A case study of a university-school partnership: impacting the success of children, teacher candidates, and inservice teachers

Abstract

School reform is an often heard term within the Bush administration. Since the signing of his No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), President George W. Bush set out to make certain our teachers are highly qualified and that our children perform better in school. From the Holmes Group (1986) to present-day mandates from The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), university-school partnerships are becoming part of preservice teacher education as well as school reform. This study describes a pilot university-school partnership, focusing on teacher candidates, inservice teachers, and P-5 students. Employing qualitative and quantitative analysis (Gall, Borg, & Gall, 1996; Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998), and case-study research (Yin, 1994), this work studied a first-time, three-year pilot effort toward the formation of a university-wide-elementary school partnership program. This study examined the impact the partnership had on P-5 student achievement, the education of teacher candidates, and on current teacher professional development. The three tiers of this study are reported here in an effort to support existing research on professional development school partnerships while adding to a growing area of research on school reform. The case study was carried out to provide the College of Education with data on its first university-school partnership. Furthermore, the researcher hopes these findings will provide insight and encouragement for others as they create their own university-school partnerships.