Teach For America is the national corps of outstanding recent college graduates who commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools and become lifelong leaders in expanding educational opportunity. This year in California, a corps of 550 of the nation's most promising future leaders are directly impacting the lives of nearly 43,000 public school students in Los Angeles, Oakland, San Jose, Lynwood, East Palo Alto, West Contra Costa County and Gilroy.
"At Wachovia, we believe that every child is entitled to a high-quality education," said Pete Jones, head of Wachovia's Western Banking Group. "We're proud to continue our longstanding support for Teach For America – an organization that has already made a difference in the lives of more than 2.5 million students nationwide – with a gift that will bring more Teach For America teachers into California schools."
Teach For America corps members have been instrumental in spreading educational opportunity to students in California's low-income communities since the organization was founded in 1990. Over the next three years, both its Los Angeles and Bay Area sites are poised to grow in size and impact so that even more California public school students have access to an excellent education. By 2010, the organization expects to have 475 teachers in Los Angeles area public schools, and more than 300 corps members closing the academic achievement gap in the Bay Area.
"Wachovia's investment will support Teach For America as we work to reach our 2010 goals and bring more and more excellent teachers to California," said Eric Scroggins, executive director of Teach For America-Bay Area. "We are thankful for their partnership and all that it will do for the children in our state."
Wachovia Corporation is Teach For America's Founding National Corporate Partner and this year committed $6 million over three years to support the organization's expansion. With today's gift, Wachovia and its foundation have contributed nearly $4 million to Teach For America, and the organization has received an additional $4 million as the primary charitable beneficiary of the Wachovia Championship PGA TOUR event. In addition, Wachovia CEO Ken Thompson serves on the national Teach For America board, and Wachovia employees volunteer in Teach For America classrooms across the country.
"When students in low-income communities are given the opportunities they deserve, they excel," said Brian Johnson, executive director of Teach For America – Los Angeles. "Wachovia understands this and is helping Teach For America grow so our corps members can provide more opportunities every day for California's students to achieve success."
About Teach For America
Teach For America is the national corps of outstanding recent college graduates who commit two years to teach in urban and rural public schools and become lifelong leaders in expanding educational opportunity. This year, 4,400 corps members are teaching in over 1,000 schools in 25 regions across the country, and more than 12,000 Teach For America alumni continue working from inside and outside the field of education for the fundamental changes necessary to ensure educational excellence and equity. For more information, visit www.teachforamerica.org.
About Wachovia
Wachovia Corporation (NYSE:WB) is one of the nation's largest diversified financial services companies, providing a broad range of retail banking and brokerage, asset and wealth management, and corporate and investment banking products and services. Wachovia has retail and commercial banking operations in 21 states with 3,400 retail banking offices from Connecticut to Florida and west to Texas and California. In addition, two core businesses operate under the Wachovia Securities brand name: retail brokerage with 768 offices in 48 states and service affiliate offices in Latin America, and corporate and investment banking serving clients in selected corporate and institutional sectors globally. Other nationwide businesses include mortgage lending in all 50 states and auto finance covering 46 states. Globally, Wachovia serves clients through more than 40 international offices. Online banking is available at wachovia.com; online brokerage products and services at wachoviasec.com; and investment products and services at evergreeninvestments.com. At March 31, 2007, Wachovia had assets of $706.4 billion and market capitalization of $105.3 billion.
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