• Business-Education Partnerships

  • Criteria for "best practices"

    Business-Education-Partnerships.jpg

    Guiding Principles

    The Foundation - Developing the partnership's core values

    Partnerships must be built on shared values and philosophies

    Partnerships should:

    • Begin with an open and frank discussion about values, goals and needs.
    • Respect and reflect the culture and goals of both the education and business partners.
    • Support the core mission of the school.
    • Bolster the academic, social and physical well being of students.
    • Compliment the social values and goals of the school, business partner and the community.

    Partnerships should be defined by mutually beneficial goals and objectives

    Partnerships should:

    • Clearly define short and long-range goals.
    • Focus on collaboration to determine activities that meet the goals of all involved.
    • Be aligned with education goals and board policies of individual schools and/or districts.

    Implementation - Translating values into action

    Partnership activities should be integrated into the school and business cultures.

    • Partners should communicate frequently to respect and understand each other's cultures.
    • Partnerships should provide students, teachers and business employees with opportunities to interact at school, community and business sites.

    Partnerships should be driven by a clear management process and structure.

    • Each school and school district should have a point person to manage partnerships to ensure quality and alignment with educational goals for students.
    • Partnerships should include written descriptions of roles and responsibilities, accountability measures and guidelines for responsibilities of educators and business employees.
    • Partnerships should include training for all key personnel.

    Partnerships should define specific, measurable outcomes

    • Partnerships should be guided by a written collaborative agreement on outcomes, benchmarks and measures of progress.

    Continuity - Sustaining the partnership over time

    Partnerships should have support at the highest level within the business and school and concurrence at all levels.

    • Superintendents, principals, school boards, CEO's and managers should articulate and demonstrate support for the partnership internally and externally.
    • Partnerships should be explicitly supported by teachers, employees and other constituents.
    • Communities should have the opportunity to review and contribute to partnerships

    Partnerships should include detailed internal and external communication plans, which clearly illustrate expectations of all parties

    • Partners should communicate regularly about intended and actual outcomes of all activities
    • Communication about partnerships should allow opportunities for private and public recognition of both parties.

    Evaluation - Determining strengths, weaknesses and future directions

    Partnerships should be developed with clear definitions of success for all partners.

    • Measures for success should be established at the outset of the partnership
    • Partnerships should be evaluated on a regular, agreed-upon basis
    • Evaluation should include collection and analysis of information to determine accomplishments, strengths and weaknesses of the partnership.

    Source: The Council for Corporate & School Partnerships: Guiding Principles for Business and School Partnerships