Teach For America: How a Teacher Corps Changes Schools and Community

Abstract

Teach For America is a non-profit organisation that aims to eliminate disparities in educational outcome and to address teacher shortages by sending graduates from elite colleges, most of whom do not have a background in education, to teach in low-income rural and urban schools. Teach for America is a highly selective teacher certification programme, and describes itself as a national corps of top recent college graduates (85 per cent with bachelor degrees) of all academic majors who commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools. In the 2010/11 school year, 8,200 Teach for America corps members taught 500,000 students in 2,500 schools in 100 of the lowest performing public school districts nationwide. Corps members receive seven weeks of training before they begin teaching, one week of study and observation, five weeks of summer institute, and another week of orientation to the schools and communities in which they will be teaching. In addition to their salary, Teach For America teachers receive an AmeriCorps grant from the US federal government, which helps with student loans and funding for future education expenses. Since 1990 Teach for America has included 28,000 corps members; it is now the largest provider of teachers for low-income communities and has affected the lives of more than three million students. Because Teach For America engages future leaders in education in low-income communities, the organisation works on expanding the force of leaders who work from inside and outside the education system to improve academic outcomes for children in those communities.