History of ASU Education Partnerships

    From 2003-2006, university-school partnership efforts have been led by the Vice President for University-School Partnerships, a position that ran concurrently with that of the Dean of the College of Education (CoE)/Tempe. Because of this dual position, much of the support for the work in the initial three years has come from college units and personnel.

    With a long-standing history of connection of the college to the Pre-K-12 education community, the Bureau of Educational Research & Services, a liaison unit of CoE to the field, was the logical connection upon which to build. In augmenting the administrator and support staff of this unit with additional program coordinators, infrastructure for partnership efforts has been provided. Additionally, faculty coordinators, graduate assistants, and student workers have rounded out staffing. The functions of business support services, human resources, and public relations/publicity was largely borne by College of Education (Tempe campus) staff.

    Essentially, the staffing for effecting vision, mission, and goals for the office has been to work in the context of high-need districts and schools within a framework of support for “four pillars” of work: early childhood education; quality teachers; educational leaders; and students, families, and schools. The office has bundled and leveraged resources (human and material) necessary to support action and evaluation within the context of the partnership, the first being named the ALPHA Partnership. BETA (Mesa Unified School District), GAMMA (Roosevelt School District), DELTA (Tertulia Charter Academy), and a Navajo Nation partnership plans are in progress. Ten formal partnerships and allied innovative initiatives will be established in the next three years. This includes significant partnerships that will revolve around the University Public School Initiative. This will include key district partnerships with at least four districts (Tempe Elementary District, Tempe Union High School District, Gilbert Unified School District, and Glendale Union High School District). Two additional partnerships are planned with Native American tribes in our local area (Gila River and Salt River).

    The evolving Office of the Vice President for Education Partnerships will incorporate the goal of direct educational innovation through the University Public School Initiative.  The Director of this initiative will directly oversee the development of four campus-related schools.  These schools will be primarily funded by outside sources (New Schools Venture Fund, National Council de la Raza, etc.) and will serve as a conduit for ASU faculty at each campus to integrate theory, research and practice to create and assess innovative educational alternatives of significant importance to Arizona educators and policymakers.

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