College and University Blog
Teach For America Gives College Graduates the Opportunity to Make a Difference
Teach For America is a non-profit organization that strives to eliminate educational inequity in the United States. It was started by Wendy Kopp in 1990 after she planned out the idea for her senior thesis at Princeton University in 1989.
Teach For America, or TFA, recruits new college graduates for two-year teaching positions around the country. Teach for America applicants are not required to be education majors: they do not even need to be certified teachers. In fact, the group, or corps, as they are called, is comprised of graduates from all academic fields.
The catch? These new teachers must all work in underachieving, low-income urban and rural public schools in order to become respected classroom leaders while expanding the educational opportunities of their students, most of who are working below grade level.
The corps members all attend a rigorous 5-week summer training program in order to prepare for their two-year commitment, and they are typically placed in urban and rural schools with other TFA corps members.
TFA teachers are expected to make a greater impact on students than
Melissa Rhone+
Melissa Rhone earned her Bachelor of Music in Education from the University of Tampa. She resides in the Tampa Bay area and enjoys writing about college, pop culture, and epilepsy awareness.