The Ph.D. is considered the highest academic degree.
Doctor of Philosophy - Wikipedia
Schools of medicine, law, business and education are considered professional degrees. One can get a Ph.D. in those fields (at certain universities) but they still walk behind the Ph.D.'s at most ceremonies. Bigger unversites certainly maintain the practice, worldwide, of treating a Ph.D. as the highest degree. It is generally understood that a Ph.D. candidate will write a dissertation (book length manuscript that requires approval by a committee of Ph.D.'s) whereas one can get a professional degree without such writing or defense of the writing.
This is not to say that reputable Ed.D. programs don't require writing and approval of the writing. A PhD generally takes longer and often requires a committee of experts that go beyond one discipline. It's also usually easier to get into an EdD program than a PhD program and the college where I teach does not, in fact, confer PhD's at all. Just professional degrees.
The EdD program does not require a competitive process for admission (at my college) but rather, if a student completes a bachelor's with a GPA of 2.5 or greater, they are admitted to the program (which has options starting year round and is designed to fast track people into the EdD, which takes a well prepared students about 18 months. Their dissertations are "approved" not "defended." These are subtle differences, to be sure but in academic hiring they make a big difference.