Paradise Unrealized: Teacher Educators and the Costs and Benefits of School/University Partnerships

Considering progress in establishing partnership or professional development schools, Goodlad (1994) wrote that reports of success tend to be of paradise envisioned, not gained (p. 218). The partnership literature is filled with positive statements written during the formative stages of partnership development, but scholars have begun to take a more sobering view (see Abdul-Haqq, 1998) as the complexity of the undertaking has become more fully appreciated. Labaree (1995) argues that educational reform runs in cycles and that enthusiasm wanes over time. Getting a partnership off the ground engenders commitment. The program energizes faculty. But over time, disquieting and unexpected problems emerge: teachers and faculty tire; a new phase in partnership follows as teachers and university teacher education faculty reconsider their initial commitment. We believe a real danger exists that this reform effort will go the way of other reforms that ... have failed to take root. Most remain just interesting ideas (Pogrow, 1996, p. 657). Paradise envisioned is seldom paradise realized. Creating a genuine partnership between universities and schools demands a fundamental reconsideration of the roles and functions provided by all organizations that have an interest in and responsibility for teacher development (Robinson & Darling-Hammond, 1994, p. 204). This is a daunting challenge. For 15 years, faculty at Brigham Young University (BYU) have striven to meet it. In so doing, faculty roles have changed. A critical juncture has been reached, a point where hardheaded realism has replaced initial enthusiasm. Faculty are asking critical questions: What are the costs and benefits of the program? What is needed to sustain it over the long haul? In posing these questions, the faculty have no intention to back away from partnerships. Indeed, it is the current strength of the partnership and faculty commitment that enables them to ask cost questions openly. In this article, we forthrightly air problems in the belief that doing so will assist us and others in the effort to form sustainable partnerships. This is a study of partnership development after initial enthusiasm fades. We explore the benefits, but mostly seek to locate the costs of partnership for university faculty. We do so in the hope of more successfully ameliorating those costs. In addition to its openly critical tone, this study is unique in at least three ways. First, program costs and benefits are linked--but not causally--to specific contextual and program elements. This linkage enables a sharper analysis than is commonly presented in partnership studies. Second, the BYU partnership effort is massive, representing the efforts of a teacher education program annually graduating 360 elementary teacher candidates and involving 46 elementary schools. Much of the research on professional development schools or partnerships reports on relatively small programs. Third, we assessed personal and family impact. University based teacher education faculty spouses completed surveys in which they described the impact of the 1994 program changes on their spouses and family life. The research team decided to survey spouses when they realized that the cost of changing professional roles to family and personal life may not be readily apparent even to faculty members. Positive or negative program impact on a family likely influences long-term program viability as well as the quality of one's professional and personal life. Background Partner schools are schools engaged simultaneously and jointly with colleges and universities in the renewal of both themselves and the educator preparation programs of which they are an integral part (Osguthorpe, Harris, Harris, & Black, 1995, p. xii). The initial drive toward partnership at BYU reflected Goodlad's (1993) belief stated that the bumping together of university and school cultures would have a positive effect on both institutions (p. …