Partnerships for Improving Schools: 24 (Contributions to the Study of Education) - Tapa dura

?There are so many ideas in this book that choosing a few to highlight here is as difficult as tasting only three items from a smorgasbord after a fast. . . . [Jones and Maloy's] comments will prompt knowing nods of the head from most who have experience with partnerships, and they provide starting points for novices' serious consideration. For example, the book raises critical questions about different approaches to partnerships. Should partnerships be primarily grass-roots efforts with little top-down control? If so, what issues are off limits to governance bodies? If partnerships can bring about improvements suggested, should they become a way of life for university-school relations? If so, how can long-term partnerships maintain the insider-outsider perspectives Jones and Maloy argue for so persuasively? Finally, since educational improvements are so necessarily dominated by emergent processes, will testimonial data even in well-crafted case studies be sufficient for a society that still sees improvement only in terms of standardized measurement? Partnerships for Improving Schools addresses these and many other questions. Most importantly, perhaps, it forcefully and directly reminds us that equity is the central criterion against which to measure educational progress.?-Teachers College Record "There are so many ideas in this book that choosing a few to highlight here is as difficult as tasting only three items from a smorgasbord after a fast. . . . [Jones and Maloy's] comments will prompt knowing nods of the head from most who have experience with partnerships, and they provide starting points for novices' serious consideration. For example, the book raises critical questions about different approaches to partnerships. Should partnerships be primarily grass-roots efforts with little top-down control? If so, what issues are off limits to governance bodies? If partnerships can bring about improvements suggested, should they become a way of life for university-school relations? If so, how can long-term partnerships maintain the insider-outsider perspectives Jones and Maloy argue for so persuasively? Finally, since educational improvements are so necessarily dominated by emergent processes, will testimonial data even in well-crafted case studies be sufficient for a society that still sees improvement only in terms of standardized measurement? Partnerships for Improving Schools addresses these and many other questions. Most importantly, perhaps, it forcefully and directly reminds us that equity is the central criterion against which to measure educational progress."-Teachers College Record

BYRD L. JONES is Professor of Education at the University of Massachusetts. ROBERT W. MALOY is Manager of Continuing Education Programs for the School of Education and Adjunct Associate Professor of Education at the University of Massachusetts.