carnegie project for the education doctorate

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Carnegie Project on the Educational Doctorate (CPED)

Overview and california state university (csu) cped.

The Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED) is a three-year effort sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation and the Council of Academic Deans in Research Education Institutions to strengthen the education doctorate. The participating colleges and universities have committed themselves to working together to undertake a critical examination of the doctorate in education with a particular focus on the highest degree that leads to careers in professional practice. The intent of the project is to redesign and transform doctoral education for the advanced preparation of school practitioners and clinical faculty, academic leaders and professional staff for the nation's schools and colleges and the organizations that support them.

The goal of CPED is to reclaim the education doctorate and to transform it into the degree of choice for the next generation of school and college leaders. The California State University (CSU) has been invited to establish a CSU CPED with the intent of applying the national CPED framework in analyzing its new education doctorate programs.

• The scholarship of teaching and learning
• The identification of "signature pedagogies" well-suited to their programs
• The elements of candidate and program assessment that are central within the education doctorate
• The creation of "laboratories of practice" in which future practitioners experiment and undertake "best evidence analyses"
• New "capstone" experiences in which future practitioners produce outstanding demonstrations of their proficiency

Forthcoming CSU CPED Convening on June 11-12, 2009

Previous CSU CPED Convening on October 20-21, 2008

Previous CSU CPED Convening on January 29-30, 2008

Exploring the CPED Issues

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Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (2018-present)

CEAC is providing a formative evaluation to understand the current needs and challenges of member institutions. The Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED) operates as a member-driven organization of colleges and schools of education working together through communication and evaluation to the examine the doctorate of education (EdD). The work of CPED is realized in schools and colleges of education across the country and beyond through the application of a “framework for EdD design/redesign” to produce advanced scholarly practitioners across the field of education. 

• Our Projects

Question: What is the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED)? Does the CPED accredit EdD programs?

Answer: Established in 2007, the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED) is a collection of colleges and schools of education whose faculty meet consistently to discuss, reassess, and improve the structure of the Doctor of Education (EdD) degree. Their membership currently includes over 135 institutions in the United States and Canada, all working together to redesign the EdD to better serve advanced practitioners in the field. The primary goal of CPED is to promote its three-part framework for EdD redesign, which includes “a new definition of the EdD, a set of guiding principles for program development, and a set of design-concepts that serve as program building blocks.” While member schools are expected to adhere to this framework and restructure their EdD programs accordingly, the CPED does not grant any type of accreditation to these institutions or their degree offerings.

The Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate ( CPED ) is comprised of a wide range of postsecondary institutions who are looking to develop and implement changes to their current EdD programs. Working together, these member schools have performed a critical examination of the Doctor of Education degree and created a set of guiding principles intended to refocus the degree on rigorous practitioner preparation. Colleges that join the consortium agree to adopt and institute this framework, making changes to improve their EdD curriculum with support from the CPED community and membership resources, such as collaborative meetings (also known as Convenings ) and access to the peer-reviewed, open source journal, “Impacting Education: Journal for Transforming Professional Practice.”

In our exclusive interview with Dr. Jill Perry , Executive Director of CPED, we discussed the mission and evolution of the CPED. “CPED started in 2007 as a research project among 25 institutions. Really, what that meant was about 50 faculty came together to think it through. We weren’t a formal organization, we didn’t have a coalesced mission early on,” Dr. Perry explained, “As we’ve grown over time, what I’ve observed is that CPED is kind of two things at once–we are a group of institutions, each of which is tackling their Ed.D. program, but as we’ve grown, CPED has become a professional development organization where people collaborate to advance the Ed.D. degree forward.”

Through this combination of discussing innovative ways to improve the EdD, advocating for education practitioners, and designing professional development and networking opportunities for EdD program faculty, CPED takes a multifaceted approach to ensuring the Doctor of Education continues to evolve, expand, and optimally serve the needs of educators and educational leaders.

The CPED Framework for EdD Redesign

In an effort to help improve EdD program content and outcomes, members of CPED developed a framework for EdD redesign that consists of three components. The first is a unified description of the degree that clearly outlines its goal of producing advanced practitioners in the field. According to CPED, “The professional doctorate in education prepares educators for the application of appropriate and specific practices, the generation of new knowledge, and for the stewardship of the profession.” This new definition serves as somewhat of a mission statement for the consortium, summarizing the general consensus of members’ stance on the EdD and serving as the overall objective for program development.

From there, CPED outlined six guiding principles for schools to follow as they reassess and redesign their EdD programs. These guidelines (found on the CPED website) stipulate that the professional doctorate in education:

• Is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice.
• Prepares leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities.
• Provides opportunities for candidates to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse communities and to build partnerships.
• Provides field-based opportunities to analyze programs of practice and use multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions.
• Is grounded in and develops a professional knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge, that links theory with systemic and systematic inquiry.
• Emphasizes the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice.

Finally, CPED members developed a set of seven design concepts based around these principles, each representing an integral factor in the preparation of educational leaders. These are fundamental ideas or elements to be used as building blocks when designing or reconstructing a program, as opposed to a rigid or prescriptive model that schools must adhere to, allowing each institution to apply them in a manner that best aligns with their individual program goals. With that in mind, the consortium believes an effective EdD program should be built upon or include the following concepts (which have been paraphrased from the CPED website ):

• Scholarly Practitioners – Professionals who employ practical skills and knowledge to address problems of practice, using practical research and applied theories as tools for change.
• Signature Pedagogy – A pervasive set of practices used to prepare scholarly practitioners to think, perform, and act with integrity, which challenges assumptions, engages in action, and requires ongoing assessment and accountability.
• Inquiry as Practice – The process of posing significant questions that focus on complex problems of practice and the ability to gather and analyze situations, literature, and data with a critical lens.
• Laboratories of Practice – Settings where theory and practice inform and enrich each other, that address complex problems of practice where ideas can be implemented, measured, and analyzed for the impact made.
• Mentoring and Advising – Instructional coaching guided by equity and justice, mutual respect, dynamic learning, cohort and individualized attention, rigorous practices, and integration.
• Problem of Practice – Specific issues embedded in the work of a professional practitioner, the address of which has the potential to result in improved understanding, experience, and outcomes.
• Dissertation in Practice – A scholarly endeavor that impacts a complex problem of practice.

CPED’s Six Values That Reflect the CPED Framework

As CPED has grown, Dr. Perry and her leadership team began to define the organization’s core values and their role in guiding EdD program faculty in their efforts to optimally prepare the next generation of scholarly practitioners. “These values are really reflective of our CPED Framework, which includes our definition of the Ed.D., our six principles that guide program design, and our design concepts that frame the pieces of an Ed.D. program. The values are meant to be shared across both the program and the organization itself,” she noted in her interview. The six values (and how they apply to EdD programs as well as education practitioners in the field) are as follows:

• Diversity : Embracing the value of every learner’s perspectives, and prioritizing the voices and input of diverse communities in improving both CPED and its member schools and partners.
• Learning : Investing in continual improvement and growth, as well as the practical application of new scholarly knowledge about education leadership and addressing barriers to academic equity and success.
• Partnership : Seeking to strengthen partnerships with schools offering EdD programs, as well as with education leaders at public school districts, community colleges, and other organizations that focus on advancing education for diverse learners at all levels.
• People : Prioritizing the lived experiences, needs, concerns, and insights of educational professionals.
• Social Justice : Maintaining ethical, inclusive, and just practices throughout all CPED initiatives, and having an accessibility-focused perspective underpinning all programs, educational media, and collaborative events.
• Students First : Upholding the principle that all education leaders should put their students first, from CPED’s mentorship of EdD faculty, to EdD faculty’s prioritization of their students’ goals and professional development needs, to education practitioners’ support of their students across diverse public and private school settings.

The Impact of CPED on EdD Programs

CPED only accepts non-profit institutions with current accreditation from a U.S. regional accrediting body, who can demonstrate commitment to ongoing enhancement of EdD education and a willingness to implement the CPED Framework in their EdD program. To illustrate the ongoing impact that the CPED has had on EdD programs nationwide, OnlineEdDPrograms.com interviewed the program directors for several EdD programs that are CPED members (you can view CPED-related interviews with program faculty in our Educational and Organizational Leadership Interviews section).

For example, Northeastern University’s Doctor of Education program won the 2022 CPED Program of the Year Award. In an exclusive interview with OnlineEdDPrograms.com, Northeastern’s Assistant Dean of Faculty and Academic Affairs Dr. Sara Ewell explained how, “Having CPED behind us as a standard of excellence within the field really helped establish our work. […] The CPED convenings and subsequent relationships have been really helpful in terms of creating thought partners. I feel like every relationship or conversation that I had at the convening or follow-up was another little nugget of the big picture: […] ‘Wow that’s a really great idea to use that kind of a template to help students organize the literature review’ or ‘That’s really interesting, what you’re doing to ensure that social justice is infused throughout the program.’”

Similarly, in an exclusive interview with Dr. Nancy Hastings , Assistant Dean of the College of Education at the University of West Florida (UWF) and Chair of the Department of Instructional Design and Technology, she explained how her program’s membership with CPED helped them clarify their curricular content and research mentorship and guidance for students. “We are a member of the Carnegie Project for the Education Doctorate, and the resources our membership provides to our faculty and students also make us stand out. The Carnegie Project is all about recognizing that an Ed.D. and a Ph.D. are two very different things, meant for different audiences,” she noted, “An Ed.D. is for the practitioner—the person who is looking to be the leader in their organization. The chief learning officer or performance consultant, those are people who are going to stay in practice.”

Choosing an EdD Program

As mentioned above, CPED does not directly accredit EdD programs, and member schools may be in different phases of implementing the framework and its guidelines. In general, students should choose an EdD that provides the curriculum and structure needed to help them best achieve their academic and career goals, independent of whether the program comes from a CPED member school. With that said, membership is definitely another factor one might consider when researching options for their doctorate.

If students are unclear about how a particular institution has implemented the framework or where they are in the process, it is best to reach out to a school representative for more information. This is a great opportunity to learn how a prospective EdD program has evolved over time and where the school sees that program going in the future. Pursuing an EdD is a significant time and financial commitment; therefore, students should be certain that the program they choose is the ideal match for their personal and professional needs both now and in years to come.

Online EdD Programs offered by Schools that are members of the CPED

The following schools are members of the CPED and offer online EdD programs. The CPED classifies members into three categories based on their phase of program development. These three phases include: Designing and Developing, Implementing, and Experienced. The following schools/programs are currently in one of these three phases.

General Doctorate of Education FAQs

• What is an EdD degree? Is an EdD a terminal degree?
• What is an EdD Dissertation in Practice?
• What is an EdD in organizational leadership?
• What is the difference between an EdD and a PhD in Education (EdD vs PhD)?
• What is the difference between an EdD and an EdS degree?
• What is the Difference between an EdD in Nursing Education and a DNP in Nursing Education?
• What is the difference between campus, online, and hybrid EdD programs?

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The Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate: Phase II—a quest for change

Related Papers

Impacting Education: Journal on Transforming Professional Practice

Courtney Robinson , Holly Foster , James Thomas

Purpose: Higher education, as a field of study, is one of the few programmatic areas that offer two doctoral degrees: The Doctor of Education (EdD) and the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD). In the United States, the two degrees are often conflated. Conversations, to this point, have done more to contribute to the theoretical debate than to operationally distinguish between the two degree paths. Method: The current study analyzed data collected from a review of the 188 doctoral programs at 145 institutions listed with the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE). Results: Results suggest that while there is a shift toward operational differences between the EdD and the PhD in higher education, the similarities in entrance requirements, formats, and research expectations, to list a few, suggest that the EdD and PhD still require further refinement to reach the theoretical clarity common in many conversations about the education doctorate.

Innovative Higher Education

Russell Osguthorpe

In this study, U.S. institutions that offer doctoral programs in education were surveyed and institutional catalogues of the past decade were reviewed to determine trends regarding the Ph.D. versus the Ed.D. Results of the study showed that (a) there is no clear institutional movement toward one degree title or the other; (b) research universities are increasingly reluctant and comprehensive colleges and universities are increasingly likely to offer the Ed.D. as their only doctoral degree title, and (c) requirements for the two doctoral titles are remarkably similar, including competencies in research and statistics. Findings are discussed in relation to three common positions of those who favor the Ed.D. over the Ph.D.: (a) the professional school argument, (b) the unification argument, and (c) the autonomy argument. The article concludes with a call for increased national dialogue to strengthen the education profession by reducing confusion between its two doctoral degree titles.

Special Issue of the Journal of Planning and Changing: An Educational Leadership and Policy Journal, edited by Jill A. Perry, includes articles by school of education faculty and deans and graduates of EdD programs on how CPED has influenced their programs and degree experience.

Ronald Zambo , Ray Buss , Jill Perry

Given continued confusion about the Ed.D.degree, universities affiliated with the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED) have re-envisioned it using a set of guiding principles and design features. In this study, we investigated why students and graduates chose to pursue the Ed.D., what and how they learned, how they viewed themselves, and whether they perceived their programs to be aligned with CPED’s principles. Data were collected from 296 participants at 14 CPED institutions using an online survey. Results indicated respondents agreed that their programs were aligned with CPED principles, helped them meet their professional and personal goals, and developed them as scholarly practitioners.

International Journal of Doctoral Studies

Kristina Hesbol , Valerie A Storey

International Perspectives on Designing Professional Practice Doctorates

Denise Hawkes

Jill Perry , debby zambo

Change Magazine, 2015. An overview of the project 8 years after its birth.

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CARNEGIE PROJECT ON THE EDUCATION DOCTORATE: THE EDUCATION DOCTORATE-A DEGREE FOR OUR TIME

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PLANNING AND CHANGING SPECIAL ISSUE

With the prompting of a consortium member and a very gracious offer from the former Editor of Planning and Changing, this special issue focused on the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED) was developed and edited by me, Dr. Jill Perry. As the Co-Director of CPED, I welcomed the opportunity because it afforded me the chance to tell the story of the project and its accomplishments through the voice of the consortium. I often tell people that, while I have a birds-eye view that allows me to see the accomplishments of CPED across 56 U.S. schools of education, this opinion is rarely heard by everyone or accompanied by voices that speak to the influences CPED has had on individuals and programs. This special issue gave me the privilege and honor of collaborating closely with deans, faculty and graduates of CPED institutions to learn how the broader CPED work is transpiring at the institutional, programmatic and individual level. It is with the voices of varied individuals that I wish to present this issue outlining how CPED's reconceptualizing of the EdD has changed schools of education at these three levels.

To this end, this special issue serves three purposes. First, it provides a brief introduction to the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate, written by me. This article offers a historical overview of the project, a description of how it came to be the first action-oriented effort to distinguish the EdD as a professional practice degree, and a summary of the consortium's accomplishments. Second, through the stories of change presented by various authors, this issue will demonstrate how national level ideas, tested locally, are driving the way we think about the EdD as a professional practice degree. Finally, this issue supports the goals of CPED as a learning organization. The articles included are written so that all schools of education can leam from the experiences of those who are already walking the path of redesigning the EdD, of those who have faced and continue to face the many challenges that come with change in higher education, and of those who continue to improve professional preparation in education. This issue serves as a precursor to the publication of findings and lessons...

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Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate

The CID was a five year action and research project that worked with doctoral-granting departments committed to restructuring their programs to better prepare graduates. Six disciplines were included: chemistry, education, English, history, mathematics and neuroscience.

Senior Staff

• George Walker, Senior Scholar
• Chris Golde, Senior Scholar
• Laura Jones, Senior Scholar
• Andrea Conklin Bueschel, Research Scholar

Major Publications

The Formation of Scholars: Rethinking Doctoral Education for the Twenty-First Century George Walker, Chris M. Golde, Laura Jones, Andrea Conklin Bueschel, Pat Hutchings. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008. This groundbreaking book explores the current state of doctoral education in the United States and offers a plan for increasing the effectiveness of doctoral education. Programs must grapple with questions of purpose. The authors examine practices and elements of doctoral programs and show how they can be made more powerful by relying on principles of progressive development, integration, and collaboration. They challenge the traditional apprenticeship model and offer an alternative in which students learn while apprenticing with several faculty members. The authors persuasively argue that creating intellectual community is essential for high-quality graduate education in every department. Knowledge-centered, multigenerational communities foster the development of new ideas and encourage intellectual risk taking. Envisioning the Future of Doctoral Education: Preparing Stewards of the Discipline—Carnegie Essays on the Doctorate Chris M. Golde and George E. Walker. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006. Envisioning the Future of Doctoral Education  is a collection of essays commissioned for the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate. The question posed to the essayists in this volume was, “If you could start de novo, what would be the best way to structure doctoral education in your field to prepare stewards of the discipline?” The authors of the essays are respected thinkers, researchers, and scholars who are experienced with and thoughtful about doctoral education.

Carnegie eLibrary

• Book Highlights from The Formation of Scholars (PDF)