For the past dozen years, the federal government has held schools accountable for students' achievement in reading and mathematics. Schools that have not demonstrated improved student scores have faced heavy sanctions, including reconstitution and closure. In response to this high-stakes environment, schools appear to have extended the time…

More than ever, people are seeking substance use disorder treatment during the adolescent and young adult stages of development. Developmentally, many of these young adults new to recovery are in the process of making career decisions that may require attendance at a college or university. However, the collegiate environment is not conducive to a…

Students in schools, colleges, and universities are rapidly becoming more diverse while the teaching workforce has failed to keep pace. The underrepresentation of minority teachers on school faculties persists despite efforts by successful national teacher recruitment programs, such as the Institute for Recruitment of Teachers, to redress this…

In spite of the widening racial achievement gap among U.S. college students (U.S. Census Bureau, 2011), some universities are achieving success in supporting the graduation and postcollege goals of Black undergraduates (Apprey, Bassett, Preston-Grimes, Lewis, & Wood 2014/this issue; Baker, 2006; Hrabowski, 2003; Hrabowski & Maton, 2009).…

In this article, we describe development of a clinical model of teacher education connected to a community engagement commitment of the university known as the Signature Partnership Initiative. The current clinical model builds upon previously established collaborations of the College of Education and Human Development with district and school…

Responding to the challenge of more rigorous and outcome-oriented program evaluation criteria of the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), authors take a critical look at the intersection of two standards: Clinical Partnerships and Practice (Standard 2) and Program Impact (Standard 4). Illustrating one aspect of a secondary…

Efforts to improve teacher education have recently focused in on the importance of well-supervised clinical practice as a critical element of effective preparation. This article outlines the challenges to creating productive clinical experiences for prospective teachers, and identifies strategies that have been found successful in confronting…

The University of South Carolina Professional Development School (USC PDS) Network has been engaged in designing and redesigning school-university partnerships for more than 20 years with a focus on ensuring that school-based practice lies at the heart of candidate preparation. In 2012-2013, the USC PDS Network once again reexamined their program…

The Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut is committed to the intentionality of interweaving course work and practice in its 5-year teacher preparation program, the Integrated Bachelor's and Master's program. It offers a wide range of field experiences to teacher candidates. Teacher candidates enter the program at the…

The school district is the fundamental administrative unit of schooling in the United States and the superintendent the lead official. The nature and the challenges of this position, however, vary across the landscape. Because most superintendents lead rural districts, the challenges facing those districts are the ones that typically bedevil the…

This paper intends to describe the recent experience of a small, rural, two-year technical college. After four decades of success, the college had found itself in a difficult situation with a substantial loss in enrollment and diminished state and local support, coupled with low campus employee morale. In response, the college team closed ranks…

Educating American Africans boys has been a mixture of political rhetoric, educational pedagogy, and historical neglect. Although American African educators have produced several models for effectively educating Black boys, most of them are dismissed as too "radical" by White researchers who have little understanding or experience in…

A passion to ensure the educational and life success of all children, particularly young African American men, has propelled my work for all of my professional life. Although following one's passion can make for a fulfilling life, passion is not enough to create a successful and sustainable nonprofit organization. Like many leaders in the…

This article explores the theory of action underlying New York University's (NYU's) Partnership Schools Program--explaining in the process what a theory of action is, and how it can be constructed for other innovations in other contexts. NYU's Partnership Program involves 23 schools, K-12, spanning several of New York City's…

Over the past several decades, there has been an increased focus on health promotion as opposed to individual health determinants and disease prevention. Given the association between health and academic success, health promotion is a vastly overlooked lever for establishing effective K-12 schools. Student, organizational, and community well-being…