University of Southern California

CPED-Influenced Program

Rossier School of Education Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership

School/Department where the Program is Housed

This is a school-wide program, it is not housed in any one department

Program Description

The Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) is a 3-year degree program that equips practitioner-scholars with the skills needed to lead high-performing organizations, connect research with practice, and help all students to learn. The program is geared toward working professionals with a Master's degree and at least 3 to 5 years of work experience in a related field who aspire to be leaders in urban education. The new program has four core courses, each reflecting a program theme—leadership, accountability, diversity, and learning—and employs various problem-solving models to help students learn to diagnose and solve education problems.

Other key features:

• To differ from the Ph.D. program, the Ed.D. program involves students in activities that strengthen their leadership skills throughout the program.
• Clinical faculty members have equal status with tenured/tenure-track faculty members in implementing and monitoring the program.
• Instructional processes focus on problem solving, discussions, and small-group work rather than the traditional lecture format.
• A core curriculum is collaboratively maintained for the first four core courses.
• Students complete the program in three years.
• Students stay with their entering cohort as they move through the program. Over 80% -90% of students in the program participate in thematic, rather than traditional, dissertations.

Philosophy and Mission

A major focus of our program is on leadership in urban education settings. We view urban education as the process of teaching and learning that takes place in complex urban-metropolitan settings typically characterized by broad diversity in race, ethnicity, gender, class, culture, and language abilities. Urban settings have a mature service-delivery infrastructure characterized by socio-political stratification and unequal access by citizens to services. When we speak of the study of urban education, we mean the critical examination of the manner in which issues of broad diversity may intersect in complex ways to marginalize and adversely affect the learning and teaching process for some populations. A key element in our vision of urban education is a commitment to function not just as observers or commentators, but also as change agents, in our research, teaching, and service. This commitment presumes the creation of a collaborative learning community in our urban setting that advances knowledge about the skills and tools needed to enact social change in the pursuit of social justice—that is, to connect education practice to critical inquiry in urban settings.

Admissions Requirements

See Program Guidelines and Procedures.

Note that in the next academic year, we will be using the GRE as an optional admission requirement. We will instead use an on-demand sit down writing assessment which will require students to analyze and synthesize short conceptual articles on key urban education topics (ideally written by program faculty). The assessment, currently being piloted, is designed to mimic key writing skills that will be targeted in the program.

Description of each year of the Program — number of courses, credits, time frame; core, specializations, dissertation/capstone

See Program Guidelines and Procedures.

Milestones Employed in the Program — comprehensive/qualifying exams, papers, or products necessary for graduation

Three-Year Sequence for Ed.D., by Year and Semester

Year 1

Fall
Challenges in Urban Education: Leadership (EDUC 524)
Challenges in Urban Education: Accountability (EDUC 522)

Spring
Challenges in Urban Education: Diversity (EDUC 523)
Challenges in Urban Education: Learning (EDUC 525)

Summer
Summer Conference
Inquiry Methods I (EDUC 532)
Concentration Course 1

Year 2

Fall
Concentration Course 2
Concentration Course 3

Spring
Inquiry Methods II (EDUC 536)
Critique of Research (EDUC 792)

Summer
Concentration Course 4
Concentration Course 5
Dissertation Research Seminar (EDUC 790)
Qualifying Exams

Year 3

Fall
Dissertation

Spring
Dissertation Graduation

Each student begins the program in the fall semester, entering as one member of a cohort. All stu- dents in a cohort take the same four core courses in the first academic year. The following summer, they take the first of two inquiry methods courses and begin work in their choice of one of four concentrations: (1) Educational Psychology (applying teaching and learning in schooling/business and non-traditional educational settings), (2) Higher Education Administration/Community College Leadership, (3) K-12 Leadership in Urban School Settings, and (4) Teacher Education in Multicultural Societies (TEMS). Work connected with the thematic dissertations begins in the students' first summer and continues to the end of the program.

Signature Pedagogy

Since our program focuses on helping educational leaders to develop problem-solving skills they can use in their jobs, we use a problem-solving model called gap analysis (see Clark and Estes, 2008*). The model was adopted in two of the four core courses (i.e., accountability and learning) and is the focus of the education psychology concentration. The key approach to gap analysis is that it asks leaders to answer the following questions as they attempt to solve performance problems:

1. What is our performance goal?
2. Where are we now (related to goal)?
3. What is the size of the gap?
4. What is causing the gap (focus on knowledge/skill, motivation, and organizational factors as assumed causes to be validated)?
5. What solutions will close the gap?
6. How do we implement the solutions?
7. How do we measure our progress?

The rationale for gap analysis stems from the evidence that many leaders fail to analyze the causes of performance gaps in that they a) often fail to have clear goals before they embark on finding solutions to problems, c) often select and implement the wrong solutions, and/or c) when solutions do not work, they often blame the people who have the problem.

* Clark, R. E. & Estes, F. (2008) Turning Research into Results: A Guide to Selecting the Right Performance Solutions. Atlanta GA: CEP Press.

Laboratories of Practice

We currently do not have a field-based component of the program. We will shortly be instituting a 1-unit international study tour focused on global education for all students in the program.

Inquiry Courses

The program has two inquiry methods courses that were developed to answer the question, What primary tasks are education leaders confronted by in the workplace that require statistics and measurement knowledge? These courses introduce the knowledge and skills leaders need to make effective decisions. We see this approach as more useful than teaching research and evaluation methods in survey courses that review different methodologies apart from the decision-making context in which the competencies are applied.

The goal is for students to gain the following these skills from the courses:

• Make valid inferences from qualitative and quantitative evidence
• Use and do scientific research in everyday educational practice
• Analyze education programs, policies, institutions, and processes
• Evaluate education programs, policies, institutions, and processes
• Create solutions to education problems using scientific evidence to drive decision making.

Our overall goal from our two inquiry methods courses is for students to approach their challenging workplace problems using rigorous inferential thinking, in much the same way that scientists use inferential thinking to solve theoretical problems.

Capstone

For the culminating portion of the program, approximately 80%-90% of students participate in thematic dissertations. Each student works with several others in a group, either on related topics or with the same database, to produce his or her own, unique dissertation. Themes for the dissertations are generally organized around field-based issues or problems, and students are required to collaborate in developing their proposals and to critique each other's work. In short, a unifying feature ties several Ed.D. students together such that they can be mentored as a group. Students begin with a problem and then analyze the literature to find guidance on how to research it. This dissertation approach differs from the traditional Ph.D. dissertation process, in which students typically work alone and begin by reviewing the literature to identify gaps and constructs, then deciding on the setting in which to conduct their research.

In addition, there are experimental groups underway that are using a “gap analysis” approach to work with districts on targeted problems along the lines of a consultant model. A very small number of students work on an individual dissertation in consultation with a faculty member and committee.

Syllabi

• Challenges in Urban Eduation: Leadership
• Challenges in Urban Education: Learning (Spring 2009)
• Challenges in Urban Education: Learning (Spring 2010)

Key Contact Person

Dr. Kathy Stowe, Executive Director of the Prrogram
Email: kstowe@usc.edu

Dr. Robert Rueda, Chair, Faculty Governance Committee
Email: rueda@2usc.edu

Cost Structure

The estimated total cost of tuition for a student who begins the program in the 2009-10 academic year was $57,815,* with anticipated yearly totals as follows:

*Tuition rates are set by the USC Board of Trustees and typically increase on an annual basis. Over the past five years, the average annual tuition increase has been 5.16%. This cost of study is estimated based on tuition rates for the 2009-10 academic year increased in future years at the historical level. These amounts are estimates, and actual tuition rates will vary, based on the actual tuition rates set in upcoming years, and the rate at which students complete degree requirements.

Program Handbook

See Program Guidelines and Procedures.

Program Link

http://rossier.usc.edu/academic/edd