And there are more examples, in California, Boston, Philadelphia and beyond. All are authentic partnerships created by public and private school leaders, teachers and students who have approached one another with energy and ideas for building new models of collaboration.
Traditional tutoring may be useful to students in many struggling public schools, but what additional strategies can the partner schools offer? What experiences are mutually meaningful to students, both rich and poor, who have rarely stepped out of their comfort zones? We challenge educators to ask these questions and set up new partnerships that make sense in the context of their communities. Although our organizations focus on independent private schools, in some places, this may include a role for parochial schools as well. Every community has needs that public-private school partnerships can address by sharing strategies, finding what is replicable, developing approaches that work and moving forward as collaborators.
This essential shift can address the race and class issues that divide us and realistically begin to close those gaps. For public schools, it can mean immediate access to needed resources. For private schools, it can mean broader connections and an influx of teachers and families determined to make a difference in their communities, but who might have hesitated to consider yesterday's private schools.
