Formed in 2011, the New Jersey Public School Labor Management Collaborative (LMC) looks to create a new dynamic between the staff (the "labor") and the administrators and boards of education (the "management") of New Jersey's public schools. Traditionally viewed as competing - if not adversarial - interests, labor and management, are transformed into cooperating interests through the work of the LMC. Rather than arriving at compromises, labor and management can now arrive at joint solutions.

A large, and growing, body of research around collaboration, professionalism, and education has repeatedly documented the benefits to students of such an approach. It is the LMC's mission to standardize this approach and expand it throughout New Jersey's public school districts. In effect, the LMC seems to make collaboration the norm for how New Jersey Public Schools function.

Towards this end, the LMC has adopted the Prepare, Act, and Reflect model. We prepare by learning the importance of collaboration, who our partners are and what roles they play, and what our shared goals are. We act by establishing committees at both the school and district levels, determining the types and levels support needed, identifying objectives and goals, establishing norms, and managing the work itself. We reflect by reexamining our goals and practices, assessing the causes for our successes (or lack thereof), and calibrating our goals and practices accordingly.

Because there is no single model for every district or situation, the LMC assists its partner districts in creating the ideal model for their unique context and assist them in negotiating the transition to this new model of joint decision-making. Our shared, common goals for our children means we can make shared decisions.