The Education Wars

Who would have thought Teach for America would be an avenue for the religious to impose their beliefs on public school students?

But a substantial number of TFA's corps members agree. Nicole Baker Fulgham, TFA's vice president of community faith relations, said TFA began directly recruiting from religious groups in 2007 once internal surveys showed that many of their corps members came from faith communities. Since then, TFA's founder and president, Wendy Kopp, has been a keynote speaker at Bill Hybels' Willow Creek Leadership Summit. TFA has formed national partnerships with Young Life, Campus Crusade for Christ, Hillel (a Jewish campus organization), and the Muslim Student Association.

TFA leaders have crossed the country giving presentations for the White House Faith Based Initiative, the National Association of Evangelicals, the National Baptist Convention and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. It has formed partnerships with seminaries and recruits at religious colleges.

TFA now finds that nearly 50 percent of its incoming corps members are involved in a church or other faith community, and the majority of that group cites faith as a motivating factor for joining TFA.