This guide is designed to help school administrators, teachers, and school board members see the benefits of cooperation between vocational and academic teachers. It also looks at the barriers, examines models for cooperation, and describes exemplary practices. The guide considers the impact of cooperation in the work environment and provides a…

With the federal role in education changing rapidly, regional education agencies are best suited to engage in school improvement efforts by designing cooperative arrangements among other educational organizations. Although planning such a collaborative interorganizational relationship (IOR) seems to require both appropriate structures among member…

A study reviewed research on interagency relations involving vocational education and examined a local vocational agency and some of its linkages. It also determined what further research is needed to facilitate mutually advantageous interagency arrangements. The study used a dyadic perspective. An analytic model of interorganizational behavior,…

Articulation between public and private, for-profit (proprietary) schools can help reduce costs without reducing the number of options available to students. Articulation can assume many forms, including contracts to offer classes for other institutions, combined (dual) enrollments, shared facilities and/or faculty, enrichment programs, 1 + 1…

This paper approaches the concept of collaboration by using a workshop format in three segments: (1) a puzzle to solve, (2) lessons on collaboration learned from solving the puzzle, and (3) a tabular overview of the fundamental differences between universities and school districts which hinder collaboration. After participants have formed teams to…

Many rural school districts struggling with declining elementary school enrollments will soon face the more complex problems of declining high school enrollment. School districts with only one high school do not have the option of consolidation and must find innovative solutions to the problem of maintaining educational quality with dwindling…

Today's educational reform proposals are undermined by four dilemmas. First, the public may demand visible results before it will provide the funding needed to achieve them. Second, higher academic standards will increase failure rates, while more attainable standards will inadequately educate students. Third, the current focus on high schools may…

This book was compiled to provide examples of partnerships between education and economic development agencies and to reinforce, with statistics, the importance of entrepreneurship in the U.S. economy. The first chapter, "Contributions of Small Business and Entrepreneurship Education to Economic Development," by E. Edward Harris,…

This issue focuses on support and cooperation among various components of the educational community, specifically as this has been achieved by the Willamette Valley (Oregon) Education Consortium, a research-based organization of school districts, educational agencies, and an institute of higher education. The first article describes how schools…

A study examined the extent of joint planning and coordination between vocational education and private sector Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) programs during 1986. Data were collected from the following sources: mail surveys of staff in the state agencies responsible for administering the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act and JTPA (72…

This essay discusses collective bargaining at a small college in Illinois. After a historical review of the conditions in the 1960s that gave rise to collective bargaining units in higher education, recent alternatives and adjustments to the bargaining process are presented, as typified in the recent experience of Carl Sandburg College in…

Ten rural school improvement clusters involving 63 districts, 7 colleges and universities, and 6 state departments of education have been developed in Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and North Dakota through the work of the Mid-Continent Regional Educational Laboratory's Rural Education Project. Four essential steps appear necessary for…

A 2-year pilot demonstration project was undertaken in two U.S. regions to clarify the concept of regionalism and its application to postsecondary education. This concept was tested in two natural planning and service regions that were artificially divided by state boundary lines: The Upper Allegheny Region II (New York and Pennsylvania) and the…

Because textbooks are essential instructional tools, they should play a major role in educational reform for excellence. Despite improvements in response to ethnic and women's movements, deterioration in textbook quality has occurred through competition for markets. Former Secretary of Education Terrel Bell observed in 1984 that educators should…

Educational effects of migrant student mobility are reviewed and issues and recommendations for educational continuity are offered for discussion by policymakers. Considerations for discussion of mobility are presented: continuity of age-grade level progression and education/social/health services; agency responsibility; communication…