Over the next five years, Teach for America will more than triple its number of teachers in Miami-Dade county with the help of a $6 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. By 2014, some 350 Teach for America educators will reach more than 25,000 students in Miami-Dade public schools.

Teach For America is the national corps of recent college graduates who commit to teaching at public schools for two years and become livelong leaders in education. Today, 7,300 corps members and 17,000 alumni are working for fundamental change to ensure educational excellence and equity.

Kimberly Williams, a Teach For America corps educator at Miami Central Senior High School, and her 11th grade student Kettysha Collydmore shared their stories Thursday night to an audience of Miami-Dade corps educators:

Dennis Scholl, Miami Program Director for Knight Foundation, believes that Teach for America is the right program to create systemic change in Miami’s education system.

“The achievement gap in this community’s schools is a massive gap. But the good news is it’s fixable ‘ and Teach for America knows how to do it,” Scholl said Thursday night. “Today, [Teach For America educators] are changing the culture of our schools, classroom by classroom. Tomorrow, we expect [them] to stick around as alumni and be the educators and advocates Miami-Dade needs to continue to move this community forward.”

A feeder pattern for teacher placement has been developed to help ensure students success is maintained over time. Teachers will move from elementary schools to middle schools and from middle schools to high schools so that students have the opportunity to be a part of Teach For America for more than one year.

Read the Miami Herald for a story and an editorial on Teach For America. To learn more and donate, visit http://teachforamerica.org/.