Partnerships between institutions from different education segments represent a promising strategy to establish education pathways extending from kindergarten to bachelor’s degree achievement. Effective collaboration provides opportunities for schools, colleges, and universities to extend their resources, develop more effective organizational strategies, and strengthen students’ academic and career outcomes.

Public- and privately-funded programs have encouraged intersegmental partnership in different ways and with varying scopes, whether at the school district, city, county, or metropolitan level. Given the many forms of intersegmental collaboration, there are open questions with respect to what makes some partnerships work while others fail to take hold or thrive over the long term.

College Futures Foundation commissioned a team of researchers from CSU to conduct case studies of two partnerships that are building pathways to support student success towards and in higher education. The following report by Dr. Robert Gabriner, Dr. Rose Asera, and Dr. David Hemphill outlines the evolution of the Long Beach College Promise and the Inland Empire partnership (comprising San Bernardino and Riverside Counties)—both winners of the Governor’s Innovation Awards.

What Makes a Partnership Work? compares cross-sector collaborations in Long Beach and the the Inland Empire to identify common themes of successful partnerships:

1. A partnership’s leadership needs to be informed by clear moral imperatives.
2. Leaders must understand how change processes work within specific institutions and partnerships.
3. Leaders must be able to engage a variety of stakeholders and build long-term relationships and coalitions among them.
4. Evidence and data are vital components for both making the case for the partnership to stakeholders and informing the partnership’s strategic directions.
5. Partnership leaders have to understand how reforms and improvements fit together to enhance organizational coherence for the stakeholders and the students who must navigate through multiple institutions.

The second part of the report, Starting and Sustaining Educational Partnerships: Two Case Studies of Intersegmental Innovation in California, provides the full, detailed case studies for those interested in additional information.

Download the What Makes a Partnership Work? report

Download the Starting and Sustaining Educational Partnerships report