A couple local universities rank as some of the top contributors to national education service corps Teach for America.
Overall, the program boasted a record 48,000 applications for around 5,200 jobs serving as teachers for two years in urban and rural public schools. The University of Maryland-College Park ranked tenth among large schools, sending 56 graduating seniors to the program. Johns Hopkins, contributing 25 students, ranked 14th among medium schools. (Nearly 8 percent Johns Hopkins undergrads applied to the program.)
TFA corps members are an elite group: “Incoming corps members earned an average GPA of 3.6, and 100 percent have held leadership positions. Twenty-two percent are the first in their family to graduate from college, and nearly one-third received Pell Grants. More than one-third are people of color, including 12 percent who are African American and 8 percent who are Hispanic.”
Though most of these local grads will end up serving communities across the U.S. — from Oklahoma City to the Bronx to Appalachian Kentucky — some may wind up back here in Baltimore; the city hosts 325 of these teachers, meaning that they teach more than 20,000 students over their tenure in the city’s highest-need schools.
