Campaign Against Teach for America is Working: Recruiting Running Dry, Closes NYC Office

A sign TFA is losing its attraction - from Gary Rubinstein blog

Teach for America is having trouble recruiting candidates to teach in New York City schools and will close its New York training site in anticipation of declining numbers, the organization’s New York City leader told program alumni on Friday. “Teach For America is in the midst of a challenging recruitment year,” Charissa Fernandez said in an email, attributing the difficulties in part to “a contentious national dialogue around education and teaching in general, and TFA in particular.”
http://ny.chalkbeat.org/2014/12/12/as-recruitment-dips-tfa-leader-says-new-york-training-site-to-close/#.VI8REpY8LCQ

A lot of credit goes to people like former TFAer Gary Rubinstein for his blog and posts like this: Bait-and-Switch For America


After moving their office out of NYC for ostensibly the same reason…letter linked to below only available to Politico pro subscribers.  

TFA ASKS FOR HELP: Teach for America has always prided itself on attracting such a flood of qualified applicants that it can afford to be ultra-selective. This year, however, the nonprofit is struggling to recruit as many applicants as it would like, despite bumping up outreach to veterans, mid-career professionals and others outside its traditional target market of college seniors. So TFA is asking for help. It's asking its alumni, supportive teachers, partner school districts and college administrators to send out emails, tweets and Facebook posts urging talented individuals to apply to TFA. The organization has even provided sample language: "Bring your passion to the classroom ... Teach." Or: "Schools deserve large groups of diverse talent to choose from, and that's where you come in."
- The group would like recruiting help from "everyone who can help the cause" spokeswoman Takirra Winfield said. It's not that TFA has completely run dry: It's received more than 26,000 applications so far this year. But that's less than anticipated - so much less that TFA's leaders estimate they could fall short of their goal for the 2015 corps by as much as 25 percent. In a letter to partner school districts, co-CEOs Elisa Villanueva-Beard and Matt Kramer attribute the downturn to a better economy, which means college students have more career options, and to "an increasingly polarized public conversation around education" that's "challenging the perception of teaching as a stable, fulfilling profession." Another factor: The "polarization" around the merits of TFA itself, they write. Their letter: http://politico.pro/1GpBlcm.
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