Research-practice partnerships are collaborative research arrangements that seek to transform the relations among researchers, educators, and communities. There is a wide diversity in partnership forms and research methods used in them. In addition, there remain questions about the value of partnerships, given the time and resources they require…

The introduction to this Special Topic Collection has two parts. To provide background and context for the articles in the collection, Part 1 tells the story of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study program at the National Center for Education Statistics. It offers an abridged history of this program and describes the designs of the two national…