Improving America's Schools Together: How District-University Partnerships and Continuous ImprovementCan Transform Education is the first definitive text on continuous improvement in school district-university partnerships, covering improvement methods, theory, research, and real cases across the country with practical improvement tools that can be adapted to any setting. Through an array of in-depth stories of district-university partnerships, the book aims to demonstrate how improvement science―as a shared method―can guide institutions of higher education and their local education agency partners to enact the types of infrastructures that foster leaders and educators capable of enhancing students’ learning outcomes and opportunity structures. Among other topics, readers will benefit from reading about how these partnerships developed course and program offerings for aspiring urban school leaders centered on local problems of practice; strengthened improvement capabilities within districts and schools; leveraged improvement science to transform how teachers are professionally supported; and spanned institutional boundaries through shared tools, frameworks, and practices. Through rich stories and detailed artifacts, including protocols, MOUs, and other practical tools, the authors provide deep insight and practical guidance on the mechanics of place-based, problem-focused, and improvement-minded district-university partnerships. Readers can assess their readiness and ability to work in such ways; identify the constraining and enabling conditions in their locales; and recognize the kinds of tools, resources, and strategies that allow for mutually-beneficial collaborations.
Contributors
Erin Anderson, Douglas W. Anthony, Cynthia K. Barron, Carole Basile, Michelle M. Beavers, Barnett Berry, Manuelito Biag, Regina Biggs, Anthony S. Bryk, Susan Carlile, Charoscar Coleman, Diana Cornejo-Sanchez, Shelby Cosner, Kathleen M.W. Cunningham, Kris DeFilippis, Mark E. Deschaine, Felice Desouza, David Eddy-Spicer, Segun Eubanks, Christina Flesher, Louis Gomez, Betsy Hargrove, Marni Herrington, Brian Harvey, Zipporah Hightower, Randy Hitz, David Imig, Janice Jackson, Julia Jacobsen, Kara Libby, Sandra Lochhead, Peter Martinez, David Mayrowetz, Tania McKey, Peter Moyi, Christine M. Neumerski, Margaret Terry Orr, Deborah S. Peterson, Meisha Porter, Bradley Roberson, David Rock, Natasha Saunders, Farnoosh Shahrokhi, Claire Silva, Denise A. Soares, Jean Snell, Elizabeth Leisy Stosich, Steve Tozer, Samantha Viano, Sam Whalen, Tinkhani Ushe White, Paige Whitlock, Paul Zavitkovsky
About the Editors
Louis Gomez is professor of education (and of information studies) at the University of California, Los Angeles. Gomez has served since 2008 as a senior fellow at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, where he leads the Network Development work. Beginning in 2009, he held the Helen S. Faison Chair in Urban Education at the University of Pittsburgh, where he was also director of the Center for Urban Education and a senior scientist at the Learning Research and Development Center. From 2001 to 2008, he held several faculty appointments at Northwestern University, including the Aon Chair in the Learning Sciences at the School of Education and Social Policy. Prior to joining academia, he spent fourteen years working in cognitive science and person–computer systems and interactions at Bell Laboratories, Bell Communications Research Inc., and Bellcore. His research interests have encompassed the application of computing and networking technology to teaching and learning, applied cognitive science, human–computer interactions, and other areas.
Manuelito Biag currently serves as the managing director of the Carnegie Foundation’s Center for Postsecondary Innovation. His interests include design thinking, research–practice partnerships, educational leadership, and networked improvement science. Manuelito comes to Carnegie from Stanford University, where he served as senior researcher at the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and their Communities at the Graduate School of Education. His work, which has been presented in community forums, professional conferences, and published in academic journals, policy briefs, and edited volumes, examines the organizational structures, policies, and programs that influence students’ learning and overall development―particularly those from vulnerable and historically-marginalized backgrounds.
David Imig holds emeritus status from the Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership program at the University of Maryland, College Park. He studies and writes in the area of school leader preparation and teacher education policy and practice. He served as president and chief executive officer of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) from 1980-2005. He is past chair of the National Policy Board for Educational Administration, the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education’s Executive Committee and the National Society for the Study of Education. He was a senior associate for the National Network for Educational Renewal and helped to establish the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED), serving as chair of the Board of Directors from 2010-2020. He has taught and directed dissertations in the cohort EdD program at Maryland for aspiring school leaders. He serves as a senior fellow for the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and is co-leader of the Improvement Leadership Education for the Advancement of Teaching (iLEAD). He is the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers in the UK.
Dr. Randy Hitz is Dean Emeritus of the Graduate School of Education at Portland State University. His higher education administrative experience spans three decades and includes positions at Portland State, the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and Montana State University. He also served in the Oregon Department of Education as the Early Childhood Education Specialist where he led the effort to create Oregon’s State Prekindergarten Program. His teaching experience ranges from preschool to graduate school. Dr. Hitz’ publications focus primarily on educational policy and curriculum and he has addressed policy matters directly through serving on and leading a variety of state and national boards and committees, including the teacher licensing boards of Montana and Hawaii, the Board of Directors of the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), and the Board of the American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education where he served a term as Chair. He was chair of the Unit Accreditation Board for NCATE and he chaired the Council for Accreditation of Education Professionals (CAEP) Commission as well as participating on CAEP’s Board of Directors. After retiring from full-time work at Portland State University he was appointed to a Senior Fellow position with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. In that role he has worked primarily with the iLEAD project dedicating his time to working with school/university partnerships to create and support educational leaders who can lead continuous improvement efforts to improve education for all students and redress longstanding educational inequities.
Steve Tozer is professor emeritus and past university scholar in educational policy studies at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), where he was founding director of the UIC Center for Urban Education Leadership. Steve previously chaired the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; the Department of Educational Policy Studies at UIC; the Governor’s Council on Educator Quality in Illinois; and a State Legislative Task Force that resulted in a new state school leader certificate. His collaborations with colleagues from UIC and Chicago Public Schools were continuously funded for eighteen years by the U.S. Department of Education and numerous foundations. He is lead author of a textbook, School and Society: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, 8th Edition (McGraw-Hill, 2020), and lead editor of The Handbook of Research in Social Foundations of Education (Routledge, 2011). Steve is a fellow of the George W. Bush Institute and currently works with Chicago Public Schools and other districts on research-practice partnerships for continuous improvement of school leadership.
