Books & Publications

Ferrara and Jacobson go inside community schools across the country to explore the different roles that make this collaborative education reform work. This book provides practitioners, policymakers, family members, youth, and local leaders a greater understanding of the different roles that make up a community school and tools for action. 

Ferrara and Jacobson go inside community schools across the country to explore the different roles that make this collaborative education reform work. This book provides practitioners, policymakers, family members, youth, and local leaders a greater understanding of the different roles that make up a community school and tools for action. 

This book examines the ways in which PDSs build cultural competence for various stakeholders including pre-service teachers, classroom teachers, school leaders, college faculty, and K-12 students. Given the increased national attention on the opportunity gap present in underserved marginalized communities across the country, the authors in this series identify a combination of research-based practices and institutional changes that increase student attainment and develop educators’ capacity to serve a range of diverse learners.

Creating Visions for University- School Partnerships: A Volume in Professional Development School Research, continues to exemplify current thinking of practitioners and researchers in the field. The range of authors from the Prek-16 arena illustrates the ways in which professional development schools generate possible solutions to the complex problems facing educators. The diversity of their work represents perspectives of classroom teachers, preservice teachers, school leaders, and university faculty who grapple with identifying “ways of knowing” and “ways of doing” that enhance educational outcomes for Prek-12 students while also serving to transform the profession.

This book is intended as a guide for practitioners interested in forming alliances within their community to support teacher and student success. Under the umbrella of a professional development school (PDS), school principals willing to engage in this type of partnership have access to a framework for school renewal. Within this school/university framework lie four critical factors that transform the ways in which teachers’ teach and schools’ function. The professional development school model takes a holistic approach to revitalizing schools by sharing knowledge, resources, practices, and the collaborative efforts of P-12 educators and the higher education community.

This volume in the Research in Professional Development Schools book series considers the role professional development schools (PDSs) play in expanding opportunities for linking research and clinical practice. As in past volumes of this series, PDS practitioners and researchers make a compelling case for the power of micro-level initiatives to change practice. Contributors share ideas to expand PDS work beyond site-specific contexts to include a broader macro-level agenda for clinical practice. Authors hope to inspire large scale PDS reform through replication of successful initiatives featured in this volume. Evoking change is not easy. Nonetheless, series editors and contributors conclude that PDSs generate a critical mass of PK-16 educators willing to form partnerships to address enduring educational dilemmas.