‘The Best Way to Predict the Future is to Create It' -- P. Drucker

Abstract

This final chapter begins with a section on the history of professional development school partnerships and the current need to advance PDS and partnership research through the development of a collaborative national research agenda. The second section outlines a working framework for a core national research agenda seen as an inventive vision and tool for future empirical partnership work between researchers and teachers. The agenda is adaptable to other partnerships and involves multi-site and cross-regional partnership studies for strengthening evidence and claims of effectiveness. The focus is on the four-part K-20 partnership model: preparing new teachers, enhancing professional development, conducting meaningful collaborative research, and advancing student learning and achievement. Examples of newer research questions and a conceptual model for a research study using a quasi-experimental research approach are offered to researchers and teachers who are collaborating with one another for “re-inventing” American education and impacting policy during this new era of change.