WASHINGTON — When school starts next fall, Teach for America will send an unprecedented number of college graduates to teach in poor communities across the country — but not as many as the group would like.
Teach for America this year chose 4,100 recruits from more than 35,000 applications, an increase over last year’s class of 3,700 recruits.
“For the last nine years, really the only constraint on our growth has been recruits, just finding enough people who we really believe are ready for this,” said Wendy Kopp, the group’s founder and chief executive. “This is the first year when we’ve had to turn away people who would have met our admission bar in any previous year.”
The constraint is the economy. Tighter budgets have forced some school districts to cut back on hiring, though overall 500 more spots for Teach for America are available this year. Also, those who give to nonprofits like Teach for America are either holding the line or cutting back on their charitable giving, which pays for training and professional development for the recruits.
In all, more than 7,300 first- and second-year Teach for America recruits will teach in more than 100 school districts in 27 states and the District of Columbia in the next school year.
