Breakthrough Miami

Breakthrough Miami provides an academic enrichment program that uses a student-teaching-students model to ensure that motivated, under-resourced middle-school students have access to excellent high-school opportunities, graduate from high school on time, and attend college.

• About Us
  Breakthrough Miami provides an academic enrichment program that uses a student-teaching-students model to ensure that motivated, under-resourced middle-school students have access to excellent high-school opportunities, graduate from high school on time, and attend college. The program serves 1,200 5th through 12th graders. Teaching Fellows provide essential support to scholars who are on this path. Teaching Fellows provide mentoring, academic support, coaching, program planning and implementation, and other activities to contribute to the success of Breakthrough scholars.
• Our Impact
  Breakthrough Miami's 8-year, tuition-free academic enrichment program preaches the gospel of rigor and high expectations to its 1,200 scholars from the time they enter the program in 5th grade until they graduate from high school. Breakthrough Miami's year-round programming gives motivated students from disadvantaged communities the tools – and peer relationships – needed to achieve their most ambitious life goals.
  
  Our "students-teaching-students" model engages outstanding college and high school students as teachers and mentors, helping our scholars enter and thrive in college-prep high school programs and four-year colleges and universities.
  
  The Breakthrough program model is based on research that demonstrates:
  
  Increased attendance in out-of-school programs improves student academic achievement and the longer students are involved, the greater their achievements;
  Students from low socio-economic backgrounds lose an estimated four to five months in reading skills each summer and the loss is cumulative;
  High-quality summer, after-school and weekend programs help children improve social and physical skills that impact their overall health and well-being, as well as their academics.
  Cross-age peer mentoring programs provide benefits to both mentors and mentees.
  The University of Miami Education Evaluation Team (UMEET) completed an assessment of the Breakthrough Miami program in October 2012. Breakthrough Miami Scholars at all grade levels, UMEET reported, demonstrated continuous academic improvement for the three-year period (2010-12) that was studied.
  
  In 2012-13, Breakthrough Scholars once again demonstrated outstanding achievements, consistently performing at a high level in these research-based markers for future academic success.
  
  Among the highlights:
  
  • 82% of 8th graders taking Algebra I or Geometry (October 2013)
  
  • 66% of 10th graders with a GPA of 3.0 or above (June 2013)
  
  • 71% of 11th graders taking two or more advanced classes (AP, IB, Honors, etc.)
  
  • 79% of seniors graduated with four or more years of high school math
  
  • 100% of seniors completed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)
  
  • 95% of the Class of 2012 took the SAT/ACT
  
  OUR RESULTS
  
  100% of seniors graduated on time from high school
  98% of graduates enrolled in colleges and universities
  90% of those enrolling selected four-year institutions, far outpacing the national average for high-performing students from disadvantaged backgrounds