The CEO program, under the leadership of Fritz Steiger, has now expanded to over 41 cities in the U.S. serving over 13,000 children. Sadly, over 44,000 are on a waiting list to be able to escape their troubled schools. Over the years, increasing numbers of Texas legislators have embraced the need for school choice. Every legislative session since TPPF was formed, the Texas Legislature has considered school choice. Each year, TPPF research advances the debate and each year the vote is closer and closer.
Victory is close at hand.
TPPF's research on the impact of choice has given elected officials sound data showing that effective school choice programs can improve our public schools. In response, the Legislature passed a sweeping charter school law that allowed for 100 new schools to be approved and an unlimited number of schools to be approved if they served predominantly at-risk children. Putting this new policy into action, TPPF Vice President Melinda Wheatley was instrumental in forming the New Frontiers Charter School in San Antonio. Founded in 1998, the school serves 515 children on the city's poor south side of town. Academic rigor and heightened safety are most frequently cited as reasons why parents have chosen the school.