idealist.org

Teach For America is the national corps of outstanding recent college graduates - of all academic majors and career interests - who commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools in the nation’s lowest-income communities and become lifelong leaders for expanding educational opportunity. Our mission is to build the movement to eliminate educational inequity by enlisting our nation’s most promising future leaders in the effort.

Currently, more than 3,500 first and second year corps members are teaching in 22 urban and rural areas across the country, collectively reaching more than 300,000 students. The corps members work relentlessly to put their students on a level playing field with those growing up in more affluent areas. At the same time, corps members gain the insight and conviction necessary to be lifelong leaders in the pursuit of fundamental change. More than 10,000 Teach For America alumni are providing critical leadership within education and social reform, and they are also marshalling support for change from positions within business, law, medicine, and other sectors.

We have launched an ambitious five-year plan to grow our scale and impact still further. By becoming our nation’s top employer of top recent college graduates and maximizing the impact of our corps members and alumni, we will provide hundreds of thousands more disadvantaged students with teachers who will make a real difference in their lives. At the same time, we will influence the quality of future civic and educational leadership and, we believe, the consciousness of our country.