| A Snapshot of the Education Partnership |
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The program works due to a unique partnership that unites students, schools, local colleges and universities and business, civic and government leaders.
Since 1989, the Education Partnership has invested more than $14 million in scholarships and produced more than 2,900 college graduates and over 3,700 degrees. It supports more than 3,000 current college students.
Through the promise of a scholarship, the San Antonio Education Partnership makes college possible for students who take personal responsibility for their own future.
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| The Foundation |
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The San Antonio Education Partnership was established in 1988 to address several areas of concern. Founders were primarily concerned with the inadequate school completion and performance rates by students from the lower socioeconomic and predominantly minority areas of the City. This dismal picture of achievement was linked to a second concern regarding the future local workforce. As a city with approximately a 60% minority population, a poorly educated workforce would severely limit the City's future economic prospects.
 The "how" to address this problem raised a third issue. Partnership founders wanted to pursue a collaborative approach to address local problems. City leaders were completing a successful experience with Target-90-Goals for San Antonio and they felt this model of partnership could be used to address these major educational challenges.
With the encouragement of Communities Organized for Public Services (COPS) and Metro Alliance, Mayor Henry Cisneros convened meetings involving representatives from these organizations, the City of San Antonio, school district superintendents, local college and university presidents, and business and corporate executives led by the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. The San Antonio Education Partnership emerged from these consultations with its purpose to increase academic performance levels, school completion rates, and college attendance by at-risk high school students.
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| The Board of Directors |
A fifteen-member Board of Directors serves as the chief policy-making body of the Education Partnership (click here to view). The Board represents each of the five major groups involved in the Partnership and meets monthly. Additional advice and counsel is provided by individual partner Councils and the Students Services Transition Team, comprised of high school and college and university staff. Two representatives from the Transition Team also serve ex officio as Board members.
The people involved in the Education Partnership over the years make up a list of "Who's Who" in San Antonio. Corporate leadership that began with Charlie Cheever, Chairman, Broadway National Bank, has continued strongly and included as Board Chairs Mike De La Garza, H-E-B; Rudy Reyna, SBC Communications Inc.; Ramiro Cavazos, Levi Strauss & Company; and, currently Peggy Walker, Bank of America. In addition to Dr. Henry Cisneros, former Mayor Nelson Wolff also assumed a major leadership role, as did Sister Elizabeth Anne Sueltenfuss, President-Emerita of Our Lady of the Lake University. |
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