Industry Partners Play a Major Role in Curriculum Alignment

The concept of working in collaboration with an industry partner has attracted growing interest as a way to remedy high dropout rates in large urban schools, by offering work-based learning opportunities that link education with access to the workforce.  Research has documented that industry/business partners/community-based organizations give relevance and credibility to an integrated curriculum that leads to a career pathway (Castellano, Stringfield, & Stone, 2003; Stoll, 2006; Stone, 2005).  Hull (2005) supports this claim in that he believes that the industry partner is the driving force behind each pathway.  If schools are going to get serious about creating instruction that has rigor and relevance to real-life work, and prepare students for life beyond high school, the industry partner must play a vital role in curriculum development and alignment.

The Functions of an Industry Partner

First and foremost, an industry partner’s workforce investment lies in the proper alignment of career and technical education and academic instruction.  As stated in the introduction of this paper, the industry sector has collectively voiced its concern about the inadequate academic preparation and lack of technical training that youths are getting in the public secondary sector.  The industry’s invested interest is in influencing the middle and high school curricula in such a way that properly captures academic standards and current career-ready set of competencies of that particular industry.  An industry partner can serve the following functions:

• Help teachers keep the curriculum relevant to industry expectations
• Help to identify experiential work-based learning and mentorship opportunities for students that are consistent with curriculum
• Actively participate in steering committees to enhance curricula and student achievement
• Provide in-kind matching for local, state, federal and private grants to enhance curriculum
• Conduct evaluation on curriculum and its delivery in order to properly assess and modify curriculum; evaluation also helps to maintain and sustain program projects over time
• Strengthen career and college pathway by linking the integration of academic instruction and career and technical education to real jobs
• Provide guest lecturers to share their professional expertise with students and give credibility to the curriculum
• Identify existing community resources to support curriculum development and alignment and students and their families

Strategies to Engage an Industry Partner

The first and most important step in engaging an industry partner is to research and seek the appropriate partner that best fits your career theme.  In other words, if your career theme is nursing, recruiting industry partners in the entertainment sector may not be relevant and effective in shaping and aligning curriculum.  The following are strategies for engaging the right industry partner:

• Conduct a needs assessment on the workforce shortages of your program’s career focus.  Make sure that your needs assessment results show a demand for workers with a particular set of academic and technical skills.  Not only will the industry be impressed with your data collection and enthusiasm, but the data will provide the partnership a reference point to start a dialogue.
• Show dual commitment to building student-worker capacity as well as short-term and long-term outcomes.
• Demonstrate choice, accountability, responsibility, and leadership qualities.
• Create a strong mission and vision statement for your program that is directly linked to alleviating the industry’s worker shortage.
• Demonstrate readiness to engage.  Approach the industry representative as a high-performing team and convey strong team and administration support for your endeavor.  Getting across the notion that your team of educators operate in a collaborative and supportive setting confirms to the industry that you have a solid foundation to build sustainability.
• Demonstrate a bi-directionality or reciprocal partnership approach.  Too often, industry partners perceive schools to be in need of money and become discouraged.  Be able to show the industry partner that what you bring to the table can also benefit the industry.
• Build trust and rapport with the industry first before asking for anything.  One way to build trust and rapport is to be consistent, be straightforward, be reliable and have exceptional follow through.  In other words, mean what you say and do what you say.

Conclusion

Attracting an industry partner can be an “easier said than done” task.  Recruiting an industry partner is the easy part, but keeping an industry partner active and engaged over time is the difficult part.  For a successful partnership with an industry partner, schools must begin to recognize the industry as an extension of their academic programs.  An industry partner must be given the choice and opportunity to roll up its sleeves and actively participate in curriculum development and curriculum alignment.  Far too often, industry partners serve as place holders for fancy letterheads and are rarely asked to engage in the day-to-day school and classroom activities.  Attending monthly meetings for updates is simply not enough to hold on to an industry partner.  Every school culture must acknowledge and incorporate an industry partner into its culture as a team player in order to achieve a structure of leadership and sustainability.  A team of teachers with strong support from their principal and working in collaboration with an industry partner can become what Michael Fullan called “systems thinkers in action” (2005, p. 85).

References

Castellano, M., Stringfield, S., & Stone, R., J. (2003). Secondary career and technical

education and comprehensive school reform: Implications for research and practice. Review of Educational Research, 73(2), 231-272.

Fullan, M. (2005). Leadership and sustainability: System thinkers in action. Thousand Oaks,

CA: Corwin Press.

Hull, D. (2005). Career Pathways: Education with a purpose. Waco, TX: Cord

Communications.

Stoll, A. M. (2006). The changing workplace and schooling: Implications for high school

reform. In press.

Stone, R., J. (2005). The neglected majority. Journal of Career and Technical Education,

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