Achievement First reviews

3.0

35% would recommend to a friend

(999 total reviews)
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Fatimah Barker

39% approve of CEO

21% positive business outlook

Achievement First has an employee rating of 3.0 out of 5 stars, based on 999 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The Achievement First employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Education industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

999 reviews
4.0
Jan 16, 2017

Teacher

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Dedicated staff committed to closing the achievement gap for students in Brooklyn. High caliber of teachers recruited by administration. High expectations for both staff and students.

Cons

Difficult to achieve work/life balance given the work load and demands placed on teachers. Very little emphasis placed on athletics, the arts, and non-core subjects.

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Achievement First Response
9y
Thanks for taking the time to share this feedback! I appreciate you naming the high expectations aspect of this work as a positive - we totally agree. We also agree that high expectations can translate into a lot of work and some truly challenging demands on time. These aren’t easy problems to solve, so we recently brought together teachers from our schools across the network for the first ever “Hackathon” to create ways to make it easier for our amazing teachers to do the work longer. We spent an entire day innovating on new ways to support teachers. It was an extremely inspiring day that produced ten proposals that we’re currently working on bringing back to our teachers for next year. I think we realized that our teachers -- who are on the ground and doing this sacred work every day - are best positioned to help us tackle these challenges. No silver bullets, but a promising formula for continuing to innovate and make it easier to succeed in this mission (for longer). -Tom Kaiser, Chief Talent Officer
5.0
Jan 4, 2017

Work with Great Teachers

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Every day I got to work with smart, dedicated, and compassionate people who pushed me to be a better teacher and a better person. To this day, many of my former colleagues are more like family than co-workers. We had excellent and experienced school leadership for several years, which made the culture of the school very positive among both staff and students. (On the flip side, new school leadership often struggles and can negatively impact a school's culture.) The CEOs are genuinely committed to the mission of the school and listened and acted on staff concerns. You will always be focused on ways to improve your instruction. We got feedback consistently from co-workers, students, and administrators. I have never been in a work environment where every person in the building is so genuinely committed to growth. You will work with some of the most incredible teachers you have ever seen in action. Simply walking down the hall and checking out other classrooms every day is inspiring. The Teacher Career Pathway rewards and recognizes outstanding teachers.

Cons

The network uses a very strict and extremely detailed behavior management system, and teachers are given almost no discretion in their individual classrooms. There is very little work-life balance. AF has a very structured lesson expectation and curriculum design that can feel limiting at times.

4.0
Dec 19, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I was a teacher with Achievement First at Endeavor Middle for 6 years. AF and the school gave me the skills and support I needed to become a highly skilled teacher and eventually, a school leader. This is where I developed who I was as an educator and learned I truly had the power to make a difference in closing the achievement gap in our country. The organization provides opportunity for growth in and beyond the classroom, as well as the community that is so needed to raise and grow children.

Cons

The workload can at times seem overwhelming, but really, the more vetted you get in the work, the more manageable it becomes.

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