John Goodlad’s work and life energies have had a profound impact on public and private education in America. His influence has been far reaching. This chapter presents a brief account of his life and major accomplishments for the purpose of helping all of us who work in school and university partnerships to better understand and appreciate his many contributions. It should be clear, after reading this,  how indebted the field is to him and how inspiring his efforts remain for those of us who continue the struggle to provide a quality education for all children and youth.

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.

Grow Your Own (GYO) programs have been lauded as innovative pathways for the recruitment of teachers into the field of education. This chapter will focus specifically on how GYOs at the pre-collegiate level can be conceptualized as innovative partnerships between PK-12 schools and universities to serve as a pipeline into the teaching profession. We used the National Association for Professional Development Schools (NAPDS) Nine Essentials as a lens to analyze the GYO literature. The Nine Essentials outline the fundamental qualities of professional development schools (PDSs), which serve as exemplars of school-university partnerships. PDSs are lauded as contexts that “embrace a culture of innovation.” We describe the relationship between GYOs and each of the Nine Essentials including areas of strength and possible opportunities for future innovation. Finally, we offer implications for viewing and designing GYOs as innovative, in-depth partnerships between PK-12 schools and universities

When the National Association for Professional Development Schools (NAPDS) decided to change its name, it also changed its scope, increasing its draw to include all school–university partnerships (SUPs). This handbook will capture the essence of what had been all things professional development school (PDS) but will also begin to assume responsibility for the ideas related to this broader realm. School–university partnerships could range from the ephemeral, created for one grant project or one university class activity, to long-term committed relationships that may or may not be teacher education related. This commentary addresses the chapters pertaining to the all-important history and conceptual foundations of this work for future partnership scholars, considering each author’s thoughtful efforts and perspective and adding my own as a second generation PDS researcher and participant.

 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.

Clinical experiences are typically cited by teacher candidates as the most powerful component of their teacher education program (Cuenca, 2012; Guyton & McIntyre, 1990; Wilson et al., 2001). In addition, student teachers typically cite their cooperating teacher as the most “significant other” during their teacher education program (Karmos & Jacko, 1977; McClusky, 1999). As Dallas and Horn (2008) stated in 2008, the best way to learn to teach is to practice with highly qualified teachers. School–university partnerships, whether they be professional development schools or some other type of close partnership, promote deep collaboration between faculty and administrators in higher education and P-12 schools, as well as with teacher candidates to ensure the best possible sites for teacher development.

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.

As school–university partnerships (SUPs) continue to establish themselves in the larger context of improvement efforts in the field of education, it is less clear how they relate in design, process, and outcomes to other types of collaborative education research efforts (Penuel et al., 2020). In this study, we address calls for research on school-university partnerships (Darling-Hammond, 1994; Coburn & Penuel, 2016; Farrell et al., 2022) by examining the inputs and processes of different variations of collaborative education research (Penuel et al., 2020). We hypothesize that the inputs and processes of these collaborations have more similarities than differences. To test this hypothesis, we selected purposeful cases of a professional development school and a research–practice partnership launched during the same time period – the 1990s. Findings and implications for the field of collaborative education research and school–university partnerships are discussed.

After being exposed to several life-course transitions, and assuming that the major difficulties that characterize the period of early adolescence are over, the transition to high school should be easy. However, in reality for some students this transition is still significant and stressful. The difficulties stem from five characteristics of this process: an accumulation of difficulties; an overload of learning materials; unspoken threats regarding possible school dropout or negative evaluations of academic achievements; the obligation to make practical decisions regarding the future; and worries about the postschooling period. Studies on adjustment to high school establish only a limited body of knowledge, as many are short-term explorations without follow-up of possible long-term implications. Discussions of the teachers’ role, which is now even more significant than in secondary school, peers’ role, that is now less important, and parents’ role are provided. Following that, descriptions of interventions to support high school adjustment and to support the transition from high school to postschool life are presented and demonstrated

This commentary critically examines the Equity, and Student Learning part in The Cambridge Handbook of School–University Partnerships. Collectively, these chapters make inquiries and provide valuable insights into the assertive efforts of school–university partnerships (SUPs) to address social and economic inequalities for minoritized, marginalized, and otherized student groups within PreK-12 school systems. Effectively, these chapters highlight the potential and opportunities SUPs offer for redressing sociocultural gaps or lack of cultural competence or critical consciousness within teacher education programs together with the social and economic inequalities (i.e., opportunity gap) observed in PreK-12 schools. Correspondingly, these chapters provide timely and practical approaches for addressing the sociopolitical dilemmas SUPs are currently navigating.

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.