How many TFA Corps Members Are Still Teaching?

I was a Teach For America 2008 corps member. I am about to start my 9th year of teaching, so I am one of those who stuck around in the profession. But how many corps members actually do stick around? After 8 years – how many are still teaching?

For those of you who do not know, Teach For America is a program that takes applicants (mostly new college grads from the top of their class) and puts them in underserved schools as teachers. Teachers earn their credential while they teach, which is a little unorthodox. They make a two year commitment, and afterwards they have the choice to continue teaching or move on.

Ok guys, so I did something pretty creepy – I used Facebook and LinkedIn and Google Searches to figure out what people were up to. I know, creepy, right?  The scary part is that using that strategy, I was able to figure out what 80% of the corps members from my year were doing (#PROFICIENT!). I categorized all of the data below:

Turns out, if you want to be a lawyer, doctor, or go into business or academia, Teach for America is a great place to start. 1 in 6.5 corps members became lawyers, 1 in 6 went into business, and 1 in 10 became doctors.

What about people still involved in education? 18% are in Education Management (administrators or district officials). In addition, several of the lawyers, academics and policy folks could still be considered “involved in education”, add that to those that are still teachers, and by my calculation about 53% of the corps are still involved in education in some way. 

23% of the LA corps are still teaching. That’s an attrition rate of 77%.  The question is – is that a bad rate? I have seen studies that say the average attrition rate could be as low as 17% or as high 50% – but this is a 77% attrition rate.

The thing is, you have to consider that TFA is a completely different kind of program. People sign up for a two year commitment, many of them intending to move on to another job afterwards. Part of TFA’s philosophy is that these teachers will be extremely effective because they are the best of the best – they are the future doctors and lawyers of America – and this data bears that out. Their mission reads:

“Our mission is to enlist, develop, and mobilize as many as possible of our nation’s most promising future leaders to grow and strengthen the movement for educational equity and excellence.”

Notice that they do not promise that people will stay in the classroom – but that they are building a movement – and the believe every person exposed to the educational system will make that movement stronger.

Conversely, if you treat teaching as a two- or three-year gig – something to move on from – it really is hard to make lasting impacts that transform communities. This data also shows that, for elite, educated young professionals, there are many more lucrative things to move on to than teaching, especially in a low paying school. Why should they stick around? But that brings me back to the 18% who are education management. When teaching is a two- or three- year gig, people who are in the profession for 8 years are serious veterans. So now there are almost equal proportions of administrators and teachers from my corps.

There is a bit more interesting data behind the teaching statistics. For more analysis, click here.