Is Wendy Kopp Today's Jane Addams?

After reading Christine Stansell's New Republic review of it, I'm really eager to read Louise W. Knight's Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy. While I certainly don't agree with everything they did, I feel a particular debt to the early 20th century Progressive women reformers such as Addams, both for the positive social changes to which they contributed and the doors they opened for me asa woman.

I did have to question one line in Stansell's review, though:

By 1900, a stay in a settlement house was de rigueur for new college graduates who wanted to make the world better. Now, few things could seem less appealing to the best of my college students; what Addams called "the subjective necessity of the settlement"--the need to be in contact with others different from oneself--is more likely to propel young idealists to go live with the poor in the barrios of Mexico City or the shantytowns of Johannesburg rather than Chicago, Boston, or New York.

But, with tens of thousands of our nation's brightest college graduates applying to teach in some of our nations most disadvantaged urban and rural communities through Teach for America, I wonder if Stansell isn't missing a piece of the picture here. While we know that many of these young people remain in the classroom, it's also clear that Teach for America alums are emerging as a key source of leaders in both education and other social and public service and policy realms. Certainly, Teach for America is very different from the settlement movement in its methods, aims, and focus. But is it serving a similar function in developing connections between bright, priviledged, driven young people and disadvantaged communities, and in fostering a crop of future leaders for social and political justice?