Women in Leadership: Rocky Road to the Superintendency

The inequities associated with gender imbalance in leadership require national attention. Wilson (2004)found that of 435 seats in the House of Representatives, only 59 are women; of the 100 senators, only 14 arewomen. Only 24 women have ever been governors in the United States . Women are nearly half theworkforce, yet we make up only 12% of top executives and hold 12.4% of board seats in 500 of thecountry's largest companies. Although these statistics are significant, they are not nearly as staggering as thestatistics about the positions held by women in the superintendency. Of our nation's 13,728 superintendents,1,984 today are women. Although 72% of K-12 educators are women in the United States , 87% of the topleaders in the school districts, the superintendents, are males according to the U.S. Department of Education.Many questions have been posed and researched about why there are so few women in the superintendentposition. Also, search committees have been formed and new programs have been put into place to recruitwomen into administration. Yet, there has been an inconsequential increase nationally in identifying andhiring women to the superintendency (Nogay, 1996). In reviewing research on women in thesuperintendency, several common strands have been identified that speculate reasons why there are so fewwomen in the superintendency and possible solutions to this significant issue.Besides the commonly held belief that women are discouraged from the superintendency, there are sixdocumented reasons that are substantiated across literature related to why women are not at the top ofschool districts. The six categories encompass a wide range of issues including credentials, school boards,positions held, job structure, age, and mentoring