Corps member impact

Teach For America is providing a critical talent pipeline for schools in our nation's most under-resourced communities by recruiting top recent college graduates from all backgrounds and experiences with demonstrated leadership skills.

2009 Corps Profile:

• The average SAT score is 1344
• 30 percent identify as people of color
• 25 percent received Pell Grants*
• Corps members earned an average GPA of 3.6 in college
• 89 percent held a leadership position in at least one activity
• According to a 2004 independent study, 70 percent of corps members graduated from "most competitive," "highly competitive," or "very competitive" schools (as defined by Barron's Profile of American Colleges)

A growing body of rigorous studies demonstrate that our corps members are as effective as, and in some cases more effective than, other teachers, including certified and veteran teachers. The studies below contain significant evidence that Teach For America corps members have a positive impact on student achievement:

• Studies at the high-school level

  Making a Difference? The Effects of Teach For America in High School
  The Urban Institute/CALDER (Xu, Hannaway, and Taylor, 2008-09)
  
  Key finding: Teach For America teachers were more effective than other teachers, including more experienced teachers and those fully certified in their field.
  
  Using North Carolina end-of-course student exam data from 2000 through 2006, the authors documented corps members' positive impact in all subject areas, especially math and science. The impact on student achievement of having a Teach For America corps member was at least twice that of having a teacher with three or more years of experience relative to a new teacher. A 2009 follow-up, employing a larger sample of corps members and additional comparison groups, corroborated the initial findings.
  
  Read the New York Times editorial about this study.
  

• Studies at the elementary-school and middle-school levels

  The Effects of Teach For America on Students
  Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. (Decker, Mayer and Glazerman, 2004)
  
  Key finding: Students of Teach For America corps members attained greater gains in math and equivalent gains in reading versus students of other teachers, including veteran and certified teachers.
  
  The study used random assignment of students to teachers, a methodology widely regarded as the gold standard. The authors also found that corps members were working in the highest-need classrooms in the country, where students begin the year, on average, at the 14th percentile against the national norm.

  

  Louisiana Value-Added Teacher Preparation Assessment
  Louisiana Board of Regents, Office of the Governor, Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, and Louisiana Department of Education (George Noell and Jeanne M. Burns, 2008)
  George Noell and Jeanne M. Burns
  
  Key finding: Teachers in the Louisiana Practitioner Teacher Project (LPTP), the majority of whom are Teach For America corps members, made a positive impact on student achievement in the state/s highest poverty schools and were more effective than experienced teachers in impacting achievement in reading, language arts, and math and as effective in science.
  
  Read the New Your Times editorial about this study

  

  What Does Certification Tell Us About Teacher Effectiveness? Evidence from New York City
  (Thomas J. Kane, Jonah E. Rockoff, and Douglas O. Staiger, 2006)

  Key finding: Teach For America corps members were more effective than traditionally certified teachers in improving student learning in math and were equally effective in reading/language arts.

  Using student test score data in New York City for grades three through eight, researchers compared the impact of traditionally certified teachers with that of alternatively certified teachers, including Teach For America corps members. They concluded that a teacher’s classroom performance during the first two years indicates future effectiveness more reliably than does certification status. While this study did not use random-assignment design, it included all the standard controls of a non-experimental design to attempt to isolate the value added by the teachers.

  

  How Changes in Entry Requirements Alter the Teacher Workforce and Affect Student Achievement
  Teacher Pathways Project (Donald Boyd, Pamela Grossman, Hamilton Lankford, Susanna Loeb, and James Wyckoff) (2006) 

  Key finding: Teach For America corps members were as effective as—and at some grade levels, more effective than—their certified counterparts in math. Corps members were less effective than traditionally certified teachers in English/language arts in year one but achieved similar results by year two.

  Using data on students and teachers in grades three through eight in New York City, researchers investigated whether teachers who entered through alternate routes, including Teach For America, were more or less effective than traditionally certified teachers at improving student achievement. While this study did not use random-assignment design, it included all the standard controls of a non-experimental design to attempt to isolate the value added by the teachers.

  (Note: In both NYC-based studies listed above, NY State reading tests are given in January and therefore only capture student growth through that point in time.)

  

  Does Teacher Preparation Matter? Evidence about Teacher Certification, Teach for America, and Teacher Effectiveness
  (Darling-Hammond, Holtzman, Gatlin, and Vasquez Heilig, 2005)
  
  Key finding: Uncertified Teach For America corps members in Houston were less effective than certified teachers though equally effective as other uncertified teachers. Certified Teach For America corps members in Houston performed about as well as other certified teachers. (The majority of Houston corps members are certified by the beginning of their second year.)

  Concerns about the study methodology spurred formal responses from both Teach For America and Mathematica.
  

• Studies at the pre-K level

  Achievement Levels and Growth in D.C. Preschool and Pre-K Classes Taught By Teach For America Teachers
  Westat, Inc. (Nicolas Zill, 2008)
  
  Key finding: Pre-K students of Washington D.C. Teach For America corps members made significant progress in vocabulary, letter recognition and early math skills.
  
  By the end of the year, the students exceeded national averages in letter recognition and while their vocabulary and early math skills remained below national norms, they were behind less than they had been at the beginning of the school year.
  
  Read an article published in Education Week about this study
  

• Studies on corps member qualifications and retention

  The Narrowing Gap in New York City Teacher Qualifications and Its Implications for Student Achievement in High-Poverty Schools
  The Urban Institute/CALDER, (Donald Boyd, Hamilton Lankford, Susanna Loeb, Jonah Rockoff, and James Wyckoff, 2007)
  
  Key finding: Teachers recruited through Teach For America and the NYC Teaching Fellows significantly reduced the gap in teacher qualifications between the city's high- and low-poverty schools and contributed to student achievement gains that were most substantial in the city's highest-poverty schools.
  
  Teach for America Teachers' Careers: Whether, When and Why They Leave Low-Income Schools and the Teaching Profession
  The Project on the Next Generation of Teachers, Harvard Graduate School of Education (Morgaen L. Donaldson, 2008)
  
  Key finding: Sixty-one percent of Teach For America corps members continue to teach beyond their two-year corps commitment.
  
  This retention rate is similar to retention estimates for other new teachers in low-income communities¹. The study also found that 44 percent of corps members remained in their placement schools beyond their two-year commitment.
  
  Teach For America National Principal Survey
  Policy Studies Associates, Inc. (2007)
  
  Key finding: Principals report that Teach For America corps members are well prepared and have a significant and positive impact on their schools and on student achievement:

  • 95 percent of the principals rated corps members as effective as other beginning teachers in terms of overall performance and impact on student achievement; 61 percent rated corps members as more effective than other beginning teachers.
  • 94 percent of the principals reported that corps members have made a positive impact in their schools.
  • 93 percent of the principals reported that corps members' training is at least as good as the training of other beginning teachers; 63 percent rated corps members' training as better than that of other beginning teachers.
  • 90 percent of the principals said they would hire a corps member again.

  ¹ National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, "No Dream Denied: A Pledge to America's Children" (Washington, D.C., 2003). Analyses by researcher Richard M. Ingersoll in the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future's 2003 report "No Dream Denied: A Pledge to America's Children" suggest that retention rates for teachers in high poverty schools are about 20% higher than teachers overall. This would suggest that approximately 60% of teachers in high poverty schools return for a third year.

Education Next Report Card
The education policy journal Education Next recently issued a report card analyzing and grading the most frequently cited studies on Teach For America released before 2008. While the studies varied widely in methodology and findings, only a 2004 study from Mathematica Policy Research which found that Teach For America corps members outperformed other teachers in math, earned an A for its methodology.

Teach For America welcomes and seeks out rigorous independent evaluations as a means of measuring our impact and continuously improving our program. In fact, we have attracted a significant amount of research over the years-more than just about any teacher training or support program. Studies that have been conducted on Teach For America vary in methodology, and therefore reliability. See how these studies scored on Education Next's independent report card

*Teach For America uses the receipt of Pell Grants as a measure of socioeconomic diversity in the corps.