Breakthrough Cambridge (formerly Summerbridge Cambridge)

CONTACT:

459 Broadway
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617) 349-6647
breakthroughcambridge.org

Elissa Spelman, Executive Director

DESCRIPTION:

Summerbridge is a national program which, as Newsweek put it, “gets younger kids into learning and older kids into teaching.” America needs more teachers of color, and more under-served students in college-preparatory classes. Summerbridge recruits both at once—students of complementary ages who teach and learn together in high-quality, tuition-free, year-round, para-curricular programs after and outside school.

Summerbridge Cambridge was founded in 1992, one of the first such programs to be hosted by a public school system. Courses and homework-help sessions focus on the basics—math, literature, and science—with excursions into reinforcing skill areas for personal and practical enrichment. Tutoring and mentoring are freely available. Teacher trainees are college and high-school students of promise from backgrounds similar to those of Summerbridge students. Three times as many apply as are selected. With technical help, they plan and teach their own classes and activities. It works, and it merits your support.

(2000: CULTURE: Education: Formal: School-Related)