Mark Zuckerberg waxed philanthropic in a Facebook post Thursday, talking about his and wife Priscilla Chan s efforts in education, science, health and communities. His post about their goals and what they ve done so far has garnered 92,000 likes and thousands of shares — and inspired some of the thousands of commenters to say the Facebook CEO should run for president.
The couple s focus on education is well-known. Last month, my colleague Sharon Noguchi wrote about the plan by Chan, who s a doctor, to build The Primary School, which will target the disadvantaged residents of East Palo Alto and eastern Menlo Park. (Facebook s headquarters is in Menlo Park.) There s also Zuckerberg s famous $100 million donation to Newark, New Jersey schools, which some have criticized as ineffective but which Zuckerberg said in his post is creating real results. Last year, the couple also pledged to donate $120 million to Bay Area schools in low-income communities.
But wait, there s more, according to Zuckerberg s post: Next week, we ll share more news about another education investment we re making in infrastructure to empower students and teachers to do personalized learning.
Zuckerberg also said: Soon we re going to be parents, and we care deeply about doing everything we can so all children — not just ours — can grow up and achieve their full potential. Zuckerberg and Chan announced in July that they re expecting their first child.
The couple s education work comes amid other Silicon Valley efforts on education. Last week, Oracle announced it is building a charter high school at its Redwood City headquarters. Design Tech, which is currently in Burlingame, will reach out to minorities and girls, two underserved groups in science and technology, Pete Carey reported. And in September, Laurene Powell launched XQ: The Super School Project. As I wrote, the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs has committed $50 million to build new schools, based on the public s ideas, over the next five to 10 years.
Photo: Priscilla Chan, left, and husband Mark Zuckerberg. (Kimberly White/Getty Images)
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