Former city schools Superintendent Manuel Rivera has brought his company, Global Partnership Schools, to Rochester. Rivera, chair and CEO, opened a GPS office at 300 State Street in May. | The company supplements public schools in urban settings with after-school programs and tutoring in math, reading, and writing. GPS also helps students who have dropped out or are at risk of dropping out of school to obtain their high school diplomas. | Rivera was named the national schools superintendent of the year in 2005. He left the City School District in 2006 to join former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's administration as deputy secretary of education. | Rivera was instrumental in the development of the Rochester Children's Zone, which was closely modeled after the Harlem Children's Zone. The community wraparound program was intended to provide a multitude of services - education, health care, and career development - to an entire community of children and their families. The anti-poverty program floundered without Rivera's stewardship. | But Rivera has his detractors, too. Graduation rates slipped under his watch, and he became entangled in a protracted battle with Rochester's African-American clergy over job-discrimination complaints from former district employees.