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

Introduction

Over the last several years, educational partnerships have proliferated across the country. Some have become vehicles for fundamental education reform. Others have delivered services to students and faculty to improve education or student outcomes, whether or not schools are attempting systemic changes. Partners undertaking joint endeavors with schools also vary greatly. Partnership relationships are built among schools and social service agencies, cultural institutions, businesses, industries, and institutions of higher education.

At the same time, the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) of the U.S. Department of Education joined efforts to encourage educational partnerships. From 1989 to 1994, OERI provided funding to educational partnerships that have a variety of educational improvement goals in public elementary and secondary schools. OERI also funded the Southwest Regional Laboratory (SWRL) and the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) to document and evaluate the Educational Partnerships Program (EPP). Our goal was to determine the impact of the funded partnerships, both on educational organizations and the community, and to find the processes and structures associated with positive impacts.

Successful partnerships are characterized by an exchange of ideas, knowledge, and resources. Partners form a mutually rewarding relationship to improve some aspect of education, and the relationship must be based on the identification and acceptance of compatible goals and strategies. In addition, the partners should respect the differences in each other's culture and style, striving to apply the best of both worlds to achieve established goals (OERI, 1993).

After studying the EPP, we identified information we believe will be helpful to others. A previous publication, A Guide to Developing Educational Partnerships¹, gives partnership developers a good start in their work. This publication, for partnership developers and partnership participants, provides examples of successful practices in a variety of partnership activities. The goal of this document is to share promising practices from partnerships so that other organizations planning to develop or expand partnerships can learn from these experiences. We include only those practices we observed fulfilling their promise at a particular site. Although there were 29 educational partnerships in the EPP, we present practices from 13. The practices described in this guide are taken from partnerships we visited and documented.

All types of partnerships and partnership goals are represented, except partnerships aimed at systemic reform. This document provides general guidance and information that will help others wanting to implement similar practices. Because partners that are designed to bring about systemic changes are deeply rooted in a local or state context, their activities are not easily replicated by others. Consequently, they were not included in this document.

However, a third document, Educational Partnerships Case Studies ², includes partnerships with goals related to system changes.

An examination of case studies reveals the problems and successes typical of educational partnerships. From the studies we learn that:

• Outside funding stimulates action;
• Each participating organization is challenged to change policies and procedures to accommodate a new way of working with others;
• Partnership approaches require adaptation to fit each community, school district, and school;
• Organizational mavericks may be a source of creative and meaningful programs, but they need support to strengthen and improve the program;
• A shared vision and deep commitment among partners can overcome weaknesses in program design and implementation;
• Even with confusion about how the partnership structure relates to the program, the partnership itself can be institutionalized;
• Leadership is critical in a complex partnership;
• Leaders who reflect commitment to particular programs and processes may be more successful than leaders who see themselves as facilitators;
• Identifying and solving problems, using adaptive planning, contributes to success;
• Skilled and committed staff empowered to carry out partnership plans are an important element in project success;
• A complex partnership can be strengthened by breaking it down into components;
• University students are a valuable resource for classroom teachers, even if the students are not preservice teachers;
• Highly stressed large urban school districts pose extreme challenges to university-based partnerships;
• When partnerships do not receive feedback regularly, their importance may dwindle;
• Educational partnerships can be used to leverage additional funding for activities deemed important by the community; and
• Educational partnerships can be used to garner support for school reform in a community.

Many of the practices described in these pages are relevant to a variety of partnership types. The preponderance of school-to-work transition activities included as promising practices indicates both the popularity of partnerships aimed at smoothing such transitions and that practices focused on the transition were among the most likely to succeed within three years of implementation. Partnerships can include efforts to change roles and types of knowledge required of participants, but implementation is slower and requires greater resources to help those undertaking tasks fundamentally different from the familiar. Timelines and expectations in many of the more ambitious reform projects were outside the timeline of this study. However, over the long run, partnerships that aim to change various parts of a system simultaneously can contribute to sustained education reform.

The promising practices presented in this guide are of two types: practices that support partnership-building and practices that represent partnership activities. Building and sustaining partnership relationships involve a set of tasks that vary with the goals and types of partners involved. Some key elements in those processes, however, are not tied to specific goals. For example, in Part I we have provided models of successful practices for such key elements as needs assessment, staffing, and recruiting partners and volunteers. In Part II, we have provided models of successful partnership activities. Staff development, student support services, school-to-work transition activities, and community involvement are examples.

In each case, the practice is described in terms that allow others to adapt it to their settings. The descriptions include information about a contact person at the originating site and relevant materials, if available. In addition, the description includes reasons the practice was important to the partnership and any special circumstances that adopters should be aware of in attempting to implement the practice. Partnership developers and administrators should modify the practices to suit their own particular contexts. Partnerships presented in this guide are as follows: Part I, Conducting Needs Assessments (Section I); Project Staffing (Section II); Initiating Activities (Section III); and Part II, Staff Development (Section I); Student Support Services (Section II); School-to-Work Transition (Section III); and Community Involvement (Section IV). Finally, Section V includes a profile of one promising partnership that encompassed many of the promising practices.

Conducting a needs assessment prior to project development provides a means of establishing consensus around project needs and consequent goals. Conducting Needs Assessments (Part I, Section I) describes three needs assessments (educational, community, and participant-based) that successfully generated common expectations and goals among project participants.

Strategic staffing involves both political and practical aspects. Project Staffing (Part I, Section II) describes these issues in the context of collaborative hiring and volunteer recruitment. In each case, clear role definition underlies the practice, yet is insufficient for determining success without consideration of political and practical aspects.

Initiating Activities (Part I, Section III) provides examples of three successful recruitment and training activities. In all three cases, recruitment efforts built, in part, on the strength of already established relationships with a few key partners. Initial relationships may help identify contacts directly in other organizations or may provide avenues for outreach activities. Further, participant commitment leverages interest and potential commitment from newer participants.

Staff development can help build the partnership organization, as well as aid in program implementation and institutionalization. Staff Development (Part II, Section I) describes three projects' use of staff development to: train across agencies to facilitate problem solving, train tutors and teachers to improve classroom learning, and establish a school-based professional development program to enhance systemic reform.

Although all partnerships identified a population of youth to serve, in particular partnerships such as the two programs described in Student Support Services (Part II, Section II), the target group was central to the effort. In other words, the target group--whether consisting of dropouts, non-college bound students, students at risk for failure, or gifted students--was the primary focus, rather than the type of reform or experience to be provided. School-to-Work Transition (Part II, Section III) descriptions provide examples of five successfully implemented school-to-work activities for both middle and high school students. Career-related awareness, skills, experience, and educational paths are illustrated.

Partnerships, by definition, depend on some form of community involvement. Community Involvement (Part II, Section IV) describes two of the more unusual means of involving community members, parents, and others in partnership endeavors.

Portrait of a Promising Partnership (Part II Section V) provides an overview of one promising partnership. The partnership successfully institutionalized all activities and relationships, and is included because it was developed with an eye to providing a model for replication. Staff, therefore, are able to disseminate handbooks, materials, and curricula related to various project activities. They also have experience in providing workshops and in-services related to many of the project efforts, and have experience with a broad array of pertinent staff development training.

²Tushnet, N. C., Bodinger-deUriate C., Ito, D., Manuel, D.M., & Clark, M. (1996). Educational Partnerships Case Studies. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement.

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[Acknowledgments]

[PartI: Section I: Conducting Needs Assesments]