Join the Teacher Corps
Why Join Teach For America’s Teacher Corps?
Education is the most powerful lever we have to create a more just world. And it starts with individual kids, classrooms, and communities.
As a Teach For America teacher, you’ll have a meaningful impact with kids right away. Over time, you will build relationships that change you, find a community, and gain skills that transfer to leadership in any sector.
With Teach For America, you’ll earn a living and live your values every day at work. Check out some of the financial and career benefits corps members receive.
Teach For America corps members receive salaries ranging from around $33K to $72K per year plus vacation and health benefits from their school district.
Plus, transitional support stipends to help offset transition and summer training costs as well as the option to apply for additional need-based support, including grants and zero-interest loans.
And additional financial incentives such as ones based on eligibility through AmeriCorps, regionally based signing bonuses, and housing partnerships.
Get a closer look at what salary and benefits TFA corps members receive.
Grad school and employer partnerships: Including deferrals, scholarships, fee waivers, internships, and more.
A diverse and supportive network: 66,000+ alumni and staff, working together in pursuit of educational equity.
A career and networking website: Exclusively for our network, which includes a job board and the opportunity to connect directly with hiring managers.
Skill-building and fellowship opportunities: Intended to accelerate impact in school leadership, social entrepreneurship, elected leadership, and more.
Membership in Leadership for Educational Equity: A nonpartisan nonprofit that supports leaders with classroom experience to engage civically and politically.
Teach For America corps members teach full time for at least two years in schools that are underserved due to systemic racism and/or poverty. Corps members are:
- Selected by Teach For America
- Trained and supported by Teach For America
- Hired by a local school or district
- Paid the same salary and benefits as other new teachers
- Certified to teach while in the corps
Four Reasons to Join the Teacher Corps
Build a more just world.
Inequity of all kinds can be understood and fought from the very same place where possibility lives: a classroom. This is more than a job, it’s a creative pursuit of justice alongside the people who hold a vision for a better future—kids.
Find connection and belonging.
In the teacher corps, you’ll find your people. You’ll connect with your corps cohort through shared values and experiences. You’ll fall in love with your classroom and school community. And you’ll join a fierce community of collaborators in Teach For America’s alumni network. These relationships run deep and last a lifetime.
Grow as a systems thinker and leader.
Your training, day-to-day impact, and your ongoing development will advance your leadership and systems thinking in ways that you can apply to many facets of your life. Learn to build impactful communities as you build coalitions of support around your students and their dreams.
Open new career opportunities.
Accelerate your career with more relevant learning and development than any other job out there. Transfer your earned skills to any career path and get lifelong access to exclusive opportunities and connections.
How Teach For America Prepares You to Teach
Teaching is heart work and hard work. Really hard work. We’ll prepare you for your first day in the classroom as a Teach For America teacher and be by your side every day after that. Our goal is to help you find success with your students and sustainability in your career.
Meet Your People
This experience starts with a two-year commitment and continues for a lifetime.
A lifetime of advocating for your students. A lifetime of leadership. And a lifetime of friendships. We hear from corps members again and again that the connections they form as corps members are one of the most surprising, lasting and beneficial aspects of joining the program.
Your Corps Cohort
Depending on location, you may be a new corps member with anywhere from a few dozen to a few hundred others in your region.
These are the people who will walk with you through the experience of being a first year teacher. They’ll laugh with you, cry with you, and stay up late lesson planning (and maybe making TikToks) with you.
Your Students
They might be in your classroom for just a single school year, but your students will be in your heart for forever. And you’ll be in theirs too. Years after you teach them, you may find them dropping by during free period, inviting you to their graduation, or even choosing a career inspired by their favorite teacher. The impact of a great student-teacher relationship is immeasurable.
Your Regional Team
You’ll hear from your region immediately after being accepted to the teacher corps and they will guide you through training, hiring, and getting settled before your first day of school. Your local staff, especially your teacher coach, will become your closest partners in your development as a teacher and leader.
Your Local Community
Our students are surrounded by communities that love them, inspire them, and rally behind them. As a Teach For America corps member, you’ll build relationships with parents, families, neighbors, and community partners – joining a fierce network that stands in every kid’s corner.
The TFAmily
Teach For America’s first ever summer training kicked off in 1990. Since then, more than 66,000 people have joined our teacher corps. When you join us, you join their community. You’ll find our alumni everywhere. You’ll work together, innovate together, and support one another. We even celebrate our fair share of TFA marriages.
What Teach For America Corps Members Say
Are You Ready to Join the Teacher Corps?
The opportunity to have a meaningful impact with kids all starts with an application to Teach For America.