Academic Areas & Divisions

Educational Leadership & Policy Studies

Course Descriptions

EDLPS 444: Constitution and American Public Education

Emphasis on the principles, processes, and content of constitutional law in an effort to provide new insights and new tools with which school administrators and teachers may examine questions involving political and civil rights in the United States, especially as these affect the conduct of education. Specific topics on constitutional freedom include the obligation to go to school; legal controls over curriculum, teachers, and students; and racial integration and equal financing of public schools. Open to law students and to nonlaw students enrolled as graduate students or as upper-division undergraduates. Credit/no credit only. Offered: jointly with LAW 444.

EDLPS 458: History of American Education to 1865

Development of American education in cultural context; colonial period, influence of Enlightenment, and common school movement. Offered: jointly with HSTAA 458.

EDLPS 459: History of American Education Since 1865

Development of American education in cultural context: progressive education, recent criticism, continuing issues and trends. Offered: jointly with HSTAA 459.

EDLPS 479: Crucial Issues in Education

Selected educational issues, policies, and contexts. Evolution of the American education enterprise, legal issues, professionalism, finance, and other vital educational concerns.

EDLPS 496: Workshop: Education Programs and Problems

Study of such topics as planning, development, supervision, organization, operation, or evaluation of current or emerging programs or problems in education.

EDLPS 499: Undergraduate Research

Students developing studies under this rubric should be advised that a report or a paper setting forth the results of their investigations should be regarded as a basic part of the program.

EDLPS 501: Danforth Introduction: Leadership Beyond the Classroom

First course in principal certification program; explores Washington state laws, legal principles, context of public schools, multicultural issues, changing population. Essential skills of leadership: communication, human relations, strategies for shared decision making, and dealing with conflict. (Open only to students admitted to the EDLPS Principal/Program Administrator Preparation Program.)

EDLPS 502: Danforth Leadership Core

Topics include moral dimensions of leadership; modes of inquiry; organizational theory and change; history of educational reform; curriculum deliberation and instructional leadership and supervision; school-centered inquiry and decision-making; policy, planning, and program evaluation; issues on diversity and multicultural education; American and Washington State school law; school finance and resource allocation; school-community relations. Instruction occurs in units and seminar throughout the academic year. Prerequisite: admission to Principal/Program Administrator Preparation Program.

EDLPS 503: Danforth Leadership Core

EDLPS 504: Danforth Leadership Core

EDLPS 505: Danforth Masters Project

Cumulative inquiry project. (Only for students admitted to the EDLPS Principal/Program Administrator Program.)

EDLPS 507: Danforth Reflective Seminar

Integration of theory and internship experience; group process laboratory and peer feedback and review of written work, oral presentations, and journals. Reading and discussion of crucial issues. (Only for students admitted to the EDLPS Principal/Program Administrator Preparation Program.) Credit/no credit only.

EDLPS 509: Planning, Organizing, and Decision Making

Application of principles utilized in planning, organizing, and decision making in districts and schools. Formation of policy and procedures; formal and informal organization; power, authority, and responsibility; utilization of people, time, and space.

EDLPS 510: Educational Finance

The financing of public education involves the delicate allocation of scarce resources among competing interests. Consequently, education finance is a source of continual public discussion and controversy. Educational leaders must be prepared to address the value tensions inherent in the allocation of resources for education. The primary purpose of this course is to provide students with an understanding of the educational consequences linked to financial systems and decisions. Students will examine a variety of methods for generating and allocating resources for K-12 public education. Issues of efficiency, equity, adequacy and control in education finance will be specifically addressed from historical, economic, moral, legal, and political perspectives. We will also examine the decision-making processes for determining education budgets. The emphasis in this course is not the arithmetic balancing of revenues and expenditure columns or the appropriate categorization of accounting codes. Rather, students will learn to intelligently examine the values, policy issues, practical problems, and specialized terminology associated with education finance. Students will be required to complete problem sets which are designed to improve understanding of education revenue sources and expenditures at both district and school levels. Students will also have an opportunity to examine a school finance policy issue which reflects their individual interests.

EDLPS 511: School-Community Relations

Examines the dynamics of the interface between the public schools and the community. Special attention is given to the findings of research in relation to school-community power, types, and organizational influences.

EDLPS 512: Seminar in Personnel Administration and Development

Major emphasis on the analysis of factors to be considered in the selection and evaluation of teachers and administrators and considerations in staff development.

EDLPS 513: Seminar in Instructional Development and Supervision

Theory of the process of supervising instructionally effective school personnel, including an analysis of the techniques of supervision, theory of leadership and group process, interpersonal relations, and evaluation of teacher effectiveness.

EDLPS 514: Law and Public Education: The Case of Washington State

This course offers an overview of specific legal provisions in Washington state affecting the operations and management of public schools, including school organization and operations, school finance, separation of church and state, school employment, student and faculty conduct, discipline, and rights, equity intergovernmental agreements, student health and safety and other stat-specific legal issues.

EDLPS 515: Management of Labor Relations in Education

Examination of procedures and techniques pertinent to the management of organizational conflict. Among the areas covered are collective bargaining, grievance procedures, mediation, fact finding, and arbitration.

EDLPS 516: (cross-listed as EDSPE 504): Special Education and the Law

All educational staff-regular and special education teachers, administrators, related service providers (such as occupational and physical therapists and nurses) and associated support employees-feel the effect of law in the performance of their professional duties. Special Education and the Law is designed to provide educators, and other interested professional working with children and their parents, and introductory overview of the federal and state laws concerning provision of services to students with disabilities. At the federal level, the course emphasizes the rights of students and their parents and the responsibilities of educators contained in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The course includes a review of the political, legal, and social history responsible for its passage including recent changes to the law and regulations. Additional federal laws that are discussed include the Rehabilitation Act of 1973; Section 504 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Washington State Law Against Discrimination is also covered. Selected passages form the federal and state statutes and the relevant administrative and case law will be read and discussed. Students are not required to have a background in law. However, the course includes and introduction to legal process including the opportunity to develop skills in reading and analyzing judicial decisions and to practice applying legal principles to factual situations.

EDLPS 517: Seminar in Administration: Facilities

Contemporary issues, problems, and techniques of educational facility administration. Emphasis placed on such factors as planning, financing, development, design, construction, operation, liabilities, property management, state regulation. Credit/no credit only.

EDLPS 518: Reflective Seminar: The Superintendency

This seminar will examine various topics related to the practice of the Superintendency in P-12 school districts, with emphasis on issues of practice that receive relatively little time and attention in Advanced Leadership courses. Topical discussions will be guided by selected readings and will feature interaction with practicing superintendents, who will be invited depending on their expertise related to the topical focus of the session. The seminar will meet periodically across the year, at times and places mutually convenient to the students and guest speakers.

EDLPS 519: Special Topics in Educational Leadership: Stress in the Workplace and Anyplace

Class No Longer Offered. In this five-session course, students will have the opportunity to gain an intuitive understanding of stress. Course participants will study materials that utilize both Western and Eastern perspectives on stress. Popular films will be used to deepen insight into stressful situations. Participants will consider the value of quieting the mind, being nonjudgmental, and becoming a careful observer of one's ego in action. All conscious forms of stress reduction begin with personal commitments. Participants will identify those commitments necessary to living a more stress-free life. Top of page

EDLPS 520: Education as a Moral Endeavor

This course, one of a series of "leadership core courses", engages students in an exploration of fundamental questions that have faced educational leaders in the past and most likely will continue to face them in the future. Emphasis is placed on enduring educational problems and fundamental philosophical issues, concepts that feature centrally in educational discourse, and conceptual analysis as a means for clarifying decisions regarding educational policy and practice.

EDLPS 521: Introduction to the Philosophy of Education

This course introduces students to the philosophy of education considered as a study of the conceptual basis for educational policy and practice. Emphasis will be placed on the relationships between enduring educational problems and fundamental philosophic issues, concepts that feature centrally in educational discourse, and conceptual analysis as a means for clarifying decisions regarding educational policy and practice.

EDLPS 522: Contemporary Philosophies of Education

This seminar engages in intensive study of the writings of contemporary philosophical discussions that bear on education. Each year, the course takes a different issue and different readings as a focus.

EDLPS 523: Analysis of Educational Concepts

This seminar focuses on selected concepts central to the conduct and understanding of education.

EDLPS 524: Seminar in Philosophy of Education

As with EDLPS 522 and 523, this seminar is devoted to intensive examination of a particular issue or theme in contemporary philosophy of education.

EDLPS 525: Educational Inquiry

This two-quarter sequence of courses designed to initiate beginning Ph.D. students into the community of educational researchers. Because the inquiry series is at once introductory and basic, it is not intended to give students detailed instructions for conducting particular studies. This sequence of courses rather is concerned with one primary question: What is educational inquiry? At first glance, this question seems simple. It soon becomes apparent, however, that this question touches on fundamental assumptions about knowing, knowledge, and knower. It also compels us to think seriously about the purposes, limits, and promises of inquiry and the responsibility we inquirers have to the enterprise of education. For years, educational scholars have wrestled to define the nature, scope, and purpose of inquiry; the debate continues, even today. This course will provide no hard-and-fast answers. It will, however, offer a conceptual framework by which we can begin to think about and organize the web of concerns and issues embedded in educational inquiry. This sequence is required for all Ph.D. students in the College of Education, and is currently open only to those students.

EDLPS 526: Educational Inquiry

EDLPS 530: History of Education in the United States

This is a survey course in the history of education. In this course we examine four periods of change or "reform" in the history of US education from the colonial era to the present, and consider what those episodes can teach us about what Americans have tried to achieve through education, and how such experiments have succeeded or failed. Ultimately the objective is for students to incorporate these lessons into their own experiences as educators and educational leaders. One way of posing many of the crucial issues in education today is to ask whether the common school ideal is still viable. The question is whether Americans any longer have enough in common to make an integrated school system possible and desirable. At the end of this course students will be expected to address this question using good historical evidence and argument.

EDLPS 531: History of American Higher Education

The concept of "higher education" is in many respects a twentieth century invention. As a concept describing institutions, which offer postsecondary education, the term only made sense after secondary education itself was systematized around the turn of the twentieth century. Through most of the nineteenth century, by contrast, "higher" education did not refer to specific institutions, but to any area of study beyond the basics of reading, writing, arithmetic and elementary geography. And yet, people have always aspired to achieve higher levels of knowledge and understanding. Whether that quest is understood in spiritual terms, or as a project of philosophy or science, human history is replete with attempts to formulate ideals of wisdom and learning, and to organize means of pursuing those visions. Particularly in the US this organized pursuit of knowledge has occurred as much outside as inside the academy. In this course we explore the history of higher education from this broad perspective. Drawing on multiple kinds of historical sources, we organize our inquiry around three themes: ideas, institutions, and experiences of higher education. Through this organizing framework we: 1) engage in some historical debates about what it means to be educated; 2) examine some examples of societies and institutions organized for the pursuit of higher knowledge; and 3) consider the meaning of higher education in individual people's lives. In addition, we look at historical changes in the meaning and organization of higher learning, including the "invention" of higher education in the twentieth century.

EDLPS 532: Seminar: American Education in the Twentieth Century

Selected problems in American education over the last century, with special emphasis on contemporary issues and trends.

EDLPS 533: Seminar in Educational Classics

Analysis in depth and in the context of the relevant history of several major works in educational thought from Plato to Dewey.

EDLPS 534: History of the Modern University

Growth of the modern university with attention to intellectual trends as well as organizational and curricular changes. Special attention is given to nine American universities in the twentieth century.

EDLPS 535: Historical Inquiry in Education Research

History is more discovered than made. To say so is to emphasize how dependent the work of the historian is on the evidence he or she finds. While scholars in other fields of research can create their own evidence through experiment and observation, historians must rely upon clues left by others. Historians of education, for example, have many questions about what students in the past really thought about the lessons teachers tried to teach them. Many of these questions remain unanswered, however, for lack of sufficient evidence. The historian's craft lies in unearthing evidence and in knowing what questions to ask of it. This course is conceived as an apprenticeship in the practice of that craft. Students will be asked to identify and locate historical sources, to formulate historical claims on the basis of their evidence, and to interpret the possible significance of such claims in relation to existing historical knowledge. To assist in this work, we will acquaint ourselves with guides to historical sources with major forms of documentary evidence in the history of education, with historical journals and indexes to historical research, and with landmark essays in education history and historiography.

EDLPS 536: Historical Analysis of Educational Issues

This is a readings course in problems of historical analysis and interpretation. It is intended to be both a follow-up to the introductory survey course in the history of education, EDLPS 530, and a precursor to the course in historical research methods, EDLPS 535. Its subject is the history of education in the broadest sense; that is, the transfer of culture across generations. In this course we read eight or ten really good, but very different, books in the history of education in the US and examine the problems of evidence and interpretation with which the authors struggled. Each of the books is particularly noteworthy for trying to get inside the experience of people of very different times, places, cultures, and circumstances. As in the case of any cross-cultural encounter, such attempts are fraught with possibilities of misunderstanding. In this course we look at those problems and how the authors addressed them. Ultimately, the aim is to develop a more refined understanding of what it means to investigate the cultural complexity of US education history in a disciplined way.

EDLPS 540: Introduction to Sociology of Education

This course introduces students to sociological inquiry in education through systematic examination of one particular theme: educational inequality in the United States. After explicating the "facts" about unequal educational outcomes across racial/ethnic, class and gender groups, several questions will be addressed: What are the implications of unequal education for different social groups for assessing the equality of educational opportunities in schools and higher educational institutions? How can we best understand the complex bilateral relationship between educational inequalities and broader social inequalities regarding employment, wealth and prestige? To what degree are the social systems in general, the educational system in particular, or the students themselves to blame for educational inequality? What school and classroom processes, both formal and informal, function as mechanisms through which educational inequalities across social groups are perpetuated? The instructor's hope is that the students' convictions about justice in educational institutions are aroused by exposure to the resources presented. The intent is not to squash idealism among educators by presenting intractable problems, but simply to inform such idealism by providing exposure to current school realities. However, neither postures of idealism nor beliefs about legitimacy of educational inequalities will be "pushed"; the focus remains on sociological/empirical questions throughout the course.

EDLPS 541: Comparative Education: Russian Education in Comparative Perspective

Course considers all aspects of Russian education in a comparative perspective. History of pre-Revolutionary and Soviet systems is considered; the main focus is on developments since 1980. Special attention paid to attempted reforms of 1980's under soviet regime; emergence of alternative groups in 1980's; reforms of higher education, Ministry of Education, and Academy of Pedagogical Sciences. Current situation assessed with help of Russian guest lecturers. Knowledge of Russian helpful but not essential.

EDLPS 542: Seminar in Educational Sociology

In this seminar we will discuss the application of sociological principles to school problems, focusing on issues of inequality and the relationship of schools to the stratification of society. The discussion will center on the effects of race, class, and gender on student achievement and educational attainment. The readings will draw attention to the development of critical and sociological thought, beginning with Willis' Learning to Labor and MacLeod's Ain't No Makin' It to more recent works on youth subcultures including work by McRobbie, Holland and Eisenhart, and Hull. We will critique these works using a variety of sociological frameworks to get a better understanding for the way schools view their place in society as agencies that prepare youth for adult roles.

EDLPS 543: Seminar: Research in Educational Sociology

Theory, concept, and method of sociological inquiry as applied to problems in education.

EDLPS 544: Comparative Education: Introduction to Concepts and Methods

How do we examine, compare and contrast education systems and policy in other national and cultural contexts? This course is designed as an introduction to comparative education as a set of challenges to educational research methodology and a means of expanding our understanding of education issues worldwide. Comparative research utilizes methods for studying both familiar and unfamiliar contexts as well as identifying the common pitfalls of international comparisons. Coursework and readings will provide students with an opportunity to look in-depth at other educational systems through designing comparative studies. Students will acquire ethno-methodological tools of interview construction, cross-cultural observation strategies, and documentary analysis. The course also examines a few of the education policy issues that cross a number of international boundaries and introduces students to educational practices in many countries. Education policy and practice is the primary focus, although this course is relevant to those interested in comparing other public policy issues internationally. This course is approved as part of College of Education research preparation.

EDLPS 549: Special Topics in Educational Studies: Progressive Education in Comparative Historical Perspective

The history of progressive education is riddled with paradox. On the one hand, progressive educators in the Deweyan tradition sought to make schools "creative, democratic, and humane environments for learning about life in its totality." ON the other hand, school administrators managed the growth and diversity of student populations in the progressive era by centralizing authority and instituting principles of "scientific efficiency." In this course, we explore the tension between democracy and efficiency in progressive education by comparing the experience of progressive reform in different cities. This course will be run as a seminar. Students will be responsible for analyzing different studies and sharing their analyses with classmates. In addition, students will each develop a different line of investigation for their own research projects.

EDLPS 549: Special Topics in Educational Studies: Research in the History of Education

This is a working seminar in historical research on education. Students should be prepared to undertake a piece of historical investigation on a topic of their choice as part of the course. The product of this investigation my take on of several forms, depending on the extent of students previous involvement in the chosen topic of study: 1) a bibliography and bibliographic essay on the topic; 2) a proposal for the study of the topic, including a discussion of both primary and secondary sources available for further study; or 3) and article-length study of the topic, using both primary and secondary sources. Any topic in the history of education, broadly conceived, will be a suitable topic of study. In reflecting on the organizing ideas and methods of our studies, however, we will consult multiple perspectives on doing historical research, including feminist perspectives.

EDLPS 549: Special Topics in Educational Studies: Using Large Scale Data Sets for Policy Research

The goal of this course is to help students acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to conduct high quality secondary analyses of the large scale data sets available in education. Students will "learn by doing" secondary analyses in a structured and supportive environment. Students will work either individually or collaboratively to: identify a research question, select a relevant data set, develop an analysis plan, conduct analyses, and summarize results in a format that can form the basis for a submission as a presentation at a professional conference or for an article for an academic journal. Class meetings will be divided among three activities: (1) sessions that focus on technical issues arising in the analysis of large-scale data sets, (2) less formal discussions of analytic approaches and results in which members of the class will help each other and make suggestions for alternative approaches, and (3) more formal presentations by students of their analysis plans and analytic results. This is a two-quarter sequence course. Students must enroll in the Winter quarter course as a prerequisite to the Spring quarter course. The course is designed for students with a long-term interest in quantitative research, including those students who would like to use large-scale data sets for their dissertations. The course assumes a basic knowledge of statistics and research design.

EDLPS 550: Dynamics of Educational Organizations

This course, one of a series of three "leadership core" courses (the others are EDLPS 520 and EDLPS 560), provides students with frameworks and tools for thinking early childhood to postsecondary institutions. The course offers alternative metaphors and lenses for viewing the structuring and design of organizations; their functioning and operations; their birth, evolution, and termination; their internal cultures; their relationship with environments; and the challenges they pose to the task of reform and renewal. From readings and case analyses, students become acquainted with seminal ideas about organizations both inside and outside the field of education. From these ideas, students develop and apply tools that are useful for the creation, development, maintenance and reform of organizations.

EDLPS 551: Foundational Studies in Complex Organizations

Class discussions will be based on student oral and written reviews of selected "classics" and recent publications in the organizational literature. The relevance of these selections to current trends and challenges in educational reform will be stressed. Enrollment is limited to 15 .

EDLPS 552: Change and Innovation in Educational Organizations

This course will focus on theories of, research in, and practical dilemmas of school change and innovation in K-12 educational organizations. Cuban, Tyack and Tobin, and Sarason each argue in their own ways that "the more schooling seems to change, the more it stays the same." Drawing from this idea, a number of questions will frame this course. Have schools and education changed significantly in the last one hundred years? How does that statement and the evidence that these authors and others offer provide support for or against that proposition? Does this view correspond to your own experiences and understandings about school change? Which unit (s) of change-the individual, the school, the district, the neighborhood, and/or the society-holds the most promise for realizing dramatic developments in the nature and manner of educating all children? What implications for change and innovation arise form the literature about human learning and cognition? What and how does the history of school change suggest responses to these questions? It is these questions and others about pre-collegiate organizational and school change that provides the focus for this course.

EDLPS 553: Human Resources in Educational Organizations

Analysis of factors involved in human resource problems related to operation of educational organizations. Motivation, perception, communication, role analysis, and dynamics of groups are studied through use of cases and seminal literature.

EDLPS 560: Perspectives on Policy and Policymaking in Education

Central to this course, one of a series of "leadership core" courses (the other two being EDLPS 520 and EDLPS 550), is the attempt to view policy and policy making from different perspectives: as rational problem-solving, organizational habit, and political settlement; as the effort to symbolize key values; and as expression or temporary resolution of moral dilemmas. These perspectives will be applied to a variety of current policy issues in education through discussion of case examples and written assignments. The course will also examine strategies that educators can use to influence the conduct and outcomes of education policy.

EDLPS 561: Education Policy and Leadership in Political Context

Education policy and its influence on the direction of education occur within a context of competing values and limited resources-the arena of political action. Both macro- and micro-political action becomes apparent in the contemporary climate of educational review, reform, and reconstructing. This course examines the contexts of educational policy and leadership from the international arena to the local school. Emphasis will be placed upon the nature of political action in each of these arenas, with attention across the P-12 and higher educational levels. Issues of leadership, power, and micro-political action in educational organizations will be explored to shape how political action and dynamics can best be understood by people interested in guiding the direction of schooling. Underlying values of policy action and the concerns and the interests of course participants will form the core exploration and application. Methods of study will allow students to explore areas of educational policy of specific interest, with attention to political and power dimensions of policy action.

EDLPS 562: American School Law

Examination of persistent legal issues, including an analysis of how these issues are manifest in public policy debates.

EDLPS 563: (cross-listed as PA 571): Education, the Workforce, and Public Policy

This course is concerned with the relationships between education and training institutions and the needs and demands of the modern workplace. In particular, it focuses on public policy issues and processes in this field, such as the current efforts at the federal and state levels (and in other countries) to upgrade the quality and coherence of work-related education and training. Course readings and classes cover such topics as the changing economy and its increased demands for education, training and retraining; the nature of the institutions and settings that provide work-related training, ranging form traditional schools and colleges through vocational institutes to "corporate colleges"' the roots of many current education reforms in concerns about the changing economy; the evidence about the labor market value of different types of education and training; dilemmas facing policymakers seeking to modernize and rationalize the "system" (if it can be called such in this country); and methods for analyzing the issues and dilemmas, such as human capital analysis and public policy implementation analysis. The course typically attracts students from public affairs, education, business, and occasionally other fields, providing an interesting classroom mix that has in the past years proven educational for all.

EDLPS 564: Seminar in Economics of Education

A commonly held belief is that education provides a key link to the strength of a nation's economy and the quality of life for its citizens. We hold firmly to the conviction that investment in "human capital" is a worthwhile moral and economic endeavor. This course focuses on the relationship between economics and the provision of educational services. Topics such as returns to investment in education, school choice, teacher compensation, accountability, and privatization of education will be examined. Analytic tools common to the discipline of economics will be applied to the study of educational policy issues. In this course, students will have and opportunity to select a specific educational problem and examine it from a variety of economic perspectives. Graduate students in EDLPS and students from other areas, departments, and disciplines are welcome to participate.

EDLPS 565: Power & Politics in Organizational Leadership and Decision-making

This course examines leadership in organizational decision-making. "Leadership" in this context includes the manner in which power is distributed, decisions are made, and actions are taken to accomplish organizational ends. This course will begin by reviewing the development of leadership theory and its parallels in organization and decision-making theory. Emphasis will be placed on the role of leadership in current decision-making environments. Changes in organizational structures, shared decision-making and decision-making initiatives which emphasize the role of the multiple actors will be reviewed. Attention will be given to the political aspects of decision-making and the effects of leadership will be considered historically and in light of contemporary models of organizational leadership. The course examines what have been called "transformational" dimensions of leadership and emerging "critical perspectives" on educational leadership. Implications for the exercise of leadership in educational organizations will be the primary focus, although the course is relevant to those interested in similar types of organizations. The course is open to all Education graduate students and graduate students from other fields.

EDLPS 566: Education Policy Serving Disenfranchised Groups

Large numbers of students in today's schools are considered "disadvantaged" or "at risk," to mention two common labels applied to groups deemed in need of special attention or service in schools and who generally occupy a disenfranchised position in relation to schooling. The various terms given to these groups rest on the assumptions about these students as learners and members of society that define their relationship to the schools, predispose people to treat them in particular ways, and ultimately influence the outcomes of education. This seminar examines the assumptions and likely impacts of policies aimed at targeted groups of students-those who are, in essence, disenfranchised by the institutions serving them and the conditions that surround their education in contemporary schooling, at all levels form kindergarten through graduate school. Drawing on work of scholars from the 1960's to the present, an don perspectives of relevant social sciences (e.g., anthropology, psychology, and sociology), the course pays special attention to the ways educational policies and programs (1)construe "disadvantaged" or "at risk" learners and their needs; and (2) enhance or limit the educational experiences and future of those learners. Through course readings, examination of cases, and a course project, seminar participants will attempt to identify productive ways for policy and research to address the needs of learners who are not well served by educational programs.

EDLPS 567: Education Policy and the Improvement of Teaching and Learning

The goal of this course is to explore the issues and possibilities that reside in the connection between educational policies and classroom practice. The course will use educational policy research literature and examples drawn from the P-12 school system and higher education institutions that capture the power and limits of college, school, district, state, and federal policies intended to improve the conditions of teaching and learning in the classroom. The course is intended for a wide range of students who wish to understand policy-classroom connections, and it is especially appropriate for those who are, or will be, engaged in instructional policymaking within higher education institutions or P-12 schools.

EDLPS 568: Policy Evaluation in Education

This course focuses on the elements of public policy evaluation and the relationship between policy evaluation and decision-making in public organizations. We will explore the purposes, conceptual frameworks, methodologies, designs, and strategies, which comprise policy evaluations. We will also examine how data collection influences the outcomes of policy evaluations and how organizational leaders perceive and utilize policy evaluations. Students will have the opportunity to undertake a "mini-" policy evaluation which is appropriate for their organizational context.

EDLPS 569: Issues in School Reform

The purpose of this course series is to provide College students with a rigorous and exciting way to explore the meaning of contemporary reform movements in the P-12 public school system, and the implications for their work as educators and scholars. The course is structured as a topical seminar, but, like the "wild-card" courses (EDLPS 519, 549, 579 and 598) provides a vehicle for exploring varying topical material with the same course number. The series focuses on different "hot" issues concerning the reform of P-12 educational systems, considered from various vantage points, but always in reference to a set of guiding analytic themes that pertain to all manifestations of school reform. During each quarter in which the course is offered, a different topic related to reform at the school, district, state, or federal levels will be taken up, with readings, discussion, project work, analytical writing assignments, and other classroom exercises that help the students examine the topic critically and rigorously. Each quarter's offering will be guided by an EDLPS faculty member, following a syllabus developed for that quarter, assisted by other faculty or practitioners, depending on the topic.

EDLPS 570: Critical Views on Educational Leadership

Leadership theory is undergoing a wave of development influenced, in part, by critical theory and postmodern perspectives. Topics include the emerging literature on critical leadership perspectives with a particular goal of understanding how this informs leadership practice for those in educational organizations.

EDLPS 573: Topics in Education and Social Policy: Accountability in Education and Public Management

During the 1990's, the focus of accountability shifted dramatically. From a primary regard with resource distribution and administrative processes, the new accountability in education and public management demands better performance. How much student achievement? What kind of patient outcomes? Fueled by standard setting in K-12 education and by notions of "reinventing government" elsewhere, the drumbeat for performance now resounds across the public sector. Results matter, and because results matter, policy makers and others are scrambling to understand accountability system design, to craft new accountability policies, and to experiment with novel accountability mechanisms. In short, they are seeking new ways to deliver better performance.

This course examines the new performance accountability in education and public management. Through readings, class exercises, and field-based analyses, students will explore eight major questions:

What is the accountability "problem" in education, and how do we define accountability?
What do the school reform and public sector contexts of the new accountability look like?
How can we design effective accountability systems (types, functions, components) for schools and social services?
How do the components of accountability work together to promote performance goals?
What is the difference between internal (to schools) and external (from outside schools) accountability demands, and how do they help or hinder principals' and teachers' work?
How is performance accountability operating in practice?
How well do state accountability systems fit with No Child Left Behind?
How well can we improve existing accountability systems to make them more useful to teachers and other public servants?

The balance between course work in education and other public fields will depend on the interests of the students who enroll. The professor's expertise lies in education; guests will provide perspectives on accountability in other public sectors.

EDLPS 579: Special Topics in Organizational & Policy Analysis: Race, Ethnicity, & Educational Policy

Class No Longer Offered Policy discussions involving issues of diversity in education often overlook an extensive history of social and political constructions of difference in American society and in education across the spectrum. There are a few policy questions more momentous in educational policy today than how to comprehend and deal with social diversity. Over the years, amid complex social forces, educators and policymakers have proposed a wide range of solutions to deal with social diversity. Thus, educational leaders and policymakers have made efforts to placate religious differences over schooling in the 19th century; to desegregate them following Brown vs. Board of Education; to assimilate immigrants during the Progressive Era; to compensate for "deficiencies" in the 1960's; to treat students in a "color blind" fashion in the 50's and "gender blind" during the 70's; and now to recognize and celebrate diversity. In his preface to the twentieth anniversary of Our American Dilemma (1962), Gunnar Myrdal reiterated his conviction that"…the Negro problem is intertwined with all other social, economic, political, and cultural problems (in America), and its study affords a perspective on the nation as a whole." A quarter century later, this problem may be described as the problem of race and ethnicity. This course undertakes the Myrdal thesis as a point of departure to examine policies aimed at schooling and social diversity.

EDLPS 579: Special Topics in Organizational & Policy Analysis: Creating the Learning Community

Class No Longer Offered Since its inception, American education has been compartmentalized and isolated (community colleges, four-year colleges, K-12, early childhood, special education and vocational education.) The result has been the creation of an educational system that is incapable of addressing the needs of society and unresponsive to the needs of the students it is supposed to serve. In this seminar, participants explore what it means to be part of a "learning" community and what strategies exist for overcoming the systemic obstacles-cultural economic, political, and organizational-that limit our ability to think differently about what it means to be educated and how to create conditions that make such an education possible. This course is appropriate for those who aspire to leadership positions and are interested in a new way of conceptualizing the purpose, role and structure of public education.

EDLPS 579: Special Topics in Organizational & Policy Analysis: Challenges from the Right and Left: Managing Political Tensions in Education and Educational Leadership

Class No Longer Offered This nine-session course helps students clarify their ideological beliefs about education. The course does so by using a variety of materials from the conservative right to the Marxist left. Ideological beliefs are not merely abstractions. They are in fact used by each of us to interpret our social environments. In actuality, most of us are not exclusively conservative or liberal because we have been socialized by a culture that incorporates both ideologies. Nevertheless, we tend to use these political labels as representations of ourselves and others, often with considerable emotional attachment. Even though we favor one label over another as a self-reference, ideologies tend to create interpersonal barriers, which are removed whenever we appreciate the usefulness of ideas from the broad spectrum of political thought.

EDLPS 579: Special Topics in Organizational & Policy Analysis: Critical Perspectives on Educational Leadership

The exercise of leadership in educational organizations is firmly rooted in the nature of the relationship between the leader and the led. While historic perspectives were largely influenced by structural needs, or individual traits, leadership theory is currently undergoing a new wave of development influenced in a large part, by critical theory. What does it mean to lead and to empower? What moral/social imperatives have contributed to this new understanding of leadership? How might leadership form a critical perspective develop organizational relationships that enhance freedom and democracy? These are some to the questions that will guide our inquiry. This advanced seminar will examine some of the current literature on critical perspective develop organizational relationships that enhance freedom and democracy? These are some of the questions that will guide our inquiry. This advanced seminar will examine some of the current literature on critical perspectives with a particular aim of understanding how this informs the practice of leadership for those in educational organizations across the P-20 continuum. The seminar will involve active engagement with the literature and ideas with an aim toward developing students' personal leadership platforms.

EDLPS 580: The American College and University

Introduction to contemporary United States higher education, with special emphasis on emerging trends, roles of the several kinds of institutions, the composition and character of student bodies and faculty, and the state coordination of colleges and universities.

EDLPS 581: Principles and Practices of Adult and Continuing Education

History and development of adult and continuing education in the United States: component parts of the field; issues, theory, and research; program planning for adults; professionalization of the field.

EDLPS 582: Seminar in the History and the Organization of Higher Education

Advanced seminar in the history and the organization of higher education.

EDLPS 583: Higher Education and the Law

Legal implications of university operations and an explanation of the legal and constitutional rights of students, faculty, and staff within the university. Special attention given to faculty employment and termination decisions; student protections, including due process; and university liabilities.

EDLPS 584: Academic Governance and Collective Bargaining in Higher Education

Explores the concept and operation of collective bargaining in higher education: its origin; the reasons for its growing popularity as a governance mechanism; the legal framework within which it operates; the rights, powers, and duties subsumed under its operation; and its relationship to the traditional form of faculty governance mechanisms.

EDLPS 585 Resource Allocation in Higher Education

After attention to the basic tools of economic analysis, focus is on application of those tools to specific topics in higher education (e.g., access, budgeting, finance and policies, and funding alternatives).

EDLPS 587: Seminar in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

Theory and practice of instruction and learning in higher education.

EDLPS 588: Seminar in Administration of Community Colleges

For students preparing for administrative positions in community colleges. Principles and practices in organization and administration of community colleges.

EDLPS 589: The Community College

Intensive study of the community college--its history and present and future status. Curriculum, instruction, financial, and governance issues are also discussed.

EDLPS 590: Student Populations and Experiences in Higher Education

Examines foundational literature dealing with students in higher education. Primary focus is on how students change during college, how they make choices and decisions, what roles institutional climate and structure play in the students' experiences, and what impact college has on students.

EDLPS 591: Higher Education and Public Policy

Covers public policy processes affecting higher education. Issues examined vary, but typically include fiscal context of higher education policy, access, equity, distance learning, and accountability policies.

EDLPS 598: Special Topics in Higher Education

Readings, lectures, and discussions pertaining to significant topics of special and current interest to educators. Focus is on issues related to education in community colleges, four-year colleges and universities. Topics vary; check for topic(s) to be covered.

EDLPS 599: Independent Studies in Education

Registration must be accompanied by a study prospectus endorsed by the appropriate faculty adviser for the work proposed, and which with permission of the instructor, must be filed with the Office of Leadership and Policy Studies in the College of Education. Prerequisite: permission of instructor.

EDLPS 600: Independent Study or Research

EDLPS 601: Internship

Name of faculty member responsible for supervising the student should be indicated on program of studies. Credit/no credit only. Prerequisite: permission of Supervisory Committee chairperson or graduate program adviser.

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