Advice for Career Transition to Admin or Policy?

[straybirds]

Hi all,

Please let me know if this isn't the best place to ask this.

I've been a speech-language pathologist for a few years now. I've worked in early-intervention with infants and toddlers, preschoolers, elementary schoolers, and teenagers as well. Across all of my positions, I've chosen to work with students in poverty or in Title 1 districts and I've seen a lot of equity and curriculum issues that I wish I could address from a more "macro" level. I've been interested in an eventual transition to a educational policy or administrative career and would interested in a Ph.D. or Ed.D. in the future to make this shift. However, I haven't had any research experience during my master's degree which I'd imagine is a pre-requisite for consideration from both types of programs.

Could anyone shed some light on how to shape my career experiences to help me achieve my end goals? For example, should I find try to apply for research positions? Should I attend courses/lectures on education policy? Should I seek out leadership positions in the school system? How do I go about finding experiences that give me experiences in ed policy? My struggle is that speech pathology is a very specialized field and while I have a lot of knowledge on language and literacy and  perspective on special education and disability justice, I don't have a lot of opportunities available to me in ed policy.

Any help would be appreciated!