The Schott Foundation for Public Education was founded by Lilo Leeds and Greg Jobin-Leeds in 1991. Lilo, a successful businesswoman, has been a social justice and public education activist most of her life. A successful educator and a social justice activist, Greg undertook the actual organizing and running of the Foundation. The Schott Foundation’s goal is to develop a broad-based and representative movement to achieve fully resourced preK-12 public education. At Schott, it is understood that in order to succeed, education advocates need strong, representative, and informed community leadership dedicated to insuring that every child has the opportunity to graduate from high school prepared for college, ready to thrive in life and make positive contributions to society. To build a results-oriented movement, the Foundation has funded statewide legislative and voter opinion studies, litigation, donor collaboratives, leadership development, and media campaigns. In the mid-1990s, The Schott Foundation provided seed funding to the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE), which brought its landmark court case against the State of New York because of the state’s unjust educational funding formula. The case has set off a state-wide push to boldly reform New York’s public education funding policy.

1991

To develop and strengthen a broad-based and representative movement to achieve fully resourced, quality preK-12 public education. Schott supports an “Opportunity to Learn” frame on educational policy, which focuses on ensuring that resources are provided for all students to have an equitable opportunity to learn and produce high achievement outcomes. Schott maintains its historic commitment to institutionalizing an opportunity to learn standard in New York and Massachusetts, while recognizing the strategy for change, when possible, must extend beyond these two states. Schott supports a far reaching implementation strategy and infrastructure that is capable of maneuvering the dynamic relationship between national and state-based movement building to produce federal and state policies to protect an opportunity to learn for all students.

All children graduate from high performing, well-resourced public schools, and are capable of success in college and full participation in a democratic society, regardless of race, gender, class, or native language.