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Meg Whitman says she’ll donate at least $2.5 million for Redwood City-based Summit charter schools
By BONNIE ESLINGER | San Mateo County Times, Bay Area News Group, Mercury News
September 20, 2011 at 12:14 pm
Ten months after losing the election for California governor, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman has returned to the spotlight to draw attention to one of her key campaign platforms: reform the state’s K-12 education.
In San Jose on Tuesday, Whitman announced she is investing $2.5 million to support the expansion of Summit Public Schools, a charter school organization based in Redwood City that hopes to open 10 schools in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties in the next decade.
She also committed to spending an additional $2.5 million in matching funds if “Silicon Valley colleagues” accept her challenge to put up some of their own money to support Summit, which gained national attention when one of its schools was featured in last year’s pro-charter documentary “Waiting for Superman.”
Whitman made the announcement before an assembly of several hundred Summit students just outside the National Hispanic University main campus, where Summit operates Rainier and Tahoma charter high schools.
Afterward, Whitman said although she doesn’t intend to seek public office again, she wants to do some public good for schools.
“I’m not seeking office. I’m not running for anything. I will never say never, but probably not,” Whitman said. “[But] I was passionate about education on the campaign trail; now I actually get to do something about it.”
Whitman’s donation to Summit Public Schools — which she also supports as a board member — comes from Whitman-Harsh Family Foundation, established in 2007 by Whitman and her husband, Dr. Griffith Harsh. Whitman said in January she began looking for investment opportunities to improve K-12 education.
“I figured out there were two things that I thought could make a difference — one was charter schools and the other is technology. So we’re making investments in both,” she said. “I was stunned, being from Silicon Valley, the kids today in many schools learn the way we did, with one teacher in the front of the class with paper textbooks, with a paper workbook. That isn’t as personalized as I know we can make it.”
Last week, Whitman was in Los Angeles with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to announce a $500,000 donation from her foundation for a computer program used to help elementary school students improve their math skills.
Summit, which currently has two high school campuses in Redwood City in addition to the two new ones that just opened in San Jose, aims to establish 10 more high schools by 2021 in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, though specific cities have not yet been determined.
“We’re going to create a college-ready corridor stretching 50 miles, from South San Francisco to the east side of San Jose,” Summit Founder and CEO Diane Tavenner said at Tuesday’s assembly.
To reach that goal — estimated to cost $20 million — more investment is needed, Tavenner said. “Meg is a superwoman and I am deeply grateful for her generosity,” she said. “But not even Meg can do this alone.”
Whitman said she was introduced to Tavenner through a friend, and after hearing about Summit’s schools over lunch at her Atherton home last year she got “hooked.”
Whitman promoted “Waiting for Superman” during her campaign and said one of her education goals, if elected, would be to eliminate the state’s cap on the number of charter schools, which are independently run but publicly funded.
Whitman said Tuesday she plans to give some of her foundation money to other charter schools as well because she feels they do a better job of improving students’ test scores and providing college opportunities than most traditional public schools.
Whitman said she attended public schools in Long Island, New York, and that she and her husband share a “fundamental belief that every child deserves the opportunity that can only come from a quality education.”
Whitman is not the only Silicon Valley leader to make a big donation to charter schools. In May, Palo Alto-based Rocketship Education, a network of K-5 charter schools, announced that a coalition of high-tech investors — Reed Hastings of Netflix, Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, Jonathan Chadwick of Skype, the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, the NewSchools Venture Fund and the Peery Foundation — gave $3 million to help the organization develop its computer learning lab.
Last month, Whitman paid a visit to the students at Summit Preparatory Charter School in Redwood City, which recently ranked first in Newsweek’s Top 10 list of “Most Transformative Schools” in the country.
She spoke at an assembly about her career in Silicon Valley as well as her unsuccessful gubernatorial bid. The school’s executive director, Todd Dickson said students really took to heart Whitman’s message about hard work paying off, and what to do when it doesn’t.
“Kids have a hard time learning, how do you overcome obstacles, how to get back up and be resilient,” he said. “She messaged it in such a humble way, to say it’s what you do after you fail that’s important.”
Email Bonnie Eslinger at beslinger@dailynewsgroup.com.
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