Foundation program

A state-operated funding scheme to ensure a minimum level of instruction and educational facilities—a “minimum foundation”—for every school district in the state. Designed to raise the educational quality of poorer school districts to minimal standards and to ensure every student equal educational opportunities, foundation programs provide supplementary state funds for any district whose revenues do not permit maintaining those standards on its own. The effects of foundation programs, however, vary widely from state to state, depending on the standards set by each state and the per capita funds allocated for each student. In addition to per capita funding, foundation programs usually consider class size, number and kind of teachers and administrators, school facilities, number of students in the district, wealth of the district’s population and the district’s effort to collect the amount of taxes appropriate to its needs.