Universities Team Up With Urban Districts to Run Local Schools

Partnerships Seen as Growing Trend

Baltimore

Amid a sea of teenagers in baggy pants, denim jackets, and white T-shirts, it’s easy to pick out the students from Baltimore Talent Development High School. They’re the ones in the intense yellow T-shirts emblazoned with the name of their school.

What really sets them apart, though, are the words underneath the school name. They read: “A Partnership with Johns Hopkins University.”

That’s because this public high school, which opened in September, is the product of an unusual collaboration between the city’s school system and...