Teach for America Aims to End Education Inequality
Teach for America is a non-profit organization that is working towards educational equality for all students. They were founded on the principle of reducing educational inequality which is the lack of access to resources, opportunities, and schools that can meet their needs and expectations. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), students from low income families drop out of school at a rate twice that of students from upper-middle and high-income families. Of the 1.3 million high school students that drop out, over half are students of color and the vast majority are from low-income families. Teach for America recruits diverse leaders to teach in low-income areas for a period of two years to confront educational inequality. This year, Teach for America has spent 213,680 USD on lobbying focused on the Department of Education, the Department of the Interior, and the Corporation for National and Community Service. Presently, Teach for America is lobbying for 65,426 USD on behalf of several bills.
The backlog repair bill for the 68 highest risk Bureau of Indian Education schools on Native American Reservations is 1.3 billion USD.
H.R. 2471, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022, covers a vast swatch of topics and provides funding for several dozen federal agencies for the fiscal year. Of interest to Teach for America are continued funding for the Department of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies. The bill also reauthorizes a number of expiring programs including several immigration related authorities and the EB-5 immigrant investor visa program.
Lobbyists Jean Elizabeth Doyle, Kelly Broughan, Kelly Villwock, and Laura Schroeder are the primary representatives for Teach for America and collectively have years of experience in the political realm. Respectively, they are the Vice President, managing director, associate, and manager. Some of the specific topics Teach for America has mentioned recently are educational funding for the next fiscal year, STEM education training and preparation, the path to citizenship for DACA and DREAM recipients, and Indian Education BIE school infrastructure.
TEACH for Tomorrow
While the record is not definitely clear yet, another bill Teach for America may be championing is the TEACH for Tomorrow Act (H.R. 5691). This act was introduced to Congress only a few weeks ago, but it deals with educational assistance and grants. Revising the Teacher Quality Partnership program and changing the eligibility requirements for Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education are just two of it’s primary objectives.
