A nascent effort to move toward the creation of a smart school system can be found in the work of the New Century High School (NCHS) initiative, an experiment that now includes eighty-eight New York City public schools and that will ultimately affect nearly 40,000 students.¹ Launched in 2001 to create new small schools to replace large failing high schools, New Visions for Public Schools has worked with organized stakeholders in the public educational system, such as the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE), United Federation of Teachers, Council of Supervisors and Administrators, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Open Society, to rethink how public high schools can be internally restructured.

One notable feature of the initiative is the integration of an array of community and civic resources into the fiber and operation of schools through the creation of partnerships that bring together school staff — principal, teachers, guidance counselor, and others — and personnel from “lead organizational partners.”² The goal is to support the social and developmental well-being of students while promoting their intellectual growth and academic achievement.

The partnership strategy — both the concept and actual working partnerships — bridges the efforts of the New Century initiative in New York City with those of the 2005 Children’s Act in Tower Hamlets, London, United Kingdom. Despite notable differences between the two initiatives in scale and range, there are coincidences of analysis and aims, including the urgency to improve outcomes for children and youth and the perceived need for radical change at both systemic and individual levels. In both instances, partnering has become a means for breaking through professional and institutional walls; bringing new ideas to the solution of long-term social issues; and fostering a sense of shared responsibility for children’s development and achievement, and — critically — providing a vehicle for taking on that responsibility. In addition, the presence of an external actor — New Visions in New York City and national and local governmental offices in the United Kingdom — plays a decisive role in setting the venue and impetus for partnerships.