March 2020: School Administrator
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Additional Articles
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Disrupting the Biases Inherent in Executive SearchesA doctoral dissertation examined the attitudes, beliefs and perceptions that search firm consultants have about male and female superintendent candidates.
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A Regional Network Catapults New LeadersEstablishing broad networks and personal contacts is crucial to efforts to champion the work of women educators aspiring to higher levels of leadership.
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Nurturing the Under-represented in Top Posts
Encouraging women and other under-represented populations to stretch toward the highest leadership roles is our individual and collective duty as teachers first.
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A Superintendent Teetering on the Glass CliffAs a former superintendent in two school districts who subsequently worked for two decades as a superintendent search consultant, the author has seen her share of glass cliffs.
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Dissonance Toward Women Aspiring for the Top
A doctoral dissertation studied the impact of male gender dissonance on women’s eligibility for advancing into the superintendency
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The Essence of a Support NetworkFour female superintendents in central Illinois lend their ears and best thinking to each other’s professional lives
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Starting Motherhood and a Superintendency ConcurrentlyA superintendent balances motherhood and her career
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An Oxygen Mask First for Female SuperintendentsA North Carolina researcher encourages female superintendents to take care of their physical well-being and ment
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Professional ExperiencesSuperintendents identify all the positions they filled before moving into the top berth.
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The Wayward ComplaintHow to deal with an embarrassed school employee who accidentally sends the superintendent an e-mail venting about colleagues and work conditions.
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Livestreaming Our #MiddieRising BrandA superintendent discovers a novel tool to leverage parent and community engagement in district events.
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Advertising on School PropertyIs it time to make the commercial sponsors pay more substantially for playing in our schools?
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In Defense of Assessment: A Food MetaphorStudent grading practices have become like our eating habits: a consumption of low-value products.
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What If We Just Feed Them?Instead of chasing unpaid school lunch bills, one district opts to offer free lunch for all.
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The Last of the FirstsWomen leaders are defying history.
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Women Atop Our Own RanksPast female AASA presidents reflect on their experiences as superintendents.
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Starting Young and Staying YoungThe leader in Dundee, Mich., keeps his gaze on the earliest schoolers.
Staff
Women on a Plateau
One of the great perplexities eluding answers among those of us who follow the state of school system leadership is this: Why do women, a dominant presence throughout K-12 education, comprise only one in four superintendents across the nation today?
Since making meteoric gains during a quarter century roughly beginning in the mid-1980s when the representation of women in the superintendency shot up from a mere 1.2 percent in 1982 to 24.1 percent in 2010, according to AASA national surveys,
the number has barely budged during the decade now coming to an end.
AASA’s latest decennial study of the American superintendency, which was released publicly last month, shows women now comprise 26.7 percent of the top school district
posts. That suggests women are seemingly stuck in place.
This month’s issue offers a few perspectives on the phenomenon with articles about the factors contributing to the plateau, an examination of the glass cliff phenomenon, what is meant by “executive presence” and how a group of women superintendents in central Illinois have mobilized to maintain a semblance of work-life balance.
I always look forward to hearing constructive feedback, even critical, from our readers, so I hope many of you will follow up.
Jay P. Goldman
Editor, School Administrator
703-875-0745
jgoldman@aasa.org
@JPGoldman
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