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Systemic and seismic changes across multiple dimensions of schooling are needed to create equitable schools. We highlight a promising set of intentional and illustrative practices at one university that illustrate how equity can be highlighted across educational systems. While our efforts are ongoing, we explore a commitment to equity and social justice across: (1) A professional development school network. (2) An elementary education program. (3) Focal classrooms committed to equity practices. (4) Teacher education courses embedded in schools. This paper draws on data collected at each systemic level listed above. We use these data to illustrate the importance of intentional and simultaneous efforts to change practices across classrooms, schools, teacher professional development spaces, and teacher education courses. While our efforts are ongoing and inevitably incomplete, we maintain that this systemic confluence contributes to comprehensive and sustainable structures that support more equitable learning experiences for children, teachers, preservice teachers, and university faculty.

Purpose The purpose of this action research study was to design, implement and evaluate interventions that enhanced the induction program for new teachers in a P-12 school district. At the outset, we hoped the study would provide new teacher support resulting in improved teaching practices, increased job satisfaction and/or increased teacher retention among the target population. With this in mind, our research question was: What structures and supports from a school-university partnership facilitate capacity-building among university teacher education faculty, school and district leaders, mentor teachers, and new teachers in the context of an induction program?Design/methodology/approach This study used an intervention-centered mode of action research methodology that aims to make systems-level change. This type of action research intends to solve real organizational problems with a focus on conducting “research in action” rather than “research about action” (Coghlan and Brannick, 2014, pp. 5–6). This approach necessitates that data collection and analysis are iterative processes, occurring throughout the research process, instead of solely at the end stages of the research process. Our action research process used Coghlan and Brannick’s (2014) action research cycle model. The cyclical four-step process includes constructing (verifying the problem in the local context), planning action, taking action and evaluating action. Facilitated by the interim director of a Professional development schools (PDS) partnership in the Southeastern United States, a team of co-researchers which included three university teacher education faculty and four school district administrators used action research methodology to create systemic change that enhanced the district’s induction program. We collected data through multiple qualitative methods, including surveys, focus groups, observations and interviews during the course of three action research cycles. These data and our theoretical framework (complex adaptive systems theory and social network theory) informed two major interventions that supported new teachers during the challenging first year of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.Findings The interventions and the research process were mutually beneficial for both institutions and contributed to professional learning and growth at the individual, group and system levels. The three major findings described include: (1) engaging in collaborative action research is mutually beneficial for both schools and universities; (2) induction programs benefit from university resources; (3) learning communities build all educators’ professional capacity.Research limitations/implications Our research recommendations are: (1) more research is needed on the benefits of school-university partnerships to induction programs; (2) school-university partnerships should leverage action research to improve systems; (3) within school-university partnerships, the connection between collaborative leadership and sustainability requires further research. One limitation was that this study was conducted in a single school-university partnership context involving a large public university and a mid-sized public school district that had a well-established partnership. More induction-centered research is needed in different types of school-university partnership contexts that have varying levels of longevity and partnership structures.Practical implications Our recommendations for practice include (1) school-university partnerships should leverage collaborative learning communities to catalyze individual, group and systems-level learning and change, and (2) school-university partnerships must prioritize induction support to strengthen the teaching profession.Originality/value Since Hunt’s (2014) literature review on induction support in PDS partnerships, very few empirical studies have been conducted in this research area. This study, which examined induction support in a PDS partnership over a two-year period, makes a significant contribution to the scholarly literature on induction teacher support in school-university partnership contexts. Facilitated by the interim director of a PDS partnership, a team of co-researchers, which included three university teacher education faculty and four school district administrators, used action research methodology to create systems-level supports that enhanced the district’s induction program.

Purpose: The field of Professional Development Schools (PDS) continues to evolve with promising implications. As part of advancing practice, the National Association for Professional Development Schools has updated its nine essential guiding principles, which now includes an explicit expectation for all PDS partners to advance equity, anti-racism and social justice. This article is a call for critical professional development work which infuses Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) practices into achieving the Nine Essentials. Design/methodology/approach: In this call-to-action article, the authors argue that it is imperative for the whole of PDS work to establish a priority for inclusive practice that recognizes and responds to all aspects of diversity in education from the outset, including disability. The authors suggest that PDS work must be guided by an intersectional approach that is operationalized to achieve equity in education by dismantling both racism and ableism in education. The authors use an action-based example from our PDS work to exemplify these elements in practice. Findings: In this article, the authors put forth two arguments that they urge their PDS colleagues to consider. First, the authors call for practices within PDS to give attention to improving student learning in ways that specifically address disability and intersectional considerations related to disability. Second, the authors urge that PDS work must be conceptually and practically inclusive in order to achieve the social justice impact put forth in the comprehensive mission of the Nine Essentials. Originality/value: There is a growing body of literature around PDS that addresses theory to practice research and best practices in PDS settings. While some recent publications address inclusive PDS practices, the authors were not able to identify any works related to DisCrit in the PDS literature to date.

PurposeThe purpose of this viewpoint article is to share the reflections of school and university leaders on the success of their emerging school–university partnership for the preparation of middle school teachers.Design/methodology/approachThe article is a reflective paper in which the leaders of the school–university partnership discuss the benefits of establishing the initial school–university partnership and reflect on what has helped the partnership experience success in the partnership's first five years of existence.FindingsWhile the authors describe their school-university partnership as emerging, both the school and the university have experienced successes. Upon reflection, the authors discuss four specific essential elements to their initial partnership success. Communication and collaboration among all stakeholders ensure all voices are heard and valued. Allowing the university to have a physical presence in the middle school encourages the building of trusting relationships. For partnerships to succeed, partners must allow time for the partnership to mature and grow. Finally, when the middle school hires graduates from the partnering university, this benefits both the school and university partners.Originality/valueAs teacher preparation moves further away from the university campus to engage more closely with schools, there are lessons to be learned. Reflection is an essential component of growth. The partners in this school–university partnership believe sharing the partners' experiences will enhance the effectiveness of the partners' own partnership and encourage others that choose to begin this journey.

PurposeThis article, written by a multilingual learner program (MLP) specialist, provides a first-hand account of how a professional development school (PDS) (school–university partnership school) promotes teacher advocacy.Design/methodology/approachDue to the subject of the piece, no research methods were necessary.FindingsDue to the subject of the piece, there are no findings.Originality/valueThe teacher details the teacher's educational journey from intern to doctoral candidate.

Purpose: Professional development schools (PDSs) advocate links between schools and teacher education programs, but how do mentor teachers in schools experience their role in this? Therefore, this research focuses on mentor teachers to investigate the change brought about by the implementation of a complex-wide PDS. Design/methodology/approach: This qualitative single case study in a newly formed complex-wide PDS is based on surveys and individual interviews with mentor teachers from one school complex area. Activity systems analysis provided the framework to analyze mentor teachers interactions, their role and activities. Findings: Mentor teachers expressed a sense of purpose in educating the next generation of teachers, experienced continuous learning in the collaboration with the teacher candidates and recognized opportunities for professional development offered by teacher education programs. Practical implications: Schools and teacher education institutes rely on mentor teachers in their support to educate the next generation of teachers. Knowing what activities and values mentor teachers place on their mentoring can guide school administrations and teacher education institutes in their support and recruitment for mentor teachers. Originality/value: This research contributes to the development of teacher education in the State of Hawaii and has identified helpful structures for meaningful teacher education.

This paper discusses best practices in teachers’ professional development (PD) in the United States (U.S.). We begin by presenting a conceptual framework for effective professional development, which suggests five key features that make professional development effective—content focus, active learning, coherence, sustained duration, and collective participation. We then describe the findings from recent U.S. research that has tested the five features, with an emphasis on the results of rigorous randomized control trials. We discuss several insights gained from this work and that have helped refine the framework. They are that (a) changing procedural classroom behavior is easier than improving content knowledge or inquiry-oriented instruction techniques; (b) teachers vary in response to the same PD; (c) PD is more successful when it is explicitly linked to classroom lessons; (d) PD research and implementation must allow for urban contexts (e.g., student and teacher mobility); and (e) leadership plays a key role in supporting and encouraging teachers to implement in the classroom the ideas and strategies they learned in the PD. We then examine three major trends in how professional development for teachers is evolving in the U.S.—a move away from short workshops, linking teacher PD to evaluations, and the use of video technology to improve and monitor the effects of PD. Finally, we discuss the challenges faced by districts and schools in implementing effective professional development.

Based on qualitative and quantitative data collected from an investigation of the flagship National Teacher Training Project (NTTP) in China, this study compares the impacts of teacher professional development (PD) programs located at different distances from the participants’ workplaces. The study argues that local and nonlocal programs play different roles in teacher PD. While local programs are conducive to teachers’ mastery of context-specific knowledge and skills that are directly connected to subject teaching, nonlocal programs are crucial for teachers’ continuous professional development in the long term. The two types of programs are supplementary to each other, and teachers need access to both types of programs.

Although wide variation in teacher effectiveness is well established, much less is known about differences in teacher improvement over time. We document that average returns to teaching experience mask large variation across individual teachers and across groups of teachers working in different schools. We examine the role of school context in explaining these differences using a measure of the professional environment constructed from teachers responses to state-wide surveys. Our analyses show that teachers working in more supportive professional environments improve their effectiveness more over time than teachers working in less supportive contexts. On average, teachers working in schools at the 75th percentile of professional environment ratings improved 38% more than teachers in schools at the 25th percentile after 10 years.