Formalizing a Process for Identifying Urban PDS Partnerships

Both the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future and the Holmes Group suggest that the solution to improving student learning is through formal university-school collaborations, or Professional Development Schools (PDSs). As the research base on PDS partnerships grows, so does the evidence that PDSs improve the quality of teaching in ways that ultimately improve student learning. A true PDS, according to the Holmes Group, seeks to establish a wide-ranging and long-term collaboration whose goals include promoting intensive professional development, restructuring educational roles and practices, establishing sites of best practice for the preparation of new teachers, and carrying out educational research. PDSs are institutions designed to make a difference in the lives of school and university people who work in them and for children who are educated in them. To create an environment that promotes both adult and children's learning, partners must hold themselves accountable for implementing an effective professional development plan for teacher education candidates and practicing teachers and for documenting their efforts in order to assess the effectiveness of their plan in relation to student learning. In June, 1999, the Division of Education at Lehman College, City University of New York began developing a process for identifying PDS partnerships with local urban settings. In this article, the authors share details of this process in the hope it will both encourage others to formalize a process for selecting sites and offer insights into what to include in such a process.