THE K & F BAXTER FAMILY FOUNDATION MISSION STATEMENT

The Primary purpose of the K & F Baxter Family Foundation (the “Foundation”) is to celebrate and memorialize the importance of each citizen in our democratic, pluralistic, multiracial, and multicultural society, which is organized upon bedrock principles of individual liberty. The primary mission of the Foundation is to fund policy recommendations with regard to selected challenges and opportunities faced by disadvantaged and multiracial children in an era of rapid technological and social change.

One focus of the Foundation is to formulate policy recommendations in support of and provide funding for revised school curricula that will be supportive and inclusive of multiracial children without sacrificing either basic skills training or appropriate performance standards. The revised curricula would be designed to motivate multiracial children to remain in school and to encourage them to use their education to leverage their ability to achieve a successful assimilation into the economic mainstream without sacrificing their multiracial and/or multicultural heritage.


A second focus of the Foundation is to formulate, by means of policy studies and analysis, a realistic template for educational reform focused on the buyer (the student) rather than the seller (the school).

Multiracial Children
Multiracial children confront challenges and opportunities that are unique to their racial status. There are now an estimated two million multiracial children in the United States under the age of 18, and that population has increased by at least 400% since 1970.
Many multiracial children struggle with their own identities because of the difficulty our society and schools have in categorizing them. They must deal with constant reminders that they are different, such as curious stares from strangers and requests for an explanation of their racial heritage. This identity crisis can be further exacerbated by feelings of rejection arising from each ethnic group with which multiracial children associate. Our current educational system is failing the multiracial child by not recognizing them as such and not encouraging them to embrace their full identity. It is crucial that our school programs include and recognize multiracial children and the multiracial people who are part of our history.
Educational Reform
Serious deficiencies currently exist in our public schools. One of the most promising ways to improve our education system is to restructure the present system to create effective competition in the market for educational services, thereby shifting the paradigm from a seller (school) driven system to a buyer (student) driven system.
The Foundation will sponsor and/or undertake research that will analyze alternative solutions to the problems plaguing our public schools, including private and charter schools. The Foundation will also attempt to increase public awareness and understanding of the poor performance by public schools and the alternatives available to the traditional public school system. The Foundation will fund successful schools embodying the buyer (student) driven system that serve a majority of low-income students in selected areas of California. Preference is given to schools & programs that have existing successful systems and could be replicated or expanded. Some of the areas of success we look for in schools are: parental involvement, graduation rate, attendance and test scores.