Sign Stealer's Graduation Featured in Washington Post

I'm not sure Georgetown University would be proud of Vincent Jeffery. Here is Jeffery at his commencement "The world needs your inexperience . . . to solve problems that many more experienced people have given up on," said Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America, who outlined the idea of the national teaching corps to benefit the country's neediest schools in her senior thesis in 1989 at Princeton University.

"And the world needs you now because accomplishments take time," said Kopp, chief executive of the teaching corps. The challenges of creating equitable educational opportunities -- Teach for America's mission -- or eliminating poverty, she said, "are massive and inconceivably complex, and finding and implementing the path to success takes time.

The message was not lost on Georgetown graduate Vincent Jeffrey, 22, of Manhasset, N.Y., who was among the school's 85 graduates who applied this spring to join Teach for America. University officials said the organization will, for the second consecutive year, be the top private employer for the school's graduating class, with 59 graduates accepted for the two-year teaching program.

Jeffrey recently learned he did not make the final cut and will instead take an interim job working on the campaign of a state senator in New York this summer while he also studies for his law school entrance exam. But the government major said: "I'm definitely interested to see if the teaching can happen. . . . [Kopp's] speech was the exact reasons I wanted to do it in the first place."