Our corps members
Placement regions
Corps and Alumni
New York City
New York City has long been hailed as one of the greatest cities in the world. It’s home to over eight million people and is comprised of five boroughs, within which there are hundreds of communities - each with a unique history and culture that offers something for everyone. With 33 percent of the population born outside of the United States, New York City thrives on a diversity which can be seen in all aspects of the city’s life.
| Quick Stats |
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| Site Since: 1990 |
| Corps Size: 1,000 |
| Average yearly temperature: 54.7° |
| Car: Access to a car is not necessary (An average of 7,126,950 New Yorkers ride the subway daily.) |
Salary: See cost of living  |
New York City pulses to the rhythm of urban life: music, food, art, and nightlife light up the city that never sleeps. Harlem, Washington Heights, and communities in the Bronx and Brooklyn - where New York City corps members currently teach and where many live - are some of the most vibrant parts of the city. Exhibitions, street fairs, parades, concerts, and street performances take place throughout the city, often for free. New Yorkers from all socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds walk, ride the subways, and participate in an unending variety of shared civic experiences together - from Yankee games in the Bronx to jogs in Central Park to Broadway shows.
The New York City public school system serves over 1.1 million students taught in more than 1,400 schools, making it the largest school system in the United States. The sheer size and breadth of the school system makes New York City a consistent focal point for our nation’s education reform leaders, many of whom are among Teach For America’s 2,100 alumni living in New York City.
Life
Corps members live in all parts of the city, generally staying close to the subway lines to ensure an easy commute to their schools in the Bronx, upper Manhattan, and Brooklyn.
The Bronx is the birthplace of salsa dancing and hip-hop music. The revitalization of the Bronx in recent years has led to the borough’s increased racial and socio-economic diversity. The majority of New York City corps members teach in the Bronx, and describe the area as extraordinarily lively and diverse. Many corps members teaching in the Bronx live in Washington Heights, Harlem, the Upper East Side, or the Upper West Side. Additionally, many corps members choose to live in the Bronx, which offers more affordable housing alternatives to Manhattan. Teaching in the Bronx allows corps members and their students easy access to educational resources such as the Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Gardens.
Washington Heights, a bilingual community at the northern tip of Manhattan, is home to the largest population of Dominicans outside of the Dominican Republic. Spanish is frequently spoken on the streets and most of the neighborhood businesses are Dominican owned, making this neighborhood authentic and community orientated. The Broadway show “In the Heights”, which won the Tony for Best New Musical, is based on modern life in Washington Heights.
Below Washington Heights lies Harlem, one of the city’s major African-American cultural and business centers as well as one of the most important historical regions in the city. The community’s strong connection to the arts and history as a platform for socio-political change creates an exciting backdrop for teaching. The majority of corps members teaching in Manhattan live in Washington Heights, Harlem, Murray Hill, the Upper East Side, or the Upper West Side.
With 2.5 million residents, Brooklyn is the most populated borough in New York City. Brooklyn is made up of a collection of diverse neighborhoods, each with its own strong culture. The convergence of these cultures has led to the development of some of the country’s most prominent artists and artistic movements. New York City corps members have the unique opportunity to expose their students to these artists’ works at contemporary art centers like the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary African Diaspora of Arts, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Brooklyn corps members teach and live in areas such as Bedford-Stuyvesant, a mostly African-American neighborhood, and East New York, populated by a large number of Caribbean and African immigrants. Corps members teaching in Brooklyn also live in the Clinton Hill, Park Slope, Fort Greene, and Williamsburg areas of Brooklyn.
Corps Culture
New York City is home to Teach For America’s largest corps, with 1,000 corps members teaching in over 300 schools in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Brooklyn. Despite living in the country's largest city, many of our corps members live in the same apartment buildings or neighborhoods and frequently run into each other at the gym, on the subway, and in the City's countless restaurants and clubs. Corps members also come to our midtown office to attend professional development workshops, make photocopies, use the resource room, meet with their program directors, or just hang out in the corps member space, an open area of the office designed specifically for our corps.
To encourage close collaboration and support, corps members are often clustered at school sites, with an average of three corps members per school. Over 80 percent of corps members teach in a school with at least one other corps member. At these schools, one corps member serves as a school team leader and works to build a supportive community and organizes events to support and inspire all the corps members at the school. Each corps member also works closely with a small group of colleagues teaching the same subject and/or grade to support one another and shares best practices through their graduate school programs.
New York City corps members benefit from a wide variety of social and professional development events, including targeted workshops, group dinners, panel discussions, alumni networking events, and holiday parties. Several long-standing events have become annual traditions for our corps, including Ice Skating in the Park, where corps members take their students ice skating in Central and Prospect Parks; Project Cicero, a book drive where corps members fill up a suitcase of free books to take back to their classrooms; the “What's Next” series, events designed to help corps members think through their post-commitment career plans, as well as the Corps Celebration and Alumni Induction event to celebrate the achievements of the exiting corps and welcome them to the alumni movement. Corps members also organize frequent informal events for each other such as parties, book clubs, discussion groups, and recreational sports.
Currently, close to 2,100 Teach For America alumni are playing a variety of key leadership roles throughout New York City. Many serve as teachers and school leaders, while others are making their impact in diverse fields such as politics, policy, social entrepreneurship, law, business, and medicine. Seven full-time staff members now work specifically to support the growing alumni base in NYC.
This fall, the New York region is excited to host its first-ever alumni summit. On Saturday, November 15, 2008, alumni will come together at the Marriott Marquis to hear from leaders in education, policy, and various other fields. The event will serve as a means to access skills, knowledge, and volunteer and career opportunities; to reconnect with and strengthen the alumni community; and to network with hundreds of professionals who are deeply committed to our vision.
