Education Reform

Once strong policies are in place to allow parental choice, we support entrepreneurs who are creating high-quality schools.

To facilitate the establishment and expansion of new, high quality schools of choice, we invest in:

• School Startups – Promising groups starting or expanding schools of choice;
• Charter Management Organizations – Replication capacity of proven charter management organizations;
• School Leaders – Groups that train people to open and lead quality schools of choice; and
• Facilities Assistance and Financing – Groups that assist schools of choice with obtaining and financing facilities.

In order to facilitate the establishment and expansion of new, high-quality schools of choice, we invest in grantees such as:

• Public charter school governing boards;
• Charter School Growth Fund;
• Building Excellent Schools;
• KIPP;
• LISC;
• Building Hope; and
• Pacific Charter School Development.

A full list of our Create Quality Schools grantees can be found here: 2012 Walton Family Foundation Grants

The Walton Family Foundation expects grantees’ success to be seen in several ways, including:

• Increasing number of high-quality seats available to low-income parents;
• Lower per-seat cost of creating facilities; and
• Greater leveraging of our funding by grantees.

The Public Charter Startup Grant program supports the creation of public charters by providing grants to school developers as they launch new schools. Grantees are school developers who primarily serve low-income children in our target geographies, and can demonstrate the capacity to dramatically improve education.  See if your organization qualifies to apply.