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Teach for America

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Teach for America reviews

3.8

75% would recommend to a friend

(1,872 total reviews)

Elisa Villanueva Beard

84% approve of CEO

60% positive business outlook

Teach for America has an employee rating of 3.8 out of 5 stars, based on 1,872 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Teach for America employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Educación industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

2K reviews
2.0
Oct 19, 2021

Commitment to DEI is mere lip service

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Meaningful mission 3 month parental leave

Cons

TFA is an org that should be led by those they serve. Yet, there are far too many privileged ivy leaugers who work for TFA and who are selected to join their corps and are placed in areas with absolutely zero experience with communities of color or communities who face poverty. The organization has a "savior complex" and many communities of color do not want TFA in their communities because of their unwillingness to listen to those communities and are more unwilling to admit their missteps. As a staff member, I experienced racism within the organization that I took to my executive director who took no action. It's a cult. If you're BIPOC, this is not the organization for you. You will come in hoping to have an impact but will be silenced and pushed out of the organization if you speak up.

2.0
Feb 1, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The pros of working for TFA are that the work-ethic you develop will be incredibly useful in literally any other field you work in. In fact, you might find yourself bored with how slow other work flows are. Oh, and they provide family leave. That's really nice.

Cons

The cons with TFA are numerous. The work hours are horrendous: if you're not willing to pull 55 hour work weeks, don't bother applying. More so, expect to simultaneously be inundated with trainings and webinars on work-life balance, and not wearing yourself out while also being asked to work until 8 or 9 pm everyday. During my time, the organization, or at least the regional office I worked at, would hold incredibly personal and intimate bonding or culture workshops amongst the team that asked people to speak to their most intimate traumas for the sake of "team-building" only to never provide aftercare or monitor employees for signs of trouble in the deep emotional waters they just traversed. On the corps members end, the amount of racist and privileged applicants admitted to the corps to account for "improving applicant and admittance numbers" when perfectly appropriate and diverse candidates were denied due to falling even slightly below ridiculously high standards, was outrageous. All staff served in some capacity on recruitment and the process is deeply flawed with arbitrary categories eliminating very qualified candidates. Pay was never negotiated and more so NEVER discussed, so everyone was kept in silence about what they were being paid, and only when I asked the question flat-out to coworkers did we realize the ridiculous disparity between our salaries. Overall, it was a deeply flawed organization who purports progressive ideologies, only to rigorously re-enforce typical business practices at the expense of the employee. The burnout rate at this company was incredible. You'd get new people every 6-8 months. I learned a good amount at this organization that I've taken to new positions, but it was at the expense of my mental and physical health, and work life balance. Just because you can wear multiple hats doesn't mean you should have to.

1.0
Oct 7, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

It's a good sob story to tell people when applying to less toxic jobs.

Cons

Misleading about education award. Toxic work environment. Racist/prejudice co-workers and leadership. High turnover rate bad for children. Lack of support to schools or teachers. Undermines public school system to promote charter schools.

Viewing 34 - 36 of 1,872 Reviews

Glassdoor has 2,071 Teach for America reviews submitted anonymously by Teach for America employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Teach for America is right for you.