Genao, Soribel. Measuring the effectiveness of an alternative education collaborative in improving student outcomes in Newark, New Jersey. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3MW2H7R
DescriptionAn increasing concern in public administration is the development of effective collaborative approaches to public problems through partnerships between government, private and nonprofit organizations. To address this concern, this research evaluated the relative efficacy of a newly developed collaborative alternative education initiative in the Newark public schools in comparison to the existing drop-out prevention program and the elements of the collaboration that may have contributed to these outcomes. In 2007, Newark's graduation rate was 63% according to the new graduation calculation method approved by the National Governors Association, Graduation Counts Compact of 2005 (NPS, 2008). In 1999, The Newark Public Schools initiated The Twilight Program, a drop-out prevention program designed to meet academic, social and emotional needs of students that could not be met in the traditional high school setting. However, in 2003, when Newark's Office of Alternative Education (OAE) determined that the existing Twilight Programs had not fully addressed student needs, the Newark Public Schools added a research-based alternative education model built through a partnership with the City of Newark, local and state government agencies, Essex County College, private foundations, and local community organizations. There is a broad consensus that collaboration can mobilize a broad array of expert experience and broaden a program's political basis of legitimacy. In practice, however, these partnerships are developing ahead of empirical research supporting their efficacy or delineating which specific elements of collaboration are most critical to observed outcomes. Informed by principles of process outcome and organizational collaboration, this dissertation compares the relative efficacy of alternative education placements in two Newark-based initiatives and evaluates the collaborative process among stakeholders in these initiatives. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, this dissertation answers research questions: Does participating in an alternative high school initiative program make a quantifiable difference in the path of a student's academic career? and Was the AHSI collaboration successful? The findings from the quantitative and qualitative study suggest that overall performance of the AHSI students is significantly higher than in the Twilight program. However, the achievement had less to do with the collaborative process and more to do with the resources.