In these troubled times for our education system, we believe that school–university partnerships can provide shining examples to help alleviate these identified issues as well as meeting – and exceeding – policy discourse. This chapter provides embodied examples from four diverse school–university partnerships in Australia that showcase contextually sensitive resolutions to these identified problems. The cases demonstrate how school–university partnerships can enhance experiences for pre-service teachers, promote meaningful and relevant professional learning throughout a teacher’s career, deeply engage teachers and teacher educators in research and evidence-based practice, and encourage collaborative practices within and between institutions. Through these cases, connections between school-university partnerships and the recommendations from the QITE Report are explored in this chapter. School–university partnerships have far-reaching opportunities and implications for the teaching profession and can (and should) be an integral element of educational reform – not just for initial teacher education, but for the teaching profession as a whole.

The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) call to “turn teacher education upside down” was a catalyst in teacher candidate preparation to center clinical experiences and increase collaboration between schools and universities (NCATE, 2010). We argue that clinical practice can do more than prepare quality teachers; it has the potential to transform the systems of education that comprise the School–University partnership. In answering the question, what is the function of teacher candidate supervision in creating and sustaining School–University partnerships, we offer a reconceptualization of supervision as praxis, taking a knowledge-of-practice (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999) approach supervision. To actualize this approach, supervisors of candidates must develop inquiry as stance (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999) and support the development of an inquiry stance within the candidates, mentors, and other supervisors. Teacher candidate supervision could generate a simultaneous renewal of P-12 schools and institutions of higher education in School–University partnerships if actualized as praxis.

This chapter explores the transformative potential of pre-service teachers (PSTs) partnering with community activist organizations (CAOs) as part of their teacher preparation program. Through summer internships with CAOs, PSTs gain insights into community cultural wealth, systemic oppression, and issues facing marginalized communities. This engagement enables PSTs to develop a racial and social justice lens and understand their future students’ strengths and challenges. The chapter presents how these experiences inform curriculum development, leading to community-responsive pedagogy. It highlights enduring understandings PSTs gain from CAO partnerships, emphasizing the wisdom of local communities, collective action, diverse forms of activism, the joy of community engagement, and integration of community issues in curriculum. Policymakers are encouraged to support such partnerships to equip educators for socially just teaching. Further research is suggested to explore long-term impacts and best practices in CAO engagement.

In contemporary education, the role of teachers as leaders has gained prominence, particularly within school–university partnerships (SUPs) and professional development schools (PDSs). Teacher leaders play a critical role in improving teaching and learning in schools and in establishing and maintaining partnerships. In this chapter, we explore the multifaceted dimensions of teacher leadership within the context of SUPs and PDSs, including its historical underpinnings and evolving nature. We acknowledge the challenges associated with teacher leadership and assert that teacher leaders in a SUP are essential to a partnership’s success. We discuss the ways in which teacher leadership should, and can, be supported as a professional, impactful and important role in schools. In addition, issues of diversifying the teacher leader workforce and why that is important are also addressed.

Community schools, an equity-oriented reform strategy, has expanded significantly in recent years. To achieve their goals, community schools engage partners that operate outside the traditional K-12 realm. School–University partnerships are one key example of collaboration that have a transformative potential to impact the effectiveness of community schools. While these partnerships hold great potential to advance the vision and mission of community schools, there are also many barriers to the development, sustainability, and growth of meaningful partnerships between universities and community schools. This chapter provides an overview of the community school strategy, outlines both opportunities and challenges in partnerships between universities and community schools, and highlights examples from the field to illustrate some key learnings to establishing sustained partnerships. This chapter aims to contribute to a more open and honest discussions around community school and university partnerships for education equity.

As hybrid spaces for enacted practice, school–university partnerships (S-UPs) are complex systems for leadership and educational change. Therefore, in this chapter I explore various educational leadership theories–from a wide perspective encompassing paradigms, conceptual frameworks, and constructs as described in the literature on educational leadership – and work to identify coherence among the complexity in order to provide guiding principles (from theories) for SUP leadership practice and scholarship. Among the discussions of theory and practice in educational leadership scholarship, tensions and even contradictions are identified when considering enacted practice of educational leaders. Embracing tensions to meet complexity with complexity, I highlight a framework with theories as guideposts for leaders in SUPs to engage and live in a dynamic way to best meet the needs and purposes of SUPs through complexity leadership.

In this chapter, our goal was to synthesize research from the last ten years on School–University partnerships that utilized theoretical frameworks. We open the chapter by operationalizing the term theoretical framework and distinguishing it from the term conceptual framework. We then describe our search process for the a priori systematic literature review that we conducted including our search terms. We provide a continuum of theory integration (from low to medium to high integration) that we found within the twenty-four articles we reviewed, and we also describe the various theoretical “families” represented in this review including context-specific teacher preparation and place-based learning, critical theories, post-colonial and decolonizing theories, and sociocultural theories. We conclude the chapter with an emphasis on hope for School–University partnerships.

There is a need for culturally responsive pedagogy in school–university partnerships to prepare teachers for working with Micronesian Islanders in the state of Hawai’i. As United States public schools become more culturally diverse, there is a need for teacher education programs to better prepare candidates for working with demographically diverse students. Situated in the Hawai’i public school context, we explain how teacher preparation programs may better prepare teacher candidates for working effectively with culturally and linguistically diverse students. An empirical study details how the literature informed our efforts as teacher educators to promote teacher candidates’ understandings of culturally responsive pedagogy to work effectively with Micronesian Islanders; a historically marginalized student population in Hawaii’s public schools. The chapter concludes with suggestions for research, practice, and policy surrounding increased the use of culturally responsive pedagogy in school–university partnerships to prepare teacher candidates for working with historically marginalized student populations.

This review of research on school–university partnerships (SUPs) begins by presenting an overview of the relevant literature including scoping reviews, research mapping, systematic reviews and traditional literature reviews published between 1997 and 2023. The review found three questions were typically addressed in the studies; the first focused on the characteristics of successful partnerships, the second on the outcomes of partnership work and the third on the extent to which partnerships focused on issues of equity. In addition, the review noted that since the earliest reviews of research on PDSs there has been a concern with the quality of that research. A number of suggestions are offered to improve the quality of research including attention to the development of appropriate measures for evaluation, an appreciation for complexity, a close investigation of local context, and a stance of patience and humility. The chapter closes with technical and ethical guidelines for future research.

School–university partnerships lie at the heart of pre-service teacher education programmes, though there are “disconnect[s] between what students are taught in campus courses and their opportunities for learning to enact these practices” (Zeichner 2010, p.91). At the heart of school–university partnerships is a conception of the type of teacher that the teacher education programme expects. Drawing on the UK context, we explore ways programme integration can be achieved through research-informed clinical practice, enabling programs “to facilitate and deepen the interplay between the different kinds of knowledge that are generated and validated within the different contexts of school and university” (Burn & Mutton, 2015, p.217). Central to this is the process of “practical theorising,” although this approach also presents a number of challenges. We conclude by exploring the potential for enhanced school–university partnerships to extend beyond pre-service teacher education to in-service teachers’ engagement with research and researchers.

Through school–university partnerships (SUPs), individuals and organizations collaborate across the long-standing boundaries that exist between preschool through high school (p-12) and postsecondary education. Partnerships between institutions of higher education and schools take many forms and exist for many purposes; SUPs are boundary-spanning collaborative efforts that require individuals and groups to cross systemic divides in the United States educational system (Burns & Baker, 2016; Zeichner, 2010). In the first half of this chapter, we explore a broad definition for SUPs, define types of SUPs and briefly trace their development since the late 1800s. In the second half of this chapter, we apply three aspects of critical race theory (CRT) to SUPs, considering how SUPs might be facilitated to intentionally pursue racial equity.

We explore the promise and possibility of innovation in professional development schools (PDS). Based on a systematic review of 351 articles from school university partnerships, this chapter provides an analysis as well as illustrations of professional development school innovation. Our analysis points to three gears of innovation including the PDS itself as the initial innovation, the infusion of inquiry and research within the PDS as a second level of innovation, and a third level of innovation characterized as innovative outcomes. These outcomes related to innovation (1) as collaboration that fills a PK-12 learning gap and complements PK-12 instruction, (2) that supports the redesign of teacher education to strengthen learning through clinical practice and build program coherence, (3) in job-embedded professional learning, and (4) related to expanding the scope of partnerships. We conclude by highlighting a series of insights gained from the analysis and identifying future possibilities and challenges for PDSs.

 Agency is fundamental to the work of all professionals and attempts to improve or reform education and schools must attend to teacher agency. This chapter provides a conceptual understanding and begins with an examination of terms used to describe the ways teachers act or are positioned, including agency, empowerment, autonomy, identity, self-efficacy, and voice, and explores the interrelationships among these terms. Contextual factors that impact teacher agency such as school culture, administrative style, practitioner inquiry, collaboration, measures of accountability, time constraints, and prior experience are reviewed. The fact that teacher agency may be expressed through professional attitudes and action, leadership, curriculum curation, and resistance to imposed mandates is explored, and finally, the authors highlight the benefits of agentic teachers to schools and students. School–University partnerships provide a unique opportunity to support teachers as agentic professionals and the chapter concludes with a set of specific recommendations to facilitate such an endeavor.

This chapter includes a systematic review of 111 peer-reviewed articles that were identified through ERIC via EBSCO Host with keywords related to student learning, student achievement, school–university partnerships, and professional development schools. Despite the keyword indicators focused on student outcomes, only twenty articles actually included student learning data, while 36 included data on teachers, teacher candidates, or administrators related to partnerships hoping to improve learning, and 65 articles were descriptive and included no data sources at all. We use a case from our own partnership work to provide a potential framework for future research in School–University partnerships and elaborate on implications for consideration for scholars hoping to link partnerships and their influence on student learning outcomes.

In the context of an ever-shrinking world, where education concerns are shared across borders, and the 2030 deadline to achieve the 17 United Nation Sustainable Development Goals – specifically goal 4: “inclusive and equitable quality education … for all” is looming, it seems timely to take a look at school-university partnerships from a global perspective. This chapter begins with a quick scan of school-university partnerships, primarily in the US. It then examines school-university partnerships in – or with – other parts of the world, using available – and accessible – literature. What are some examples of school-university partnerships across different countries and what kinds of conversations frame this phenomenon? It closes by discussing some enduring issues that plague school-university partnerships and suggest how global collaborations might generate new insights into perennial problems.

This chapter discusses the policy landscape and partnership environment for teacher preparation. The chapter highlights three collaborative models (professional development schools, teacher residency programs, and registered apprenticeship programs) that promise to generate the diverse, well-qualified, and highly committed educators P-12 schools need. Current policies that support these models are delineated and emerging research about the models is introduced while recognizing a significant need for continuing research, particularly with registered apprenticeship programs, only now beginning to graduate their first completers. Feedback from policy-makers and key players among the constituencies that create and lead teacher preparation is utilized to generate recommendations for future action and to suggest crucial areas for additional research.

This chapter outlines how Children’s Aid has partnered in community schools work with institutions of higher education in New York City and beyond. This work includes establishment of a satellite college campus in a public intermediate school; development and implementation of multi-year evaluations of Children’s Aid community schools; professional development partnerships with all New York City graduate schools of social work; and, most recently, the co-creation of the nation’s first on-line course on community schools. The chapter explores several key themes: (1) how the centrality of partnerships to the work of community schools makes these venues fertile ground for innovative School–University collaborations; (2) the mutually beneficial nature of these partnerships; (3) the role of Children’s Aid as a coordinator of these School–University partnerships; and (4) lessons learned about factors that enhance or hinder effective School–University collaborations. Findings from the multi-year community school evaluations and other relevant research are presented.

School principals play a critical role in developing and nurturing effective school–university partnerships (SUP). This is especially true in community school contexts, a type of SUP where public schools benefit from partnerships with community resources. To provide a more nuanced understanding of the leadership skills required for principals to do partnership work, the purpose of this chapter was twofold: (1) to describe what is known about the role of principals engaged in partnership work, and (2) to provide examples from the authors’ own research on how school principals can advance partnerships, especially with universities, to foster an effective SUP. Implications for school principals and university partners are discussed, as are challenges school principals encounter when attempting to advance sustainable SUPs. The chapter concludes with policy and practice considerations for school and university leaders.

Teacher residencies are an important component of university-district partnerships and often grow out of a desire to ensure students have equitable access to quality teachers. However, it is critical to consider how problematic roots and rationales for teacher residencies alongside questionable implementation practices may position these programs to perpetuate the very inequities they claim to push against. This chapter reviews the evolution of teacher residency programs in the context of educational equity and outline how guiding documents and associated research position teacher residencies in relation to notions of educational equity and where these aims diverge. We end with our freedom dreams (Kelley, 2020) for ways forward as a love letter to teacher residency program providers and to residents themselves, as we encourage readers to locate themselves and their work in these histories and contemporary implementation practices so that we may dream up more just ways forward in teacher residency work.

The purpose of this chapter is to examine the role of leadership in designing school–university partnerships (SUPs). Four fundamental concepts of design science are discussed: (1) wicked problems, (2) design principles, (3) design thinking, and (4) pilot testing. These concepts can be applied to three different types of SUP design opportunities: governance, professional development, and clinical experiences. Successfully leading the design process requires an understanding of the value of design, the skills needed to lead the process, and a vision for the power of design. Design leadership is illustrated through a hypothetical example.