Printer-friendly versionThe Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED) has been awarded a $700,000 grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Secondary Education (FIPSE) to further document the success of three years of effort to redesign the Education Doctorate (Ed.D.)
CPED, supported by 25 participating Schools of Education, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council of Academic Deans from Research Education Institutions (CADREI), is working to restructure the Ed.D. in graduate schools of education to make it a more relevant degree for the advanced preparation of school practitioners and professional staff.
Most of the participating education schools offer both the Ph.D. in education and the Ed.D. or doctorate of education. “The blurring of the distinctions between these two degrees over the past half-century invites examination of their purpose and content,” said David Imig, who directs the project.
The grant will be used to:
- Document and evaluate change in the organizational structures of a set of graduate schools to accommodate new professional practice degrees (Ed.D.) for school and college leaders.
- Document and evaluate change in the signature learning processes, learning environments, and patterns of engagement of faculty and candidates in Ed.D. programs that participate in CPED.
- Document and evaluate fidelity to a set of guiding principles developed in the first three years of the project.
- Disseminate lessons learned and best practices for the design and implementation of professional practice degrees to a new cohort of graduate schools of education, particularly rural and minority institutions.
There are some 1300 education schools, with approximately 275 offering the doctorate in education. Seemingly, everyone wants graduate schools of education to make their doctorates much better. Among the most persistent of the advocates for change is Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who has called for profound changes in the purposes and goals, structures and relationships, pedagogies and practices of contemporary schools of education.
“Better educational practitioners at all levels are needed,” said Imig. “School systems want better teachers and principals. Community colleges and universities want leaders who can transform those institutions.”
CPED contends that were education schools 1) to better differentiate between the outcomes and expectations for doctoral candidates – those that choose to become professional practitioners (Ed.D.) and those who want to do research and teach in academic institutions (Ph.D.)—and 2) to better develop preparation programs for those who wish to become leading scholarly practitioners and those who want to become scholars, these changes would lead to better alignment between the needs of PK-20 schools and the scholarship and practices of university education schools. Embedded in this argument is the contention that the redesign of doctoral education can profoundly affect the staffing of rural and minority serving institutions and the provision of expanded opportunities for underserved populations.
Contact:
Jill A. Perry
Program Director, Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate
Duquesne University School of Education
301-204-2644
jillaperry@cpedinitiative.org
