Based in Oakland, The BASIC Fund is California’s largest non-denominational PreK-8 organization that gives needs-based scholarships to low-income children on a first-come, first-served basis to help pay for tuition so they can attend private schools.
The BASIC Fund gives families the opportunity to choose from among more than 250 private schools in nine Bay Area counties.
One of those schools is Kolbe-Trinity School in the City of Napa, which has 23 BASIC Fund scholars.
The TK-12 Catholic school uses a classical education model that focuses on “the seven liberal arts, namely, Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric (the Trivium), Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, and Music (the Quadrivium).” “Most importantly,” according to the school, “classical education teaches that our pursuit of knowledge is good, that truth is obtainable” and that this model “created the world’s greatest thinkers: Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, to name a few.”
Specifically, Kolbe-Trinity students learn astronomy in the second grade, chemistry in the third grade, and physics in the fourth grade. From first to fourth grade, students learn Spanish, while learning Latin from the fifth to the eighth grade. For math, the school uses a highly successful program based on how math is taught in Singapore, the world’s top math performance country.
Also, while many students in the public school no longer read whole books, students at Kolbe-Trinity read classic books such as Wind in the Willows in the third grade, A Wrinkle in Time in the fourth grade, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in the fifth grade, The Hobbit in the sixth grade, Beowulf in the seventh grade, and War of the Worlds in the eighth grade.
Although Kobe-Trinity’s curriculum is rigorous, students enjoy meeting the challenge and rise to the high expectations.
When I visited Kolbe-Trinity recently, I had the opportunity to interview two students, Addalyn and her younger sister Charlise, who attend the school and who are recipients of scholarships from The BASIC Fund.
Charlise, a fifth grader who has received a BASIC Fund scholarship since she was in the first grade, is a thoughtful articulate young person who really loves the education she is receiving at Kolbe-Trinity. In fact, she told me, “I like everything about this school.”
She is enjoying her Latin class, and is studying Greece and key figures such as Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates in her history class.
In math, she is learning to multiply fractions, and she demonstrated her know-how by solving some fractional multiplication problems I put before her. Interestingly, in my 2024 book The Great Classroom Collapse I interviewed a Bay Area professional math tutor who said that working with fractions was a huge problem for public school students because of the ineffective teaching methods employed by the most public schools.
Charlise’s older sister Addalyn is an effervescent ninth grader who has attended Kolbe-Trinity since the fifth grade. She received a BASIC Fund scholarship to attend Kolbe-Trinity until she finished the eighth grade (BASIC Fund grants scholarships up until the eighth grade).
Because Addalyn’s parents were dissatisfied with the moral foundation of her previous public school, she was going to be homeschooled. However, when she and her parents visited Kolbe-Trinity she immediately liked the school, and the BASIC Fund scholarship made the tuition affordable.
Addalyn enjoys her current classes, which include physics, humane letters (history and literature), English and grammar, algebra, theology, and physical education. She especially likes her English class because she loves to write creatively. She is writing a book on how her own life is turning out.
When I asked her about her thoughts about public school, she said that public schools are “wild.” She cited the use of alcohol, vaping, and drugs, plus campus violence such as fights. Indeed, her mom saw three fights in one day at her previous school.
She said that Kolbe-Trinity is much safer. It is no wonder that safety is one of the key reasons why parents support school-choice options.
Further, Addalyn said that public schools “don’t stop to see if you not doing well.” She said that Kolbe-Trinity focuses on “making sure you learn the material,” plus the teachers really care about the well-being of students.
One of those caring teachers is Cindy Mudge, who is a catechist who teaches three to five-year-olds about the Catholic faith.
Cindy showed me her classroom and explained that she helps her very young students to discover “that Jesus is the Good Shepherd, knows their name, and cares much for them.” She quotes Scripture, “let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.”
The ability of a Catholic school to expose children to a source of love that the secular public schools cannot is a reason why so many parents and children seek out this unique educational alternative.
While The BASIC Fund gives students like Charlise and Addalyn the chance to have a better, safer, and more grounded education, the organization could give many more children a similar opportunity if it had more funds for scholarships. It turns out that more funding could be possible courtesy of a school-choice tax credit included in the One Big Beautiful Bill that President Trump signed last year.
Taxpayers who contribute to scholarship-granting organizations like The BASIC Fund can receive a dollar-for-dollar tax credit up to an amount of $1,700. There is great potential for a huge expansion of scholarships for children who need a better learning experience. However, the catch is that governors must opt-in to the tax-credit program so that children in their states can benefit.
So far, 27 governors have opted in, including progressive Democrats like Colorado’s Jared Polis. Gavin Newsom, who sends his own children to a private school, has not announced if he will opt-in California. If Newsom wants to give needy children the same opportunity for a better life that his own children enjoy, he should opt California in and give organizations like The BASIC Fund the resources to improve education for more of the state’s children.
Lance Izumi is senior director of the Center for Education at the Pacific Research Institute. He is the author of the PRI book The Great Classroom Collapse: Teachers, Students, and Parents Expose the Collapse of Learning in America’s Schools.
