University and District Partnerships: The Role of Trust and Mutual Respect

• In Event: Roundtable Session 26
  In Roundtable Session: Advancing the Leadership Pipeline Through University and District Partnerships: Perspectives on Building and Cultivating Relationships

Abstract

Colleges of education are instinctively tied to the fortunes of public schools. The university curriculum is established in part by the reality articulated through the problems of practice in our urban schools. The public school largely depends upon colleges of education to supply new teachers and leaders to supplant their pipeline and to provide inservice experiences for their practitioners. Given these common interests, partnerships among public schools, colleges, and universities should have flourished. They have not (Shive, J. 1984; Noguera, 1998). The reasons are many, but the primary culprit is one of trust (Shive, J. 1984; Noguera, 1998). Noguera (1998) states, “in order for a partnership between a K-12 school and a university…to be sustained over time, relationships between the parties involved must be based upon mutual respect.”

In 2011, the Department of Educational Administration and Policy at Howard University began a partnership with the Prince George's County Public School (PGCPS) District in Maryland to offer a field based doctor of education degree in education leadership and policy. The Educational Administration Guided Leadership Experiences (EAGLE III) Program is a nationally recognized doctoral program that dually reflects Prince George's County and Howard University’s commitment to addressing the needs of urban and diverse school systems by expanding the pool of diverse and well-prepared professionals. The EAGLE III Program is specifically designed for practicing K-12 administrators who aspire to the position of superintendent of schools or some other senior-level position. EAGLE III coursework is infused and aligned with the district’s emphases on instructional leadership, turnaround schools, and continuous improvement in teaching, leadership and accountability (and, reflective of the Howard University School of Education’s conceptual framework which states that academic programs prepare candidates to be reflective practitioners, engaged researchers and leaders of change). Additionally, EAGLE III course work and assessments are well aligned with the Education Leadership Constituent Council and the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium.
The core elements of EAGLE III include (1) an urban education focus; (2) a praxis model of instruction (pairing HU faculty and practicing education leaders); (3) a cohort structure for participating local school district administrators; (4) a concentration of experiential cognate courses in the education policy process focused on problems of practice in the areas of STEM leadership, diverse learner leadership (including special education leadership, gifted education, and English language learners), and community leadership; and (4) a capstone project consisting of a practice-based dissertation.

Since this partnership is in its infancy stage, this presentation will focus on building and cultivating a partnership based on the premise of mutual respect and elaborates on the necessary steps required to foster such a collaborative effort (Thomas-Brown, et al 2010). EAGLE III was dually developed by Howard University faculty and PGCPS senior leadership. A series of meetings produced a doctoral program that meets the needs of all parties. This collaborative process included the designing of courses, selection of personnel to teach courses, selection of students, the use of both parties in auxiliary programs, and ongoing evaluations.

Authors

• Dawn G. Williams, Howard University

• Pamela Shetley