The History Behind ResponsiveEd

“I wish someone had taught me this earlier in my life,” the homeless man said to the young teacher he had befriended. “It would have made all the difference.” A lack of basic education had left the man with few opportunities and a life of hardship.

Chuck Cook, who today is the CEO of ResponsiveEd, was the young teacher who heard this haunting admission from his homeless friend. The encounter changed his life. Chuck and his wife spent five years in inner city Los Angeles developing a learning center that would eventually become the largest privately funded, inner-city adult education program in the United States.

The program in Los Angeles was successful but Chuck realized that a more effective solution to the problem he was seeing was to stop the issue long before it created adults with marginal lives. The solution was to address the drop out problem with younger students. Chuck returned to his home state of Texas armed with a passion to address the high school drop out problem and ResponsiveEd was born.

As a non-profit organization with 32 tuition-free charter schools in Texas, today ResponsiveEd, is working on both sides of the education problem – helping students succeed early so they are never tempted to drop out and helping kids who have dropped out recover the opportunities a good education provides. ResponsiveEd is currently serving over 4,000 Texas students.