Fifteen Eighty Four

What if the future of teacher education isn’t found in isolated innovations but in SUP relationships?

Around the world, teacher education is at a critical crossroads grappling with challenges like teacher recruitment and retention, declining enrollment in preparation programs, inconsistent clinical experiences, and the urgent need for culturally responsive, equity-driven teaching. While many promising efforts are underway, too often these reforms are disconnected and siloed, unfolding in isolated pockets rather than through sustained, system-wide renewal.

The Handbook of School-University Partnerships offers a powerful response to this fragmentation. Rather than prescribing a single model, it brings together decades of research, field-based innovation, policy engagement, and lived experience to present a comprehensive, field-spanning resource. More than a reference guide, the Handbook serves as a blueprint for rebuilding teacher education through enduring partnerships across K–12 schools, universities, and communities. What follows are three major lessons the Handbook teaches us about what school-university partnerships can and must become if we are serious about preparing teachers for the demands of today and the possibilities of tomorrow.

First, the Handbook shows us that teacher preparation doesn’t just need better programming but requires stronger infrastructure. In fields like law, medicine, engineering, and business, students engage in real-world, supervised learning as a core part of their preparation. In contrast, clinical experiences in teacher education are valuable, yes, but often peripheral to the program’s design, funding, and support. The Handbook challenges this status quo by reimagining partnership not as an add-on, but as the essential structure that undergirds preparation. Chapters focused on field experience redesign, university-assisted community schools, and community-embedded models spotlight programs where partnership is foundational, not optional. These examples illustrate how collaboration between universities and schools creates shared responsibility for candidate learning, transforms supervision into a space for equity and justice, and embeds preparation meaningfully within the realities of K–12 teaching.

Second, the Handbook reminds us that partnerships are the engine of renewal in teacher education but that engine can’t run on goodwill alone. While the field often calls for reform, the Handbook makes clear that true transformation requires sustained investment. Partnerships take time, leadership, funding, and policy support to thrive. They cannot be built on personality-driven enthusiasm or maintained without systemic backing. In a moment when new preparation models are emerging and pipelines are faltering, the need to fuel these engines with strategy, structure, and resources has never been more pressing. Contributors who focus on the policy and funding landscape offer practical strategies for aligning partnership efforts with broader systems. They make a compelling case that strong partnerships don’t emerge by chance; they are built on shared vision, local commitment, and intentional alignment with public policy.

Third, and perhaps most powerfully, the Handbook offers a map for coherence. It refuses to treat partnerships as isolated interventions or pilot projects and instead presents them as the connective tissue that holds together the many pieces of teacher education reform. Across sections dedicated to leadership, equity, innovation, and inquiry, the Handbook highlights how SUPs can create a more unified approach to change. Rather than addressing fieldwork, equity, or instructional improvement separately, the Handbook shows how partnerships can integrate these efforts into a cohesive, system-wide framework. This is a critical insight in a time when so many reforms risk being fragmented, reactive, or short-lived. The Handbook invites us to see partnership not just as a strategy for improvement, but as the structure that makes lasting improvement possible.

The Handbook of School-University Partnerships is not just for researchers or university-based faculty. It is a guide for everyone who has a stake in teacher preparation including deans and district leaders, mentor teachers and clinical supervisors, policymakers and program designers. Whether you support teacher candidates in the classroom, lead a preparation program, or influence education policy, the Handbook offers an invaluable resource built on the collective wisdom of decades of sustained, thoughtful, and deeply collaborative work.

If you are looking for practical strategies, critical reflection, or inspiring models, this is the place to begin. The message is clear for the field, partnership is often the missing infrastructure. Renewal requires investment. And since the work is already happening, we don’t need to start from scratch. We simply need to learn from, support, and grow what’s already taking root.

Title: The Cambridge Handbook of School–University Partnerships

ISBN: 9781009285865

Author: Dr Janna Dresden, Dr Joanna Ferrara, Dr Jane E. Neapolitan and Dr Dianne Yendol-Hoppey