Writing a short essay is part of
the application process to the Educational Leadership for Social Justice (ELSJ) program. This essay
is intended to assess your original writing from these perspectives:
1. How you convey your view of education, schooling, and/or educational leadership as a social justice endeavor,
2. How you represent the issue and its causes that you discuss,
3. How you identify and rationalize proposed changes,
4. How you generally organize and articulate your thinking,
5. How you generally formulate an argument and analysis with specificity, and
6. How you generally incorporate writing conventions
As part of submitting your
application, please upload a double-spaced written response to the prompt listed below. Please be
specific, provide examples from your own work or lived experience, and include
citations/references where appropriate. Your response should be between 5 and 10 pages in length
using 12 point font. Please do not exceed 10 pages.
Prompt:
Numerous research studies
provide evidence that the structure of public education in the U.S.
creates inequitable learning experiences, exacerbates unwellness,
recognizes and attends to limited aspects of the whole child, and prepares
students to know where they fit within the unequal relations of
power of the larger society.
Choose at least
one of the identified issues above as the focus of your response and address these questions.
1. How would you name the core problem and its root causes?
2. What is you analysis of some of the root causes?
3. How might this/these issue(s) manifest in everyday practice?
4. What can or should leaders in the field of education, whether PK-12 schooling, higher education, or community-based organization do to counter this issue?
5. In what ways do you see your pursuit of the Ed.D. in Educational Leadership as an avenue for you to contribute to needed changes, including your interests in possible dissertation research topics and your role as a leader?