At its heart, Educational Leadership Preparation: Innovation and Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Ed.D. and Graduate Education, edited by Gaetane Jean‐Marie and Anthony H. Normore, is a rich and detailed accounting of reform of professional practice in educational leadership preparation at the doctorate level. It is also a powerful guidebook for those seeking to understand the design and implementation of reform. The accounts in the book detail doctoral leadership program development at eight diverse universities and colleges, each engaged in a vibrant process of self‐examination, evaluation of purpose, and strong desire to match practice to authentic societal need. They convey compelling and often deeply personal stories of the challenges of initial foundational design and, in some cases, the trials and opportunities of program regeneration. Without exception, all chronicles contain examples of intense reflection and thoughtful engagement, both in terms of program mission and vision, as well as in task design and implementation process.
A common theme in a number of program descriptions is the citation of the influential work of The Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED) as inspiration for framing discussion on reform and design. Almost all cited a compelling need for leadership programs to answer rising criticism of higher education institutions in preparing twenty‐first century district leaders who would be skilled to face the daunting tasks of school and district leadership through a combination of research and theory using real‐world, practice‐based instruction. Though each school detailed in the book addressed purpose in unique ways, another commonality was a sharpened focus on responding to community needs, whether that took the form of preparing those who could serve a particular type of school profile, e.g. urban schools, or whether the need in question was to answer increased standards of certification created by state legislative bodies. In all cases, the question of improved practice of educational leaders as a direct result of quality leadership preparation programs was viewed through the corollary lens of intentional improvement in student achievement.
The book is structured in three parts, each one containing three chapters. Part I could be considered as the component that established historical context and the intellectual and, in some cases, the emotional battles that would be undertaken as programs shifted and grew to find purpose and clarity. The second section of the book examined a broad cross‐section of design models, each one unique to its culture and intended audience it would hope to serve. The final element considered in the last three chapters gave close consideration to the design of capstone projects and their integration into real‐world practice.
In Chapter 1, “Historical context of graduate programs in educational leadership,” co‐editor Anthony H. Normore weaves that historical context with expert analysis articulating essential differences between the PhD and EdD and the compelling need to re‐think the EdD in terms of professional practice. He cites historical discrepancies in program standards in terms of recruiting, content emphasis, and pedagogy, ending with a robust call for a paradigm shift in how we view the purpose and design of leadership preparation.
The account of turbulence in the field continued with Chapter 2, “Clashing epistemologies: reflections on change, culture, and the politics of the professoriate,” by Christa Boske and Autumn K. Tooms. The authors conveyed the personal and professional challenges of intra‐departmental politics and culture when presented with the core question of how an institution is to be defined. It was an honest, forthright, and personal expression of clashing ideas and beliefs, examining the arduous task of shifting focus through the lens of rethinking mission and purpose.
In addition to an examination of advantages and disadvantages in fully online programs, Jeffrey S. Brooks’ Chapter 3, “Online graduate programs in educational leadership preparation: pros and cons,” considered the delivery format's “logistics, and unintended consequences” (p. 53). Using the work of Fullan (2001) as a structural framework for analysis, Brooks began with an examination of the school's existing program and the online model components, and then recounted the journey of faculty engagement with the model in general and redesign in particular in an “abstract‐to‐concrete sequence” (p. 56). It was a highly engaging account of reflection on previously held faculty beliefs moving to consideration of heretofore unimagined possibilities.
Gaetane Jean‐Marie, Curt M. Adams, and Gregg Garn began the book's second section with Chapter 4, “Renewing the Ed.D.: a university K‐12 partnership to prepare school leaders.” As the title might suggest, a central question addressed in the chapter was how to best serve local district needs in terms of leadership supply, an issue that reverberated through much of the book. The authors deftly articulated the implementation process of deeply examining what they described as an evaluation of “curricular relevance and sequence” (p. 81) with the intention to “bridge the gulf between developing technical knowledge and socializing school leaders to practice” (p. 83), all done in the service to potential leaders and the schools and communities they would eventually serve. Theirs is a model of response to an urgent state and community need.
In Chapter 5, “Critical friends: supporting a small, private university face the challenges of crafting an innovative scholar‐practitioner doctorate,” Valerie A. Storey and Patrick J. Hartwick addressed issues of collegial support and how engagement with CPED and its contingent members allowed their university to capitalize on and leverage relationships which guided their work. The chapter skillfully articulates not only how a university might advance reform by joining forces with others in a critical friend model, but points to the courage such a decision requires, as well as the implicit responsibility of larger institutions to be in the vanguard of reform.
Part II concludes with Anthony H. Normore and Julie Slayton narration of new program design in Chapter 6, “An interdisciplinary doctoral program in educational leadership (Ed.D.): addressing the needs of diverse learners in urban settings.” Working without the constraints of having to retrofit an existing program, the designers were able to forge a structural design that would answer two very specific needs: address criticism of the EdD as being unresponsive to practical need, and address the specific task of preparing urban school leaders. Normore and Slayton provide a stellar example of articulating how to begin with those practical needs and then move to foundational beliefs, vision and mission, and design elements.
As previously mentioned, the final section focuses primarily on the capstone projects designed at the three universities described in the section. However, it also expands the discussion of how programs used the capstone project to extend students’ work into schools, into educational leaders’ daily practice, and into the task of raising student achievement. In Chapter 7, “From curricular alignment to the culminating project: the Peabody College Ed.D. Capstone,” Claire Smrekar and Kristin L. McGraner artfully described a “team‐produced, client centered Capstone project” (p. 155), in which school and organizational clients request students to serve as consultants to face application opportunities “grounded in authentic policy and practice dilemmas educational leaders encounter” (p. 167). Barry G. Sheckly, Morgaen L. Donaldson, Anysia P. Mayer, and Richard W. Lemons recount the brilliant integration of adult learning theory into a program design in Chapter 8, “An Ed.D. program based on principles of how adults learn best.” Finally, David D. Marsh, Myron H. Dembo, Karen Symms Gallagher, and Kathy H. Stowe address the design process at a major university in Chapter 9, “Examining the capstone experience in a cutting‐edge Ed.D. program.” The authors adeptly set forth some of the concepts previously addressed in the book: focus on practice‐based leadership preparation, connection of concept to practice, focus on specific community need, clarification of the roles of the PhD and the EdD, and building on a thematic framework.
The journeys of design and reform described in the book were very often a movement from theory for its own sake into a quest for seeking deeper understanding of what would be truly needed for integration of that theory into practice. There was a frequent mention of persistent scrutiny and evaluation to not only meet the challenges of the present, but also to look well into the future. In addition, there was a running theme of hopefulness manifested in how this work often led to unexpected cooperation among faculties, perhaps in recognition of the importance of the task and perhaps in honor of the dedication to excellence described in so many of the accounts. Almost without exception, the book's authors described some level of fundamental re‐examination of core beliefs about who they were as practitioners in their own right, thus mirroring, by intention or by slow realization, the process they hoped to create for those in their leadership programs. This book will undoubtedly take a well‐deserved place in the chronicles of higher education reform, and will offer insight and guidance to students, instructors, district personnel, government policymakers, and anyone interested in thoughtful and intentional reform.
