This concentration is intended  primarily for  teachers and administrators, although not exclusively for those working solely  in public education, who are interested in initiating or enhancing a career in educational administration. Much of the program is applicable to use in community colleges as well. Its two main purposes are to enable participants to master the knowledge and techniques necessary for educational management, and to review and evaluate best practices from both the public and private sectors in order to select among the managerial options available to address their various courses of action.

Both the MSED degree concentration and the Leadership Certificate are designed to satisfy the six area standards of the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC). The certificate provides the general knowledge areas most states require for early-career school leaders, the degree concentration for those areas required of principals and superintendents.

The general approaches used in pursuing these purposes are similar to those in the School Educator concentration. First, participants investigate the scholarly research on educational administration and then evaluate it in terms of their previous experience and expectations of the future. Second, they review the debates over past and current issues such as the motivation and the development of professional employees, management styles and a unionized environment, financial and legal options and constraints, and social and political influences on future trends.

Students in the M.S.Ed School Leadership concentration will:

• be aware of different supervisory management methods and be able to use goal-setting, feedback, reinforcement and delegation to enhance both satisfaction and efficiency;
• have appropriate knowledge of the legal and financial requirements and options of various administrative positions as well as the ethical issues potentially involved with them;
• appreciate the advantages and drawbacks of different leadership styles and the conditions which are favorable or unfavorable to them;
• be familiar with organizational planning and development models and how individuals’ development goals may be matched with the organization’s; and
• be able to see the educational organization as a subsystem of larger social and political systems and be adept at recognizing the requirements for productive relationships.