Growing up in Macallin, Texas, Elisa Villanueva Beard was a stellar student.

But in college, she struggled big time. She just wasn't as academically prepared as a lot of her peers.

That experience ceded her lifelong mission for educational equity and inspired her to join Teach for

America as a core member. Today, Elisa is its CEO. We talk about what she learned in the classroom,

how she became a champion for students,

and what it will take for all of our kids to have a world-class education.

All right, Elisa, we're going to try to get through this without my children and your children interrupting us.

But if they interrupt us, so be it.

Take me back to 1998.

You're a TFA Corps member teaching first, second grade, bilingual education in Phoenix.

Tell me about your very first day in the classroom. Wow. Okay, my very first day in the

classroom, I had been anticipating having 28 kids. So that's what I had prepared for. I went out to

get my kids and I, in fact, had 36 kids had sort of joined my line.

Whoa.

By the time I made it to my classroom.

And what was a little bit nerve-wracking about that is I was walking to the class, I was

thinking, oh, my gosh.

I was expecting 28 kids.

I prepared stuff for 30 kids, and I don't have enough desks and I don't have enough

materials. Anyway, we walk into the classroom. I had half the class sit on the floor, half

the cat class in desks. And I had no books, Alicia, at this time in 1998. There were no books,

no curriculum. And so, you know, we got through the first day and at the end of it, I just cried.

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