INSTRUCTIONAL PARTNERSHIPS TO EXTEND LEARNING IN URBAN HIGH SCHOOLS Lessons from New York City and Boston Eileen M. Foley Sara Allender North Cooc Sara Edwards Derek R. Riley Elizabeth R. Reisner Policy Studies Associates, Inc. January 2009 Prepared for: New Visions for Public Schools New York, New York With support from: The C.S. Mott Foundation Executive Summary Late in 2007 New Visions for Public Schools, a New York City reform organization, received a grant from the C.S. Mott Foundation to organize select high schools and community partners into delivery systems that could improve student achievement. New Visions asked Policy Studies Associates, Inc. to provide research support for this effort in the form of a concise, field-tested conceptual framework for inter-organizational instructional collaboration. The resulting model is presented in Chapter 3 of this report. In developing the model, PSA researchers reviewed pertinent literature and conducted field work in four New York City high schools and in two Boston high schools. The professional literature features compelling arguments in favor of partnerships between schools and external organizations. The consensus view is that to be economically competitive young people need to be able to solve problems in socially and technically complex environments. Schools are urged, therefore, to embed in teachers’ ordinary practice opportunities for joint work with colleagues in applied settings. The snapshots below highlight extended-learning opportunities operating in the schools PSA researchers visited in New York City and Boston. ■ Admissions officers at the University of Vermont (UVM) reviewed practice college applications and essays completed by students in ninth-grade English classes. UVM personnel evaluated students’ work, provided feedback, and ultimately select 12 promising, albeit not previously college-bound, youngsters to spend a few days on campus, living in the dorms, talking with students and professors, and taking classes. Jet Blue Airlines covered transportation costs. ■ In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, a Young Audience photographer and history teacher organized a school trip to New Orleans. Students were given cameras and asked to think critically about the images they captured and to relate those images to the themes they were studying in class. ■ At the end of a Facing History course on genocide, 23 seniors traveled to Europe for a 13-day visit to Holocaust sites. Preparation for the trip included year-long study of European history and fundraising to cover travel costs. The professional literature leaves no doubt that inter-organizational collaboration is difficult. Referenced challenges include clarifying organizational purposes, establishing governance structures, facilitating communication, developing staff, evaluating results, and raising funds. Study respondents shared concerns about the foregoing; their attention was focused on clarifying purposes, obtaining funding, and managing and developing human resources across organizations. Respondents suggested assessment activities, work with intermediary organizations, and attention to project management as ways of addressing the challenges of joint work. Framed as Policy Studies Associates, Inc. i steps, their recommendations included the following: (a) pre-screen prospective partners to determine whether institutional values and capacities are aligned; (b) charge specific individuals within collaborating organizations with responsibility for managing program operations; and (c) bring teachers and program staff together to design activities that would effectively reinforce classroom lessons. Some partnerships dealt with the need for funding and logistical assistance by connecting their efforts with that of experienced third-party organizations offering financial and technical support. Policy Studies Associates, Inc. ii Acknowledgements Many individuals contributed to this report. New Visions for Public Schools sponsored this research with funding from the C.S. Mott Foundation. We are grateful to Beverly Donohue, New Visions for Public Schools Vice-President for Policy and Research, and to Barbara Taveras, New Visions for Public Schools Director of Community Engagement, for inviting our participation in their efforts to improve the quality of instructional collaboration in New York City schools. We are grateful to An-Me Chung, New Visions’ program officer at the Mott Foundation, for her support of this research. PSA obtained permission to conduct this study from the Institutional Review Boards of the New York City Department of Education and the Boston Public Schools and from the principals of case study schools. Our agreements with the Boston and New York City school systems require that participating schools and school respondents remain anonymous. We’d like to acknowledge our indebtedness to the generous principals, teachers, and students whose work made this research both possible and rewarding. The school-linked partnerships described in this report took place with the cooperation and support of two intermediary organizations (Boston Private Industry Council, College for Every Student), two universities (University of Massachusetts, University of Vermont), one college (Vassar College), three cultural institutions (El Museo del Barrio, Roundabout Theater, Vivo Flamenco Carlota Santana), and several school service providers (Facing History and Ourselves, Global Kids, Road to Success, Safe Horizons, Young Audiences). We appreciate the opportunity these organizations gave us to see their work and to learn about their collaborations with Boston and New York City schools. Within Policy Studies Associates, Inc. the project was carried out by a team led by Elizabeth Reisner. Eileen Foley framed the investigation, managed data analysis, and wrote the report. Sara Allender, North Cooc, Sara Edwards, and Derek Riley conducted field work and related data analysis. Derek Riley and North Cooc contributed to Chapter 3 of the report. Initial treatments of the case studies of New Transitions High School and City Tech Institute were prepared by Derek Riley. Initial treatments of the case studies of the Academy for Human Rights and the High School for Arts’ Industries were prepared by North Cooc. And initial treatments of the case study of the Math and Science Preparatory Academy was prepared by Sara Edwards. Policy Studies Associates, Inc. Glossary of Terms This page defines terms used in this report to describe school partnerships and the external organizations that participate in and enable such work. Capacity-building organizations. Capacity-building organizations help schools and other nonprofit clients build high-performance organizations, rather than just strong programs or individual professionals. The work of capacity building includes setting aspirations and strategy, institutionalizing sound management processes, and improving systems to work at scale. Collaboration. In this process, individuals or groups come together to identify common interests and to seek solutions that reach beyond what any one of them could accomplish independently. Collaborations may be intra-organizational or inter-organizational. They may be formal and contractual, but often they are not. External partner. An external partner is an individual or entity that collaborates with a public school on a project and is willing to make the relationship official in a formal service plan. Intermediary organizations. These are groups that broker relationships between independent parties and provide a distinct value beyond what the parties could have achieved independently. Partnership. As used here, a partnership is a voluntary arrangement entered into by schools and other organizations wherein the parties contribute funds, property, staff, and other items of value for the purpose of accomplishing mutually agreed upon objectives. Third-party actors. See intermediary organizations. Policy Studies Associates, Inc. Contents Page Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................i 1. Introduction.................................................................................................................................1 Policy Context.....................................................................................................................1 Important Concepts and Related Research.........................................................................2 Methods...............................................................................................................................3 2. Findings.......................................................................................................................................4 Case Descriptions................................................................................................................4 What Works........................................................................................................................9 3. Conclusions...............................................................................................................................17 Recommendations.............................................................................................................18 Limitations........................................................................................................................18 References.....................................................................................................................................19 Appendix A: Literature Review.................................................................................................A-1 Appendix B: Methods................................................................................................................B-1 Exhibits Exhibit 1: Collaborators Face Multiple Challenges......................................................................10 Exhibit 2: Assessment Facilitates Partnership Activities..............................................................13 Exhibit 3: Intermediary Organizations Facilitate Partnerships.....................................................14 Exhibit 4: Strong Leadership and Management Facilitate Partnerships.......................................16 Exhibit 5: Model Describing How Partnerships Help in Learning (PHIL)..................................17 Policy Studies Associates, Inc. I. Introduction Policy Context How can America ensure that all of its children have opportunities to reach their full potential in a competitive world where thinking skills are among the most important assets of society? In its 2007 report, A New Day for Learning, the C.S. Mott Foundation addressed that question. It responded with a model of education that places schools at the center of systems in which separate organizations, aligned around shared understandings of college and career readiness, work seamlessly to provide professionals and students with diverse ways of learning throughout an enriched and expanded day. New Visions for Public School, founded in 1989, shares the Mott Foundation’s view of education reform as premised on collaboration between public and private institutions. New Visions works to bring educators, families, cultural and service organizations, and civic leaders together to help New York City children achieve their fullest potential through innovative and collaborative educational programming. Between September 2001 and September 2008, with the New York City Department of Education, United Federation of Teachers, Council of Supervisors and Administrators, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Open Society Institute, New Visions for Public Schools opened 88 small secondary schools in New York City. A distinguishing feature of the New Century High Schools Initiative (NCHSI), was the role that inter-organizational partners played in creating the schools. New Visions encouraged “lead organizations” to share responsibility for student learning with school personnel. Lead organizations often had a prime role in framing schools’ institutional directions and in identifying principals. The partnership strategy was challenging to implement. According to a 2007 evaluation by Policy Studies Associates (PSA), about one-third of partnerships fizzled; about one-third produced programming that was valued but not well integrated with school life, and about one- third influenced teaching and learning in ways participants viewed as fundamental. Late in 2007, New Visions for Public Schools received a grant from the C.S. Mott Foundation to develop a select number of its successful school partnerships into delivery systems that could improve student achievement in important ways. New Visions asked Policy Studies Associates, Inc. to provide research support for this effort in the form of a concise, field-tested conceptual framework illuminating how partnerships that improve learning tend to operate. In conducting this work, PSA researchers reviewed the professional literature and interviewed partners and pedagogues participating in joint work in four New York City high schools and in two Boston high schools. The literature review aimed to define key terms and concepts, to illuminate the role instructional partnerships can play in learning, and to identify factors that enable and hinder such work. The field work was designed to test, contextualize, and elaborate lessons extracted from the literature. Policy Studies Associates, Inc. 1 This report presents research results in three chapters. Chapter 1 introduces concepts and methods. Chapter 2 presents case studies of successful partnerships and summarizes practitioners’ views about what does and does not work. Chapter 3 discusses study conclusions and implications. There are two appendixes; the first presents the literature in detail, and the second presents the methodological details of this investigation. Important Concepts and Related Research The literature describes four stages in partnership: connection, cooperation, coordination, and collaboration. The last or most developed stage (collaboration) refers to sustained work by two or more parties to achieve shared long-term goals (Florian, 1999). Collaborative partnerships are the subject of this study. In examining the empirical literature, we first focused on identifying the relationship between inter-organizational collaboration and student achievement. The methodological literature on inter-organizational collaboration was “thin” to adopt Knapp’s term (1995). Epstein (1996) called the evaluation of school-linked collaborations “an emerging field of study,” and Chavkin (1998) concluded “…we do not yet have a strong research base supporting school partnerships.” PSA researchers found, however, strong agreement in the advice literature about the knowledge and skills needed for success in today’s world and about the ways schools could become more effective in achieving important youth outcomes through collaboration. Furthermore, it was clear that that program models embraced by the C.S. Mott Foundation and New Visions for Public Schools were aligned with that literature. The consensus view is that, in addition to mastering the traditional curriculum, young people need to be able to solve real world problems in socially and technically complex environments to be economically competitive (Conley, 2007; Deke & Haimson, 2006; Murnane & Levy, 1996; Rothstein, Jacobsen, & Wilder; 2008; The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2007). Toward that end, teachers are encouraged to demand critical thinking, disciplined inquiry, team work, and skillful applications of knowledge. Administrators are urged, in turn, to embed in teachers’ ordinary practice opportunities for reflection and for joint work with colleagues, including colleagues in applied external settings who can provide students with “authentic” work (Dufour, 2003; Hargreaves, 2003; Louis & Kruse, 1995; McCombs, 2003a; McCombs, 2003b; McCombs & Whisler, 1997; McLaughlin & Talbert, 2001; Newmann & Wehlage, 1995; Rosenholtz, 1991; Warren-Little, 1982). The literature is replete with evidence of the demands as well as the benefits of collaboration (Atkinson, Springate, Johnson, & Halsey, 2007; Briggs, 2001; Corcoran & Lawrence, 2003; Council of Chief State Officers, 1998; Foley, 2002; Hirota, 2005; Lee-Bayha & Harrison, 2002). Challenges associated with inter-organizational collaboration feature six: (a) clarifying shared organizational purposes; (b) establishing governance structures; (c) facilitating Policy Studies Associates, Inc. 2