And then how did you go from that? And I do want to go into all of the learning over the last, especially, well, recent times, but especially over the last three decades. But how did you go from that to a year later having 500 people in a room and having all of these—it's one thing to get a 26-thousand dollar grant; it's another thing to actually— even though they were skeptical—in hindsight, it feels like the student part might have been the easier part. But getting the districts to say yes, we will place these teachers, having enough money to do the training for all of these folks, being able to do it in a responsible way so that you're going to put them in classrooms, they're going to be teaching kids, etc., etc. Like, was it just a series of small steps?

Wendy: Yeah, I mean, it was all in the four-page plan. But yes, I will say, I mean, I think every piece of this work is a challenge, right? Like, I think actually one of the hardest things we do still to this day is inspire people with a lot of other options to say I want to do this.

But it is true that there’s a certain group of people out there. I think in that first year, we magnetized the people who saw this and said, you know, I want to be part of that. And I think as we work to grow beyond that core group, it became all the more challenging to figure out how to do it.

You know, the school district part was not the hard part. I still remember these initial meetings I had with urban district superintendents and heads of human resources—like one very memorable meeting with the head of human resources in the Los Angeles school district. The guy started laughing; he was looking at my list of 100 colleges and he just laughed and said, I’ll tell you what: you get students from these colleges to want to teach in my schools, and I will hire all 500 of them. That was kind of the reaction I was getting because there was just such a need for teachers.

In many ways, it was a very different world 30 years ago. I mean, we've seen school districts in the U.S. become so much more sophisticated in how they're recruiting teachers. I mean, it used to be a very different world. Figuring out how to train them, I found my way to really progressive teacher educators, and I knew we knew nothing. So, I mean, we kind of subcontracted with them, and said please design a training institute. You know, and there was a lot—I mean, you know, we were working 24/7.

There was a team of people, of course, like a bunch of other recent graduates—some who had taught, some who had done the Peace Corps, others who were straight out of college and were inspired by this mission—but we put together an amazing team of people—young people who just made it happen through a lot of all-nighters and, you know, campaign.

Sal: Yeah, I think young people who are watching this, I’m sure they are likely impressed because it's not common that you'll see a college senior or someone who's 21 or 22 years old be able to do this level. But we've had the last 20 or 30 years of seeing examples of, especially in the for-profit sector, of startups being founded by college students and getting off the ground. But when you started this, this was not a normal thing; it was not normal for someone in their early 20s to be able to start an entity of substance.

But anyway, I know we're short of time, but there must have been something really powerful about how you were presenting yourself or maybe you just had the right sponsors, the right advocates, or a combination that allowed you to get off the ground. Because I would argue it's even harder to start a not-for-profit of meaning relative to even a for-profit.

Wendy: I was obsessed with this idea, and I think that was the thing, honestly, more than anything else. And it was an idea that magnetized people immediately. I mean, and it really has since then, right? And now it's doing that globally, and there was a lot that—that's really what it came down to, was much less than—I don't know that I would have—I wasn't trying to think of something to start. I mean, that was like the last thing—I was not in that mode at all. It was just—I became so obsessed with this, and I think that's what made it work.

And now, fast forward to today, what are your big takeaways? You had some hypotheses 30 years ago or whatever it was—which of those came true or maybe are even better than what you expected? Which of those—the jury's still out? And which of those are you like, well, I'm not sure if that was right, but there's this other thing we learned? So what's interesting about this? I mean, as I shared earlier, part of what I was so obsessed about was the long-term impact I thought this would have—like I thought it would really reshape the priorities of a generation, and I think I probably didn't understand exactly how that piece was going to play out.

But I think that piece has happened in spades. You know, and now there's all this research and growing amounts of it that look at what happens to these people during the two years. We can look at it not only in the U.S. but now in other countries as well, and what's fascinating is that these effects are so similar, even from country to country.

Like people, through those two years—like they come in—I mean, they go through this very rigorous selection process, and they come in—you know, these studies look at people who are right on the admissions line; some didn't get in and some did. Then it looks at what happens to their mindsets and beliefs and understandings two years later and beyond that.

And so they come in, you know, this selection model works. We select people who believe in kids and families and low-income communities, but that conviction deepens. Like the gap in their level of belief in the potential of kids and families grows—like meaning like they believe more in their kids at the end. They also completely shift their understanding of the nature of the problem and the solutions.

Like they come in thinking all around the world like the answer is technical: you know, it's funding, number one, and number of technical solutions. They come out thinking this is a big systemic problem that's going to take a lot of adaptive change and a lot of leadership from a lot of places. So they basically come out having a bigger sense of possibility, knowing that no one silver bullet is going to do it, like the answer is much more complex, and they become all the more committed to the work.

You know, they change their career trajectories—they never leave the work, essentially. I mean you look at the 70,000 some Teach For America alums and 86% of them are full-time in the work—like some of them in education, some of the others taking on the other aspects of the issues in low-income communities—and we're seeing the same thing globally. 75% of these alumni all over the world are still full-time in education. So that part, like the idea that this was going to shape these people and that it would end up being not only about two years but about every year after the two years—that we got completely right.

I don't know if I could have known how that would play itself out over time. You know, I think you've probably made a bigger impact in the long run, in my biased opinion, than I could have predicted because of the nature of the problem and the solution, which we could talk about and I'll go to in a second. But how do you think it's affected the education environment? What's that alternative reality where instead young Wendy Kopp went and got a job as a management consultant and just stopped teaching America? What would the world look like there?

Wendy: So this is where I was gonna go. So I think what I've learned over time and what all of these people who get into this work learn and what I'm sure you've learned is that this really is a big complex problem. Like there is no one thing that's going to solve this problem—like more great teachers, a different curriculum, a laptop for every kid, a charter school, a different government. I mean, there's no one thing that's going to do it.

It's going to take so many different things. Like it really is just a very complex problem. It's not even all about schools and school systems; it's about, you know, it's just—it's about the fact that whole segments of kids face many extra challenges that more privileged kids don't face—discrimination, poverty, lack of access to adequate healthcare, and so many other things. And then they show up at schools never set up to meet their extra needs.

And there's this kind of prevailing ideology about the potential of these marginalized kids. To solve that is going to take collective leadership. You know, it's going to take a lot of people working together. It's going to take teachers and school leaders and school system leaders. It's going to take social entrepreneurs figuring out how to change the system. It's going to take policy leaders. It's going to take students and parents and advocates.

You know, we need a whole ecosystem of people exerting leadership. And so I think what Teach For All network organizations have done is contributed to that collective leadership. Like they're enlisting people from very diverse backgrounds—some who have lived these inequities that we're addressing and others from much more privileged backgrounds—so diverse group of folks. They're immersing them in this experience, and those people come out believing we can solve this problem, understanding the nature of the problem, and taking it on alongside and in partnership with many others, you know, the systemic issues.

And so I think what's changed—you can see now—I mean in the U.S. you can see communities where Teach For America has been placing a steady stream of people for 30 years. And I know it doesn't seem like it because we still have massive inequities and we're far from where we want to be as a country in education. But if you actually looked at where things were 30 years ago in these communities versus where they are now in terms of the state of education, the educational outcomes—we've moved the needle in a big way.

Not of course just because of Teach For America, but if you took all those Teach For America people out of those communities, you would take a lot of the energy and leadership and entrepreneurship that has fueled and catalyzed and in some cases really driven the change. And we're seeing just the same effects all around the world—it's almost like seeing the same movie playing in different countries.

Sal: Yeah, and I'll add to that. I'm sure it's had an impact on those communities, but just even on my own journey at Khan Academy over the last 11, 12, 13—I guess it's been 16 years, 17 years since I started tutoring family. But while I was doing this for real, the number of Teach For America folks that I've seen leading various work—we've had multiple Teach For America folks at various stages in Khan Academy, all the way to the early days who did some of our school partnership work. The number of other not-for-profits or for-profits, but education, ed tech, whatever you want to call it—reform your alumni are everywhere. They are driving these things.

So I do think there's a direct impact on those communities; there's the ways that it has changed these people directly and their understanding of the system. But it's also these many of your folks have gone out there and then have become mini Wendys and have started other parts. As to your point, it's a multi-dimensional approach; there are many vectors here.

But going into the teaching itself, you know, there's a bunch of questions that are coming in from YouTube. Raymond Cronin says, how do you get students on board with core classes they're not interested in? There's another question, can you describe the progress and education you've seen made? Taking all that into account, you know, what have you found makes someone a successful teacher? And as to Raymond's question, it's not just delivery of content; it is motivation of content; it's other things. What's your takeaways here? How do you see that talent, and how do you develop it?

Wendy: So first of all, on the teaching question, and then let's come back to that second question because that's a slightly different one. But we've learned so much, and it's an ongoing learning journey. I think, you know, my biggest thought in listening to that question and just thinking about what we've learned is that, you know, I guess I've rethought what we're even working towards.

You know, when we started out in this—I mean, of course, and still—I mean, we're so driven by equity across the Teach For All network and working with the most marginalized kids. I think when I started my Teach For America journey, I was thinking that meant catching kids up to where more privileged kids are. And progressively, we just realized how insufficient that is—like we're catching kids up in a very broken system, when what we should be doing is enabling kids and developing them to exert the leadership to solve the inequities, to shape a better future for themselves, like navigate a changing economy, and for all of us—solve these pressing problems that face our society.

So it's interesting—like we did a whole set of studies back in the day about what differentiated teachers who produced the biggest gains in student achievement, you know, standardized test scores. But we've redone all those studies now looking at what is it that differentiates the teachers who are fostering students' agency, their awareness in the world, their problem-solving skills, their leadership— you know, including their ability to apply the academic knowledge to be strong critical thinkers and strong problem solvers and all.

And so I guess what's come out of those studies is the idea that the strongest teachers, first of all, are so purpose driven—like they are very clear on their ultimate aim. They build really strong relationships with their students and the students' families and other teachers in the school. And then they're making choices that foster student agency and awareness and well-being and mastery.

I'm going to pause. I mean there are so many—there's so much to be said on this topic. But, and what's your sense about, you know, when you're looking—when you're looking at these young people going into the Teach For America or the Teach For All force, is there any way to find that signal early on, or do they just have to learn as they go? And then how do people change with time and experience? Because I've definitely heard the argument both ways—these are incredibly high-potential folks, but then you might have senior teachers who might not have quite, you know, the same background, but they've learned things over the years.

How do you see that develop over time?

Wendy: I mean, every teacher's journey is of course a little bit different. And one thing I would just say—I mean, we are trying to, on the teaching side, be one more source of, you know, deeply committed teachers working alongside many other teachers and allies and parents and others trying to help kids, you know, meet their extra needs, you know, support them to live into their full potential.

And it's a journey; it's a learning journey for any new teacher, including those who we place and support. I'm losing track of your question, but evolves over time. Like what—how do you see your teachers change between year one and year two? What are they doing differently?

Wendy: You know, it's so interesting because I just talked to a first-year teacher in Colombia who is working with a hundred students across grades five through ten, and he's teaching math and physics, and he's never met the kids because he's only taught in the pandemic. And he somehow started by teaching the kids about the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, and then he got them all involved in researching the reality in rural Colombia, and then they became very concerned about the water shortage and the gas shortage, and these kids have developed solutions to those problems.

He's a first-year teacher and he immediately just oriented towards how do we foster students' leadership—let's do it today because there are lots of problems in the world today. He, I mean, he said a fifth-grade girl is leading the team—he then entered them into these different competitions, and they've done very well. He has the fifth-grade girl leading a team.

I mean, so it's hard, you know, and then there are other first-year teachers who come in through our organization who, you know, are completely overwhelmed and who, if they persist by the end of the year, wake up and realize they did make a difference, and then reflect over the summer and come in hitting the ground running the second year. I mean, I don't want to say there's one journey, but yeah, it's—and we're selecting a group of people who, one, want to be in this work, who are deeply driven to address these inequities, who want to be in the arena, want, you know, have high expectations for kids and families, and we're looking for various things but including a lot of evidence that they take on big things and persevere in the face of challenges because that's a huge part of this.

We're looking for people who also build strong relationships and can influence and motivate others, and I think that's another just really fundamental piece. I mean, all of our studies about transformational teachers—it's interesting, like the number one differentiator is that they're incredibly relational—not even just with kids but with anyone, like the other teachers in the building and such.

So, you know, there’s a lot to like trying to select those folks and invest, build, putting them in a culture and helping them understand and see like different models of teachers who are fostering their students' leadership and building their skills, providing the ongoing coaching and mentoring and access to resources necessary to develop over time.

Sal: Yeah, it makes a ton of sense. And I just realized whenever I'm having a good conversation the time goes far faster than I expect. So maybe we'll finish off—there's a question from CL Grouse on Facebook. Being that we have been in a pandemic for almost two years, are there any changes within the organization that weren't there prior to 2020? So if you could take us home on what has a pandemic done to Teach For All, to teaching, and any other takeaways you want folks to have?

Wendy: You know, I think this—in a way Teach For All's network was kind of made for this era. I think it’s just been really affirming for the kind of teachers and leaders we're developing who, as the world's schools shut down progressively, just leaned in with their own students to keep them safe and learning. Then we're very quickly enlisted by government ministries around the world and others to train other teachers in distance learning strategies, create digital libraries, leverage radio and TV to keep kids learning.

So we've just seen so much leadership and so much innovation across our network, and we've also seen the power of having a global network that would enable all those teachers and alumni educators to learn from each other. I mean, we just saw solutions flying across the world.

So, that's maybe a part of the answer. We've been reflecting a lot on what we're learning in this era. And of course, we're seeing the issues we're addressing—like the inequities we’re addressing—just hugely exacerbated in this time, but we're also seeing a lot of new possibilities, like mindset shifts—a lot of them among the world's educators. I mean, our network's educators and the world's educators about the power of leveraging technology, the power of engaging students in shaping the learning experience, like partnering with them to do that, the power of partnering all the more deeply with parents, the importance of integrating a focus on well-being and social-emotional development at every single step of the way in every day, and probably more.

But so we're really thinking about how do we sustain those mindsets because if we can do that, we really have the potential to have a different and much better school system as we go forward.

Sal: You know, it's so exciting, and look, Wendy, I would say I could talk to you for hours—and I will say you've always been an inspiration. The existence—I didn't know you when I started Khan Academy; we got to know each other quite quickly. I consider myself very fortunate, but the existence of Teach For America and Teach For All is what gave me confidence that you could have innovative not-for-profits at scale that can really make a dent at a national or global level.

And obviously, what we're trying to do in—the various not-for-profits we also have a habit of starting, more than one not-for-profit—then the various not-for-profits that we’re doing. Obviously, I've started a tutoring platform, schoolhouse.world, in some ways—it rhymes with a lot of what you're talking about about people wanting to give back. And I think what we're doing is so complementary. I'm super excited about where education can go with your entrepreneurship and these 70,000 folks that you have joined your army.

Thank you for doing that for the world!

Wendy: Well, thank you, Sal. Your journey has also been a huge source of inspiration and support to our whole network and so many leaders across our network, and I myself—so thank you for that. We really value our kind of informal partnership with Khan Academy.

Sal: Absolutely! Well, thank you so much. Well, thanks everyone for joining. Oh, thanks so much, Wendy. Thanks everyone for joining! As you could tell, Wendy is one of the real—if you think of a list of five people in the last 30 years who you would list on making a dent in the universe, especially a dent in the universe in education, I think Wendy would make that list.

So, thank you for joining. As you can see, she's incredibly inspiring, and her journey is incredibly inspiring. So thank you for joining the Homeroom, and I will see you all at the next one, which is still going to be in a little while. But see you all then!