This grant was made to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction for the purpose of establishing a Quality of Education Commission, which will develop and propose a school finance model that identifies the resources schools need to help all California students meet state academic performance standards.  The Commission was authorized by the California legislature in August 2002 (Education Code §64200-642003), but remains unfunded as a result of the state budget crisis.   In the simplest terms, the core objective for the Quality of Education Commission will be to answer the question:  “What does it actually cost to provide each student with an opportunity to meet the achievement levels specified by the legislature?”  Ultimately, applying such a cost figure to each school district could serve as a basis for the development of a state funding formula for providing adequate educational services in local communities. 

The Foundation anticipates that the work of the Commission will benefit greatly from research work on adequacy models the Foundation currently supports at the Public Policy Institute of California.  Education Program staff will also explore buttressing the public engagement work of the Commission through public engagement grants already made in our California portfolio to EdSource, UCLA, and the California Master Plan for Education Alliance.  This will be a collaborative grant with the Gates Foundation, which will share in the costs of funding the Commission in the first year.