Offering state-of-the art programs for preparing education practitioners has long been a critical component of the Warner School’s mission. For programs in educational leadership, this means a strong focus on preparing school leaders who have outstanding
decision-making skills.

Warner recognizes that many programs preparing school leaders do not devote enough resources to developing the skills these future leaders will need to make good decisions about school policies, curriculum, facilities, personnel, assessment, professional development, budgeting, and distribution of resources. Also, many full-time educators find it difficult to complete a doctoral program and see the relevance of the work required for a dissertation.

A grant of $44,000 from the Wallace Foundation’s Ventures in Leadership Project helped the Warner School reorganize its educational leadership curriculum to create more effective doctoral programs that meet the needs of those pursuing higher administrative positions. With help from this grant, Warner redesigned its Ed.D. programs in school administration to enable more practitioners to pursue a doctoral program and better prepare them for the decisions they would face as superintendents, principals, program coordinators, and other school leaders.

Warner faculty in educational leadership, including Tyll van Geel, Earl B. Taylor Professor and chair; Brian Brent, associate professor; and John Eckhardt, part-time faculty, reviewed the latest literature and research about decision making and school administration to inform the redesigned program structure. New courses were created to capitalize on the existing body of research and “best practices” regarding decision making in various fields and help educational leaders rigorously and systematically come to decisions about important variables, ethics, and political and psychological dimensions that are factors for administrators.

In addition, new options were created for the Ed.D. dissertation. Doctoral students in educational leadership can now complete their program by doing a traditional research study, by conducting a rigorous program evaluation, or by using research to inform important decisions.

“This is a good example of how even a small grant can become a catalyst for transformation,” says Borasi. “I am very satisfied in how it has led us to making the Ed.D. programs in educational leadership more competitive and innovative. They are now better than ever.”

New courses in the program include"

• EDU 515 Administrative Decision Making in Schools and Universities: Processes and Promises
• EDU 516 Educational Decision Making II: Making Decisions in Schools and Universities
• ED 520 Introduction to Program Evaluation
• EDU 521 Advanced Program Evaluation

For additional information on these courses and the new program or the project funded by the Wallace Foundation, visit www.rochester.edu/warner/researchprojects/decmaking/.

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