State of South Dakota  
EIGHTY-SEVENTH SESSION
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY, 2012  

695T0256   HOUSE COMMEMORATION   NO.  1004  

Introduced by:    Representatives Blake, Abdallah, Boomgarden, Brunner, Deelstra, Dennert, Elliott, Fargen, Feickert, Feinstein, Gibson, Gosch, Hawley, Hunhoff (Bernie), Jones, Killer, Kirschman, Kloucek, Lucas, Magstadt, Munsterman, Perry, Rausch, Rozum, Schrempp, Sigdestad, Sly, Street, Turbiville, and Wismer and Senators Schlekeway, Buhl, Frerichs, Heineman, Hundstad, Johnston, Maher, Tidemann, Tieszen, and Vehle
 

        A LEGISLATIVE COMMEMORATION, Thanking and commending the Teach for America corps members who live and teach in South Dakota for their tremendous efforts in working to ensure that every child growing up in poverty receives an excellent education.

    WHEREAS, Teach for America consists of a corps of outstanding recent college graduates who commit to teach for at least two years in urban and rural public schools and become lifelong leaders in expanding educational opportunity; and

    WHEREAS, Teach for America, celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year, placed more than eight thousand corps members in thirty-nine regions across the country this fall; and

    WHEREAS, in 2004, Teach for America came to South Dakota for the first time and placed seventeen corps members in the state, and that number had grown to nearly seventy in 2011; and

    WHEREAS, the Teach for America corps members in South Dakota work tirelessly to unleash the potential in more than two thousand students in the state's poorest communities, and many of the corps members both live and work on South Dakota reservations where they strive to close the achievement gap between Lakota students and their non-Native peers and have an impact on their students reaching far beyond the classroom; and

    WHEREAS, recent studies have shown that Teach for America corps members have a track record of achieving exceptional results in the content areas and grade levels in which they teach, especially in the areas of math and science; and

    WHEREAS, by 2015, Teach for America hopes to expand its impact in South Dakota by reaching at least one-half of all the Native American students living in the state and two-thirds of the Native American students living on the state's reservations:

    NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT COMMEMORATED, by the Eighty-seventh Legislature of the State of South Dakota, that the South Dakota Legislature thanks and commends the Teach for America corps members teaching in South Dakota for their tremendous efforts in working

to ensure that every child who grows up in poverty receives an excellent education.