The Educational Leadership Program prepares its students to become instructional leaders in public and non-public schools, state agencies, and new entrepreneurial ventures. Students gain a deep understanding about the context of American education from anthropological, historical, and sociological perspectives and about the central elements of instructional, organizational, public, and evidenced-based leadership. Students develop a variety of qualitative and quantitative analytical skills that are required to identify, understand, and assess the quality of evidence about educational problems. Through their coursework, students come to understand the dynamics of change, to appreciate the importance of resistance, and to value the human side of all educational enterprises. They draw from all of this knowledge to wrestle with the complexities involved in promoting the ongoing transformation of public and non-public educational organizations.

A focus on inquiry-based leadership cuts across the program's four interrelated core content areas of Instructional Leadership, Organizational Leadership, Public Leadership, and Evidence-Based Leadership.