Founded as a grassroots movement in 1990 by Wendy Kopp, a Princeton University undergraduate at the time, Teach For America (TFA) has since grown to enormous proportions. Today, it is a nationwide corps of outstanding recent college graduates and professionals of all academic majors and career interests who have committed two years of their lives to teach in urban and rural public schools.
To read more about this important initiative, click here.
Teach For America (TFA), a nationally recognized organization that recruits the best and brightest to teach students in low-income communities, has partnered with the Center for Reform of School Systems (CRSS) to create the TFA/CRSS School Board Fellows Program.
This program is based on the two groups’ overlapping missions to develop quality leaders for public schools. It is designed to encourage TFA alumni to become future school board candidates while at the same time providing valuable training in effective governance. Not only is the joint project building a cadre of talented, committed people who are willing to become board members, it is also providing them with a strong foundation that can make them leaders in educational reform.
Under the program, TFA alumni are matched with sitting school board members who have received CRSS’s training. The TFA Fellow, under the direction of the school board member, completes projects designed to benefit the district. In the past, these projects have dealt with such issues as board ethics, budget reporting systems, performance rubrics, magnet school charters, and board services. The Fellow also attends meetings and community events with the board member.
Since its inception in 2003, the TFA/CRSS School Board Fellows Program has created nearly 85 successful board member-fellow relationships.
To learn more about the TFA/CRSS School Board Fellows Program and how it is working to improve the future of education in America, please contact us.
"CRSS's partnership with Teach For America continues this year with a dramatic increase in the number of matches made between Teach For America alumni and CRSS-trained board members. Teach For America's Political Leadership Initiative counts the partnership among their most critical opportunities to introduce alumni to the world of elected leadership."