The Madison Professional Development School Partnership (formed in 1997-98) is a partnership in teacher education involving the Madison, Wisconsin Metropolitan School District (MMSD), Madison Teachers' Incorporated (MTI), and the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This partnership is an outgrowth of several prior joint efforts in preservice teacher education in the Madison, Wisconsin schools and is available to selected U.W.-Madison elementary and secondary education majors. Currently the partnership involves five MMSD schools with richly diverse pupil populations: Cherokee middle, Lincoln elementary, Memorial high, Midvale elementary, and Thoreau elementary. The partnership is affiliated with the national teacher education reform group the Holmes Partnership and its urban network UNITE (Urban Network to Improve Teacher Education).

One major purpose of the program is to prepare teachers who can be successful in culturally diverse urban schools. Selected preservice teachers seeking elementary certification are placed at Thoreau, Midvale, Lincoln, and Cherokee schools and selected secondary preservice teachers are placed at Memorial. The elementary teacher education students complete all of their practicums and student teaching experiences in one of two pairs of elementary and middle Professional Development schools (Lincoln-Midvale, Thoreau-Cherokee). Usually there are between 35 and 40 elementary teacher education students who are at various stages in their teacher education program working at any given time in these two elementary PDS cohorts. Approximately 10-12 secondary teacher education students are placed each semester at Memorial. Being part of a cohort community that is both challenging and supportive is one of the major benefits that UW-Madison students have found in being part of this program.

One of the unique features of the Madison PDS partnership is the presence of an on site university supervisor and/or coordinator in each PDS. In Lincoln and Thoreau, the on site university supervisors are experienced MMSD teachers (Instructional Resource teachers) who are released from their classroom duties to serve as the university supervisor for all of the PDS practicum students and student teachers assigned to their school. In Midvale and Cherokee, the university supervisors are experienced teachers and PhD students at UW-Madison who are assigned to one school and who supervise all of the PDS practicum students and student teachers assigned to those schools. These school-based university supervisors work in close conjunction with an inside school coordinator to make placements, and draw upon teacher expertise for the on site methods classes and seminars. In the elementary program, preservice teachers work with the same pair of university supervisors throughout their participation in the cohort program. They will spend either 3 or 4 semesters as part of the program. At Memorial, an in school coordinator works closely with a UW-Madison faculty liaison and subject area university supervisors to organize the field placements and on site seminars.

Collaboration between the PDSs and the University of Wisconsin-Madison has led to the design and offering of many additional professional development opportunities for staff in the five schools. These courses and study groups are always co-planned based on school interest and are often taught either by school staff or by both university and school staff together. District professional advancement credits and DPI credit are always awarded for participation, and some classes can be taken for U.W.-Madison graduate credit. Participants include any school staff and PDS preservice teachers and often the courses involve student teachers learning side by side with their cooperating teachers. Recent PDS courses have included "Gateways to Literacy," Observing Children and Reflecting on Teaching Literacy," conversational Spanish classes, and "Supervision in Teacher Education." Additionally, a generous gift from alumnus Dr. Lou Ella Burmeister and grants from Hewlett Packard and the University of Wisconsin system have funded professional development focused on the integration of technology into the classroom at Cherokee, Lincoln and Midvale. Another grant from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction is funding the teaching of social studies and science in Spanish to selected pupils at Midvale.

Field-based seminars for U.W.-Madison teacher education students are held weekly in each pair of elementary and middle PDSs and on a regular basis at Memorial. The seminars are held in the schools and sometimes in local community centers so that staff from the schools and community members can more easily participate and contribute to the learning of preservice teachers. The seminars are co-led by university and school staff and often involve staff from the schools in making presentations and leading discussions about their areas of expertise. The goal in these seminars is to take advantage of the expertise about urban teaching that exists in both the university and the schools and the expertise about cultures and communities that exists beyond these institutions. The seminars involve analyses of different teaching practices from different perspectives and consideration of a number of specific topics such as teaching English language learners, classroom management strategies, and diversifying instruction and assessment to meet diverse pupil needs. In addition to the weekly school-based seminars both Lincoln and Midvale schools regularly host university methods classes that are taught on site at theseschools.