Joining Teach For America does not mean you will automatically have a teaching job. Corps members are hired full-time employees of their school, district, or charter organization (not Teach For America). You'll have support from staff in your region throughout the hiring process. Your salary and benefits will be the same as other beginning teachers working for the same employer. Learn more about getting hired as a teacher.

The application and training process for certified teachers is the same for non-certified applicants.

If you’re admitted to the corps and are already certified to teach the subject in the state where you’re assigned, you won’t need to retake any certification exams that you’ve already passed. However, you’ll most likely need to submit a copy of your score reports.

If you're admitted to the corps in one state but are currently certified in another, you also may be exempt from taking additional coursework during your two-year commitment, depending on certification reciprocity between states. Information about certification reciprocity can usually be found on a state’s department of education website.

If you’re assigned to a state where you’re not certified to teach, you can take the certification tests and participate in the coursework, or apply to transfer your license on your own. If you’re already certified in other states, our regional offices will work with you to determine which coursework may still be required. Once admitted, you will want to speak to your regional staff for more information.

Several of our regions have established partnerships with universities to facilitate your work toward a master's degree during your two-year commitment. These programs vary from site to site and year to year. Some may be offered at reduced cost.

Keep in mind that because of these programs change frequently, we encourage you to avoid selecting regions solely based on these partnerships. We ask that you remain flexible as to where you are willing to teach so that we can best meet the needs of students.

Learn more about our regions and find information about master's degree options.

Your ability to do this will depend on the region. Even if it is permitted in your region, generally corps members do not choose to complete certification at a non-partnering program. If your region allows you to choose a separate program, you would need to apply to the program on your own and independently track that you are meeting alternative certification legal requirements.

While a background in education isn’t a prerequisite for you to apply to Teach For America, all of our partner regions will require you to complete steps to become highly qualified in the subject(s) you'll teach in the fall. 

Most regions also require corps members to work toward full teaching certification during their two-year commitment. Each state has different requirements and rules around teacher certification. Learn more about becoming certified to teach.

Teacher certification costs widely vary across regions, so we recommend that you compare regions with our Explore tool to get a better understanding of what expenses to expect. Costs can include fees for licensing, as well as tuition for required coursework.

You should expect to pay for some, if not all, of your teacher certification expenses, though some regions may offer discounted tuition rates through their university partner and/or other financial benefits.

 You may also qualify to receive an AmeriCorps award by serving as a corps member, which can be used to cover some of your certification costs.

Teach For America does not pay for your certification or master's degree, however, there are different benefits available to corps members to help pay for the coursework that you must take in order to teach in your region.

Many regions have relationships with local universities that offer reduced tuition for corps members.

In some regions, you can qualify for tuition exemption based on the fact that you're a teacher.

Teach For America is currently a member of AmeriCorps, the national service network. Through this relationship, our corps members are AmeriCorps members and are eligible to receive forbearance and interest payment on qualified student loans during their two years of service. Additionally, those who have not previously received AmeriCorps awards may receive an education award of around $6,895 at the end of each year of service. This may be used towards future educational expenses, such as certification or master's degree courses, or to repay qualified student loans. Please note this award is not guaranteed.

In some regions, you must pay for classes up front.

Explore regions to find information about certification costs.

Teach For America is not specifically a certification or graduate education program. However, depending on your region, you may earn your certification after teaching for two years.

In most regions, you will be required to work towards certification while teaching by paying for and completing coursework and exams.

In other regions, you may not be required to become fully certified, but to continue teaching for two years, you will be required to complete and pay for some coursework or to attend professional development programs.

Several of our regions have established partnerships with universities to facilitate your work toward certification and/or master’s degrees. These programs vary from site to site and year to year. Some may be offered at reduced cost.

Learn more about our regions and find information about certification requirements.

Connect with your regional team to obtain a letter that details the work you completed during your time at Pre-Service. You can email your region directly via their regional page.

Teach For America corps members do not receive a salary during pre-service. Corps members are not employees of Teach For America and thus are not paid a salary by Teach for America.  However, all incoming corps members receive a stipend to offset some of the costs of onboarding and transitioning into the corps. Learn more about available financial support here.

All of our training and support is towards the goal of developing teacher leaders who realize ambitious outcomes for students. This work is grounded in a CM roadmap of development with the following domains: rigorous instruction, strong classroom environments, learning, and relationships.

As a TFA corps member, you will engage in a pre-service model with corps members from across the country, the goal of which is to develop you as a teacher leader, ready to lead a classroom towards strong student outcomes. Our Pre-Service model has the following phases: 

• Launch: Launch contains a set of asynchronous modules to prepare corps members for summer training
• Training: During training, corps members will spend about two weeks on centralized learning experiences, primarily done synchronously with some asynchronous engagements throughout.
• Regional Week: Corps members will then transition to work with their regional team and regional peers. This may be virtual or in person in your region. During this time, you'll learn more about your local context and prepare to teach at practicum.
• Practicum: Following regional week, you'll engage in a ~3-week practicum experience. Corps members split their time between virtual centralized training and in-person practicum training, which will include regional programming, classroom teaching, and coaching.
• Ongoing: you will be supported by a dedicated coach who will guide your overall development from the time you accept your offer to the corps. You will have access to a robust and flexible ecosystem of support that includes instructional coaching, wellness resources, on-demand tools and resources, in addition to what is available and provided within your regional context. You will also engage in ongoing leadership development experiences.
  

During the summer, all corps members engage with our Pre-Service experience. The aim of this period of time is to develop corps members as teacher leaders and we focus our training on 4 domains: rigorous instruction, classroom learning environment, relationships, and learning.

Pre-Service begins with asynchronous onboarding modules, which we term "Launch". It's then followed by about 2 weeks of virtual synchronous training, where corps members begin to build pedagogical understanding and skills. During this time, corps members are expected to be fully present virtually. Synchronous sessions are live and average about 8-9 hours per day. From there, corps members teach students at summer school in their region during Practicum. Supports during Pre-Service include: 1:1 coaching, group coaching, content development, curriculum and planning supports, etc.

You can learn more about the schedule and location of Pre-Service training on the Summer Training Schedule page.

Corps members are full-time, salaried employees of their school district, charter school, or pre-K center. Their salary and benefits are the same as those of other beginning teachers working for the same employers. These vary by school and placement community, based on cost of living, local education budgets, and many other factors. You can learn more about salary and cost of living using the Explore Regions tool.​

Teach For America doesn't specifically offer loan cancellation or forgiveness to corps members. As a nonprofit organization with limited funds, we unfortunately don't have the resources to forgive the student loans of all of our corps members. However, some school districts and programs offer loan cancellation to teachers who serve a number of years in a school district.

Teach For America is also a member of AmeriCorps, the national service network. Through this relationship, our corps members are AmeriCorps members and are eligible to receive forbearance and interest payment on qualified student loans during their two years of service. Additionally, those who have not previously received AmeriCorps awards may receive an education award of up to $7,395 at the end of each year of service, which may be used towards future educational expenses or to repay qualified student loans. However, given the uncertainty around AmeriCorps funding and the nature of the AmeriCorps competitive grant process, we cannot guarantee these benefits to all corps members.

Most corps members receive their first paycheck between late August and late September depending on regional assignment. In an effort to ensure that qualified candidates from all economic situations are able to join the corps, we offer a few financial support options to help you make it to your first paycheck. Our Transitional Financial Support is designed to assist with costs including travel to the community where you will teach, relocation expenses, and testing and initial certification fees.

You can learn more about our financial support programs on this page.

Contact americorps@teachforamerica.org for any questions about your AmeriCorps grant, including education award information.

Corps members teach in one of Teach For America's regional placement communities. Learn more about where corps members teach.

Yes, (with limited exceptions) our corps members must pass at least one certification test to be eligible to teach. If you are admitted to the corps, your region will work with you on test preparation. Corps members who don't pass the exam may need to retake the test in time for the start of the school year.

It's very difficult to predict in advance what you will be qualified to teach in a given placement community. Your eligibility to teach a certain subject or grade level is partly dependent on the specific requirements of a state, school district, and university partner. Unfortunately, these requirements are quite complex and change often, so we do not have a requirements list available for applicants.

Even if you qualify to teach a particular subject or grade level in a particular region, those factors do not solely determine your assignment. In determining your subject/grade-level assignment, we consider your preferences and each community's grade-level and subject needs.

​​Learn more about how we place corps members.​

You will have the opportunity to research and submit your region(s) of interest in your initial application, and you will have an opportunity to revisit these selection(s) after you're invited to interview.

At this time, you will also indicate your preferences for the classroom subjects you want to teach.

Depending on your application timeline, you'll receive your placement community and subject assignment about two weeks after finalizing your placement community selections.

Then, you'll have about two weeks to consider and accept your offer.

You will get to tell us where you are interested in teaching as a part of your initial application. After you've been invited to interview, you will have the opportunity to revisit your regions of interest by finalizing your placement community selection(s).

As you consider where you would like to teach, you should consider the factors most important to you in a community, compare cost of living, most likely subject placements, master's degree options, etc. to determine which placement community(ies) may be a good fit for you.

The ability to select a region or placement community in your application and/or after being invited to interview depends on several factors, such as meeting the requirements for eligibility in the region as set by the state or licensing partner (GPA, coursework, etc.), being available when the region has their summer training, and the number of placements still available.

Your regional and placement community selection(s) have no bearing on your admissions decision.