We at Teach For America are trying to build a movement of leaders committed to ending educational inequality in the United States. To do this, for the past 20 years, we have recruited, trained, and supported recent college graduates of all academic majors to teach for two years in public schools in low-income communities across the country. We believe that, as a result of working to catch our students up, our corps members will gain the added conviction, commitment, and insight to spend their careers addressing the myriad reasons why the achievement gap between students from low- and high-income backgrounds exists.

REALITY represents the first major program in recent memory to enable our corps members to deeply reflect for an extended period of time about their experiences in the classroom, what it makes them think about root causes of inequity, and what they wish to do with their lives.

Never feeling accepted by the Jewish community, never offered opportunities to explore her Jewish identity, she did not connect her commitment to service to the values that undergird Jewish life—to the fundamental meaning of what it means to be Jewish.