Reaching More Low-Income Students: Galileo Learning
In 2019, Galileo Learning, which offers fun and educational Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math (STEAM) summer programming for students in California and Illinois, announced that they had reached a record-breaking scholarship goal, offering scholarships to upwards of 15% of their campers. In an online posting, CEO Glen Tripp thanked Bellwether Education Partners for our critical role in helping shape their model so more low-income students can attend these innovative summer camps, which have been shown to “improve kids’ persistence and collaboration skills” and help participants persevere “in the face of failure.”
This all started in 2016, when Galileo engaged Bellwether as they devised a strategy to make their programs significantly more accessible to low-income students. Over the next several months, we worked together to develop a three-pronged strategic plan: 1) increase scholarships to attend Galileo camps, 2) build strategic partnerships to extend Galileo’s approach to new educational settings, and 3) leverage Galileo’s existing corps of teachers to infuse innovation thinking into their school-year classrooms. As of 2019, Galileo has increased the percentage of students receiving scholarships and is on track to provide scholarships to 22% of campers in 2020, equaling about 20,000 kids.
Read more about our collaboration with Galileo in this conversation with Glen Tripp on our blog, Ahead of the Heard.
