I was somewhat surprised to even know that this program exists, however it seems that not only does it exist it has been very successful and seen much growth this past year.
Teach for America is a program that examines the students at colleges and recruits the top graduates for two years of teaching at public schools that find it hard to staff teachers. Many of these schools are in low income areas where teachers do not stay long.
This past year the program encountered a huge growth. The program will see around a 28% increase in teachers placed from the previous fall to the one to come.
Although the program is placing more teachers, it is also experiencing many more applications from those seniors who wish to get a teaching job. Over 24,000 seniors applied to the program. This showed a 37% increase from last year.
The program began in 1990 and is nonprofit. It was created by a graduate from Princeton. The program sends out its staff to visit college campuses and seek out those students who would be good candidates.
Some of the applying students are from top notch universities. Yale had about 11% of its graduates apply while 10% of Georgetown and 5% at Harvard.
The program will arrange for teachers to be placed in 29 different needy locations this fall. Large cities as well as rural areas both benefit. South Dakota has about 50 recruits that work on Indian reservations. There are around 1000 of these college graduates who were placed in New York City schools.
The budget for the program in 2005 was at $40 million. It has now risen to $110 million.
Congratulations to this successful program and its growth in helping needy schools as well as college graduates who are in need of a job!
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