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We believe this effort, applied on a sustained basis over time, will help communities with poorly performing public schools receive the tangible benefits of higher education. Our hope is that these efforts will then become a catalyst for local change. History In the Spring of 2005, two of our directors read an article in Wired Magazine about four students from a school in west Phoenix. The prior year, these students entered the technologically difficult challenge of designing and building an underwater robot to compete with others from across the nation, including a well-funded team from MIT.
The heart-warming news was that these students won, beating MIT. The heart-rending news was that they didn't have the means to go on to college. Initially, several of us thought this was an easily solvable issue: we could help them get to and through college.
Deeper reflection, however, caused us to realize that the United States has a large number of such young people from poorly performing public schools. Aside from the humanitarian aspect of this failure, it also represents a very damaging economic policy that could well consign the United States to third world economic status in a few decades, along with terrible social consequences.
Here's how that can come to be:
- Our worst performing high schools are not getting better, and probably won't of their own accord;
- A huge majority of our country's high school dropouts come from these under performing schools;
- The fastest growing sectors of our population come from segments of our society with the least resources, including access to education.
How can we, as a nation, compete in the global arena if we fail to educate a quarter of our population?
The simple answer is: We can't. The consequences for our country are dire if we allow this to happen.
We believe something needs to be done, and soon.
That something needs to be done by those of us who have benefited the most from the opportunities of our country.
The Maecenas Fund is that something.
The Maecenas Fund was formed in the Fall of 2005 as a non-profit corporation chartered to provide scholarships to high school graduates of merit and need from under performing public high schools.
After a site visit and evaluation, we decided the first high school the Maecenas Fund sponsors should be the one mentioned in the Wired Magazine article, Carl Hayden High School in Phoenix.
Through our own resources and contacts, we launched the Fund and will be awarding the first Maecenas Fund scholarships in the Winter of 2006. But this is just the beginning.