Shared Vision and Goals

Partnership visions respond to and resonate with local needs. Philanthropist Sol Price envisioned revitalization of the poorest and most diverse section of San Diego. His personal wealth and influence made it possible for him to initiate the vision and attract partners. But, when asked what Mr. Price's most important contribution to the partnership had been, the answer offered by the president of San Diego State University was not money or influence, but vision - the vision that a university could actually lead educational reform on a major scale - not just debate and study it.

With an ailing economy in 1994, Long Beach businessman and community leader George Murchison launched a community revitalization effort. As one element of the strategy, the city's top education leaders came together to discuss what could be done to improve education. The vision which emerged from that encounter energized the resulting partnership to aim to create a "world-class seamless education system, kindergarten through master's level where all students are prepared for higher education and the world of work without the need for remediation."

In Santa Ana, a high poverty district educating a student population with 84 percent English language learners, educators envisioned high academic achievement supported by a strong partnership between schools, university, community and parents. In Shasta, an area of rural schools that send relatively few students of any economic and cultural backgrounds to college, a vision of improved college participation energized the partnership. In Santa Cruz, educators forged a vision of improved attendance at the University of California system for low income and traditionally non-college going students. In Bakersfield, a rural area with relatively few qualified teachers, education leaders envisioned a credentialed teacher in every classroom. In north San Diego County educators forged a vision of collaborative professional development.

What role has "standards-based reform" - for a decade the dominant reform movement in US education - played in the visions of these partnerships? Long Beach created its own district standards before the state launched a standards movement and standards have provided an organizing framework for the work of that partnership. The North San Diego County Federation enables a large number of diverse districts to deliver professional development to help teachers be able to teach to state standards. In other locales, standards play a less central role. In Bakersfield, standards help to define a "qualified" teacher. In Santa Cruz, San Diego, and Santa Ana, standard-based reform serve as one of several ways to set goals for students and teachers. In some quarters, there is even skepticism about standard-based reform as a "reform de jour" that is rigid and not child-centered. Thus among locales in the Alliance, standard-based reform and partnerships appear to be distinct approaches to educational reform which sometimes but not always reinforce one another.

The visions of Alliance partnerships can be divided into three kinds: (a) community revitalization visions that include educational improvement, (b) systemic educational visions that aim to reform entire educational systems, and (c) focused visions that aim to strengthen a specific aspect of a local educational system. Local needs provided the catalyst for each partnership's vision, not specific funding opportunities or national educational movements. In each case, the partnership vision was the creation of local leaders who came together in a collaborative spirit, identified key local needs, forged a consensus to work on the needs, and nurtured the vision over time by regular interactions. The importance of leadership in forging a shared vision is clearly illustrated by these partnership case studies.