A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Congress enacted the Educational Partnerships Act in 1988 (Title VI, Subtitle A, Chapter 5 of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988, Public Law 100-418). The Educational Partnerships Program (EPP) stimulated the creation of educational partnerships to demonstrate their contribution to educational reform. The EPP was administered by the Educational Networks Division, Programs for the Improvement of Practice, Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI). The authorizing legislation required documenting the partnerships that received assistance, assessing their impact on educational institutions, evaluating the extent to which they improved their communities' climate for support of education, and identifying promising activities.

The Southwest Regional Laboratory (SWRL), assisted by the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL), conducted the documentation and evaluation study. Three technical reports have been produced from the study, as well as a Guide to Developing Educational Partnerships and A Guide to Promising Practices in Educational Partnerships. This document is a sixth product resulting from the study. It includes case studies of five partnerships funded by OERI. The case studies are designed to provide rich descriptions of educational partnerships. They illustrate the problems and successes experienced by partnerships.

OERI provided funds to 30 educational partnerships, and this document contains case studies of only 5. Readers may well question how we selected the five. Selections were made because each of the case studies illustrates a particular focus for an educational partnership. For example, one case study is of a partnership whose main concern is providing health and social services through the schools; another is an innovative program that focuses on students who have dropped out of school; the third is concerned primarily with the transition from school to work; the fourth, with improving curriculum and instruction; and the fifth is an extremely complex partnership with multiple objectives and foci.

Not all of the case studies are of partnerships that were completely successful. Indeed, even the most successful experienced major problems. In addition to selecting partnerships that represent fairly typical content of educational partnerships, we chose examples that either illustrate the types of problems and successes that partnerships experience or raise basic questions about educational partnerships. In contrast to the technical reports, which provide general conclusions about the needed ingredients for successful educational partnerships, the case studies are designed to give readers a sense of the life of a partnership.

The case studies were derived from two major sources of information. First, project-generated documents, including reports, local evaluations, and products, served as a major information source. Second, each project was visited annually by two people for at least two days. The on-site visits involved observations of partnership events as well as interviews with key participants and recipients of client services. These sources, then, were used to develop pictures of the partnerships as they developed over time. The same sources were used for cross-site analyses, which allowed us to develop the generalizations included in the technical reports.

Each of the projects included in the case studies is disguised. Although some who set out to "crack the case" may be able to identify the specific partnerships that are included, in general, we have tried to mask the communities and participants. For most of the projects, this has been an easy task. After all, many of the OERI-funded partnerships included universities, a variety of businesses, and social service agencies. However, in some instances, it has been necessary to change the description of a particular partner in order to disguise the project. When we did so, we were true to the nature of the relationships and interactions.

Disguising the sites for the case studies has two purposes. First, while on site, we promised those we interviewed that they would be anonymous. This increased the candor with which they spoke to us. In the technical reports that were derived from the cross-site analyses, anonymity easily could be preserved, but in the case studies, it will be easier for those who know the site to identify particular informants. Second, although we believe that evaluators are obliged to present both positive and negative information, we also know that individuals can be harmed by such presentation. Consequently, we have chosen to mask the sites and individuals to decrease the opportunity for such harm.

All the case studies are organized similarly. They begin with a general introduction that includes information about why the particular EPP project was selected for inclusion in the case studies as well as highlights of the important findings from the case. Findings include what can be learned from the case as well as new questions raised by it. The introduction also contains a brief description of the partnership, including the activities it sponsored. The studies then move to a description of the context in which the partnership developed, including a general description of the locale and more specific descriptions of relationships among participating organizations prior to the receipt of OERI funding. The third section in each case study presents information about the initiation of the partnership. As the technical reports indicate, actions at the time of partnership initiation had a lasting influence on partnership development. Fourth, we present information about implementation, both of the partnership structure and the activities it sponsors. The implementation section also notes any changes in the partnership or its activities that occurred over time. Fifth, we note the impact of the partnership. The sixth section includes information about the extent to which partnership structures and activities were institutionalized. Each case study concludes with a brief discussion of the important findings related to partnerships illustrated by the case and the further issues the case raises.

Although all case studies are organized similarly, there are differences across cases in how the issues are addressed. For example, the presentation of changes that occurred during the implementation of the partnership varies based on the particular problems encountered by each partnership. All case studies include information about how partnership structure and activities changed (or remained the same) over time, but there has been no attempt to ensure that all cases address the same issues. For example, in a partnership that was implemented in several school sites, issues that arose at the schools may be important, but such concerns may not have been raised in other partnerships. The cross-project analyses included in the technical reports are based on comparisons of partnership problems and solutions. Case studies, in contrast, allow the unique qualities of a partnership to show.

-###-

[Acknowledgments]

[Integrated Services Partnership Part A]

This page was last updated January 8, 2002 (jca)