Educational Leadership Ph.D. - Supplemental Requirements
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Resume - Applicants should provide the following information in a resume not to exceed three
single-spaced pages (1" margins and 12 point font): educational background, work and other
professional experiences (including the applicant's current employer's name, location, dates
worked, the applicant's job title, and job responsibilities), other information that might be relevant
(e.g. organizational affiliations, community services). Please note that this program is designed
for working professionals, and the applicant must have a position---whether teacher leader/coach,
administrator, or other---that will allow the applicant to implement change in his/her workplace.
Successful applicants will be part-time doctoral students while maintaining full-time Pre-K-12
educational leadership roles.
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Personal Statement of Interest - Applicants should write a personal statement of no more than
three double spaced pages (1 inch margins and 12 point font). The statement should address the
following: 1) what interest the applicant has about this particular doctoral program, given the
applicant’s current or prior/recent professional and academic experiences; 2) a current
challenging education policy issue in an EC-12 school or school district setting that the applicant
would have an interest in examining as part of the applicant’s program of study and/or education
policy research dissertation; and 3) how the applicant envisions the program helping him/her
investigate this challenging education policy issue and, through doing so, achieve his/her
professional goals.
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Three Recommendation Letters - Submit three letters of recommendation electronically. At least
one letter must be from your current supervisor (i.e., the superintendent for a principal
applicant, either Board of Trustees chair or former superintendent for a sitting superintendent,
etc.) It is strongly recommended that one letter come from a former faculty member or academic
professional, or from someone who can address the applicant's academic ability to become a
scholarly practitioner. Lastly, one letter from a person of the applicant's choice who can speak to
the applicant's qualities that will contribute to his/her success in a practice-focused doctoral
program.
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Problem of Practice Prompt – The superintendent of an urban school district in Texas has just
contacted you expressing her interest in your services as an educational policy consultant.
Because of the district’s large percentages of ESL/ELL and economically disadvantaged students,
elementary and secondary teachers throughout this urban district are continuing to grapple with
multiple instructional planning and classroom teaching/learning challenges associated with
accommodating the learning support needs of the district’s underserved students. These
challenges are compounded by the fact that the district has also been scrambling to comply with
new state education agency requirements—stemming from recent, widely publicized new
national education standards calling for the provision of 21st century technology-integrated
learning opportunities to students in elementary and secondary classrooms, such as the Next
Generation Science Standards (NGSS) (National Academy of Sciences, 2012)—to incorporate
mobile digital technologies and educationally appropriate social media into the district’s
instructional programs, including teachers’ instructional planning.
So far, the district leadership’s overall responses to these challenges have been reflexive and
haphazard at best. The superintendent has been receiving mounting pressure from the school
board to develop and present a comprehensive education policy proposal that can address in
inclusive ways the instructional technology-integrated teaching and learning needs of all of the
district’s learners (students, parents, teachers, instructional support staff, and administrators)—
including the needs of underserved student populations and their families.
The superintendent is requesting that you, as educational policy consultant, prepare a preliminary
“policy development study” prospectus in which you will outline the research procedures you
would employ to assist the district with its policy development needs. Since the superintendent is
intent on being able to present a comprehensive, data-informed education policy proposal to the
school board, she is especially interested in reading about the kinds of campus- and district-level
disaggregated and longitudinal learning assessment/academic performance report data mining and
analysis procedures, as well as strategies for obtaining perceptual data from multiple school
district stakeholders regarding current policy issues, that you will include as integral components
of your “policy development study” prospectus.
To respond to this writing prompt, please prepare a thoughtful and well-constructed preliminary
“policy development study” prospectus brief to comply with the superintendent’s request.
Construct your prospectus brief as an initial outline draft of data collection/analysis procedures,
policy issues review processes, and policy development strategies that you would include in the
complete “policy development study” prospectus you would develop for this urban school district
superintendent. In your prospectus brief describe the education policy “issues” you feel would be
most important to consider in formulating a workable education policy (or set of policies) for this
school district situation.
The answer to the above prompt should be not more than 5 pages, double-spaced, 12point font, with one-inch margins.
Reference:
National Academy of Sciences (2012). Next Generation Science Standards: Executive Summary.
Washington, DC: National Academies Press. http://www.nextgenscience.org/
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GRE Scores – Your GRE scores must be from within the last ten years. Please request that ETS
send an official score report to Texas Tech University (institution code 6827).
To find the most up-to-date information on the application process, please visit the College
of Education Graduate Application Process page.