
Leadership for Learning (L4L)
What you can earn
Duration
Credits earned
Format
Upcoming deadline
Leading education forward
Leadership for Learning (L4L) is a three-year program to earn your Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) degree along with a Washington state superintendent certification or program administrator certification.
L4L is designed for working professionals within K-12 school systems who want to take their career to the next step, as superintendents, directors or other school district leadership roles.
You and your cohort will gain the knowledge and skills to partner with students, families and communities to disrupt and transform educational systems. In addition to our rigorous on-campus courses, students must also undertake a 360-hour internship for hands-on leadership training.
We believe that through collective leadership action we can reimagine, redesign, and realize educational systems that truly lead to justice for communities across the State of Washington.
Curriculum
Overview
Our program utilizes an innovative, action-focused curriculum that includes classroom-based work at the UW-Seattle campus, as well as field-based and online learning experiences. Students work closely with faculty, a dedicated advisor and internship mentors to tailor their learning experience in ways that align with their goals. Students also participate in cohort activities and group projects, creating opportunities to learn from each other. Our general program timeline:
- May 2024: Cohort 9 orientation
- July 8-11, 2024: Summer Leadership Institute I
- Sept. 2024 - May 2025: Program Sessions
- July 2025: Summer Leadership Institute II
- Sept. 2025 - May 2026: Program Sessions & Internship
- July 2026: Summer Leadership Institute III
- Sept. 2026 - May 2027: Program Sessions
- June 2027: Graduation
The next opportunity to apply will be in February 2027 for the cohort beginning July of that year.
Endorsements
All L4L graduates earn their Ed.D. degree. Students may also choose to pursue superintendent or program administrator certification. If certification is desired, we customize internship experiences to ensure Washington State certification standards are met.
Ed.D. with Superintendent Certificate
To earn the State of Washington Superintendent certificate, candidates must hold (or be eligible for) teacher, administrator, or educational staff associate (ESA) certification. Internships are completed under the mentorship of a current superintendent or assistant superintendent, and with the guidance of their appointed UW internship advisor to ensure that each student's field experiences meet state requirements for credentialing.
Ed.D. with Program Administrator Certificate
To earn the State of Washington Program Administrator certificate, candidates must complete an approved internship with a district office administrator. Candidates work closely with their field mentor, and under the guidance of the appointed UW internship advisor to ensure all certification requirements are fulfilled.
Ed.D. with no additional certificate
Internships for degree-only students are constructed especially to meet each candidate’s personal learning goals and broader their capacity and experience base as systems-focused leaders.
Fieldwork
Because leaders learn by doing, L4L students complete a 360-hour internship that is designed to stretch their leadership. These experiences often take place in settings like superintendent offices, educational service districts, higher education institutions, and non-profit organizations. We work with students to place them in settings that align with their goals and certification requirements.
Admission requirements and process
Overview
Admissions for L4L is highly competitive. The ideal candidate is currently serving in a leadership role, demonstrates a meaningful commitment to equity, demonstrates a capacity for systems-level thinking, and possesses equity-focused leadership experience. When completing your application materials, be sure to highlight each of these areas.
A new L4L cohort is admitted once every three years using the following timeline:
- Cohort 10 (2027-2030)
- Information sessions: Summer - Autumn 2026
- Applications open: Autumn 2026
- Application deadline: February 1, 2027
- Program begins: July 2027
Materials
- Master's degree from an accredited institution
Your degree can be in-progress when applying but must be completed before program starts
- Unofficial transcript(s) with minimum 3.0 GPA
Include one from each institution from which you've earned a degree or educator certification, and one from every institution you have attended in the previous 5 years.
Your transcripts must include your name, coursework and degree (if completed)
If you are offered admission, the UW Graduate School will request an official transcript from your most recent degree earned
The UW Graduate School requires a cumulative GPA of 3.0, or 3.0 for your most recent 90 graded quarter credits (60 semester credits). However, we review your application holistically. If your GPA is below 3.0, contact us at l4l@uw.edu for advice on how to strengthen your overall application.
- Three letters of recommendation
During the online application process, you will be given instructions for adding your recommenders and getting their letters submitted electronically. All recommenders must submit their letters online.
- Resume/vita
A current academic and professional resume or vita is required. In addition to educational degrees and professional experience, you should include a listing of all relevant awards, publications, presentations or other achievements that will help us evaluate your application.
- Goal statement
This statement is used to ensure that your needs and our programs are well-matched. In no more than four double-spaced pages, respond to all of the following prompts.
L4L Leadership Principles: The L4L Leadership Principles describe program faculty’s latest thinking about the observable leadership actions that contribute to excellent educational opportunities and outcomes for each and every student, especially students of color, students learning English, students living in low-income families, and others traditionally underserved by public school systems. Throughout the program, you will learn more about each principle and use the principles as a jumping off point to lead your own learning. As a start to that process, briefly review the current L4L Leadership Principles and choose one of the 12 that stands out to you. Then, in no more than 2 double-spaced pages, discuss:
- Which principle did you choose? Why that one?
- In your own words, what does that principle mean to you?
- What is a concrete example from your experience-- either your own leadership or someone else’s leadership that you have encountered directly-- that illustrates what this principle looks like in practice and why the leadership described in this principle is important?
Equity-focused leadership: Throughout the program, your definition of equity-focused leadership will deepen. But where is your starting place? To capture and communicate your current thinking, please respond to the following prompts.
- In a brief paragraph, how do you define “educational equity?” We acknowledge that educational equity is a complex idea but sometimes systems leaders must capture complex ideas in a couple sentences. What is your current definition, in a nutshell?
- What is one concrete instance of educational inequity that you have encountered and that is important to you? Why is it important to you?
- What is a specific example of how you led to address that or a related instance of educational inequity? Please describe in detail what leadership moves you made. Why those? With what results? And what are your reflections now on your leadership and impacts? If you have not exercised leadership around that issue, why not? Stepping back, what feedback might you give yourself about how to take action with regard to that instance of inequity?
Professional Goals: L4L is a cohort program with a common curriculum that offers many opportunities for you to tailor your participation to your own goals. To start our conversation about your goals, and how L4L may help you pursue them, please respond to the following questions:
- What are 1-2 of your most important current professional goals? Why those?
- In what specific ways do you see participating in L4L helping you make substantial progress toward those specific goals?
- Two writing samples
Your samples should be professional in nature and connected to your leadership work. There is no page limit on writing samples, but they should clearly indicate authorship. At least one writing sample must be solo-authored.
- Copy of your current certificate
Upload a copy of your teacher, educational staff associate (ESA), principal or program administrator certificate, if applicable. This is required for candidates who seek the superintendent credential.
Submitting
- Gather all required documents
- Visit the Graduate School website
- Log into your account or create a new profile if you are a first-time applicant
- Complete all steps in application process and upload your documents
- Pay the nonrefundable $90 application fee
- You may request a fee waiver during the application process
- Submit your application
When prompted to select a program in the application, choose "Education - Seattle (EdD - Educational Leadership & Policy Studies - Leadership for Learning)”
Next Steps
Costs and funding
Estimated Costs
Leadership for Learning is a self-sustaining (fee-based) program. A budget is prepared each year based on actual costs. Generally, students can anticipate a modest increase each cohort to coincide with university-wide tuition increases. Tuition rates are set June prior to the start of the cohort, and remain in effect for the duration of the 3-year program. The following estimate is based on the 2024-2027 cohort’s tuition rate of $625 per credit.
- Application fee: $85 (fee waiver is available)
- Confirmation deposit: $300 (applied to first quarter tuition)
- Year one: $21,875 (35 credits)
- Year two: $21,875 (35 credits)
- Year three: $16,875 (27 credits)
- Estimated total: $60,710
Funding & Scholarships
The Graduate Funding Information Service helps current and admitted graduate students at the University of Washington identify and pursue various funding resources for graduate school-related expenses. GFIS offers a series of workshops throughout the year, as well as individual student consultations. For more information, visit the GFIS website.
L4L Leadership Principles
About the L4L Leadership Principles
The L4L Leadership Principles (formerly known as “standards”) are a guide for systems-focused leaders who aspire toward ongoing strengthening, deepening, and improvement of justice-centered practices. The principles demand leadership that aligns with the vision, desires, and needs of the community. Aspirational across a career, these dynamic principles must be enacted by each leader based on the challenges and possibilities of their specific context. Leaders must center learning through their leadership and lead by leveraging resources and opportunities that include time, people, technology, policy, community, cultural knowledges, and more. Further, the L4L Leadership Principles require that leaders move beyond critique of current unjust systems to strengthen their own practices and role within the system as they facilitate meaningful collective action towards systems change.
The L4L Leadership Principles are organized into four broad areas (Leadership for Educational Justice; Inquiry-Focused Leadership; Leadership for Transformative Teaching & Learning; and Leadership for Equitable Systems), each comprised of three distinct principles that describe the corresponding actions and targets of justice-centered educational practitioners. The principles for each area are preceded by a brief descriptive statement of the purpose and focus of the Principle Area.
These principles guide our curriculum, which dives deep into key leadership elements:
- Leadership for Educational Justice
Leadership for Educational Justice requires leaders to move beyond mere critiques of current systems to facilitate meaningful collective action that transforms systems to become more liberatory, in partnership with educators, children and youth, families, communities, systems-based educators, and others within the educational ecosystem.
Justice-focused leaders:
- Explicitly model critical and continuous self-reflection about their own leadership and intersectional identities in ways that reflect changes in their practice to transform educational systems shaped by settler colonialism and racialized oppressions.
- Move beyond critique and facilitate collective action towards more liberatory systems that disrupt disparities based on race, class, language, culture, disability, gender, sexuality, citizenship, religion, and other groups.
- Transform hierarchical power, engage conflict ethically, communicate effectively, and partner with (not for) children and youth, families, communities, and other educators in decision-making.
- Inquiry-Focused Leadership
Inquiry-Focused Leadership requires leaders to facilitate systems change through collective inquiry processes that critically engage expansive data and diverse expertise to understand problems and possibilities and to co-construct solutions towards justice-centered practices and learning.
Inquiry-focused leaders:
- Undertake collective inquiry to theorize transformative change; understand justice-centered problems and possibilities of practice; specify how their own leadership and other adults’ practices shape the learning experiences of young people; and co-construct solutions and continuous actions towards systemic change in practices, experiences and outcomes.
- Collaborate with educators, children and youth, families, communities, and other partners in using qualitative and quantitative data and research to foster humanizing data systems.
- Cultivate the agency and leadership of educators, children and youth, families, communities, and other partners, especially those marginalized by systems, to shift inequitable power and build solidarities in inquiry processes.
- Leadership for Transformative Teaching & Learning
Leadership for Transformative Teaching and Learning requires leaders to learn with and from educators, children and youth, families, communities, and other partners to make collective learning central in systems-transformation.
Leaders for Transformative Teaching and Learning:
- Intentionally and reciprocally lead their own and others’ learning in ways that create a community of learners to demonstrably improve leadership practices resulting in systems-transformation.
- Lead the implementation of relevant, rigorous, anti-racist and culturally-responsive instruction that leverages the identities, knowledges, and practices of children and youth and their communities. In doing so, they make their own and others’ learning central in their practice in their systems beyond an individual educational setting.
- Design, influence, and transform the use of feedback systems, professional evaluation systems, instructional frameworks, and other policies and practices that reinforce adults’ learning and instructional practices to align with identity-affirming learning experiences for children and youth and the transformation of instructional practices.
- Leadership for Equitable Systems
Leadership for Equitable Systems requires leaders to transform ongoing interactions, institutional practices, and structural inequities that perpetuate historical systems of power and oppression in order to create more just systems in service of the communities they serve.
Leaders for Equitable Systems:
- Draw from historical and contemporary community knowledges, strengths, and practices of racial and communal solidarity in change-making in order to understand, disrupt, and shift systems towards equitable experiences and outcomes.
- Design, influence, and communicate policies and strategically engage laws and governance structures in service of equitable learning and wellbeing for educators, children and youth, families, and communities.
- Generate, develop, allocate, leverage, and lead the management of resources to disrupt institutional and structural inequities and increase opportunities for children and youth, families, and communities.
