Article PDF | | 
View on Single Page
Cultivating Collaborative Cross-Sector Partnerships
District leaders who invest in developing partnerships, take advantage of the assets and expertise each group brings, are willing to share leadership, and are sensitive to the culture of each group find a much richer set of resources available to support educational improvement and an increased sense of ownership among the community and other partners. Ultimately, this will lead to a more sustainable reform.
Ogawa and Bossert (2000) note that because stakeholders have individual resources, regardless of their formal positions and roles, all can potentially lead and use their resources to exert influence in their respective domains. Community assets, for instance, cannot be measured only in dollars and cents - they can be viewed as dollars and “sense”: local intelligence about what’s important to the students and families. In the Bronx, for example, community organizers and the district’s facilities director worked together to locate vacant buildings that could be used to relieve severe overcrowding. The organizers had the deep knowledge of the community that enabled them to suggest spaces, and the facilities director used his specialized knowledge to evaluate which were viable sites (Mediratta, McAlister & Shah 2009).
Register and Thompson (2007) describe the importance of cross-sector partnerships in two major reform initiatives in Hamilton County that were designed to eliminate the achievement gap in its high-poverty schools and achieve systemic high school reform. Register and Thompson attribute the success of these reforms to the care with which multiple partnerships were developed and sustained. These partnerships included district and school administrators, local and national funders, city and county elected officials, local business and community leaders, the teachers union, higher education, parents, and students. Register and Thompson note that the leadership team, consisting of the superintendent and a few other individuals from the district and from the local education fund
did not make all the decisions, and, in fact, one of the strengths of the reform effort was that many teachers and parents were involved over time in the planning and implementation of high school reform. Schools were given flexibility; outside partners were involved at the district and the school levels, and business and higher-education organizations were involved in key decisions. The level of ownership in the reform effort was extensive, and the superintendent stayed closely involved in the work through the leadership team. (p. 24)
An important contribution the district made in these partnerships, because of its unique perspective, was to be the partner that keeps the big picture in mind. Other partners were more narrowly focused on single issues, which was often helpful in areas the district could not address by itself. But the success of the first set of schools in Hamilton County created pressure to provide the same opportunities across the district; Register and Thompson note that the district is the only partner likely to feel the pressure to scale up. The district, therefore, is in a unique position to champion equity by insisting that reforms be systemic and not merely create pockets of excellence.
Another example of a cross-sector partnership for systemic reform is led by Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, where the district has recently begun the three-year major reform project MNPS Achieves. Eight Transformational Leadership Groups, comprising more than 100 administrators, teachers, community members, and parents with relevant knowledge or expertise, will examine critical areas in need of improvement that affect the quality of instruction and learning. The project is designed to build the capacity of participants, distribute leadership, and empower them to make decisions.4For more information, see www.mnps.org/Page4.aspx.
Ensuring the Sustainability of Leadership Practices That Increase Equity
Perhaps the most challenging aspect of building leadership capacity is to sustain this strong, shared leadership over the long term, through leadership transitions, budget pressures, and political swings. The strategies described in this article are long-term strategies designed to build political will and formal structures to act on what the data show, create a “web” of leadership that goes beyond one individual and will survive the departure of that individual, and build multiple back-up mechanisms into the system.
To build political will, Scheurich and Skrla (2003) encourage leaders to sustain themselves by building broad alliances and networks, use every interaction to share the message of equity, create a climate where others are comfortable exchanging differing ideas and opinions, and build trust by honoring commitments made to others (pp. 104–108).
Building formal structures is important because communities can easily be overwhelmed by the number and depth of problems that surface when examining and addressing systemic inequities. A key leadership function is to shepherd the follow-up process to ensure that the emergent issues are addressed, working collaboratively to develop mechanisms, priorities, practical steps, and support needed to follow through on recommendations and document and share progress along the way. Scheurich and Skrla (2003) citing a 2000 report by Skrla and colleagues, note that
