Teach For America (TFA) is a nonprofit on a very important mission. With a dedication to ensuring that one day, all children will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education, they recruit corps members—recent college grads and professionals—who make a commitment to teaching for at least two years in under-resourced public schools across the US.
From hope to impact
But making an impact means embracing change. For years, TFA has organized their operations in an analog, manual way. The pandemic was a bit of a wakeup call, signaling a need for a digital transformation that would bring the nonprofit into the present and beyond. And since TFA’s corps members work all over the US, digital tools are a necessity. TFA’s migration to Azure cloud was a strategic shift toward a multiprogram model that has unlocked unlimited possibilities.
We’re building AI in a way that’s actually honoring young people, teachers, and other educators.
Microsoft helped TFA roll out OneApp, an all-in-one digital hub designed to simplify tasks for educators. Built on Microsoft Azure and integrated with Microsoft 365 tools, OneApp is an elastic system TFA can scale up but also use to keep costs down. It replaces thousands of spreadsheets and multiple logins with a single, streamlined platform. From lesson plans and classroom resources to wellness support and compliance tasks, OneApp centralizes everything educators need. OneApp helps them keep track of action items, link to important TFA systems, and find a library of helpful resources.
“We’re leveraging the cloud to build new experiences for our schools and communities, creating an entire digital ecosystem around Teach For America” says Alan Murray, Chief Data & Technology Officer, Teach For America.
And, because it’s cloud-based and designed to scale effortlessly, OneApp is helping fuel TFA’s ability to grow Ignite to 160 schools nationwide, with plans to reach even more communities. TFA Ignite is a virtual, high dosage tutoring program co-designed with school leaders to accelerate learning for K–12 students. It’s a paid opportunity for college students to work with small groups of students online, typically 2–3 kids at a time, for about 3–5 hours per week over the course of a semester.
The OneApp team built a powerful, scalable ecosystem in Azure to make it easier for TFA to support students from Atlanta to Hawaii. At the heart of this unified system, Azure Data Lake Storage keeps program data organized and accessible. Azure App Configuration ensures security and credential management, while Azure OpenAI helps make sense of large volumes of unstructured text through advanced data science. For insights and decision-making, Power BI delivers clear, actionable reporting, and that’s just the start.
“I have seen that streamlining effect be absolutely transformational in corps members’ abilities to focus, engage, and really put students first” says John Murphy, Managing Director of Leadership & Development, Teach For America, Chicago & NW Indiana region.
After completing their commitment of teaching full-time for two years in an under-resourced public school, corps members become part of TFA’s alumni network—over 68,000 alumni leaders working in education, policy, and other sectors. Many continue teaching, while others use their classroom experience to drive systemic change in different fields.
Bridges to brighter classrooms
When Teach For America imagined a way to simplify the journey for future educators, they dreamed big—and built OneApp. Instead of navigating a maze of forms and portals, aspiring corps members now have a single, streamlined space to apply, track progress, and connect with support.
Today, OneApp is transforming how TFA recruits and empowers teachers. Candidates move through the process with clarity and confidence, while TFA teams gain real-time insights, matching talent with classrooms that need them most. Over its 35 years in operation, TFA has partnered with 300 rural and urban communities, impacting over 5 million students.
In the 2025-26 school year, corps members are leading classrooms across more than 40 regions, reaching 270,000 students nationwide. And in the same school year, college students who provide high-dosage virtual tutoring through TFA’s Ignite program are delivering nearly 200,000 hours of personalized instruction to approximately 7,000 students. In just one semester last year, eighth graders showed 2.5 times expected growth in math on the iReady assessment, and the number of elementary students reading at or above benchmark on DIBELS increased by 24%.
With faster onboarding, fewer barriers, and passionate educators joining in to support change, TFA is making a huge impact in the next chapter of educational opportunity. Today, nearly 60% of alumni continue to work in education, and many more are leading in other fields that impact opportunity for children and families in low-income communities. Together, they demonstrate that purpose in action lasts a lifetime and progress is possible.
Ensuring that all children have access is incredibly important to make sure that the brilliance of our entire country is brought to light. It’s incredibly important that we have an urgent focus on investing in educators today.
