OVERVIEW
Breakthrough Birmingham (BTB) is a free, high-quality, multi-year program striving to reverse educational inequity. We partner with highly motivated middle and high school students in our communities. Using our “students-teaching-students” model, our teaching fellows—top-notch undergraduates from around the US—are closely coached by veteran educators to teach and mentor our scholars.
Since 2013, we’ve worked with over 900 scholars and over 240 teaching fellows to focus on our main three pillars of success:
- Relationships: building & maintaining healthy relationships with others and ourselves
- Growth: progressing academically & holistically, including with social/emotional wellness
- Exposure: opening up to new experiences, new people, new ideas, and new perspectives
Starting in middle school, we support our scholars on their pathway to post-secondary success by providing academic acceleration and enrichment, exposure, mentorship, and social emotional skill-building. This has led to 75% of our scholars attending college — almost 30 percentage points higher than Birmingham City Schools, and 20 points higher than the state average. We support the development of our teaching fellows into advocates and leaders focused on addressing educational and social inequities. Over 50% of our fellows go into the classroom; 76% pursue education careers. Success for us means we’re shifting trajectories of our communities and promoting educational excellence in Alabama.
Breakthrough Birmingham is a part of the national Breakthrough Collaborative, comprising 20+ sites across the country and Hong Kong, working to bridge the opportunity and achievement gap for students and teachers.