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Promising Opportunities for Connection and Coherence

Although there is a distressing lack of congruence between K-12 and postsecondary systems nationwide, some collaborative efforts between schools and colleges have been emerging throughout the country. Unfortunately, there is little understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of these programs, the policies that might institutionalize and sustain them, and the many powerful deterrents that can undermine them. For instance, several states have created short-term structural approaches to address inter-level concerns, but without accounting for the complexities and roots of K-16 problems. It is difficult to envision meaningful, sustainable K-16 advances without a knowledge base that would provide a substantive underpinning for devising inter-level strategies that could be effective over the long-term.

The fragmented manner in which policy is made on issues that span the K-16 continuum-such as governance, finance, curricula, assessments, accountability, teacher education, data collection, and data usage-also suggests a need for better understanding of the state governance structures that will permit improved planning and connections across the education sectors.

PARTNERSHIPS FOR STUDENT SUCCESS, by examining in depth the practical governance realities involving K-16 collaboration in four states, will identify and emphasize the kinds of pragmatic steps that can prove useful to states that seek to transform ad hoc, short-term, inter-level approaches from rhetoric into sustained action and long-term institutionalized change. In addition to providing recommendations to help states successfully develop and institutionalize their K-16 reforms, a major objective of this project is to raise public consciousness about the growing impact of K-16 issues on public schools and colleges.

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© 2003 The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education