$85 million funds set up for schools-Philanthropist Don Budinger seeks to better Arizona

"Everything that affects this state is addressed by, solved by and improved by our education system." – Don Budinger, Philanthropist

By Pat Kossan
The Arizona Republic

Exhausted and flat broke, Arizona is racked with growing pains every think tank this side of the Mississippi likes to list: dropouts, rotten test scores, underpaid teachers.

Don Budinger’s tired of hearing about it.

"I’m more interested in doing something about the list," said the Paradise Valley retiree, who has set aside $85 million in public and private foundations to do just that. He has already given away $5 million in three years.

It has gone mostly for partnerships between businesses and schools to improve an education system at the bottom of the national heap. Budinger also wants to work on other projects, such as saving the wilderness and improving health care.

Budinger made his millions with his brother, William, in a global business that developed silicon wafer polishing agents. It was a dream incubated 25 years ago in one of capitalism’s now legendary garages.

Budinger, 60 and the father of four, sold Rodel Inc. in 1999 and began handing back money where he made it, in Delaware and Arizona.

Here’s his goal: Arizona will have one of the country’s leading K-12 education systems by 2020. It means putting money into the classrooms and supporting groups dedicated to making Arizona industry responsible for improving student learning.

Low involvement

He arrived at that goal after meetings with three university presidents and 15 chief executives. But more unusual, Budinger also visited 25 classrooms. He didn’t like what he saw and politely puts it this way: "I saw a level of involvement and excitement that was lower than what I remember when I went to school in Illinois."

It made him begin dreaming all over again.

"Everything that affects this state is addressed by, solved by and improved by our education system," said Budinger, a graduate of the University of Arizona. He also noted "a disturbing trend" for schools in wealthier neighborhoods to have better test scores than poor schools. Then he found the exception: west Phoenix’s poor but high-achieving Alhambra Elementary District.

There, he also found Superintendent Carol Peck and put her in charge of making his own dream a reality. Peck, who retired this year, now heads up one of Budinger’s philanthropic creations: the Rodel Charitable Foundation of Arizona. She is a woman used to big dreamers and the skeptics they battle.

Cajoling community

Peck was surrounded by them 16 years ago, when she announced that she was about to turn around her district. Not only did the students improve their test scores, Peck cajoled the entire community into helping.

Doctors gave her kids free care, business people and foundations helped fund all-day kindergartens and establish a college fund for her kids. Peck ended up in the Oval Office honored as National Superintendent of the Year.

It’s those partnerships that impressed Budinger, a true believer that business must take responsibility and make a difference in schools.

He already has spread around $5 million to partnerships that encourage it, such as the Arizona Partnership for Business and Education and the Arizona Town Hall.

Some is now going directly to the classroom.

Test score rise

Peck’s hard at work piloting an at-home math club in five districts, a program that helped raise test scores and parent interest at Alhambra.

"We’re not your typical grant-giving organization," Peck said. "We are fielding our own projects and supplying people we think are going to make the biggest difference, the biggest changes to education. Those that will directly affect student achievement."

It’s not a short-term movement: She faces an 18-year deadline to invest in projects that will make a lifetime of difference for children.

She also is overseeing the state’s 38 Rodel Community Scholars, such as Arizona State University business major Ambar Renova, who gets $3,000 a year and a chance to dive into those underenthusiastic, underperforming high school classrooms with a mission.

Giving back

For two years, Rodel Scholars have been working with high school students to research, develop and write a plan to cut the dropout rate. Then they coach the high-schoolers through their first early college-level courses, Renova said.

Meanwhile, the future business leaders learn that fulfilling someone else’s dream feels as good as fulfilling their own.

Renova said the kids she works with at Phoenix’s Camelback High School don’t come from families where people go to college.

"When they see someone like me, with the same background and the same dreams, making it, attending college and being successful at it," Renova said, "it makes them think they can do it. too."

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