Teach for America

Teach for America (TFA), nonprofit educational organization formed in 1990 to address underachievement in American public schools.

Teach for America (TFA) was founded by Wendy Kopp, who first conceived of the idea in her senior thesis at Princeton University. With the goal of getting highly competent college graduates to make a two-year commitment to teach in struggling schools, Kopp raised $2.5 million in order to begin recruiting college students and professionals to become what TFA called “corps members.” Funds for the salaries of corps members were provided by local school districts and by grants from AmeriCorps, a service network of which TFA was a member. In 1990 TFA sent 500 teachers into six regions across the country. By 2008 the organization had more than 5,000 corps members and 12,000 alumni and had expanded to 26 regions across the country, including cities such as New York, Houston, and Los Angeles as well as rural areas such as eastern North Carolina and the Mississippi delta. At the beginning of the 21st century it was one of the largest employers of recent college graduates in the United States.

TFA fostered a reputation for being highly selective. Although corps members come from a variety of backgrounds and have degrees in fields other than education, all have demonstrated significant academic achievement and leadership ability. Upon completion of the program, TFA corps members receive teaching certification. In some regions, corps members have the option of earning a master’s degree in education as they go through the program.

Critics of TFA have claimed that placing teachers in schools for only two years does little to boost student achievement, especially since most corps members leave their teaching jobs after two years. Critics have also suggested that TFA teachers are no more qualified than traditional teachers, since most corps members do not have a degree in education when they enter the program. Nevertheless, an independent study in 2004 showed that students of TFA teachers scored higher on standardized math tests than students of traditional teachers and that TFA teachers were considered better qualified than traditional teachers by a majority of school principals.