Partnering for Progress

A volume in Research in Educational Policy: Local, National, and Global PerspectivesSeries Editor Kenneth K. Wong, Brown UniversityFor decades, education researchers have understood that school/university partnerships can be beneficial foreducation reform. K-12 institutions derive benefits from working with professors and university students, andhigher education institutions use local schools as sites for teacher training and school improvement research.Partnerships between universities and entire school districts for the explicit purpose of school districtturnaround are extremely rare, however. This is one reason why the longstanding partnership between BostonUniversity and the Chelsea Public School District is truly one of a kind. In 1989 Boston Universitycommitted itself to the day to day management of Chelsea’s schools, which were beleaguered with financial,managerial, and social problems. After twenty years and in large part thanks to that Partnership, the ChelseaPublic Schools, once the lowest performing in Massachusetts, have become some of the state’s highestperforming urban schools.In this collection, scholars from Boston University, the Chelsea Public schools, and abroad examine the history the Boston University/Chelsea PublicSchools Partnership and the important changes that are now a part of its legacy. Contributors examine both some of the promises fulfilled and some ofthe pitfalls encountered along the way, and they do so with an eye to how the Boston University/Chelsea experience can inform other school districtsand universities interested in forging partnerships. How does a university take fiscal and managerial responsibility for a struggling school district andwhat are the challenges inherent to such a unique relationship? What specific resources can a university bring to a struggling school district and howdoes a school district in turn contribute to the betterment of the university? Also, how does a longstanding partnership survive and thrive in the midstof a dynamic federal and state education reform climate?The lessons outlined in this volume should be informative for researchers, policy makers, and schooland university leaders interested in the possibilities that school/university partnerships hold for trueeducation reform.