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The Mid-Career Doctorate takes a simple approach to improving educational organizations. It fosters
a deep understanding of organizations, instruction, learning, and their implications for schooling through the mastery of four curricular areas:
INSTRUCTIONAL
LEADERSHIP
Educational leaders cannot lead what they do not know. Therefore instructional leadership is at the core of the Mid-Career Doctorate program. By instructional leadership we mean the ability to know and manage teaching (including the language of teaching, design of instruction and curriculum, teaching repertoire, and management of learning), learning (including standards for content knowledge, as well as understanding student, adult, and organizational learning), and performance (including assessment of student work, professional inquiry and review, and evaluation of instructional effectiveness). Based on a model of internal and external accountability for school success, students in the program will explore fundamental questions including: What does instructional leadership look like at the primary and secondary levels? Which practices do successful leaders use to improve teaching and learning in a variety of contexts? How should educational leaders, teachers, and facilitators be observed and evaluated? How should educational organizations and their staff be held accountable for their contributions to learning?
ORGANIZATIONAL
LEADERSHIP
Our approach to organizational leadership includes preparation in systems thinking (including models, structures, shared vision, and team learning), creating and sustaining settings (including resources, culture, and values), and managing and adapting to change (including maintaining perspective and developing learning organizations). We will prepare current and aspiring educational leaders to create an organizational climate that fosters continuous improvement in teaching and learning. The Mid-Career Doctoral Program utilizes key leadership strategies from the Wharton School, with its international reputation for preparing flexible leaders who guide organizations through periods of change. Questions to be addressed will include: How do successful educational leaders focus the entire organization on a core set of goals and support continuous improvement among staff toward achieving those goals? How does an organization make its instructional work public so that everyone can observe, share, and evaluate the practices that affect attainment of the instructional goals and objectives? How do educational leaders develop and sustain a community of leaders in which staff roles and responsibilities are re-shaped and authority is shared?
PUBLIC
LEADERSHIP
Professional education programs rarely provide aspiring or current leaders with opportunities to develop the skills needed to strengthen community relations, and to increase broad-based support and involvement in improving instructional outcomes. As educational leaders, principals, superintendentsand senior personnel from organizations and foundations supporting K-12 educations, our students learn to function in three critical roles: as advocates for learning, students, schools, and public engagement; as brokers for opportunities, alliances, and partnerships; and as catalysts for improvement, accountability, and diligence. The Mid-Career Doctoral Program will address questions including: How do schools involve parents in understanding and reinforcing the curriculum with their children? How do schools create meaningful leadership roles for parents and community members in school governance? What roles should teachers, principals, and district leaders play in the public discourse about education?
EVIDENCE-BASED
LEADERSHIP
Educational leaders are constantly faced with a myriad of complex decisions that require them to accumulate, synthesize, and analyze data from multiple sources and in a variety of forms. Those who are prepared to recognize and utilize the wealth of information around them will invariably produce more reasoned, informed decisions. The evidenced-based leadership strand of the Mid-Career Doctoral Program prepares education leaders to identify and employ data sources and analysis methods to inform decision-making. Thereby, school leaders become more able consumers and producers of data. This strand will address such questions as: How do educational leaders use assessment data for instructional improvement and accountability purposes? How do schools determine program effectiveness? What does a data/research infrastructure look like in an educational system or other organization?
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