The Austin CEO Foundation - Champion Web TV




		The purpose of the Austin CEO Foundation is to equalize educational opportunities for Austin students by offering low income families elementary school options normally denied them because of cost. The Austin CEO Foundation believes all children deserve a great education regardless of ability to pay. In the summer of 1991, after an educational choice bill failed in the Indiana state legislature, J. Patrick Rooney, Chairman of the Golden Rule Insurance Company of Indianapolis, developed an idea for a privately funded educational choice experiment. Two weeks later, and in time for the fall semester, he announced the formation of the CHOICE Charitable Trust which attracted the immediate attention of both the educational and at-large community. Three weeks after the Indianapolis announcement Dr. James Leininger of San Antonio, a man who, like Pat Rooney, is intensely interested in educational issues, read an editorial about the CHOICE Trust in the Wall Street Journal. Through the Texas Public Policy Foundation, for which Dr. Leininger serves as Chairman, and with two other corporate "founding partners" the same basic educational choice program was announced for San Antonio for the fall 1992 semester. It's name: The Children's Educational Opportunity (CEO) Foundation. On June 11, 1992, within sixty days of San Antonio's announcement, Milwaukee, Wisconsin became the third city to join this highly unique movement by unveiling the Partnership for Educational Choice by Partners Advancing Values in Education (PAVE). Exactly two months after Milwaukee entered the choice movement, Atlanta announced its program entitled Children's Educational Foundation. Like San Antonio, the Atlanta program's beginnings were as an initiative of a public think tank--the Georgia Public Policy Foundation. In 1992 officials from the San Antonio CEO Foundation invited J. Patrick Rooney to Dallas to describe these new privately funded school choice programs and challenge a business leader to start a new program in Dallas. Dr. Robert Schoolfield, a businessman from Austin who attended that meeting, was so inspired by Mr. Rooney's idea that he took the challenge to start a new program in Austin. In November 1992, Dr. Schoolfield invited Mr. Rooney to give his promotional speech to the business community in Austin. As a result two local businessmen came forward to join Dr. Schoolfield in starting a program in Austin. Those gentlemen, along with Dr. Robert Schoolfield, would comprise the Board of Directors of the Austin CEO Foundation, which provided scholarships to over 40 children for the 1993-94 school year. The gentlemen were James Mansour, president and owner of National Telecommunications; and Joe Christie, president and owner of Christie Gas Corporation. On April 6,1993 the Austin CEO Foundation opened its doors and started accepting applications from low income families, thus becoming the fifth privately funded school choice program in the nation.

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