Here's an article about young philanthropists in Rhode Island, which gives Angus a well-deserved shout-out:

Angus Davis seems an unlikely candidate for education reform advocate. A privileged kid from Bristol who frequently got into mischief at the private schools he attended, Davis blew off college completely after graduating and headed for California to work for Netscape. Three years later, in 1999, he and a partner formed their own company, Tellme Networks Inc., which assembled a massive database of voice-recognition data, enabling them to offer mobile phone users the option of searching for a pizza restaurant or baseball score simply by speaking into their phone. The technology eventually drew the attention of Microsoft, which this year acquired the privately held Tellme for a reported $800 million.

Not bad for a twenty-nine-year-old guy whose formal education ended at grade twelve.  

Yet, like Microsoft founder Bill Gates (himself a Harvard dropout), Davis is using his windfall to attack the problem of failing public schools. He is so worked up about Rhode Island’s public schools, in particular, that he’s ready to take on any and all obstacles to reform: tough-talking union heads, weak-kneed legislators, timid business people. His own private K-12 education was “absolutely first-rate,” he says, but, after visiting classrooms and reviewing test data, he’s convinced that many kids in Rhode Island, especially those in urban areas, are stuck in schools stymied by “brain-dead, asinine” policies. “The problem we have in Rhode Island isn’t that kids aren’t getting into Harvard,” says Davis, who, though still affiliated with Silicon Valley-based Tellme, maintains a residence in Providence. “The problem we have in Rhode Island is that the majority of eighth-graders in Providence, as well as in some other urban areas, can’t read at grade level.”

Davis blames the public schools for the relative absence of economic opportunities in Rhode Island compared to California — companies tend to be more attracted to areas with high-quality school systems. 

His model for reform is the Paul Cuffee School, a K-8 public charter school in Providence that outperforms the district on reading, math and writing. As enamored as he is with the school’s culture of high expectations, Davis is equally enraged that students can’t get in (because demand is so great, this year just 8 percent were accepted through a lottery system). Now, he has started his own nonprofit, Best for Kids, to organize parents who are unhappy with their children’s schools, and use that base to push for rapid reforms.

 “The public education system is absolutely screwing low-income kids of color,” Davis says. “It’s a social injustice, a civil rights apartheid, and people are kind of sitting idly by.” If those sound like fighting words, that’s because they’re meant to be. Davis isn’t out to make friends. He wants to remove the moratorium on new public charter schools, create streamlined avenues for skilled individuals to segue into the teaching field, and eliminate “arcane” union rules like the one that allows senior teachers to bump others out of their jobs, no questions asked. Business people and lawmakers may be “chicken” on these issues, for fear of the wrath of unions and special-interest groups, “but I’ll tell you one group of people that is not chicken and that’s parents,” Davis says.

Best For Kids is scheduled to launch this fall, after Davis finishes putting together a board of directors and hires an energetic executive director “ready to jump into a hot fight.”

In the meantime, he’s venting his frustrations about everything from state math standards to the school funding formula on his personal blog, Passing Notes (www. blog.bestforkids.org)

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The Young and the Generous

Meet the new generation of philanthropists. They’re young, they’re wealthy, and they don’t just write checks. They’re ready to roll up their sleeves, but — in return — they expect tangible results.

Lisa Prevost, Rhode Island Monthly

www.rimonthly.com/Rhode-Island-Monthly/October-2007/The-Young-and-the-Generous/index.php?cp=5&si=4

 

Bill Daugherty is your typical dot-com gazillionaire: He brainstormed a new online business concept with an old friend from Harvard Business School, built it into a profitable venture, and sold it off in time to become exceedingly wealthy by the age of forty.  Now, he’s your typical new philanthropist.

The turning point came about three years ago when his online search and media company, Interactive Search Holdings, changed hands for a reported $500 million in stock and cash. Daugherty’s share of the windfall afforded him the particularly precious luxury of time, and he decided to use it for good. “I was looking around for nonprofit opportunities, and I realized I didn’t want to be somebody who just attended a lot of board meetings,” Daugherty says. “I’m much more of a hands-on person.”...