Teach for America is an organization that trains recent college graduates as teachers who commit to serving two years in under-resourced schools. The success of Teach for America’s model has inspired others not only to replicate it internationally but to bring it to fields beyond education inequality, like civic government and social enterprise. 

Teach for America (TfA) was founded by Wendy Kopp to close the gap in achievement between low-income students and their wealthier peers. The program recruits recent college graduates to commit to two years of service teaching in schools in low-income areas. TfA’s program addresses systemic problems in education from three different angles.

• School systems in dire need get well-trained, eager teachers
• Young graduates gain valuable work experience and leadership training 
• Students benefit from a network of teachers and program alumni who are dedicated to seeing them achieve

Although TfA does have its detractors, it is hard to argue with its popularity. In its twenty-year history, nearly 33,000 participants have taken part in Teach for America’s fellowship program, which is now the largest recruiter of college graduates in the U.S.

In the UK, a similar model developed independently. Teach First began after a study by the consulting firm McKinsey showed that great teachers could improve student outcomes by 40%. Brett Wigdortz, a member of the McKinsey team, created an organization to train and place outstanding teachers in the most challenged schools. 

Building on the success of Teach for America and Teach First, the fellowship model has been extended internationally with Teach for All. The program enables social entrepreneurs to adapt and implement the Teach for America model in their respective countries. Teach for All has so far replicated this approach in 17 countries, including India and China. 

Now, social-change organizations are translating the TfA model to the fields of civic government and social enterprise.

Code for America is an initiative to enlist talented techies from the web industry to leverage the power of the internet to make city governments better. The inaugural class of CfA Fellows is wrapping up and they have already produced some remarkable solutions covering problems ranging from finding veterans jobs to improving education systems. To further spread the benefits of their work, the solutions the CfA Fellows build will be available through Civic Commons, a collection of open-source technologies for civic governments.

Venture for America is another nonprofit using the Teach for America fellowship model to bring innovative solutions to entrenched problems. Venture for America is enlisting its inaugural class to help run a start-up business over a two-year term in a “lower-cost city.”  The Fellows will be given entrepreneurial training and $100,000 in seed money to bring new jobs to cities in desperate need. VfA founder Andrew Yang hopes to the organization will help create 100,000 U.S. jobs by 2025

This model for capitalizing on the enthusiasm of recent college graduates to address social challenges has had a dramatic impact in the field of education, but new areas are open for experimentation. Have you seen other areas where fellowships are making a difference in addressing social challenges?