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Professional Development
Apply for Leading for Excellence & Equity: A CAEL Module for Graduate Credit.
In the United States, race permeates conversations that we have about our students, our beliefs about and expectations for our students, the ways that we feel about ourselves, and what we believe we bring to the world. Race is implicit in our decisions about the law and about educational policy and strategy. Schools that are genuinely inclusive and that promote excellence for all learners require leaders who understand the intersection of race, identity, power, and privilege in society and in the classroom.
In Leading for Excellence and Equity, you’ll learn the skills you need to commit your system to racial equity. You’ll start with a journey of self-examination about your mindset and your beliefs about different students and their achievement. You’ll examine your blind spots related to race and privilege as you learn to have courageous conversations about differences.
Next, you'll apply your learning to your system, as you take a close look at the leadership practices that perpetuate inequity and explore policies, strategies, and actions that may help to end those practices. The module culminates with a personal leadership project in which you’ll address a system-wide problem of practice involving inequity.
While this course specifically focuses on race in the United States, learners from around the world have reported that they use the tools and practices taught in the course to address issues of equity in their contexts related to ethnicity, religion, nation of origin, immigration status, mother language, and more.
Leading for Excellence and Equity takes place over 12 weeks. It moves through a cycle of learning, application, performance, and demonstration. You’ll engage in a range of activities and activities both online and in your personal and professional contexts.
The experience is designed to be both rigorous and flexible. The activities are asynchronous, meaning you can choose when within a given week you do them. Each week will require five to seven hours of work, with more guided, paced work during the “learning” weeks (weeks 2, 3, 4, and 8) and more job-associated practice and application during weeks 5-7 and 9-12.
Leading for Excellence and Equity is one of five online modules of the Certificate in Advanced Education Leadership (CAEL) program. Designed for current and aspiring school system leaders, CAEL is based on the Doctor of Education Leadership (Ed.L.D.) program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. If you’re interested in pursuing the full certificate, please visit the CAEL program page.
CAEL Modules
Current and aspiring leaders in preK-12 school systems, including:
Taking Leading for Excellence and Equity as a Graduate Credit Participant
Participants can complete CAEL modules for HGSE graduate credit. The tuition is $2,995 per person/module. Please note that the application, as well as acceptance specifications, differ from the non-credit CAEL requirements. If you are not admitted to the program for HGSE graduate credit, you can always apply and enroll as a non-credit CAEL participant.
Participants who have been admitted to complete CAEL modules for HGSE graduate credit should plan to complete their final projects during weeks 9-12. Participants should estimate an additional five hours of study during that period.
Taking Leading for Excellence and Equity as a Team
Taking this course as a school-, district-, or organization-level team is a powerful way to enact a collective impact on learning in your system. You can tackle a more significant problem of practice, identify unified goals and objectives together, and collectively apply what you learn as you learn, all while building skills you can apply to future problems.
Your team will work on a single, shared problem of practice across the 12 weeks, submitting a single midterm and final project that represents your collective effort. Along the way, you’ll also submit individual assignments focused on more personal learning.
Participants admitted to complete CAEL modules for graduate credit will complete a specialized version of the final activities Participants can complete CAEL modules for HGSE graduate credit. The tuition is $2,995 per person/module. Please note that the application, as well as acceptance specifications, differ from the non-credit CAEL requirements. If you are not admitted to the program for HGSE graduate credit, you can always apply and enroll as a non-credit CAEL participant.
Click here to apply for Leading for Excellence & Equity: A CAEL Module for Graduate Credit.
Tuition assistance is available for this program on a need- and application-basis. Tuition assistance is granted based on participant and institutional needs. Requests for tuition assistance have no effect on an applicant's prospects for admission. You may access the tuition assistance application after you have submitted your program application.
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