Teach for America (TFA) is a nonprofit organization that was founded in 1989. The mission of TFA is to create education equality across the country. This is accomplished by placing trained, certified teachers in classrooms to help bring students in schools that may fall behind nationally up to their grade level.
TFA focuses mainly on urban areas where low-income is often a key factor in quality of education. Their approach to improving these schools consists of three parts: enlist, develop mobilize.
First, TFA enlists teachers, who are at this point referred to as corps members, to carry out their mission and curriculum. This is done through a partnership with the schools that are being assisted. The corps members are often hired for a two year contract.
Then TFA trains corps members to be great teachers and leaders. The corps members work with students, families and community members to pass on these lessons.
Finally, after two years, TFA teachers can choose to stay with TFA in the classroom or to go another route, using their newfound knowledge and connections to forge success for them and future TFA members.
This year, TFA is coming to Northwest Indiana and is partnering with many schools and organizations to help students in the area. Foundations of East Chicago (FEC) is one of these partners and has contributed by issuing a grant to TFA. Through this partnership, TFA also has the ability to recruit graduates from the FEC scholarship program to become corps members and make a difference in the community.
For more information on TFA in Northwest Indiana, visit foundationsec.org.
