Child Geniuses Find A Home

Billionaire Philanthropists Fund Institute To Advance Young Minds

(CBS) 
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?"