This piece describes a steadily changing, teacher leadership-oriented, CPED-affiliated, education doctorate (EdD) program that is housed in a department of curriculum and instruction. It situates the program design in relation to four key concepts--epistemology, praxis, efficacy, and iterative processes--while highlighting CPED's core stance that the voice of the professional practitioner needs to be inserted into discussion of educational change, not as the target of policy, nor the object of research, but rather as a coequal partner in a research/policy/practice triad in which practitioner insights related to context are key for the viability of educational efforts.