How AmeriCorps grows local education talent

As a former AmeriCorps member who became a champion for public education, I know well the role AmeriCorps plays to help strengthen communities and education across South Carolina. Of the funds invested in national service through the Corporation for National and Community Service, half are directed to education.

If funds are cut for AmeriCorps programs, local nonprofits will feel the pinch, and so will the workforce they build, which is helping to improve education in South Carolina. For this reason and more, Congress should maintain or increase current AmeriCorps funding levels.

I began my career as an eighth-grade English-language arts teacher through Teach For America, an AmeriCorps program that recruits and supports a diverse network of leaders who work with a commitment to expand opportunity for students growing up in low-income communities. Across South Carolina, there are about 400 Teach for America corps members and alumni working from the classroom and the many fields that impact public education.

Program participants become civic leaders such as Cara Mitchell, who serves as a program director of WINGS for Kids, a Charleston-based nonprofit that helps children develop social and emotional intelligence through fresh and fun after-school programs; long-term educators like Ed Chambers, who is a veteran teacher of more than 20 years in Columbia; and Josh Bell, the founding executive director of Teach For America-South Carolina.

I myself am honored to lead Public Education Partners to support and strengthen Greenville’s public schools. Had I not participated in an AmeriCorps program, I might not have invested my professional career in supporting our public schools and the students who will lead our communities in the years to come.

Continued investment in AmeriCorps is needed to build and sustain our pipeline of community volunteers and servant leaders. It is also a smart investment, returning nearly four times the money spent, through higher earnings, increased output and other communitywide benefits.

Let’s strongly encourage Congress to continue to support AmeriCorps, for the benefit of our communities.

This story was originally published September 4, 2017 at 6:43 PM with the headline "How AmeriCorps grows local education talent."