Course Descriptions

Required Courses

EDUC 214 - History of American Education Reforms
What distinguishes between successful and failed education reform attempts?  This course examines how values, ideas, social and economic contexts, politics, and leadership serve to propel and oppose education reform efforts.  The focus will be on the American experience, but cross-cultural examples will be introduced. 

EDUC 268 - Leadership and Education
This course examines leadership in education; the theories of leadership at the national, state, and local levels of democratic societies; and the theories of leadership within organizations and work groups. 

EDUC 271 - Education Policy
This course provides an introduction to the various phases of the public "policy cycle," including problem identification, policy development, policy analysis, political decision making, policy implementation, and policy evaluation.  It also introduces education policy issues at the international, federal, state, and local levels.  Students develop a detailed policy proposal.

EDUC 281 - Program Evaluation
An overview of education and social program evaluation: sociopolitical contexts, alternative evaluation approaches, methodologies, practical considerations, and interpretations.  The class usually designs, and sometimes conducts, a real program evaluation.

EDUC 288 - Analysis of Education Policy Issues
In this course, students will analyze current public policy issues using several models of policy analysis.  The class will consider a wide  range of policy options, assess their advantages and disadvantages based on evidence, and draw implications for the formulation of policy.  Each student will prepare a policy analysis on topic of interest to them.  The course is open to Education Policy master's degree students in the last, or second-to-last, semester of study and to Education Policy doctoral students. 

EDUC 295 - Introduction to Quantitative Research Methods
This is an introductory course on social science research methods. Emphasis is placed on research design, measurement, descriptive statistics, and the basics of inferential data analysis (through two-group t-tests). 

EDUC 298  Introduction to Education Statistics   Fundamentals of quantitative research in terms of design, measurement, and data analysis. For masters students or entering doctoral students who lack prior preparation in quantitative social science research methods.

EDUC 307 - Qualitative Research Methods
This course provides an introduction to qualitative research approaches such as ethnography, in-depth interviews, focus groups, and case studies.  The course covers qualitative design, data collection, analysis, and reporting. 

Optional Courses

Students have to take at least one of the following four International Education courses  providing a cross national perspective on education:

EDUC 201: International and Comparative Education: Theoretical foundations of comparative and international education.  Systematic investigation of the structure and practices of selected representative school systems throughout the world. 

EDUC 202:15: Comparative Solutions to Common Educational Problems: Examination of how different countries have addressed challenges and problems in education that face almost all countries. 

EDUC 203:10: Programs and Policies in International Education: Overview of policies and programmatic responses in developing countries

EDUC 285: Education and National Development: Examination of the inter-relationships between education and various aspects of national development in both advanced industrial countries and those moving toward industrialization.

Elective Courses

Students may use their electives to take a wide range of courses in which they are encouraged to develop expertise. They often take elective courses offered by the Education Policy Program.  Second year master's students may, with the approval of the instructor, take doctoral level courses in the Education Policy Program.  Students often take courses in the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration. Often, students take courses in other programs of  the Graduate School of Education and Human Development such as International Education, Education Administration, Higher Education Administration.  They may take additional research methods courses. They also sometimes take courses in programs of other schools, such as Business Administration, International Affairs, Political Communication, Political Management,  Sociology, and Woman's Studies.  Students may also take courses at other universities that participate in the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area, in accordance with the rules for that.  Finally, many students use one or more electives for supervised individual study or internships with Washington organizations.
 
Admissions Procedures

The admissions procedures are explained in the School's main web site at http://gsehd.gwu.edu/Prospective+Students

CAREFUL: The deadline for financial aid applications is January 15th.