Ed.L.D. Curriculum

To transform education, leaders need a combination of skills and knowledge, courage and humility, and action and reflection. Leaders need to be able to operate successfully in the political environment and manage an organization while focusing on the core work of learning and teaching. The innovative Ed.L.D. curriculum — custom-designed for this program and purpose by faculty from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard Business School, and Harvard Kennedy School — will prepare students to be effective system-level leaders.

Year One

Ed.L.D. students will engage in a highly integrated core curriculum that focuses on three areas — learning and teaching, leadership and management, and understanding and transforming the education sector. Through a variety of teaching and learning modalities — e.g., case-based discussion, simulations, field-based work, on-line learning — students will develop and practice the habits of mind and dispositions to act as system-level leaders.

Units in the Year One core curriculum include:
Adult Development; Data; Family and Community Engagement; Group Relations; Leaders of Learning; Leadership, Entrepreneurship, and Learning; Managing Human Capital; Performance of the Sector; Political Engagement; Public Narrative and Mobilization; Race and Identity; Remaking Educational Policy; Resource Allocation; Sectoral Change; Service Leadership; Strategy; and Workplace Lab.

Year Two

Ed.L.D. students will deepen their understanding of the first-year curriculum through a yearlong seminar in the second year. In addition, they will work closely with advisors to develop a tailored learning experience that includes taking elective courses at HGSE, Harvard Business School, and Harvard Kennedy School specifically chosen to complement individual learning needs and career aspirations. Among the courses we anticipate will be available to choose from are the following:

Harvard Graduate School of Education

• Managing Financial Resources in Nonprofit Organizations
• Strategies and Policies for Narrowing Racial Achievement Gaps
• Teacher Unions and School Improvement

Harvard Business School

• Entrepreneurship in Education Reform
• Power and Influence
• The Psychology of Strategic Leadership

Harvard Kennedy School

• Exercising Leadership: The Politics of Change
• Performance Leadership: Producing Results in Public and Nonprofit Agencies
• Organizing: People, Power, Change

Year Three

Ed.L.D. students will spend the third and final year of the program in a paid residency at one of the partner sites in our extensive nationwide network of influential and dynamic organizations, including public school systems, departments of education, and nonprofit, mission-based for-profit, and philanthropic organizations. These customized yearlong residency experiences are designed to enable students to test their leadership skills on projects of high priority to the organizations, as well as students' own theories of change. Students will be intentionally pushed out of their comfort zones and be asked to work systemically, organize other people's work, and be accountable. The residency will provide students with the professional mentoring, practical experiences, and network of connections they need to graduate to exceptional management roles. In the third year, students will stay connected with their Ed.L.D. cohort and Harvard through technology and by returning to Harvard periodically for intensive workshops.

Core Curriculum

Learning and Teaching

Leaders of learning need a robust understanding of learning, development, teaching, and schools as settings for these activities. In this curriculum strand, students will investigate key questions:

• How does learning work?
• How are learners different?
• What's worth learning?
• What kind of knowing matters?
• How is content best taught?
• How do we know content is getting learned?
• How do we improve learning at scale?

Students will develop a critical and creative stance towards these fundamental ideas, as well as skill in finding and cultivating the expertise needed to engage in the continuous improvement of instructional practice.

Leadership and Management

We seek not only to foster transformational changes in the education of students in the United States, but also to offer students a transformational experience through the Ed.L.D. Program. In this curricular strand, students will develop their abilities as thoughtful and entrepreneurial leaders, as well as their understanding of organizations, so that they can create genuine learning organizations that perform at a high level. This core domain encompasses four content areas:

1. strategy
2. entrepreneurial leadership
3. managing organizational performance
4. leading the learning organization

Understanding and Transforming the Education Sector

In this curricular strand, students will gain not only a sense of how the education sector functions, but also a sense of the modes by which it can be reshaped in the future. The focus is on the history, structure, policies, politics, and levers for change in the sector. Students will explore the question of why it has been so difficult to improve performance through policy and learn how successful political actors are able to mobilize to effect change. In addition, they will meet and hear from some of the major players who are working to create sectoral-level change.