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Skip all front matter: Jump to Page 16 e RAND Corporation is a nonprot institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. is electronic document was made available from www.rand.org as a public service of the RAND Corporation. CHILDREN AND FAMILIES EDUCATION AND THE ARTS ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT HEALTH AND HEALTH CARE INFRASTRUCTURE AND TRANSPORTATION INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS LAW AND BUSINESS NATIONAL SECURITY POPULATION AND AGING PUBLIC SAFETY SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY TERRORISM AND HOMELAND SECURITY This product is part of the RAND Corporation monograph series. RAND monographs present major research findings that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors. All RAND mono- graphs undergo rigorous peer review to ensure high standards for research quality and objectivity. Susan J. Bodilly, Rita Karam, Nate Orr Sponsored by the Ford Foundation EDUCATION Continuing Challenges and Potential for Collaborative Approaches to Education Reform The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. R ® is a registered trademark. © Copyright 2011 RAND Corporation Permission is given to duplicate this document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Copies may not be duplicated for commercial purposes. Unauthorized posting of RAND documents to a non-RAND website is prohibited. RAND documents are protected under copyright law. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit the RAND permissions page (http://www.rand.org/publications/ permissions.html). Published 2011 by the RAND Corporation 1776 Main Street, P.O. Box 2138, Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138 1200 South Hayes Street, Arlington, VA 22202-5050 4570 Fifth Avenue, Suite 600, Pittsburgh, PA 15213-2665 RAND URL: http://www.rand.org To order RAND documents or to obtain additional information, contact Distribution Services: Telephone: (310) 451-7002; Fax: (310) 451-6915; Email: order@rand.org Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for this publication. ISBN 978-0-8330-5152-3 Cover illustration courtesy Getty Images The research in this report was produced within RAND Education, a unit of the RAND Corporation. The research was sponsored by the Ford Foundation. iii Preface In 1997, the Ford Foundation began an eort, called the Collaborating for Education Reform Initiative (CERI), to promote school improve- ment in communities. It funded eight sites to establish collaboratives of community-based organizations and local school districts that were to create and sustain education reforms in their local areas. As part of this eort, the foundation sponsored a formative assessment of the grant- ees’ progress, to be carried out by the RAND Corporation from 1999 to 2003. e assessment was documented in Challenges and Potential of a Collaborative Approach to Education Reform (Bodilly, Chun, et al., 2004). In 2004, the foundation dropped ve sites and added two new sites to the initiative. RAND continued to track the progress made toward the grantees’ goals from 2004 to 2009. is monograph docu- ments the progress made by the grantees during that time period. e audiences for this monograph are policymakers involved in trying to build sustained support for educational improvement and practitioners interested in using collaborative eorts among commu- nity organizations to improve public educational services. is research was conducted by RAND Education, a unit of the RAND Corporation. v Contents Preface iii Tables ix Summary xi Acknowledgments xix Abbreviations xxi CHAPTER ONE Introduction 1 Background on the Initiative 1 e History of CERI 1 (1998–2003) 2 e History of CERI 2 (2004–2009) 3 Purpose and Approach 6 Remainder of the Monograph 8 CHAPTER TWO Approach, Concepts, and Development of Indicators 11 Approach 11 Data Sources 13 Documents 13 Yearly Site Visits with Interviews, Focus Groups, and Informal Observations 13 e Urban Partnership Program and CERI 1 Phone Survey 15 Administrative Data 15 Analysis 16 Study Limitations 17 Literature Review 17 vi Continuing Challenges and Potential for Collaborative Approaches Interorganizational Linkages 17 Expectations for Implementation 19 Implications 20 Indicators of Progress 22 CHAPTER THREE Progress Toward Collaborative Functioning and Sustainment 25 Overview of Progress Toward Collaborative Function and Sustainment 25 e Alianza, Puerto Rico 29 Ask for More, Jackson, Mississippi 32 Austin Interfaith, Austin, Texas 35 DC VOICE, District of Columbia 38 Grow Your Own, Chicago, Illinois 40 Urban Partnership Program and Former Collaborating for Education Reform Initiative 1 Sites 44 Summary of Progress Made, Enablers, and Constraints 45 Collaborative Eorts Are Highly Susceptible to Constraints and Changes in the Environment 46 Leadership Change Aected Collaborative Growth 48 Inclusiveness in Leadership Plays an Important Role in Collaborative Building and Growth 49 Building the Legitimacy of the Collaborative Proved Critical for Growth and Sustainment 50 Information Developing and Sharing and Joint Decisionmaking Supported Collaborative Function 51 Conicts Among Partners Aected Some Eorts 51 Fundraising Needed to Be Attended to Early 52 CHAPTER FOUR Progress Toward Goals 55 Summary of Activities Undertaken 55 Were Choices Reasonable? 58 Summary of Progress Toward Goals 65 e Alianza 68 Promote Quality in Teaching and Learning 69 Contents vii Promote Policies at Lead to Quality in Teaching and Learning 69 Ask for More 70 Promote Quality in Teaching and Learning 71 Promote Policies at Lead to Quality in Teaching and Learning 74 Become a Voice for Collaboration 75 Austin Interfaith 75 Promote Quality in Teaching and Learning 75 Promote Policies at Lead to Quality in Teaching and Learning 76 Become a Voice in the Community 80 DC VOICE 80 Promote Policies at Lead to Quality in Teaching and Learning 81 Become a Voice for the Community 83 Grow Your Own 83 Promote Policies at Lead to Quality in Teaching and Learning 84 Cross-Site emes on the Implementation of Activities 86 e Criteria Used for Choosing an Intervention Played a Large Role in Its Success 87 Regular Needs Assessment and Reection Enabled Benecial Adaptation of Interventions 88 Use of Collaborative Approaches to Implementation Facilitated Progress 88 Collaboratives Faced Challenges in Implementing Activities with Dwindling Foundation Support 89 Intervention Implementation Was Aected by the Political and Economic Context 90 CHAPTER FIVE Conclusions and Observations 91 Findings and Conclusions 91 Building and Sustaining Collaboratives 92 Promoting Quality in Teaching and Learning 93 Developing a Voice for Reform 94 Emerging Lessons for Foundation Eorts 95 References 99 [...]... parents and voters In 1999, the foundation asked the RAND Corporation to formatively assess CERI to provide sites with feedback to improve their efforts, provide information to inform the foundation’s decisions about support and funding to grantees, and document the challenges and possible successes of this approach to school improvement During this period, RAND tracked the sites’ progress toward CERI’s... 2004, RAND undertook a five-year progress assessment of the CERI 2 effort that had three purposes: to provide feedback to sites to improve their efforts, to provide information to the foundation to inform its decisions about support and funding provided to sites, and to document the progress made under this collaborative initiative The research questions were as follows: 1 Did grantees show progress toward... Continuing Challenges and Potential for Collaborative Approaches Using the initial RAND study and foundation findings, the foundation program officers restructured the effort to fund five grantees, three from CERI 1 and two emerging collaboratives, to 2009 The three original grantees were the Alianza Metropolitana de San Juan Para La Educación in Puerto Rico; Ask for More (AFM) in Jackson, Mississippi; and. .. levels of improvement and a stronger, more-consistent focus on the reform agenda The foundation understood that the funding level was not enough to underwrite major reforms in any of these communities but thought that it was enough to support collaborative efforts In fall 1999, the Ford Foundation asked RAND to track the progress of the grantees toward the broad goals of the effort and capture any lessons... important role throughout this project These included Amanda Datnow of the University of California, San Diego; Julie Marsh of the University of Southern California; and Cathy Stasz of RAND We thank them for their insights and efforts to make our xix xx Continuing Challenges and Potential for Collaborative Approaches work better Although they helped improve the monograph, the final contents are the... specifically to improve the quality of teaching and learning in classrooms and schools in fundamental ways in order to increase student outcomes CERI differed from many other education reform initiatives in two ways First, the foundation believed that central district offices lacked the ability to improve teaching and learning because central district offices 1 2 Continuing Challenges and Potential for Collaborative. .. teachers to hard-tostaff schools Provide researchbased advocacy for improving the supports for teacher quality Build a teacher pipeline to staff hard -to- staff schools and reduce teacher turnover CERI 1 site Yes, and a member Yes of Ford original UPP No Yes No NOTE: PPS = Parents for Public Schools ACORN = Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now CCC = Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform. .. original CERI and the following CERI 2, the role RAND played, and the purpose of the research and the general approach RAND took to examine CERI 2 Finally, it outlines the rest of this monograph Background on the Initiative The Ford Foundation advanced a vision of education reform to improve the educational achievement of a large number of students and promote system-wide changes in policies and practices... CERI’s goals and xi xii Continuing Challenges and Potential for Collaborative Approaches reported on the first five years of the effort in 2004 (Bodilly, Chun, et al., 2004) In 2004, the foundation reorganized CERI by dropping five of the original eight grantees and adding two new ones (for a total of five): • the Alianza Metropolitana de San Juan Para La Educación in San Juan, Puerto Rico This collaborative. .. of approaches: effectively linking the different levels of pre-K through 12 and higher -education systems; promoting informed public dialogue, debate, and consensus building around school reform options; promoting professional development for faculty, staff, and administrators; promoting district and state policy changes; and enhancing the role of parents and caregivers In order to affect teaching and . Orr Sponsored by the Ford Foundation EDUCATION Continuing Challenges and Potential for Collaborative Approaches to Education Reform The RAND Corporation. Foundation. However, it is not a straightforward process, and xviii Continuing Challenges and Potential for Collaborative Approaches the nancial sustainability