Fall, 1998 No. 5 National Network of Partnership Schools
Issues and Insights Sharing the Role of Expert
In the National Network
of Partnership Schools Joyce L. Epstein, Director The National Network of Partnership Schools started the 1998-99 school year with about 1000 schools, 100 school districts, and 9 states as members. The successful work that is in progress in many of these locations reflects the Network’s approach of sharing the role of expert. The expertise – knowledge, actions, and will – of educators, families, communities, students, and researchers all are essential for developing, implementing, evaluating, and continually improving programs of school, family, and community partnerships. We share expertise to advance research. Members of the Network work with researchers to increase knowledge about partnerships. Field studies and data from UPDATE surveys from states, districts, and schools have confirmed the usefulness of the Network’s requirements, structures, processes, and materials. We have learned, for example, that districts make progress when they are supported and assisted by their states. Schools make progress when they have well-functioning Action Teams, adequate funding, and on-going support and guidance. Research is showing that side-by-side facilitation, rather than top-down dictation, builds the expertise of teachers, administrators, and parents in each school to conduct partnership programs. Researchers and Network members will continue to work together on cross-site Focus On Results studies, annual UPDATES, and other activities to evaluate partnership programs and their effects. We share expertise to develop policies that lead to action. States, districts, and schools may start their work on partnerships by writing a policy. Research reveals, however, that policy statements alone are not sufficient for enabling all schools to develop effective home-school-community connections. Rather, effective training, grants, recognition, annual evaluations, and on-going guidance about school-based plans are needed to turn district or state policies into school practices that inform and involve all families in their children’s education. Policies accompanied by enactments, budgets, staff, and specific plans for support are needed to translate state and district goals into school leadership and action. We share expertise to improve practice. The Network’s approaches are research-based. This means that states, districts, and schools can use the framework of six types of involvement, the Action Team approach, and the Network’s pre-tested planning and evaluation tools with confidence that their partnership programs will succeed. The truth is that researchers cannot implement programs alone. It takes principals, teachers, parents, and students, along with school, district, and state administrators and school boards to do the hard work of implementing successful partnership programs. In the Network, these efforts also generate field-based ideas and questions for new research and development. Over fifteen years of research led to the Network’s approaches and, now, the members of the Network are helping to define and conduct new research on the design, implementation, and effects of partnerships. Sharing the role of expert is proving to be a highly effective way of improving research, policies, programs, and practices of partnership in states, districts, and schools. Return to top Choose another edition of Type 2
