The Need for Partnerships in the '90s
By Manuel N. GómezThe 1980s could easily be characterized as a decade of reports critical of American educatioboth K-12 and higher education. The 1990s may well be characterized as a decade of restructuring American educationwith the emergence of school-university partnership efforts as a driving force.
Over the last ten years I have been working with a partnership effort named Project STEP. This work encompasses a broad range of activities focused on student academic support, curricular and professional development, and parental participation. It is guided by four major principles that have emerged from our joint experience:
The conviction that collaboration involving each sector in the entire educational continuum, and including faculty, staff, and parents, can advance more effective learning;
The belief that a comprehensive scope of activities, involving teachers directly, and engaging them in discipline based dialogues across the curricular spectrum holds significant promise for school-based reform;
The certainty that higher education should cooperate with secondary schools for a reciprocal sharing of a variety of resources to improve teaching and learning;
The belief that sustaining our collaboration is fostered through the development of a formal administrative organization structure that includes the participation of chief executive officers.
Linkages Offer a National Strategy
Those of us involved in the building of partnership programs are convinced more than ever that linkages between K-12 and higher education, as well as with the business and corporate community, offer the nation a viable strategy for implementing on a broad scale substantial reforms in American education. Such partnerships have a particular significance for serving the educational aspirations of underrepresented minorities.In California for example, a larger and more diverse pool of high school seniors are now eligible for admission to the University of California than several years ago. This is, in part, due to collaborative reform efforts between K-12 schools and higher education.
Effective Relationships = Effective Education
In many ways, the partnership movement reflects a basic understanding that effective relationships equate to effective education for all students. It takes a good relationship between a teacher and studenta relationship that is informed by the best available knowledge about learning and teachingto have authentic learning taking place. Effective relationships between teachers and administrators, between schools and parents, and between schools, colleges, and universities, thus equate to effective education.Collaboration provides the opportunity for K-12 educators to assume the leadership in partnerships with university and college relationships in forming their own schools. Partnership programs address, on a continuing basis, the institutional as well as the individual teacher's insularity or isolationoffering mediating structures that allow for the upgrading of the education profession at all levels.