Appendix P

TFA Recruitment Strategies

Teach For America values the unique backgrounds of every corps member, and has seen the positive impact that individuals from a variety of backgrounds can have on the students they teach. We know from our research that any corps member with the right motivations and capabilities, regardless or race, ethnicity, or socio-economic status, has the potential to significantly expand the academic and life prospects of the students he/she teaches. At the same time, we place a particular focus on attracting and fostering the leadership of the individuals who share the racial and/or socioeconomic backgrounds of the students we teach, 90 percent of whom are African-American or Hispanic children living in low-income communities. We have seen historically that when teachers themselves are from underrepresented racial backgrounds or low-income families, they have the potential to have an additional impact on their students because they are uniquely positioned to serve as models of the potential for success in education and in life. Unfortunately, within the scope of our recruitment efforts we are limited by the very issue that we are trying to combat. The percentages of people of color enrolled on the campuses where we actively recruit reflect the long-term affects of gaps in educational opportunity that disproportionately affect communities of color and low-income communities. y African-Americans make up 15.2 percent of the college-aged population (18-25 years old), yet make up only 5.2 percent of the graduates at the top 340 colleges and universities* o At the top 340 colleges and universities, men comprise 46% of the population. When specifically looking at the African American male population in college, only 34% of the African American college population is male. o Therefore, African-American males represent less than 2% of the graduates at these schools. Latinos/Hispanics make up 17.3 percent of the college-aged population, yet only 6.0 percent of the graduates of the top 340 colleges and universities*

Relative to this context, Teach For America has achieved a reasonably high level of diversity (see graph below). That said, we know that this is not enough and we are working hard to do better. In fact, as outlined below, its because of our deep commitment to ensuring the diversity of the corps that we invest disproportionately in recruiting individuals who share the racial and/or socioeconomic background of our students (specifically, individuals who are African American, Latino, Asian American, Native American, Native Hawaiian and individuals from a low income background). Without this additional effort, we would be much less diverse.

Appendix P

2011 Di versiy Recruim ent t t

35. 0% 30. 0%
26. 9% 32% 34% 33% 29.% - .% 1 311 33%

25. 0% 20. 0%
1 1 7.%

"M st and "M re" " Sel i Sch l ectve s*

15. 0% 10. 0%
5. 3%

2011 Teach F r Am eri Pr j ed ca ect Resul s** t 2015 Teach F r Am eri G al ca

5. 7%

5. 0% 0. 0% Af can Am eri ri can Latno i Peopl ofCol e or Pel GrantReci ent l pi s

Note: Benchmarking data includes international students and reflects enrollment rates instead of graduation rates. * Sources: National Center for Education Statistics at US Department of Education, 2008 (school-specific demographics) and US News and World Reports, 2009 (school

Current Recruitment Strategy To ensure our corps is as diverse as possible, we identify and encourage more talented individuals who share the racial/ethnic and/or socio-economic backgrounds of the students we teach to apply to Teach For America: We recruit at 370 schools across the country, including state universities, private institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs). This approach provides us with access to the nations best, diverse talent. We focus additional time, effort, and people at more diverse campuses. We recruit at 35 HBCUs as well as at 23 Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs). In addition, we recruit at a number of our countrys most largest and most diverse public university systems, including the University of California system (e.g., UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego), the University of Texas system (e.g., UT Austin, UT Arlington, UT San Antonio, UT Pan American), the California State university system (Cal State Fullerton, Cal State Fresno, etc.), the University of Washington-Seattle, the University of Florida, Florida State University, Rutgers University, etc. We strategically partner with a variety of campus-based organizations, including those that serve diverse student populations (e.g., the Black Student Union, Hispanic Student Alliance, Asian Student Network, Native American Student Association, etc.). We attempt to deepen our own knowledge and understanding of communities of color. This year, we launched a national effort to gather insights from Latino communities across the country to better understand 2

7. - 5% 1 5% 8. 0%

1 . - 2. 18% 1 8% 1% 1

Appendix P needs, motivations and concerns. We also embarked on a national campaign to gain insight into the African American corps member experience from recruitment through their role as Teach For America alumni. We believe our findings from both projects will deepen our knowledge of both communities, leading to changes and actions that will ultimately strengthen our movement We partner with national organizationsthat serve as important college pipelines for students of color from the communities that we serve such as POSSE, Sponsorship for Educational Opportunities (SEO), United Negro College Fund (UNCF), Thurgood Marshall College Fund, Prep for Prep, National Urban League, Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, Hispanic Scholarship Fund, Ron Brown Scholar Program and others. We engage diverse groups in regional and national forums and events. y This year, we held the inaugural Rising Leaders Summit in conjunction with our 20th Anniversary Summit. The Rising Leaders Summit brought 60 African American, Latino, and Native American undergraduate delegates of 30 schools from around the country to our nation's capital. The Summit provided an opportunity for the delegates to hear from and discuss the issue educational inequality with various leaders. The main activities included keynote speakers, roundtable and panel discussions, and leadership development workshops. Specifically, our 60 delegates heard from Rose Flenorl, Manager of Global Citizenship, FedEx , Congressman Chakka Fattah (Pennsylvania -2nd District), Congressman Mike Honda (California 15th District), a variety of senior leaders from Teach For America from the Executive Director of New Mexico to the Senior Vice President of Recruitment, and spent time with alumni color at a networking reception. After, the summit delegates attended Teach For America's 20th Anniversary Alumni Summit. y We held regional visits in Denver, Phoenix, and Austin. For each of these events, we invited top Latino prospects from across the country to the region, where they had an opportunity to visit corps member classrooms, and to engage and interact with regional staff, district and community leaders, corps members and alumni, as well as the students we serve. y We hosted a series of Multicultural Leaders Symposiums on campuses across the country to engage diverse student leaders in a dialogue about the achievement gap, how it affects communities of color, and the solvability of this injustice. y In 2009, we launched the Community Speaker Series in Atlanta to engage thought leaders in the African-American and Latino/Hispanic communities on the topic of educational excellence and equity. We continued the series in spring 2010 with an event in New York that featured John Legend and Common, who spoke about issues of

Appendix P educational inequity to a group of 3,000 diverse community members. In Fall 2010 Los Angeles hosted the series, where the topic was Latinos and Education, and drew in nearly 1,000 community members. Speakers included Frank Alvarez, President of Hispanic Scholarship Fund, Wilmer Valderrama, actor, and Juan Seplveda, Director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans. y We host monthly webinars and conference calls focused on Teach For Americas commitment to diversity and the impact were having in African American, Native American, and Latino communities. y We partnered with Gates Millennium Scholars (GSM) and HandsOn Bay Area to lead a Gates Millennium Scholars Alternative Spring Break which provided meaningful engagement activities for 59 ethnically diverse current Gates scholars and alumni. This experience allowed them to embody the GMS mission of leadership in service to others. During the 5 day trip, HandsOn organized 16 service projects that were focused on public health and urban education. The participants watched and discussed Waiting For Superman and received a copy of A Chance To Make History after discussing how they can take this movement to their campuses. We seek to expand our interactions and relationships to include diverse talent beyond college seniors (e.g., mid-career professionals, individuals from faith-based organizations and communities, graduate students and underclassmen). y In addition to the Rising Leaders Summit, in 2011, we held our first Lead Now Initiative where top diverse undergraduate students from across the country participated in a virtual seminar series over the course of three evenings. Through these three seminars, they learned how Wendy Kopp started Teach For America and how they too, can develop their leadership potential while in college and have an impact on their schools and communities. y We launched our regional professional recruitment campaigns in San Francisco, Austin, Boston, and continued the second year of our efforts in Washington, D.C. We increase awareness of our financial package including salary, health insurance, transitional funding, AmeriCorps benefits and other teacher discounts. Recognizing that financial concerns disproportionately impact the potential participation of individuals from low-income backgrounds and people of color, we work hard to ensure that everyone who is selected into TFA can participate, therefore weve sought to continue to expand grants and loans to corps members to ease the financial burden of participation. y We also created a finances website and regional cost matrix (both can be found here: http://www.teachforamerica.org/corps/finances/index.htm) to educate

Appendix P prospects, corps members and friends and family about our financial offer. In 2010, we launched the Native Achievement Initiative, which seeks to address the growing achievement gap in Native American communities. Through our Native Achievement Initiative, we look to more than quintuple the number of Native students we serve, finally reaching 96,000 Native children by 2015 (nearly 15 percent of the national total), while doing more to ensure our recruitment, training, and support reflects the needs and values of the Native communities we serve. This will include: y Growing to scale in our three sites that currently serve Native children (New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Hawaii) y Recruiting more American Indians and Native Hawaiians into our corps y Identifying and selecting new regions to reach more Native students y Building broad partnerships with Native groups to support our initiative y Modifying our training program to accommodate the unique needs of Native communities Long-Term Recruitment Strategy Through 2015, Teach For America plans to increase both the size and the diversity of its corps in order to do this, we have taken/will take the following steps in 2011-2012: y y Significantly increased the number of resources dedicated to diversity recruiting. Increased the size of the overall recruitment team by almost 20% in 2011-12 (adding 28 new team members), with a significant portion of added capacity focused on recruiting at schools with a diverse population (e.g. increasing the number of recruitment staff members who are focused on the public universities in California, investing more team members in our efforts in the Four Corners region of the country, doubling the number of recruitment staff at the University of Texas, Austin, increasing by 50% the number of team members who are working with HBCUs, and increasing staff across the Southeastern United States). Created a Diversity Initiatives team, focused singularly on developing and stewarding our Diversity Recruitment Effort, led by a Managing Director Significantly increased staff member recruiting time focused on finding key leaders of color on small and emerging schools (where we have had limited presence to date) Dedicate two full-time staff members to recruiting professional prospects in specific career sectors, with a particular focus on recruiting diverse professionals Launch a portfolio of partnerships with various African American, Native American and Asian American communities and organizations, in addition to 5

y y

Appendix P our ongoing focus on partnerships with Hispanic/Latino organizations as referenced in the section below. The goal of each portfolio is to expand the number of partnerships with African American, Native American and Asian American organizations. African American organizations include National Urban League, Black Executive Exchange Program, Congressional Black Caucus. Native American orgs include American Indian Higher Education Consortium, American Indian Science and Engineering Society, and the American Indian Graduate Center. Asian American orgs include Asian & Pacific Islander American Organize geographically into small regional teams, which are charged not only with recruiting at the schools in the region, but also with building relationships with the communities in that region. We are committed to launching regional partnerships between our regional staff and our national diversity partners. Expand into new, diverse regions in which we have had limited recruiting presence (e.g. Mississippi Delta, Four Corners, Southeast, etc.) Further our insights by launching a study on the Asian American community. Tailor marketing and outreach efforts to reflect the motivations and concerns and values of particular communities

y y y

We will continue to place a specific emphasis and will increase our presence at Historically Black Colleges and Universities: y In the 2011-12 season we will increase the size of our HBCU team by 50% (to 5 full-time staff members), who are led by a Managing Director. This Managing Director will continue to build and steward partnerships with various African American organizations who partner with HBCUs (among other colleges and universities). These organizations include Thurgood Marshall College Fund, Jackie Robinson Foundation, United Negro College Fund and Ron Brown Scholarship Program. y We have also expanded the number of HBCUs at which we actively recruit by 10 schools; increasing to 35 from 25. y In 2011-12, we will launch the first alumni-run campaigns at HBCUs in Missouri and Mississippi. Building upon the presence of Teach For America alumni in these two states, we will initiate relationships at key HBCUs in Missouri and Mississippi with the hopes of increasing the number of HBCUs engaged and building a strong foundation for future recruitment efforts. We will continue our focus on recruiting more individuals who identify as Latino by engaging in the following strategies: y In 2011-2012, we will continue to have a full-time staff member who is responsible for building and stewarding partnerships with Hispanic and Latino communities and organizations. This staff member is committed to both deepening our partnerships with existing Latino partners including but not limited to Hispanic Scholarship Fund,

Appendix P Gates Millennium Scholars, Management Leadership for Tomorrow, Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, while expanding the number of Latino partnerships with which Teach For America works including but not limited to Hispanic Alliance for Career Enhancement, Hispanic Heritage Foundation, and Society of Professional Hispanic Engineers. In addition, as outlined above, we have increased our full-time staffing capacity in California, the Four Corners region, Texas, and Florida all states where the college-aged Latino population continues to increase and where we can build upon already strong Latino recruiting efforts to further increase the engagement of Latinos in our movement. We will create a robust recruitment effort of underclassmen/women of color y Across the campuses where we recruit, we will build strong relationships with prospects of color much earlier in their decisionmaking process through engaging with career service offices, student advising programs, and key faculty gatekeepers to identify promising underclassmen and to provide schools with important resources for underclassmen, particularly those who are students of color. These resources include, but are not limited to, resume writing workshops, leadership seminars, and opportunities to attend Teach For America events like the Rising Leaders Summit (outlined above). y Creating an extensive leadership development program for underclassmen of color, culminating in a Rising Leaders Summit y Developing a summer internship program, specifically focused on engaging emerging leaders of color y Identifying opportunities to engage diverse prospects in high school, so they arrive in college with an existing awareness of Teach For America We will continue and increase our efforts to better identify prospects from low-income communities through the following strategies: y Dedicating one full-time staff member to building and stewarding partnerships with organizations committed to serving low-income communities. This staff member is committed to both deepening our partnership with exiting partners including but not limited to Posse, Prep for Prep, INROADS, Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) network of charter schools, and Summer Search, while expanding the number of partnerships with organizations serving low income communities which Teach For America works (including but not limited to National Partners for Education Access, BELL, AVID and SMASH Academy.

Appendix P y In addition, to increase awareness and support for diversity in Teach For Americas corps and on Teach For Americas staff, Teach For America is implementing several important initiatives including: y Hosting Campus Speaker Series events in cities across the country that target African American and Latino/Hispanic communities and bring together thought leaders in the field of education and beyond to stimulate conversations and action to close the achievement gap y Forming resource groups for our staff, corps and alumni to come together around common identity areas to network, build community, strengthen skills and support one another y Implementing a diversity and inclusion communications strategy to raise awareness of Teach For America in communities of color, including Spanish language radio and media initiatives targeting the Latino/Hispanic community y Launching a diversity and inclusiveness committee on Teach For Americas national board y Incorporating diversity and inclusiveness into manager training for staff y Conducting a culture audit and reviewing existing research to enhance the organizations understanding of strengths and opportunities relative to diversity and inclusiveness and to inform our strategy

Our work surrounding diversity and inclusion strengthens our organizations efforts to close the achievement gap so that one day, all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education.