GreatSchools, a San Francisco-based K-12 education research organization, has announced a major expansion effort to be funded by $5.2 million in new grants from ten national foundations.

The organization initially received a $1.5 million challenge grant from the Pisces Foundation, which was later matched by $1.5 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and augmented by an additional $2.2 million from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Daniels Fund, and the Thomas B. Fordham, William and Flora Hewlett, Robertson, San Francisco, and Walton Family foundations; the final contributing foundation wished to remain anonymous.

The funds will enable GreatSchools to focus on expanding its geographic coverage to a total of thirty states encompassing 90 percent of the nation's population of K-12 students, as well as target its outreach to low-income parents and parents that do not speak English and create a ratings program to assess the performance of charter schools.

"The involvement of these leading foundations marks a critical turning point in GreatSchools' seven-year history," said the organization's founder and president, Bill Jackson. "With these substantial investments, GreatSchools has a tremendous opportunity to impact parents' ability to choose the right schools for their children and hold schools accountable to high standards, and to build the organization's long-term sustainability."