Reviewed by Steven King, MBA

For over three decades, Jim Leatherwood has navigated the tumultuous waters of education, either as a teacher, administrator, or counselor. Each position gave him a unique vantage point to understand the world of education. After retiring from his deanship of Occupational Education, Leatherwood searched for a tool that would help businesses and educators work together as partners. Finding none, he decided to pen Facing the Future Together.

As a business educator, I am constantly searching for material that helps high school students understand the relevancy of business principles. No serious educator should be without this book that beautifully illustrates the fact that education is the business of business.

Leatherwood has separated this work into three parts, 1) Getting Started, 2) For Business Only, and 3) The Partnership in Action. To hook educators, Leatherwood leaves no stone unturned. During his tenure in education he helped forge many successful school-business partnerships. There is a chief reason why these partnerships are so successful: businesses and educators are mutually interested in student achievement. The “Getting Started” section covers everything from how to find a partner down to how to make the partnership more meaningful by having a partnership ceremony commencement.

Educationally minded businessmen that have perhaps never thought of such a liaison will enjoy the second section aimed at them. What is the message? Don’t wait for a school to contact you–you could make the difference in a local school by initiating such as partnership.

Section three contains Web references, activities, and example letters to navigate the reality of school-business partnerships. Leatherwood’s tome has taken the guesswork out of maintaining such partnerships, even including applicable topics to help maintain a newsletter to keep stakeholders informed of partnership developments.

“In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” This quote by the late Eric Hoffer, an American social writer, paints the reality of education divorced from school-business partnerships. Students will graduate and will not be adequately prepared to navigate the “real world.”

Businessmen and educators–you have a choice to make. “Face the future together,” then maybe, students will meld with a world for which they have already been partially prepared.

Armchair Interviews says: A very important book for businesses and schools to see their vital partnership role in educating future generations.

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Book Review for Facing the Future

A Primer on School-Business Partnerships
By Stuart Nachbar

Two decades ago, I worked as an urban economic development professional in a good-sized city, interacting between a business community and city government. It was not the easiest job I ever had, but in some ways, it was the best. I developed many communications, organization and political skills that I regularly use, as well as resources for the stories I write today.

I didn’t have a primer, a written guide for my work, to help me along, but sometimes I wish I did. There were many types of public-private partnerships back then, including school-business partnerships, but the work was trial and error; you have to have the right mix of volunteers and career professionals to made things go smoothly—and that was my hardest challenge.

Today, there are more anecdotes about successful public-private partnerships and more information to help business people and educators along, but I’ve just read one of the few “how to” books that is reader friendly. Most anecdotes are major media stories or academic studies, but give you little direction as to how you—as a new person charged manage a partnership—can succeed.

This “how to” book: Facing the Future Together: Forming Successful School-Business Partnerships is written by Jim Leatherwood, a former teacher, school counselor and administrator who has formed 50 school-business partnerships throughout his career, most notably in California. Leatherwood organizes Facing the Future along 12 commandments for a successful partnership, eleven “do’s,” with one “don’t”: don’t ask for money right away.

Leatherwood has done an excellent job in helping each actor, businessperson and educator, in the difficult job of relating to each other and understanding each other’s needs and as well as their levels of patience. That is important: businesspeople cannot be expected to understand educators and their jargon in little time, nor can educators expect businesspeople to treat a partnership as a “good cause.” Both have vested interests and need incentives to succeed, such as quality workers, more modern technology, or job relevant academic coursework. Both also need accountability measures to take to their superiors to justify and sustain their relationship. And both don’t have the patience to read a lengthier book than Facing the Future.

Leatherwood has included “nitty-gritty” suggestions for details, such as chamber of commerce endorsements and partnership certificates. These details might seem trivial at first, but they are quite important, because they make both sides feel committed and confident their participation will bear fruit. These details symbolize the importance of success, even to the most altruistic of parties.

Facing the Future is reader-friendly, but is missing a couple of important sections that would make it stronger, albeit longer, book. The first is research; both educators and businesspersons need to know the organizations that might have similar programs, and whether these programs are working or failing, and why. Research also helps both sides understand past failures and pessimism; that was one critical issue I had to address in my job. The second is succession planning; the persons who coordinate these partnerships don’t stay on the job forever. They move on, and a new executive must be hired. Advice on writing an effective recruitment ad for the internet or professional association media would also be consistent with the intentions of this book.

With the passage and continued support for No Child Left Behind and the rising concerns over the competitive standing of our students versus students in other nations, school-business partnerships are not going away. They will become more important as our economy gets better.

Facing the Future should give the newest entrants to the field a head start.

Contact Stuart Nachbar at http://www.EducatedQuest.com, a blog on education politics, policy and technology or read about his first book, The Sex Ed Chronicle, a novel on education and politics in 1980 New Jersey, at http://www.SexEdChronicles.com.

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