New York City has long been hailed as one of the greatest cities in the world. It’s home to over eight million people (33 percent of whom were born in another country) and is comprised of five boroughs, within which there are hundreds of communities—each with a unique history and culture that offers something for everyone.
| Quick Stats |
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| Site Since: 1990 |
| Corps Size: 1,000 |
| Average yearly temperature: 54.7° |
| Car: Access to a car is not necessary (An average of 7,126,950 New Yorkers ride the subway daily.) |
Salary: See cost of living  |
New York City pulses to the rhythm of urban life: music, food, art, nightlife, parks, and of course, people. Harlem, Washington Heights and communities in the Bronx and Brooklyn—where New York City corps members currently teach and where many live—are some of the most vibrant parts of the city, offering abundant opportunities for teachers and students alike. Exhibitions, street fairs, parades, concerts and street performances take place all throughout the city, often for free. New Yorkers of all socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds walk together, ride the subways together, and participate in an unending variety of shared civic experiences together—from Yankee games in the Bronx, to jogs in Central Park, to Broadway shows.
The student population of the New York City public school system is larger than the individual populations of eight U.S. states combined. The sheer size and breadth of the school system has given rise to education reform leaders who are making a remarkable impact on the city and nation. Many of Teach For America’s 1,700 alumni in New York City are at the helm of these initiatives.
Life
Corps members live in all parts of the city, generally staying close to the subway lines to ensure an easy commute to their schools in the Bronx, upper Manhattan, and Brooklyn.
The Bronx is the birthplace of salsa dancing and hip-hop music, and counts Yankee Stadium among one of its many landmarks. The revitalization of the Bronx in recent years has led to the borough’s increased racial and socio-economic diversity. The majority of New York City corps members teach in the Bronx, and describe the area as extraordinarily lively and diverse, with all the urban conveniences. Many corps members teaching in the Bronx live in Washington Heights, Harlem, the Upper East Side, or the Upper West Side. Additionally, many corps members choose to live in the Bronx, which offers more affordable housing alternatives to Manhattan. Teaching in the Bronx provides corps members and their students easy access to educational resources such as the Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Gardens.
Washington Heights, a bilingual community at the northern tip of Manhattan, is home to the largest population of Dominicans outside of the Dominican Republic as well as many New York City corps members. Below Washington Heights lies Harlem, one of the city’s major African-American cultural and business centers as well as one of the most important historical regions in the city. Corps members find teaching in Harlem exciting because of the community’s strong connection to the arts and its history as a platform for socio-political change. The majority of corps members teaching in Manhattan live in Washington Heights, Harlem, Murray Hill, the Upper East Side, or the Upper West Side.
If Brooklyn was a separate city, it would be the fourth largest city in the United States after New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago. Brooklyn is made up of a collection of diverse neighborhoods, each with its own strong culture. The convergence of these cultures has lead to the development of some of the country’s most prominent artists and artistic movements. New York City corps members have the unique opportunity to expose their students to these artists’ works at contemporary art centers like the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Brooklyn corps members teach and live in areas such as Bedford-Stuyvesant, a mostly African-American neighborhood, and East New York, populated by a large number of Caribbean and African immigrants. Corps members teaching in Brooklyn also live in the Clinton Hill, Park Slope, Fort Greene, and Williamsburg areas of Brooklyn.
Corps Culture
New York City is home to Teach For America’s largest corps, with 1,000 corps members teaching in over 300 schools in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Brooklyn. Despite living in the country's largest city, corps members frequently run into each other at the gym, on the subway, and in the city's countless restaurants and clubs. Corps members also come to our midtown office to attend monthly professional development workshops, make photocopies, meet with their program director, or just hang out in the corps member space, an open area of the office especially designed for our corps.
To encourage close collaboration and support, corps members are often clustered at school sites, with an average of three corps members per school. Over 90 percent of corps members teach in a school with at least one other corps member. At these schools, one corps member serves as a school team leader and works to build a supportive community and organizes events for all the corps members at the school. Each corps member also works closely with a small group of colleagues teaching the same subject and/or grade to support one another and share best practices through their monthly graduate school program.
New York City corps members benefit from a wide variety of social and professional development events, including targeted workshops, group dinners, panel discussions, alumni networking events, and holiday parties. Several long-standing events have become annual traditions for our corps, including Ice Skating in the Park, where corps members take their students ice skating in Central and Prospect Parks; Project Cicero, a book drive where corps members fill up a suitcase of free books to take back to their classrooms; and the What's Next series, events designed to help corps members think through their post-commitment career plans. Corps members also organize frequent events for each other such as parties, book clubs, discussion groups, and recreational sports.
Our 1,700 alumni serve as valuable resources through their contributions to the vast Teach For America network in New York City. Alumni are currently working in different sectors across the city including business, education, law, medicine, and policy. Corps members connect with alumni in a variety of ways, such as informal career discussions, classrooms observations, and formal networking events.
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