Respect for Differences

One of the most frequently cited barriers to partnering across education segments is the vast differences between the organizational cultures for K-12, community college, and the university. Not only are these differences confusing within the education system, but they also contribute to the public and business communities not understanding or appreciating the challenges faced by educators.

Shasta recognized this as it planned its partnership's proposal for funding. The partners conducted a community cultural analysis via interviews, focus groups, and surveys within the partnering organizations and with parents and the business community. Their findings led to a better understanding of their differences and a better foundation for the development of their partnership, which covers a large geographic region.

The University of California, Santa Cruz Education Partnership Center (EPC) grew out of an existing partnership. But the EPC has relied heavily on centralized strategic planning to ensure that the needs of the different partners that are spread over a large service region are met. The result is a Center that is tightly integrated and well positioned to provide regional oversight to improve college readiness and attendance for low-income and traditionally non-college attending students.

City Heights recognized the seriousness of the differences between the university and the school district and teacher union leadership as a whole, and decided to launch a pilot partnership that was comprehensive in terms of community development, but one that limited its size to a very small geographic area of the service region. The City Heights partners' holistic approach to urban revitalization is built on a concept of appreciation and understanding of differences.

The three education institutions in Long Beach had existed in relative isolation of one another for over forty years before business leaders declared this relationship as bad business and unacceptable to the city's business and civic leaders. A "no holds" barred summit led to initial finger pointing by the three institutions, but the ultimate outcome was the formation of what has come to be a very effective, vibrant regional partnership.

Santa Ana has focused on what their education institutions have in common to breach their differences, a homogeneous Latino community with initially low college readiness and attendance rates. Their Partnership Board is includes parents and business partners as well as education partners to ensure that the differences will not detract the partners from focusing on their goals. They also rotate the role of fiscal agent among the partners to balance the load, to share the responsibility, and to spread discretionary decision making among the partners thereby ensuring the differing perspectives of the institutions are allowed to emerge.

Kern County and San Diego North County partnerships have focused on their common needs rather than their differences, the need for more qualified teachers (Kern) and well-prepared and developed teachers (North County). The strong commitment and leadership of executives from the different levels of the education institutions within these two regions resulted in the formation of large working and steering committees to ensure that the differing needs of the participating districts are met.