The Key to Each Individual’s Potential: Walter and Marcia Kortschak Commit to Unlocking Education’s Promise

Marcia Kortschak saw the turning point in her daughter’s education during her first parent night at Charles Armstrong School – an elementary and middle school for children with dyslexia in Belmont, California. After years of struggling to support Sarah in conventional school settings, she had finally found a community of educators who understood her daughter’s needs. The sense of relief was so powerful that when Marcia got back into her car, she broke into tears. 

Walter and Marcia Kortschak.

Sarah, like her mother, has dyslexia. But unlike her mother, who suffered the frustration and self-doubt of trying to get through the “one-size-fits-all” education system at a time when “learning differences” and “neurodiversity” weren’t yet part of our lexicon, Sarah found the support she needed while still in elementary school. After gaining the tools to advocate for herself, Sarah went on to the prestigious Palo Alto High School and then the University of Southern California. 

Today, Sarah and her family live in Kīlauea, where Walter and Marcia purchased a home in 2001. Together with their son, Andrew, the Kortschaks are the first family where all four adult members have made a significant gift to Namahana School. This generosity is inspired by their firsthand experience of how vital it is for education to prioritize a broad range of learners and the importance of having a choice in a middle and high school located directly in Kīlauea serving the local North Shore community.

“There are certain types of minds that do well with our industrialized education system,” says Marcia. “And that's fabulous – we need everybody to be educated in whatever way works. But Namahana is going to support kids in a very different way, embracing each student’s learning profile and incorporating their interests in ways that are meaningful to them. And that’s something we find really exciting.” 

After facing a system that often lacked the capacity to fully support their own children’s learning, Walter and Marcia committed to helping education become more inclusive through their philanthropy. When his children were students at USC, Walter helped them design a course schedule to coincide with the professors who could teach to a broader range of learning styles. Realizing that simple adjustments like faculty training or “college survival skills” like time and stress management could make the world of a difference, he and Marcia founded the Kortschak Center for Learning and Creativity at USC in 2010. 

“The Kortschak Center institutionalizes what a parent might do for their child by asking: How can we support these high-achieving students to become their best versions of themselves?” he explains. Through individual academic coaching, academic skill building, and psychoeducational assessments, the Kortschak Center now serves about 5,000 undergraduate students annually, or a quarter of the USC undergraduate population. 

The Kortschaks’ drive to support education also stems from a desire to equip the next generation with tools to solve the world’s most urgent problems. 

“For better or worse, we’re passing a lot of these serious challenges we face – whether they be environmental, economic, social, etc. – to the next generation,” says Walter. “So the question is: How do we prepare that generation in the very best way to address them?” At his alma mater, CalTech, Walter established a fellowship program in computer science, the Kortschak Scholars Program to fund graduate student research independent of external corporate funding that can dictate the priorities of computer science inquiry.

This is why Namahana’s emphasis on relevant, real-world problem-solving that improves communities both locally and globally is important to the Kortschaks. The family’s relationship with Kaua‘i’s North Shore includes their commitment to protecting the area’s natural and historic heritage through Jurassic Kahili Ranch, a legacy property they purchased in 2003. Over the past 25 years, they’ve witnessed the need for more accessible educational options that also strengthen the local community. “It’s really exciting to us that this will truly be a school for the community of Kaua‘i’s North Shore, which I think is going to be transformational for many families,” says Walter.

The turning point in Marcia’s education came in college, when she found an area of study – sociology and anthropology – that she was passionate about, together with a supportive advisor. “I was finally able to relax, and the learning came naturally,” she remembers. “We all have potential, even though that’s not always how it’s presented to us. And it could be someone in the USC program or someone from Namahana that comes up with a cure for cancer or a solution for climate change. It doesn't matter which end of the spectrum of minds they’re on, the key is unlocking their potential.”

Walter and Marcia Kortschak made a $250,000 gift to Namahana School in December, which can be renewed annually for four years for a total $1 million.