Given the fact that their students are often years behind students in high-income communities, corps members must advance their students more than is typically expected in a year to put them on a level playing field. This is difficult for any teacher, and even more difficult for corps members whose students often face greater socioeconomic disadvantages than those growing up in other areas and whose schools often do not have the capacity to meet their students' needs. To be effective, corps members must surpass traditional expectations and reach beyond the current resource and time constraints of their schools, and that means a lot of hard work.
Yet, in hundreds of classrooms across the country, we have seen that the hard work pays off—that when children growing up in low-income communities are given the opportunities they deserve, they can and do excel. While we continue to work to improve our teacher training and support, every year we see an increase in the number of corps members who significantly impact their students' educational prospects.
Teach For America measures the percentage of corps members who can point to evidence that they have moved their students forward at least a year and a half's worth of progress in a year's time. In the last five years, a growing percentage of corps members have met this high bar.
Eighty-eight percent of corps members completed their two-year commitment. This represents 89 percent who returned for a second year, which is higher than the estimated average for first-year teachers in low-income communities in general (82 percent) and the overall average for all first-year teachers regardless of school setting (86 percent).1
Those who have not completed their commitment have left for a variety of reasons, including dissatisfaction with teaching or their school administration, health problems and family emergencies.
1 "No Dream Denied: A Pledge to America's Children" (2003) National Commission on Teaching and America's Future. Washington, D.C.
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