TFA Teams With Districts to Groom Aspiring Principals

If Teach For America has its way, Carolyn M. Eggert will be one in a long line of alumni who move smoothly from the classroom into the principal’s office.

Ms. Eggert, who has been a high school math teacher and department chair at the Hirsch Metropolitan High School of Communications in Chicago for the past four years, is one of the first participants in a partnership launched this fall by TFA-Chicago, the Chicago school system, and Harvard University’s graduate school of education to prepare leaders for schools facing some of the city’s toughest challenges.

A similar partnership involving the New York City-based TFA, the Newark, N.J., school district, and Rutgers University also got off the ground this fall. Another partnership involves the Gwinnett County...