I just wrote a piece for the Anytime, Anywhere Learning Foundation all about the SLA – TFI partnership. Here’s a sample:

At Science Leadership Academy, we have been incredibly fortunate to have a deep and meaningful partnership with The Franklin Institute — one of the oldest and most prestigious science and technology museums in the country. This partnership is unique in many ways, not the least of which is that the school was planned as a partnership school, in fact, my office was housed within the walls of The Franklin Institute (TFI)during our planning year. This gave us the opportunity to build many aspects of the school with the partnership in mind. In the end, the partnership in mind — from the way the schedule works, to the hands-on pedagogy– matched the philosophy of TFI itself. And in everything we did, we felt it was very important that the partnership was a true synergy — one where both partners were enriched by the interaction. Too often, school-community partnerships fail because they are viewed not as a true partnership, but as a hand out or a public relations moment. With this in mind, as a founding blueprint, we framed partnership in three ways: Shared Public Vision; Shared Pedagogical Vision and The Interaction of the Two Communities. This is a framework we still use today.

The whole article is here. I’m hoping it’s a useful frame for how school partnerships can be successful.