HR: 13:40h
AN: ED13F-01    [Abstracts]
TI: The Quest for Transformative Partnerships in STEM Education: A Comparison of Policies, Structures and Evaluation Practices
AU: * Kingsley, G
EM: gordon.kingsley@pubpolicy.gatech.edu
AF: Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Public Policy, Atlanta, GA 30332-0345
AB: One of the frequent policy prescriptions offered by federal officials for improving science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education in the United States is to encourage the development of partnerships between higher education, elementary and secondary education, and informal education. This prescription is not unique to STEM education. Rather stimulating the creation and development of partnerships has become one of the preferred strategies for reforming governmental programs through several administrations. This research presents a comparison of several policies designed to stimulate partnerships across multiple organizations. In doing so we examine assumptions about the nature of partnerships embedded in policies and the consequences of these assumptions on the organization and the evaluation of the partnerships. A recurring theme we observe among policies is the quest for transformative partnerships where changing the strategies and behaviors of the participating partners is seen as a necessary, if not sufficient, condition for producing the desired policy outcomes (usually articulated as improving the performance of the school, teacher, student, and even all three). While the goal of policy makers is to achieve transformation, the goal of participating organizations seems to be more instrumental, anchored in their own institutional goals and missions. In this analysis define partnership as voluntary arrangements between organizations, anchored by agreements, to promote the exchange, sharing, or co-development of products and/or programs. The analysis first examines the degree to which policies produce such inter-organizational relationships. Six concepts are drawn for organizational and inter-organizational relations research as a framework for examining the influence of policy upon the pre-conditions for partnership, partnering activities, and the evaluation of partnership performance outcomes. We examine the degree to which policy addresses and attempts to influence each of the six concepts. Concepts associated with the pre-conditions for partnerships are 1) embeddedness, which describes the number and types of relationships that organizations have with one another prior to the development of a partnership; and 2) strategic congruence, which describes the types of resource and legitimacy needs confronting individual organizations prior to a partnership. Concepts associated with partnering activities are examined at both the formation stage and the operational stage of the partnership life cycle. Concepts associated with partnership evaluation include both process outcomes, which examine whether the partnership actually achieved the goals and duties of operation, and performance outcomes, which examine improvements in the working environments of teachers, enhancements in their ability to engage in STEM education, and assessments of the performance of students on STEM topics.
DE: 0805 Elementary and secondary education
DE: 0810 Post-secondary education
DE: 0815 Informal education
DE: 0840 Evaluation and assessment
DE: 0999 General or miscellaneous
SC: Education and Human Resourcese [ED]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting