Teach For America

Become part of a force for change.

Teach For America is the national corps that calls upon outstanding and diverse recent college graduates to commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools and become lifelong leaders in ensuring that all our nation’s children have an equal chance in life. Since 1989, 7000 corps members in 16 geographic areas have positively impacted students and communities while gaining the insight, network, skills and credibility to effect change after their two-year commitment.

THE CHALLENGE
Children growing up in urban areas and remote rural regions often face tremendous socio-economic challenges. Public schools are generally not set up to compensate for these challenges. The result is that children growing up in low-income communities are seven times less likely to graduate from college than children in high-income areas.

With fewer educational prospects come fewer life prospects.

IMMEDIATE IMPACT
Teach For America selects a committed, outstanding corps of diverse college graduates who will set ambitious goals for their students and work proactively and relentlessly to meet these goals. Corps members are trained to develop the leadership skills they have demonstrated and to apply them in the classroom, resulting in better educational and life prospects for the students they teach.

• The 2001 corps has an average GPA of 3.5 and 35% of the corps are people of color. 86% of corps members held at least one leadership position as undergraduates.
• Corps members receive intensive training in the approaches used by successful teachers in under-resourced communities and are supported at the regional and national levels throughout their commitment
• 96% of principals surveyed rated corps members as "advantageous" to their schools, with the majority rating them "strongly advantageous" (Kane, Parsons, and Associates, 1999).
  
  LONG TERM CHANGE
  Teach For America alumni form a network of successful, informed leaders who have insight into the changes needed to improve life prospects in under-resourced areas, and who work towards these changes through all sectors of society.
  
  
• Approximately 60 % of alumni remain in the field of education, as teachers, school and district administrators, or founders of innovative new schools and programs.
  
  
• Another 40% of alumni work in fields such as medicine, business, politics, journalism, and law, using their status as leaders and the insight and credibility they gained in the corps to effect change.
  
  
• All alumni come out of their Teach For America experience positioned for success. Graduate schools and employers value the concrete, transferable skills gained by corps members.