Program Spotlight: Teach For America - Alabama

Host Organization: Teach For America

TFA AmeriCorps Program Staff: Damon Bailey, Executive Director; Amber Haywood, Manager, Development; Caroline Montgomery Clark, Managing Director, Growth, Strategy and Development

Counties Served: Jefferson County, Perry County, Hale County, Dallas County

TFA AmeriCorps Description: Teach For America – Alabama recruits, selects, trains, and supports our teachers and alumni to have a significant positive impact on their students’ achievement and on education across Alabama. In the short term, our goal is to provide excellent teachers to the schools that need them the most. In the long term, our goal is to create a leadership pipeline, supporting our alumni in taking the reins to help close the gaps in educational opportunities for students across our country.

Number of Members Serving: 67

Member Responsibilities: Teach For America corps members commit two years to serve as full-time teachers in urban and rural public schools and become lifelong leaders in the effort to expand opportunity for children. Corps members are placed in pre-K through high school teaching positions.

What the program hopes to accomplish at the end of the program year: Teach For America – Alabama has three primary goals: 1) Recruit and select a talented and diverse corps, 2) Maximize the impact of corps members on student achievement, and 3) Foster the leadership of our alumni as a force for change. Aligned with our goal of maximizing impact on student achievement, our goals are for our teachers to achieve an average of 3 points of ACT growth with their secondary students and 1.6 years of reading growth with their elementary students.