Child Geniuses Find A Home

Billionaire Philanthropists Fund Institute To Advance Young Minds

Oct. 30, 2005

(CBS) What do you do when the little company you founded turns into a billion dollar buyout and you still have much of your life ahead of you?

"We were at the right place at the right time and we're very fortunate," Bob Davidson remarks.

As CBS News correspondent Jim Stewart learns, for Jan and Bob Davidson it all started in 1982, when they bought one of the first primitive personal computers, and then wondered, why can't you do more than just play games on these things?

"There was supposed to be some educational software, but it was terrible, I mean, it just didn't work well, and it wasn't accurate. It was horrible," Jan recalls.

So she started tinkering and it wasn't long before Jan had what she calls her "Aha Moment."

Her creation became a breakthrough product: teaching kids math in the guise of a game they called "Math Blaster."

In 1997, the Davidsons sold their company for a very large sum, or, as Bob Davidson says, "Well, more that we knew what to do with, let's put it that way."

And what have they done with all that money? Well, that's where the story really gets interesting.

They're giving it away, and not just to anyone, but only to the certifiably brightest young geniuses in America. They call their program the Davidson Institute for Talent Development.

"Intelligence is a gift. But you have to develop it if you're going to keep it. You have to nurture it like any other talent," Jan says.

Consider, for example, kids like Jacob Komar of Burlington, Conn. He's 13-years-old. He's already got two years of college under his belt and at age 9, he founded a charity called "Computers for Communities" to help needy families.

"By the time I was five, I was reading my mom's programming manuals and writing in several computer languages," Komar says.

Regarding his charity work, Komar explains, "My family was at my sister's school and I came to find out by a janitor that they were throwing out all of these computers. So I decided to refurbish them and give them to families in the area that can't afford them."

Learning had never been a problem for Jacob. Public schools, however, were another matter.

"When I went into the public school, it was really, really boring," Komar recalls.

Komar wasn't shy about expressing his feelings. "I let everybody know that," Komar says. "I told my first-grade teacher that I was, that she was insulting my intelligence."

By the time he was in the third grade Jacob's mother, Alicja Komar, and her husband, Andy, could see their son was miserable.

"As a mom, one of the biggest things you want for your child is for your child to be happy," Alicja Komar says. "I mean, that's all a mom really wants. And I knew that he wasn't."

So they took Jacob in for testing. His IQ, a stunned examiner told them, was the highest he had ever seen. But now what? Their school system had nothing for students as gifted as Jacob.

"I felt that the public school did all they could for us. I felt that they weren't particularly knowledgeable about how to deal with a child like Jacob," Alicja says.

And Jacob Komar isn't alone. Jan and Bob Davidson believe there are many more kids like him and that in this age of "No Child Left Behind," with all its focus on basic skills, they're the ones getting left behind.

"When you look at underachievement, the group that is really under achieving are the very bright kids because there is the greatest difference between what is offered of them and what they can do," Jan Davidson says.

The disparity they believe, outlined in their book "Genius Denied," has even led to a national bias against the gifted. Help a slow learner, they reason, and you're called charitable. Help a genius and you're an elitist.

Bob Davidson explains that few programs exist for so-called genius children. "At the extreme that we're working at, almost none. It's virtually very difficult for a school to deal with these children. They're often many grade levels ahead of their peers," Bob says.

A tearful Alicja Komar tells Stewart she came across the Davidson's institute on the Internet. "I found their Web site and I read it and I said there are other people out there. We're not alone.

"Finally it meant I wasn't the crazy mom who was pushing her kid to do things. I was a mom of a kid who had extraordinary abilities," Alicja says.

Jacob Komar was the epitome of what the Davidsons were looking for and the Davidson Institute was just what the Komars needed. First, the Davidsons helped pay Jacob's tuition to a private middle school for gifted math and science students.

Then they helped buy him a better computer. And when he outgrew the middle school, Davidson counselors helped the Komars enroll Jacob in college. And that wasn't all.

When Jacob's 10-year-old sister Ana turned out to be gifted as well, she, too, became a Davidson Young Scholar. And with help from Davidson counselors, Ana is now home schooled.

More than money and computers, what the Davidsons bring is a sense of belonging, Stewart says, to people who had stopped belonging anywhere.

And how is this billionaire couple's dream succeeding? The numbers speak for themselves. There are 750 young genius scholars so far and that's just the start.

Bob Davidson tells Stewart that his institute's 2005 budget hovered near $3 million. "We haven't set the budget for next year yet, but I'm sure it will go up," Bob says.

And the next step is Congress. Not for money. They're supplying all that. With their best and brightest in tow, they're making the rounds looking for a change in the policies they think inhibit gifted children and they're finding an audience.

"It sounds like you want to add to the slogan 'No child left behind' and make it 'Let those that can, run ahead'? Stewart asks Bob Davidson.

"Yes, there shouldn't be a ceiling," Bob Davidson says, "particularly in school.

"If you can soar, let 'em soar," he says. "We do it with basketball. Why can't we do it in academics?"

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