The Schott Foundation for Public Education seeks to develop and strengthen a broad-based and representative movement to achieve fully-resourced, high quality pre-kindergarten to grade 12 public education.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick deserves to be congratulated for his leadership among governors, especially with the recent unveiling of Ready for 21st Century Success, his education reform plan for Massachusetts. Ambitious in scope and forward-looking in focus, it offers a fresh vision of how Massachusetts public education can change to meet the needs of the 21st Century. The plan provides promise and hope to many school children, parents, teachers and others -- especially those stuck in underfunded public school systems and dilapidated facilities with outdated resources. "All too often, a student's chances for success are determined not by her intellect or ability to learn, but by her ZIP code and circumstances beyond her control," the report notes. More impressive than the proposal is the fact that Gov. Patrick began to move on the plan by recently signing the Early Education for All bill into law.  Massachusetts now has a mandate not only for high quality universal prekindergarten but for the development of a system of early education and care for children from birth to age 14.

The next step is a critical step—ensuring the fiscal resources to implement the plan. At this stage it’s important to note the words of another well-respected Massachusetts statesman: "Laws for the liberal education of youth...are so extremely wise and useful that to a humane and generous mind no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant," wrote John Adams in his 1776 essay Thoughts on Government.

- Dr. John H. Jackson