Framing K-12 partnerships in order to make a difference.

The Health Professions Partnership Initiative (HPPI) furthered the establishment of partnerships between academic health centers and K-12 school systems. The present article contends that partnerships in efforts such as the HPPI exist in varying degrees of depth with deeper partnerships being those based in a concept of mutuality even as partners continue to maintain institutional identity. In the context of K-12 schools, the article reinforces the view that K-12 students, teachers, and administrators can benefit through partnership contexts, but also suggests that institutions of higher education-including academic health centers-should enter into partnerships because they benefit when they commit as stakeholders in the outcomes, not principally as altruistic good neighbors to the schools.