By 2015, we hope to have 15,000 teachers in 60 urban and rural regions across the country. This would mean that our teachers would reach nearly one million students in some of our country’s highest-need communities.
Our Approach to Joining New Communities
When we consider joining a new community, we focus on several questions.
Is there a significant achievement gap?
We explore expansions to areas of the country where kids from low-income communities are several grade levels behind their peers in higher-income communities. We seek to partner with communities that have an innovative vision for closing this achievement gap, and where our corps members can join efforts already underway to provide an excellent education to every student.
Will there be teaching opportunities for our corps members?
When looking at new communities, we determine whether school districts, charter school operators, and pre-K institutions want the option to hire our teachers. Once we secure partnerships, our teachers typically interview alongside other candidates for open positions in high-need schools and subject areas. Once hired, corps members are full-time teachers employed by their school or district, and they receive a regular starting teacher salary.
Can our corps members obtain teacher certification?
Because all Teach For America corps members need to be certified teachers, typically through an alternative or provisional teacher license, we expand to states with an approved alternate route to certification that allows corps members to teach across all grade and subject areas.
Do we have local support to fund a region?
We seek to expand to communities where our presence can be sustained over time through the support of private and public funding sources. These funds help us maintain a regional team that provides ongoing professional development and instructional coaching for our corps members and support to our growing alumni base.
Answering these questions helps us determine where we can build successful partnerships that contribute to local efforts to close the achievement gap. We also look at other factors including our recruitment results, organizational capacity, and how a new site expansion may impact our existing regions.
For more information about how to partner with us to potentially bring Teach For America to your community, please contact:
Julie Drapala
Specialist, New Site Development
julie.drapala@teachforamerica.org
