A Guide to Building Education Partnerships

The authors of this book seek to answer the critical questions that potential education partners must ask themselves if they hope to succeed. Why engage in a partnership? How do you select the best organizational structure for a partnership? How can school and university leaders and teachers effectively develop and operate partnerships? How can you fruitfully address the challenges of designing cross-organizational structures and procedures, while simultaneously negotiating cultural dynamics and conflict? How do you communicate the potential benefits of partnership to motivate teachers, faculty, and administrators? Based on their research data and the literature, the authors identify the principles ' which form the core of this book ' that they consider critical to answering these questions. They do not minimize the differences and complexities inherent in partnership work, because they believe that doing so would be to present coherence and homogeneity where none exists. Instead, they seek to make evident how these principles underlie many different partnership situations. Thus, rather than presenting a package of best practices, or a cookie-cutter approach, this book presents the organizational principles for planning and implementing education partnerships, along with sets of strategies for working through them.