1.3 Doctoral program issues: accreditation of programs

While most professors and higher education administrators have responded favorably to accreditation processes, they agree that the process has some negative connotations such as: (a) the amount of time needed to maintain accreditation and prepare for and conduct self-studies, (b) curricular changes, (c) the many labor-intensive tasks related to accreditation, and (d) expenses incurred (Schmidt, 1999). Despite these negative issues, most recently, accreditation may have become more critical as the discipline of educational leadership/administration has been faced with public attacks about preparation programs at both the doctoral and masters levels. At issue has also been the challenge for scholars to straddle a crevasse regarding the purpose and intent of doctoral programs.

Participation and completion of a doctoral program is not only a valuable experience, but the degree is almost necessary in today’s society for professional advancement within schools and certainly in order to obtain a position in the professoriate. Stakeholders of such doctoral programs, including students, state higher education coordinating boards, school boards, public school administrators, and university faculty demand quality based on a set of standards. Therefore, some type of standards-based accreditation process is undisputable for doctoral programs since students must be assured that the program from which they will receive their degree, whether it is a PhD or an EdD, traditional or distance education, or a combination of the two, is one of quality and meets a set of established standards.

In this chapter we (a) review some of the main concerns about leadership preparation programs recently expressed by critic, Arthur Levine, and some points from the rebuttal produced by the University Council for Educational Administration, Division A and the Special Interest Group, Teaching in Educational Administration, from the American Educational Research Association, and the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration, (b) present the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) standards and relate them to recent debates about types and purposes of doctoral programs in general, and (c) make recommendations for a profession-based accrediting process of doctoral programs in educational leadership or administration.

Critique and Response: Educational Leadership Preparation Programs

Nearly two years ago Levine (2005) presented his stirring report, Educating School Leaders, and raised a hearty response from the leading organizations in educational administration representing a large constituency of researchers and scholars from a variety of institutions of higher education (Young, Crow, Orr, Ogawa,&Creighton, 2005). Of first import, Young and colleagues pointed out severe methodological flaws in Levine’s research which would draw questions as to the relevance and applicability of his report at all. We, too, suggest that this tends to make Levine’s heralded report only reverberations without solid arguments.