Founded in 1990, Teach For America recruits and develops a diverse corps of outstanding college graduates and professionals to make an initial two-year commitment to teach in high-need schools. And after 25 years, more than 50,000 leaders have joined the organization. These AmeriCorps members have reached more than 10 million students in 52 urban and rural communities across the country.
This year, more than 8,600 Teach For America AmeriCorps members are becoming lifelong leaders in the effort to end educational inequity. Sixty-four percent of the 2015 corps identify as people of color or are from a low-income background, and one in three are the first in their family to graduate from college.
Moreover, research continues to show that Teach For America AmeriCorps members have a positive impact on their students. A recent Mathematica study found that Teach For America AmeriCorps members who taught pre-K through second grade boosted student reading scores by an amount equal to 1.3 months of additional instruction compared to their fellow teachers in the same schools. Since the launch of AmeriCorps, nearly 50,000 AmeriCorps members have served with Teach For America, helping American students succeed.