Teach For America Week
October 15-19, 2001

"Now, more than ever, it's important to recognize the key role teachers play in our children's classrooms and their lives," said Mrs. Bush. "My pledge to volunteer my time in the classroom during Teach For America week underscores my commitment to recruit more Americans to join the teaching profession."

About Teach For America Week

Teach For America is an annual nationwide event that encourages American leaders from all professions to spend an hour of their time teaching children from some of the nation's disadvantaged neighborhoods. This year's event takes place during the week of October 15-19 in Teach For America's sixteen regional sites across the country, from the Bronx to the Mississippi Delta to Compton to the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico to urban communities in Chicago, Houston, the San Francisco Bay Area, New Orleans, Phoenix, New Jersey and Washington, DC.

Since the program was launched in 1997, hundreds of politicians, business leaders, athletes, entertainers, community activists and other prominent individuals have served as guest teachers in the urban and rural schools where Teach For America corps members teach.

About Teach For America

Teach For America is a national corps of recent college graduates of all academic majors who commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools in some of the nation's disadvantaged neighborhoods. Since 1990, Teach For America has placed more than 7,000 college grads to teach nearly one million students throughout the country.

In addition to supporting Teach For America, Mrs. Bush also supports two other teacher recruitment programs – Troops to Teachers and the New Teacher Project. Troops to Teachers encourages retiring military personnel to become teachers. The program has placed more than 4,000 former military personnel in teaching positions since 1994. The New Teacher Project helps urban and rural school districts establish teaching fellows programs to encourage professionals in all fields to take their talent and experience to the classroom.

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