ABSTRACT

Chapter 4 focuses on Teach For China’s strategy to alleviate educational inequities by providing high-quality teachers to rural schools that experience teacher shortage. It starts with a brief explanation of the factors that have resulted in teacher shortage in many rural areas as well as programs that existed to address this problem at the time when Teach For China was founded. This is followed by an analysis of the impact of Teach For China on the local teaching force, including both quantitative changes in the number of teachers, and qualitative changes in the composition of the teaching force. Finally, the chapter compares Teach For China’s impact on the teaching force with Teach For America’s. Although both organizations have displaced existing local teachers, Teach For China’s impact is more marginal due to strong state control over the hiring and allocation of teachers in China.