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Nashville
Teach For America is an opportunity to bring smart, idealistic, energetic young people into our school system who have excelled academically themselves and will, therefore, push our students to excel, as well.
- Karl Dean, Mayor of Nashville
This year, Teach For America • Nashville is preparing to welcome a corps of more than 50 of the nation’s most promising future leaders, who will be teaching next year in our city’s lowest-income classrooms and working to ensure their students have the educational opportunities they deserve. Alumni living in Tennessee are a leadership force, working from within education and every professional sector to effect broader change. Learn about living and teaching in Nashville.
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Corps Impact |
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Alumni Impact |
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Regional Supporters |
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Contact Us |
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Executive Director |
Press
Recent press releases
Recent press coverage
Corps Impact
During the 2009-10 school year, more than 50 corps members will be directly impacting the lives of more than 3,000 students in Nashville.
Principal Satisfaction
- 95 percent of recently-surveyed principals (in schools with Teach For America corps members) reported that they would like to hire another Teach For America teacher.*
- 95 percent of principals surveyed regard Teach For America teachers as effective as, if not more effective than, other beginning teachers in terms of overall performance and impact on student achievement.*
*"Teach For America 2009 National Principal Survey,” Policy Studies Associates, July 2009
Impact on Student Achievement
A growing body of research shows that corps members have a positive impact on their students' achievement. Read more about our impact.
Nashville: Projected Corps Member Placement
| Assignment | % of Corps |
|---|---|
| Mathematics | 20% |
| Science | 16% |
| Social Studies | 10% |
| English | 10% |
| Elementary | 18% |
| English as a Second Language | 16% |
| Spanish | 10% |
| Total | 100% |
*Percentages are rounded; corps members who teach bilingual, ESL, or special education are also accounted for in the grade-level/subject placement percentages
Characteristics of the 2009 Corps
| Corps Profile |
|---|
| Average GPA: 3.6 |
| Average SAT: 1344 |
| Held leadership roles on campus: 89% |
| People of color: 30% |
*Percentage of senior classes who applied to Teach For America
Alumni Impact
Fostering Alumni Leadership for Systemic Change
Nationally, more than 60 percent of corps members continue to work in education,
including more than 360 who are school leaders. Of all alumni, 93 percent report they are supporting Teach For America’s mission
through their career, volunteer activity or graduate study.
Regional Support
We are grateful to our supporters who have generously contributed to our movement in Nashville. The foundations, corporations and individuals listed below have made it possible for Teach For America to continue to recruit, select, train, and support teachers who are working to eliminate educational inequity in our city.
| Corporation, Foundation and Public Support |
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$1,000,000 and above |
| Education First Fund |
In-Kind Supporters |
| Lipscomb University |
| Individuals |
|---|
$100 - $249 |
| Phi Sigma Pi Epsilon Phi Sigma Pi – Beta Psi Chapter Henry Street Fund |
$1 - $99 |
| Caitlin McCollister |
Contact
To support Teach For America • Nashville with a gift or to request additional information about our impact or finances, please contact:
Teach For America • Nashville
Brad Leon, Executive Director
One Vantage Way, Suite C-140
Nashville, TN 37228
p 615.242.6263, f 615.242.6249
brad.leon@teachforamerica.org
Executive Director
Bradley J. Leon is in his fourth year as executive director with Teach For America in Tennessee. Brad first became involved with Teach For America while teaching 8th grade language arts and social studies at the New Orleans Free School in New Orleans, LA. Despite low achievement rates across the district, Brad’s students excelled with 98 percent passing the Louisiana Education Assessment Program (LEAP), the state’s high-stakes standardized test. As a result of his efforts, Brad was unanimously selected as the school’s “Teacher of the Year” in 2002. During his time as executive director, Brad has the distinction of launching and leading both of our sites in Tennessee (Memphis, 2006 & Nashville, 2009). A winner of the Senior-Scholar Athlete Award, Brad graduated with honors from Occidental College in 2000 after participating in both football and baseball where he served as the baseball captain in 1999-2000.
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