Chapter 18: Collaborating For Urban School And Teacher Education Renewal: Perspectives on the Development of a School-University Partnership

This research report presents multiple perspectives on the creation and development of a school-university partnership between a teacher education program in a large public university and an urban school district in California. The collaboration aims at restructuring teacher education as a rigorous, high-status, and field-based activity that takes place in reforming urban education. Findings from this early evaluation study (featuring intensive individual interviews of key participants of the collaboration) reveal that school people tend to hold quite different perspectives from university people on the purposes, processes, and substances of the partnership. While all participants believed that the partnership had achieved some remarkable successes and helped make a solid connection between urban schools and university teacher education programs, they identified the lack of commitment from the university and the absence of effective communication as the major obstacles to the further development of a true and equal partnership. Recommendations for improving the collaboration between schools and universities were made based on conclusions drawn from the rich descriptive data and often-disturbing contrasts in perspectives between the school and the university participants.