Lessons from the National Alliance of Business Compact Project: Business and Public Education Reform

Abstract

This paper reports on some of the key outcomes of the National Alliance of Business's Compact Project, a 12-city demonstration project intended to establish collaborations among businesses, public schools, and government. Factors related to problem recognition, definition and crystallization, the macroenvironmental context, and the emergence of a systemic orientation toward school improvement are associated with more and less successful outcomes. Reframing processes pervade development of a vision about education, the ways in which institutions relate to each other, as well as their orientation toward solving educational problems. More successful cities in the project adopted a systemic approach rather than more limited programmatic efforts to change the schools.