Competing views of teaching in a school–university partnership☆
Introduction
School–university partnerships hold significant potential to enhance teachers' professional development and thereby foster student learning. Consequently, partnerships are a prevalent element of school reform efforts. However, school–university partnerships encounter numerous challenges related to logistical issues and institutional differences, including institutional responses to reform policies. In this paper, we use a case study approach to examine how differing views of the teacher's role in school reform affected the work of a school–university partnership in the United States. In this case, the school district and the university had a history of partnerships and shared common general goals. Yet, as the partnership progressed, conflicting perspectives about the teacher's role in reform and the purpose of professional development in a particular reform context became evident and created dilemmas that influenced the nature of the partnership's work. While this study is situated in the United States, the focus on the dilemmas produced by overlapping reforms in a school–university partnership has international relevance, particularly as they relate to teachers' work lives and roles in reform.
Section snippets
Perspective
In a climate of high stakes accountability in the United States, teacher professional development is increasingly regarded as a leverage point for school improvement. The National Council on Teaching and America's Future (NCTAF), a prominent national non-profit organization that has issued research-based reports and worked with states and school districts to launch initiatives aimed at improving teaching, proposes that the nation appears to have reached “a consensus that well-prepared teachers
Conceptual framework
This study explores the intersection of school–university partnership dynamics, such as the negotiation of logistical and institutional differences, and the impact of accountability reform in US public schools. By conceptualizing the partnership in this way, we examine how competing views of teaching are linked to translations of existing accountability reforms, shaping the perspectives, expectations, and experiences of partnership participants.
Standards and accountability reform become
Background
At the time the school–university partnership began, the school district was in the midst of a standards-based reform effort. Across the United States, there was a wave of reforms promoting curriculum standards that were aligned to standardized tests. In the late 1990s, due to increased pressure from the state of California to enhance student achievement, the district developed and implemented its own standards and criterion-referenced testing system in core curricular areas. Administrators
Method
The partner district is located in a diverse, working class community in the state of California in the US. At the time of this study, the school district included a total of 22 schools: two comprehensive high schools, one continuation high school, three middle schools, and 16 elementary schools. Comprehensive high schools are a typical arrangement in the United States and are designed to enrol and meet the needs of the entire population of students from grades 9 to 12. Continuation high
Differing views of teacher role in reform
Although the district administrators and the university partners appeared to have similar general goals of including teachers in educational reform, each partner's approach revealed differing perspectives about the teachers' role. The differing perspectives are reflected in the terms used to describe teacher involvement. Whereas district administrators referred to staff development, the university partners described the work as professional development. The distinction is important because it
Influence of differing views on school–university partnership
As described above, the university partners and the district administrators held contrasting views about the teachers' role in reform and the purpose of professional development. These contrasting views created dilemmas for the work of the school–university partnership. In the following sections, we examine how the differing perspectives influenced the goals and activities of the school–university partnership.
Conclusion
Collaborative efforts between schools and universities hold the potential to enhance the professional development of teachers and the educational opportunities of their students. However, school–university partnerships inevitably encounter conflicts that arise from the process of linking different institutions in collaborative work. The findings of this study lead to three main conclusions that highlight the complex issues embedded in these shared institutional environments, which we believe
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A version of this paper was presented at the 2006 meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco.
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