Characteristic Collaborative Processes in School-University Partnerships.

Abstract

This article presents findings from multiple years of evaluation of STEM-focused school-university partnerships. In addition to developing the three empirically grounded models of structural partnership configurations for project effectiveness, the CSEP team used these models to examine partnership projects for their characteristic collaborative implementation processes. This essay specifically applies questions that deal with project viability and sustainability—across the full range of Illinois ITQ projects—revealing which collaborative structures and processes make the projects sustainable and which do not. In this single-themed issue of Planning and Changing, evaluators from the Center for the Study of Education Policy (CSEP) at Illinois State University share an overview of Improving Teacher Quality school-university partnerships. Our evaluation of this program is funded by the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE). Partnerships between schools and universities are a cornerstone of recent federal and state policy for teacher professional learning and development aimed at increasing student achievement (Illinois Board of Higher Education, 2003, 2010). We use the term school to stand for both schools and school districts and the term university to stand for higher education partners after the use of these terms in the IBHE policy documents. Since 2004, we evaluated and provided technical evaluation assistance to 47 distinct grant-funded projects funded under the Improving Teacher Quality (ITQ) state grant program. The bulk of these projects address P–12 teacher professional learning in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) because of STEM education’s significance to Illinois’ future prosperity and as one piece of an effort to create a more coherent P–20 education system, The Illinois Public Agenda for College and Career Success (IBHE, 2008). This is an exploratory article for sharing our observations of patterns and themes of collaborative partnership processes. As statewide evaluators, we have found that the ITQ partnerships have commonalities beyond shared policy features that illuminate the nature of collaborative partnerships. This article provides an initial answer to one of four research questions: How do collaborative implementation processes, past, present, and emerging, assure achievement of ITQ’s educational goals? We offer our best thinking to date on the collaborative implementation processes in light of our understanding of partnership structures and evaluation capacity (Baker, 2011; Gardner, 2011; Haeffele, Hood, & Feldmann, 2011). The idea of forming a partnership to accomplish goals and garner support has great appeal. But partnerships are seldom easy, and once