Learn more about the Schott Foundation for Public Education's Work.
The Schott Foundation’s core belief is that a broad-based grassroots movement is central to creating the systemic change that is needed to address the disparities poor children and children of color face in our nation’s public education system.
To help build this movement, Schott provides grants and other supports to campaigns led by parents, students and other advocates seeking to bring equity to the following issue areas:
In its pivotal role as both funder and advocate, Schott has supported strategies such as media campaigns, community organizing, litigation, leadership development, ballot initiatives and action research to build public will to guarantee that every child has access to high quality public education.
You can follow the latest news and commentary from Schott’s grantees and allies through our Opportunity to Learn Network.
Please note: the Foundation does not accept or respond to unsolicited grant proposals, inquiries or letters of intent. Schott Foundation grant applications are by invitation only.
Featured Campaigns
Schott currently provides grants and other resources (communication, networking, policy advocacy) to support campaigns.
Healthy Living Learning Communities/Community Schools
In recent years, a pervasive narrative in the national education reform debate has pitted teachers and communities against each other and prevented the emergence of a coalition strong enough to challenge the standards-based reform and privatization movements. Our grantee, AROS is changing this dynamic by bringing the national teachers unions and other labor organizations to the table alongside national grassroots parent, student and community organizations. The alliance emerged from an October 2013 conference in Los Angeles jointly sponsored by Schott. Since then, it has convened over 100 representatives from 28 cities together in Washington, DC and hosted five national actions, including two national walk-ins which brought together teachers, parents and students in an act of solidarity to reclaim their schools and advocate for the public schools all children deserve.
Campaign Updates:
Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools
Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools
Pennsylvania Campaign: The Campaign for Fair Funding
The Campaign for Fair Education Funding is a state-wide, broad-based, non- partisan campaign with the goal of ensuring that every student has access to a quality education regardless of where they live. The campaign is working to ensure that Pennsylvania adopts and maintains an adequate and equitable system of funding public education. May 25, 2016 marked a major success when the Pennsylvania Legislature voted to permanently adopt the fair funding formula, which will now allocate new school funding to schools based on objective factors in a rational way. This success will not slow down the campaign, for the next fight is for a sufficient budget in order for this success to produce results.
Campaign Updates:
The Campaign for Fair Education Funding
The Campaign for Fair Education Funding
Campaign to End Zero Tolerance Policies
Momentum continues to grow in support of ending harmful zero-tolerance discipline policies in public schools across the country. Our grantee, Dignity in Schools Campaign (DSC), which represents a national coalition of over 77 member organizations from 22 states and Washington, has played an instrumental role in working at the local, state and federal levels to organize for policies and strategies that promote safe and supportive schools. This includes pushing for district moratoriums on out-of-school suspensions, the adoption of restorative educational approaches and statewide and federal policies that focus on ending out-of-school suspensions in exchange for positive, non-punitive disciplinary approaches. 2016 has seen many positive changes thus far – both St. Louis and the state of New Jersey have banned suspensions of students in preschool through second grade, Philadelphia public schools will reduce the number of uniformed officers replacing them with “climate managers”, and the Los Angeles School Police Department finally got military grade weapons removed from its schools.
Campaign Updates:
Dignity in Schools Campaign
Dignity in Schools Campaign
New York City Gender Equity Campaign: The Schools Our Girls Deserve
The Schools Our Girls Deserve Campaign calls for a school environment that truly supports girls, LGBTQ and gender nonconforming (GNC) youth of color in New York City. The campaign will create a policy book that will be authored by girls and GNC youth of color to shift harsh school discipline practices and policies that lead to school pushout, an issue that disproportionately affects girls of color, specifically Black girls.
Our grantee Girls for Gender Equity (GGE) has been a leader in addressing school pushout and racially disparate disciplinary exclusion practices affecting girls of color. GGE’s ability to center the voices and experiences of girls of color in their organizing work has helped to catalyze conversations about race and gender inequities bringing a more intersectional approach to the surface of policy discussions happening in New York City and nationally.
Campaign Updates:
Girls for Gender Equity
Girls for Gender Equity
Massachusetts Campaign: The Fair Share Constitutional Amendment
Massachusetts education justice advocates have been championing an educational equity platform, which calls for student-centered approaches to learning, fair and just school climate, and wraparound systems of support that is driven by youth, parents, educators and community-led coalitions and is supported by a strong foundation of research and analysis.
In order to advance their work and pivot to an even bolder vision for education equity, they must address increased attacks to public education funding and also advance a constitutional amendment ballot initiative that could create approximately $1.9 billion in new revenue for education and transportation by creating an additional tax of 4% on annual income above one million dollars. The campaign provides an opportunity to significantly raise revenues for Massachusetts’ public schools for the first time in more than two decades and address resource disparities that perpetuate opportunity gaps across the state.
Campaign Updates:
Constitutional Amendment Campaign
Constitutional Amendment Campaign