Teach For America (TFA)

Conceptual image of drawing new graduates to the teaching workforce.
Laura Baker/Education Week via Canva
Teacher Preparation Then & Now Why We Still Haven't Solved Teacher Shortages (Despite Decades of Trying)
The teacher-shortage discourse has a long history—and no perfect solutions.
Evie Blad, October 31, 2024
6 min read
Image of looking to future path options.
Tetiana Lazunova/iStock/Getty
Teacher Preparation Q&A Teach For America's CEO Is Stepping Down. What's Next for the Organization?
Elisa Villanueva Beard reflects on her journey leading the organization through several periods of change.
Madeline Will, January 29, 2024
8 min read
Jennifer Mojica works with students in her math class at Holmes Elementary School in Miami on Sept. 1, 2011. In a distressed neighborhood north of Miami's gleaming downtown, a group of enthusiastic but inexperienced instructors from Teach for America is trying to make progress where more veteran teachers have had difficulty: raising students' reading and math scores.
Jennifer Mojica, a Teach For America instructor, works with students in her math class at Holmes Elementary School in Miami on Sept. 1, 2011. The program helps staff low-income schools with young teachers, but it has shrunk along with the general teacher pipeline.
J Pat Carter/AP
Teacher Preparation Once a Big Player, Teach For America Tries to Regain Its Footing
A slimmed-down TFA is investing in tutoring programs and supports to keep members in the classroom.
Madeline Will, August 3, 2023
11 min read
Teaching Profession Here's What Teach For America Alumni Believe About Charters, Vouchers, and Societal Inequities
Teach For America participants are more likely to attribute differences in student outcomes to societal inequities and less likely to support vouchers and charter schools than applicants to the program who didn't make the final cut, a new study finds.
Madeline Will, October 8, 2019
4 min read
Teaching Profession Are Teach For America Members Allowed to Go on Strike?
Teach For America has said corps members who go on strike would lose thousands of dollars in award money.
Madeline Will, February 22, 2019
4 min read
Teaching Profession TFA Alumni Principals Are the Harshest Critics of TFA Teachers
TFA alumni principals are less satisfied than other principals with corps members'job performance, according to a new survey.
Brenda Iasevoli, January 19, 2018
4 min read
School & District Management TFA, Alternative Programs Marginally Better Than Traditional Teacher Prep, Study Finds
Students whose teachers were trained in alternative teacher preparation programs such as Teach For America perform slightly better academically than students whose teachers had traditional teacher training, according to a recent meta-analysis.
Liana Loewus, November 28, 2017
3 min read
School & District Management Thousands of Teachers at Risk of Deportation Under DACA Repeal
Among the many undocumented immigrants awaiting the fate of DACA, which President Trump has said he plans to cancel, are thousands of K-12 and postsecondary teachers.
Liana Loewus, September 7, 2017
2 min read
Teaching Profession Opinion Who Is the Ideal Teaching Candidate?
Where do good teachers come from? How do we pick promising candidates out of the crowd? What is the secret to putting the right people in the classroom?
Nancy Flanagan, August 21, 2017
3 min read
Teaching Profession Opinion The War on Teachers and the End of Public Education
We have genuinely reached a tipping point, one where we're struggling to get young people to go into teaching as professional career (as opposed to two-year adventure before law school). Our state legislators are openly declaring that teaching is now a short-term technical job, not a career, and thus public school educators don't really need a stable state pension. That's not only a war on individual teachers, but a war on teaching itself.
Nancy Flanagan, June 16, 2017
3 min read
Teaching Profession What Happened to All of the New Orleans Teachers Fired After Hurricane Katrina?
A new study shows that half of them never taught in Louisiana again.
Emmanuel Felton, May 31, 2017
5 min read
Teaching Profession Teach for America Fights Back Against Trump's Proposed AmeriCorps Cut
The teacher-training organization is urging Congress to protect AmeriCorps funding in the final budget.
Madeline Will, March 17, 2017
3 min read
Teaching Profession Teacher Programs Face Loss of Funding With Trump's Proposed AmeriCorps Cut
The $1 billion AmeriCorps program provides money to Teach for America and other teacher-preparation organizations.
Madeline Will, March 1, 2017
4 min read
Federal Opinion Get Rid of the Department of Education? Why Not?
I think a case could be made that the last two administrations have so morphed the originating aims of a federal department in charge of educating all students--whether intentionally or not--we might not find the loss of a department of education and burning down 16 years of questionable policy such a loss. But then--I think of equity. We are responsible for all children. Aren't we?
Nancy Flanagan, November 11, 2016
4 min read