Since 1990, Teach For America has worked to eliminate educational inequality by recruiting our nation’s most promising future leaders in the effort, but a budget decision by Congress may jeopardize the program.

What’s Teach For America

Teach For America is a national corps of recent college graduates of all academic majors and career interests who commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools and become leaders in the effort to expand educational opportunity.

Why do we need it?

In America, education is supposed to be the great equalizer and the primary vehicle for upward mobility. But, the reality today is that all too often, where children are born determines their educational prospects. Only one in 10 students from low-income communities graduates from college.

• Across the country, the 14 million children living in poverty have academic and, therefore, life prospects that are dramatically different than those of their peers in wealthier communities.
• Only one in 10 students from low-income communities graduates from college.
• Children living in low-income communities are already two to three grades behind their higher-income peers by the time they reach fourth grade.
• About 50 percent of students in low-income communities will not graduate from high school by the time they're 18 years old.
• Those who do graduate perform, on average, at the level of eighth graders in higher-income communities.

What’s the problem?

Teach For America relies on annual federal funding to support our program. For 2010, they received $21 million through Congressional appropriations, and have requested $50 million for the 2011 fiscal year. The money is slated to:

• Provide nearly 17,000 teachers by 2015
• Bring more than 4,000 math and science teachers and about 1,000 early childhood educators into low-income communities
• Produce approximately 1,650 school leaders across the country
• Grow their alumni base to more than 52,000 – enhancing an already powerful team of advocates for bold education reform

Congress is now considering a budget proposal that would force Teach For America to cut their corps size by 30%! Don't let that happen!

What can you do?

Join their campaign to restore and increase their federal support in 2011 by providing your mobile phone number, e-mail and ZIP code on the Teach For America website. They’ll send you alerts via text message that let you connect directly to your Members of Congress to ask them to support a $50 million direct allocation to help Teach For America grow in 2011 and beyond.