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“Understanding the P-Side of the RPP”

Defined

At NNERPP, we have come to organize our conceptualization of RPPs into three “sides” representing the home organizations that typically participate in an RPP:

  • The “practice-side” or “P-side” of an RPP generally refers to those organizations in the RPP whose main purpose is to administer education. These include schools, school districts, and state education agencies (SEAs)
  • The “Research-Side” or “R-Side” includes organizations whose main purpose is to study education
  • The “Community-Side” or “C-Side” includes organizations whose main purpose is to support community endeavors, in addition to more informal community-based groups, such as families or students

 

On a “people” level, individuals on the P-side can include teachers, principals, curriculum specialists, counselors, district research leaders, superintendents, and various other roles found in schools, districts, state education agencies, and other organizations administering education. While each of these roles and organizations can be quite different from one another, they do sit in a similar “practice-side” environment with incentive structures, timelines, priorities, and ways of working that tend to be distinctly different from the “research-side” or “community-side” environment.

Examples in NNERPP

Within the NNERPP community, we find a wide variety of RPP structures, with NNERPP members partnering with various types of P-side organizations and often more than just one type. Here, we list those NNERPP members whose partner organizations include schools, districts, and SEAs.

Notes About the P-Side

Policy or Practice?

While the second “P” in “RPP” refers to practice, many partnerships also focus on policy as well. For example, for RPPs that partner with district central offices, there is often an aim to inform decision making around policy initiatives, such as attendance strategies, early childhood programs, and so on. The implementation of such policy decisions may then also play a role in changing practice. Thus, when thinking of RPPs, one might also replace the second “P” with policy to call them “research-policy partnerships”, or, one might also describe the work as a “research-practice-policy partnership”. We prefer the use of “RPP”, however, to both reduce confusion and align with what is generally used in practice.

Who should be a partner?

We have often fielded questions around which organization on the P-side is the “best” partner for a certain RPP – that is, when does school-level, district-level, multi-district level or state-level (or a combination of these) make sense for the partnership. This depends on the objectives of the interested parties. For example, if the partnership aims to inform changes to curriculum content, it might make sense for research-side partners to collaborate directly with teachers in schools, as they are closest to practice. However, at the same time, there may be a need to consider district-wide policy changes in adopting the new curriculum. If that’s the case, then including district leaders as partners may also be necessary. If the main interest of the partnership is around policy or program evaluations at the state level – for example, overseeing and evaluating ESSA implementation and its impact on school improvement efforts – then the appropriate P-side partner might be a state education agency.