Teach for America Lays Off its Staff by 15%

Since 1991, Teach for America has been recruiting eager, fresh college graduates to teach for two years in less-privileged schools. Now, as it's nearing its 25^th anniversary, it's facing its most major setback in over ten years.

According to The Daily Beast, the nonprofit organization has enjoyed donations from giants such as Wells Fargo and the Walton Family Foundation and it was given a $50 million dollar Investing in Innovation grant from the US Department of Education. So what has TFA laying off its staff, including its chief diversity officer, and what has college grads less-than-interested in joining?

Teach for America to scrap diversity office https://t.co/15YjKEhhqR pic.twitter.com/W71qtHlkVR

— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) March 26, 2016

CEO Elisa Villanueva Beard tells Marketplace that the employment cut is to put focus on their regional branches. The group intends to create 100 new local positions in the wake of the 250 they will be closing in their central office. But Beard admits this has been a challenging recruiting season and attributes it to the recovery of the economy since the Great Recession. Then, applicants were eager to join in the hopes of securing a job during a time where there weren't any.

But perhaps one more plausible reason for the great lack in applications is the backlash TFA has been receiving from its alumni in a tell-all book with 20 contributors co-edited by one of its old teachers, Jameson Brewer. The Daily Beast reports that the book Teach for America Counter-Narratives: Alumni Speak Up and Speak Out" is rife with criticisms, everything from TFA's recruitment process to the actual teaching experience, and a lot of stuff in between.

In an effort to get past all this, Teach for America plans on starting its recruits early this time around with Beard commenting that speaking with college seniors proves to be difficult when they already have a set career in mind.