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Teach for America

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Teach for America reviews

3.8

75% would recommend to a friend

(1,869 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 1,869 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
4.0
Nov 3, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

You will be aiding to bridge the achievement gap in areas that need it the most! To be a teacher in the program is more than just writing a lesson plan and presenting it in front of the class. To be a TFA corp member is to be a mentor, friend, and teacher to some youth that may be on the borderline of dropping out. Within the first few months working under Teach for America, I feel I made a significant impact on my community.

Cons

Expect the unexpected. I could have never imagined some of the problems that our youth endure. This is the main thing that I feel that TFA did not put across thoroughly to me, but how could they?

5.0
Nov 3, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The people you work with - very hard working, dedicating, innovative folks. I am continually learning from my colleagues, many of whom have become very close friends. I feel extremely comfortable sharing my opinion and I know that I am heard. I feel valued. I have many opportunities for professional development and am often given praise and feedback to ensure that I am continually growing. I work with my manager to pick out several things that I want to professionally develop (she will agree that they are beneficial to me, my job, and the direction that I want to go in the future) and we work on those 2 or 3 things for 6 months. After that, we look at progress and establish a new professional development plan at that point. In my experience, there has been many opportunities for me to explore my interests across teams: I worked on the recruitment team for 2 years and then wanted a change of pace and now work on the teacher preparation team.

Cons

Sometimes Teach For America can be too focused on work and not enough on personal goals. We're working very hard to ensure personal and professional alignment, but I think it's the area where we lag the most. Often, deadlines and work loads are determined by the individual because if that individual spoke with his/her manager about being overwhelmed, his/her manager would help to prioritize the work load.

2.0
Jun 11, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

This will be one of the toughest times of your life. People will think you are crazy for going into these schools and you have to be a little crazy to do this. If you are able to succeed in these situation the rewards are huge. To actually feel like you have had an impact on one child's life is an amazing thing. To help a student change life paths and to help them to understand how things work and empower them is amazing. You will come out of this program as a machine. You will improve on yourself as a person.

Cons

Insane amount of effort required. Teach for America treats your time like it is worthless. So many hoops to jump through and waste of time meetings and sessions. You will be in schools where the school has no control of their students. Because of "student's rights" we cannot adequately punish students which ends up taking away their real "student right" of a quality education. The system is a broken system and you will be swimming upstream. It is frustrating to make half what the teacher down the hall makes when you bust your ass and they show movies everyday. The have been showing movies everyday for 20 years though so they make more money than a first year teacher. The unions are horrible, old, and out of date. In TFA being white, straight, or male is treated like a disease.

Viewing 1867 - 1869 of 1,869 Reviews

Glassdoor has 2,066 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.