Educational leadership is an important discipline, combining modern psychological understanding with educational strategy and data analysis to make improvements to the educational system. In the United States, it is also frequently known as “school leadership,” and has supplanted terms such as “school management” and “educational management.” A Master’s in Educational Leadership supports a progressive approach to furthering the cause of education and educator accountability, primarily at the level of the individual school, having arisen from a widely acknowledged need for improved academic performance stemming from the institutional level towards the end of the 20th century.
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A Master’s in Educational Leadership represents a sophisticated program offered by several major universities around the country. It involves training in education, communications, analysis, and other important skills, intended to help parents, educators, students and administrators to work together to improve overall academic performance.
What Are the Prerequisites for an Educational Leadership Master’s Degree?
The educational leadership program is a specialized Master’s of Education. Many graduates from this program, which is frequently available online, enter into it with a Bachelor’s of Education undergraduate degree. Other popular degree choices include undergraduate programs in communications, developmental psychology, and business administration, but education remains the most common qualification. Certification courses in principalship are often associated with the educational leadership graduate program, but this is complementary, not a prerequisite.
What Does the Program Involve?
There are different specialties within the educational leadership program, which will help to guide the direction of the individual student. A given student’s efforts might be focused on teacher leadership, for students who wish to remain in the classroom while encouraging a more active, integrated educational structure within their school. This approach requires a stronger focus on education, while a variation intended to support the position of school principal would involve more of a focus on administrative skills. Other specialties include programs tailored for guidance counselors. All educational leadership programs emphasize leadership skills and communications, and are predicated on a person’s ability to relate to multiple points of view and arrive at constructive compromises that support academic growth.
What is the Outlook for Careers in Educational Leadership?
Educational leadership isn’t representative of a new profession, so much as it is of a new way of thinking. Degrees in educational leadership meet their individual states’ criteria for classroom educators and school administrators. While larger schools and school systems might employ professionals specifically to develop and analyze new educational strategies from an outside perspective, the primary goal of this program is to support teachers, principals, guidance counselors, and other existing professionals. These represent rapidly growing career paths, with new opportunities in both urban and rural school systems across the country.
By embracing a focus on community-based academic improvement and incorporating a wider range of feedback into educational strategies, the Master’s in Educational Leadership degree program encourages future educators to think outside the box. It encourages greater professional accountability at the level of the individual institution, while empowering said professionals to take demonstrably viable action towards the improvement of students’ academic performance.