Bush Intends to ‘Put the Arm’ on Business for Aid to Schools
President Bush said Monday that he intends “to put the arm” on businesses to finance a campaign for improving the nation’s public schools.
At a sweltering Rose Garden ceremony, he also introduced the board of directors to run the New American Schools Development Corp., which will spearhead a $150-million to $200-million fund-raising drive. Bush said businesses already have pledged $30 million.
“We don’t want gold-plated schools. We just want those results to be gold-plated,” he said.
The school improvement campaign, called America 2000, was announced in April. The private, nonprofit schools development corporation formed to run the program will fund school research-and-development teams.
Former New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean, president of Drew University, is the board chairman, and W. Frank Blount, president of AT&T;’s Communications Products Group, is president.
Named vice chairmen of the board were Louis Gerstner Jr., chairman of RJR Nabisco Inc.; James K. Baker, chairman of Arvin Industries Inc., and Frank Shrontz, chairman of the Boeing Co.
Other board members include National Football League Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, Black Enterprise magazine publisher Earl Graves, Eastman Kodak President Kay Whitmore, Honeywell Inc. Chairman James Renier, Exxon Corp. President Lee R. Raymond and B.F. Goodrich Co. Chairman John Ong.
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