Part VII of the handbook explores funding, policy, and politics as a means to build and sustain school–university partnerships (SUPs). How partnerships evolve over time involves many factors. At the heart of partnership work is a shared vision and commitment to a set of values that support mutually beneficial outcomes. Even with the best of intentions, too often these qualities are not enough to move SUPs beyond an initial stage of development. While these elements are critical to partnership success, it’s important to acknowledge that unless funding, policy, and politics are in place to support SUPs in their efforts, barriers will derail their ability to operate and organize in new ways.

Data on children’s behavior in early childhood can predict the child’s behavior as an adult. Hence, there is an assumption that preliminary evaluation of a child’s skills and other capacities (e.g., behavior at preschool or kindergarten) will predict the child’s ability to adjust to school. Accordingly, efforts are made to measure children’s individual capacities (“human capital”) and use it to evaluate the child’s “personal maturity” and preparedness for the transition to elementary school. Gradually, it has been recognized that attention should be given not only to the child’s capacities but also to the school capacities. This is the essence of measurement and intervention in the domain of “school readiness.” Thus, responsibility for successful adjustment to elementary school is the responsibility of the school and not only a matter of the child’s characteristics. This change also requires a shift from a psychometric assessment that measures children at a certain point of time to an edumetric assessment that pursues evaluation of the child’s capability to meet the required standards assuming that proper measures and activities are undertaken to enable it.

There are several types of school–university partnerships (SUPs) situated within various educational structures with varying missions. However, these SUPs may have many general visions that are more similar than disparate. Regardless of the specific type of SUP, areas of funding, policy, and politics may affect the development and maintenance of these SUPs. The recent and current external funding opportunities that relate to SUPs are discussed. Educational polices of both K-12 and universities related to SUP development are examined. Also, national, state, and local political shifts may have an impact on the SUP development cycle. These issues of funding, policy, and politics also may intersect within the day-to-day implementation of a SUP. Suggestions for aggregating the influence of different types of SUPs to inform policy and dealing with barriers are provided. Understanding the cyclical development of SUPs in response to funding, policy, and political changes in the K-12 or university is discussed

Pre-service teachers (PSTs), particularly those learning to teach in urban contexts unfamiliar to them, can learn a great deal about their students and the issues they face by connecting with the communities where their students and their families reside (Koerner & Abdul-Tawwab, 2006; Zeichner, 2010). Research suggests that working alongside community members in service-oriented organizations can provide opportunities for PSTs to learn about the community’s cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005) and develop a beginning critical consciousness (Zygmunt et al., 2018). Engaging with the community can help PSTs understand the systemic issues their students and their families face and learn how to build relationships with students’ families as well as support PSTs’ attentiveness to the role of context in their students’ learning (Bryk & Schneider, 2002; McDonald et al., 2011).

As evidenced in the four chapters in Part IV: Leadership in School–University Partnerships, leadership in a multifaceted school–university partnership (SUP) is complicated, complex, and nuanced. As Snow observed in her chapter, SUP leadership is made extremely complex because it is connected to teaching and learning – and humans who “are not logical creatures, but association making creatures who are capable of logic” (Davis & Sumara, 2006, p. 35, as cited in Snow). The chapters illustrate that there are a variety of thoughtful ways to explain, delineate, and describe the nature of SUP leadership. In one chapter, Henning applied design theory to leadership processes during SUP startups while Snow utilized complexity theory frameworks to contextualize ongoing collaborative efforts. Provinzano and Mayger explored the roles of principals who guide collaboration in community school partnerships and Roselle and colleagues analyzed the potential contributions of teacher leaders. Even though the authors come from different perspectives, commonalities – explicit and inferred – emerge from their analysis. This part provides a multitude of ideas that could be explored and unpacked, but three concepts – third spaces, boundary spanners, and brokers – offer important and meaningful ways to describe and understand SUP leadership practices.

In this part, seven individual authors and teams of authors explored inquiry and innovation in school–university partnership (SUP) research. Inquiry is central to professional development schools (PDSs), and has even been dubbed the “signature pedagogy” (Yendol-Hoppey & Franco, 2014) of PDS. Specifically, the authors in this part of the handbook explore the use of inquiry and action research within PDS and SUP research systematically through studying years of scholarly work. Several of them also explore the meaning of innovation in PDS and SUP research – however, as they demonstrate, sometimes this innovation is slow, or not particularly novel. These chapters were grouped together to connect research to innovation, and illustrate potential paths forward for scholars working in this field.

Universities have long collaborated with schools through various school–university partnerships (SUPs). Critiques of SUPs point to their inequitable power dynamics, with the university often prioritizing its own interests over the needs of the school. University-assisted community schools (UACS) seek to counter these critiques by centering the community, practicing deliberative democracy, and producing public scholarship. After briefly reviewing the current literature surrounding SUPs and UACS, this chapter examines the UACS model in the context of the UCLA Community School. Two examples illustrate how the UCLA Community School seeks to create more equitable relationships as a mutualistic school-university partnership. The chapter concludes with implications for policy and practice that support the development and expansion of university-assisted community schools, highlighting how they enhance equitable relationships between schools and universities and also bring together higher education community engagement reforms and the K-12 community schools movement.

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.

This chapter advocates for schools and universities to work together to create a state of policy readiness for local-level partnerships. Here, policy is defined as the formalization of norms and structures that undergird the partnership and set the conditions for a thriving and sustainable collaboration. This chapter presents several policy readiness factors for school–university partnerships (SUPs), exemplified through a case study of the Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis and Indianapolis Public Schools SUP. This chapter starts with a discussion of how Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Framework can help school and university leaders proactively engage in the policy readiness process. Next it offers a framework for policy readiness for all levels of local school/university partnerships. Finally, it provides evidence of a long-term sustainable partnership in practice.

Randi Weingarten, tireless advocate for community schools, states, “Improving student learning and educational equity require strong, consistent, and sustained collaboration among parents, teachers, school boards, superintendents and administrators, business leaders and the community” (Weingarten, 2013). The authors of the four chapters in this section argue that institutions of higher education (IHEs) are best suited to not only be partners in such collaboratives, but to actively pursue, develop and facilitate them, including educating their staff and evaluating these efforts for success. Since the mid-1960s, colleges and universities have taken on more central roles in a wide array of community partnerships, seeing their jobs as increasingly “mission driven” (Harkavy & Puckett, 1994, p. 313). Building on the early work of John Dewey and Jane Addams, among others, and with the leadership of the University of Pennsylvania’s Netter Center, many universities have found community schools to be among the best ways to focus this mission for a democratic, just society.

Leadership at all levels is pivotal as school–university partnerships (SUPs) seek to cultivate a culture of collaboration. Leaders across roles – be they school principals, university faculty and administrators, or teacher leaders – act as linchpins who not only facilitate the flow of knowledge and resources between institutions, but also engender a sense of shared vision and purpose. Leadership requires navigating the complexities of differing institutional norms, aligning diverse stakeholder interests, and fostering an environment conducive to collaborative innovation. The complex endeavor of developing dynamic leadership and robust partnerships between schools and universities underscores the pivotal work of partnerships seeking simultaneous renewal. This part of the handbook includes four compelling chapters that delineate both conceptual understanding of the work of leaders as well as the practical ramifications of leadership within SUPs.

The chapters in this section represent timely and relevant research related to justice in school–university partnerships (SUPs). Each chapter frames the effect of SUPs on the adults, as school-based and university-based educators, and their effect on the quality of teaching and learning in schools. In a broad review of the literature, D. Polly and E. Colonnese’s chapter reveals patterns linking SUPs and student learning outcomes. I value their call for more robust research about equity and student learning in SUPs. Simply, we need not be afraid to conduct more research closely examining student outcomes in SUPs. The authors beckon for research that draws on more alternative methodologies (beyond descriptive approaches) to show effects on a wide variety of student learning outcomes including but not limited to student’s grades, student self-reported data, attendance data, graduation data, student behavior data, researcher or teacher created assessments.

The education landscape is rich with partnerships between K-12 schools and colleges of education (Handscomb et al., 2014). The challenges that both institutions face are daunting. These partnerships arguably do an adequate job of facilitating a set of transactional activities that both schools and universities require to perform their objective functions. Policy recommendations need to lean into places where partnerships make sense; funding needs to follow and align; and while there will always be politics, we would hope for autonomy and deregulation so that ideas and people can flourish.

While not ignoring individual differences, this book assumes that generalizations can be made across the different processes of school adjustment. Following a short overview of the history of schooling, this chapter discusses what the term “school” stands for and the essential features that turn any setting into “school.” The origin of the word is the Greek word scholē, which stands for “leisure.” However, in most modern schools the emphasis is on working hard and gaining knowledge. Interestingly, across the various formats, goals, and articulations of school throughout history, several aspects are common: institutional life, adults’ decisions, transfer of knowledge, skills acquisition, fluency in languages, delivery of values, exposure to social life, and invasion into students’ private life. The differences between schools appear in the level of intensity that each of the components gains within a given school, rather than a completely different conceptualization of what the term school stands for. Thus, these suggested universal components are of special importance to understand students’ school adjustment.

Following on the heels of the publication A Nation at Risk (1983) and formation of the Holmes Group (1986), the author explores the development and evolution of school–university partnership as essential to quality teacher education. Select aspects of the empirical and conceptual work of John Goodlad and his colleagues are described as especially helpful for understanding partnership and addressing its considerable challenges. Among the most significant of these is the idea of “simultaneous renewal,” a reminder of the need to think ecologically about institutional change, and of “The Agenda for Education in a Democracy” as a response to the imperative need for clarity about the social purposes of education and attentiveness to the character and quality of human relationships, of how partners ought to treat one another. The author argues for focus on the “manners of democracy” as a way of life that include hospitality, attuned listening, voice, reflectivity and evidential discernment.

Nearly thirty years ago, the Holmes Partnership Group (1995) envisioned educators of color as essential to school–university partnerships (SUPs), to the transformation of teacher education, and to achieving equity in public schools. This chapter asserts that the Holmes Partnership Group linked together culture, pedagogy, and the proportional representation of educators of color as a core conceptual foundation of SUPs. Using their final report, Tomorrow’s Schools of Education, as a key SUP policy and governance document, the author provides a retrospective examination of literature on today’s racially and ethnically diverse PK-20 educator pipeline as connected to the goals of cultural pluralism within a democracy and equitable access and opportunity in student learning. The chapter concludes with implications for future research that connects SUPs, social justice teacher education, and the well-being and sustainability of educators of color.