Why We Need the Ed.D.

It's dead. The Doctorate in Educational Leadership (Ed.D.) is no more, at Harvard University at least. Since Harvard birthed it way back in 1921, I guess it is poetic symmetry that Harvard buries it, and does so a only bit shy of decade before its centennial birthday. But its prerogative to do so does not make it right.

As a beneficiary of the degree and longtime advocate for it, I beg to differ with our friends from Cambridge. If you talk with them, they will cite at least three reasons why the degree is no longer relevant. One, the historic knowledge and skills accruing to matriculates from conventional programs is unnecessary to lead schools or school districts. Two, the Ed.D. is often used as an pathway for classroom teachers to earn additional income for no additional work. Three, it is essentially a watered-down replica of the Doctorate of Philosophy degree sought by aspiring university teachers and researchers.

Critics of the terminal degree for school leaders are wrong. Permit me to present my abbreviated argument by responding to the three reasons for discontinuing the degree cited above. First, the knowledge and skills needed by leaders of 21st-century schools and districts has only grown in complexity, to say nothing of the need to build ownership and consensus for increasingly fragmented communities. Although the curriculum needs to be re-imaged, the need for learning beyond the master's level is, if anything, more important now than ever.

Second, teachers are expected to be leaders in today's schools. Principal leadership is necessary but insufficient to achieve the outcomes the public demands of its schools. Most of the same knowledge, skills, and dispositions appropriate for principals are also appropriate for teacher leaders. Creating a compelling vision, enlisting the school community in the vision, deploying the process skills of dialogue, conflict resolution, and coaching for performance requires a deep understanding, not so much of the tools themselves, but of those who would use the tools, including one's self.

Third, the historic differentiation between the Ph.D. and the Ed.D. has been the focus on research, the former requiring more of it than the latter. Folks, this is a red herring, a contrived and pointless distraction to embracing multiple ways of knowing. I would argue that every professional educator at every level needs to be a savvy consumer of research and engaged in action research as a normal part of his or her job. The kind of research produced in academia is no more or less useful than that produced by a teacher seeking to improve her practice with a classroom full of ten-year-old students.

Many more lines than readers of this blog are accustomed to reading would be necessary to flesh out the argument. And I do not think I am alone in making it. Meanwhile, I will continue to promote the Ed.D. for students I teach. Not all will feel called and perhaps not all may qualify, but all should be invited.