Articles

• Building Business Partnerships for High-Need Schools:
  A White Paper from The Associated Colleges of Illinois' Center for Success in High-Need Schools
  Jerry Berberet, PhD, Leslie Joan Millenson, and Stephanie B Goldberg
  Historically, most business-education partnerships involve two parties: businesses and K-12 schools. Few documented partnerships benefit from relationships built among businesses, K-12 schools, and departments and colleges of education. Yet business, K-12 education, and postsecondary education have a clear confluence of interest.
• PARTNERS: a Framework for a Partnership Model in a High-Need, Urban School District
  David A. Walker, Christine K. Sorensen, and Portia M. Downey
  This article examines a school-university partnership, which initiated a professional development school-intervention model in a high-need urban district, as a mechanism toward improving student achievement. Scholarly literature-based strategies are examined as part of the model's framework.
• Aurora University's New Teacher Academy: An ACI TQE-P Grant
  Saib Othman, Judy Swaggerty, and Jay Thomas
  This paper provides an overview of the New Teacher Academy developed at Aurora University, reflects on its successes, and makes recommendations for future offerings. Instead of following the mentoring models found in the professional literature, the New Teacher Academy draws on the perspectives of experienced teachers and school leaders for its program of seminars and workshops on professional topics.
• Illinois College and Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos High School Collaboration on a Type 9 Certification Program
  John W. Fritsche
  Illinois College, in Jacksonville, IL, and the Dr. Pedro Abizu Campos High School (PACHS), located in the Puerto Rican community in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood, collaborated to create a Type 9 certification program with a Latino focus. Implemented in Fall 2007, the program is directed at teachers from alternative schools in Chicago. The teachers all had BA degrees and had completed the required courses for Illinois College's ISBE-approved certification programs.

Columns

Jan Fitzsimmons
In 2004, the Associated Colleges of Illinois launched ACI's Center for Success in High-Need Schools as a collaborative initiative among its 23 member colleges. Could a statewide network of colleges, historically competitors for students, and their partnering K-12 schools and businesses work together to develop programs to recruit, prepare, and retain teachers for high-need schools -- urban, suburban, and rural? Could they share resources, collaborate on ideas, and develop teamwork as their awareness of best practices and effective strategies grew?

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Thomas Conley
This guest column explores the keys to implementing a successful professional development school model.

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Sherry R. Eagle and Gary Jewel
Sustaining our local schools as high-quality learning institutions depends, to a great extent, on our ability to work collaboratively as educators. From preschool to graduate school, we need to solve problems, make decisions, and design programs that best meet the needs of our students.

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