Not for them: women and the public school superintendency

1. Not for them: women and the public school superintendency Lucinda Sanders

2. Women do “want the job” of superintendent. • This is a study of a group of women “on their own terms.” These women have unequivocally asserted their ambition to seek the most powerful district-level position in public school leadership. In doing so, they have committed precious time, money, and energy into participating in specially designed preparation programs in the belief that these programs will further that ambition.

3. My study was guided by the following research questions: • What are the assumptions held by the women in these special superintendent preparation programs about accessing the position of superintendent? • What meaning do these women ascribe to their own professional experiences, particularly in the context of their current intention to secure a superintendency? • How do these women conceptualize the superintendency and how do they characterize their own leadership qualities in relationship to that position?

4. Research Questions • What were their expectations upon entering the Women’s Superintendent Initiative (WSI) or the Mentoring Minorities Superintendents Program (MMSP)? In what ways were these expectations met? Not met? Changed because of their involvement with the program? • To what extent, if at all, these women and their experiences are consistent with what the literature tells us and how, if at all, they and their experiences might deepen our understanding of women and the superintendency?

5. The review of the literature reflects the six stages of Shakeshaft’s “paradigmatic shift” which include: • Documenting the absence of women • Research on women who have been administrators • Women who are disadvantaged or subordinate • Women studies in their own terms • Women as challenge to theory • Transformation of theory

6. Women “who want the job” • Fourteen female educators with superintendent certification spent 2003-2004 as members of the Women’s Superintendents Initiative (WSI), a yearlong program sponsored by an Educational Cooperative in a southeastern state. I also drew upon participants in an entirely separate program that focused on advancing minority candidates to the position of superintendent. This one-year, mentoring/networking program is called Mentoring Minority Superintendents Program (MMSP).

7. Why a qualitative approach? • to discover meaning and understanding, rather than to verify truth or predict outcomes. • to achieve an understanding of how these women thought about their participation in these programs.

8. Multi-layered data/smaller and smaller groups • Pre-existing data from WSI came in the form of written materials submitted by program applicants and taped interviews conducted by the administrators of WSI as part of their application process. • Using data set 1 (application materials), my notes from the WSI interviews (data set 2), and my initial research questions, I designed a survey in order to frame the questions for the interviews which were to follow.

9. 2 rounds of interviews • Based upon both the survey responses and the analysis of the pre-existing data, I developed a two-stage interview protocol. • In the first round, I interviewed 9 WSI participants and 2 MMSP participants. • In the second round of interviews I selected 2 informants from each of two states and one from the third state. This second group also had considerable differences in age and experience.

10. Data Analysis: Stage 1 • I began a descriptive coding process with the 13 interviews conducted by the WSI. • I continued this same descriptive coding process with the round 1 and round 2 interviews arriving at 93 descriptive codes. • I developed a document called “Emergent Categories” and assigned a different color to each category. • I then developed 75-page, color-coded document (“Categories, Patterns, and Themes”) organizing these quotes under the umbrella of seven categories. • I included a reference list that clearly shows the participant, data set, and transcript page number for every quotation.

11. Data Analysis: Stage 2“7 Big Ideas” • lack of clear career goals • the “other” (social norms and stereotypes) • anti-feminism • integrity/ethics • networks and mentors • discrimination and prejudice and • unique leadership attributes

12. Achieving trustworthy accounts • Triangulation was used to construct believable, credible, and trustworthy accounts of the participants’ perceptions. The different perspectives of the participants, the accounts of the two program directors, the analysis of the pre-existing data and survey responses provided multiple sources of data and multiple perceptions to produce a plausible explanation for how these aspirants constructed their understandings.

13. Two Specialized Programs to Prepare Women to be Superintendents • Women’s Superintendent Initiative (WSI): funded by a national philanthropic organization. • Goal: to prepare female educators for the role of superintendent. • Mentoring Minority Superintendents Program (MMSP): established by a state department of education. • Goal: to identify and train a pool of highly qualified, minority candidates for the superintendent of school districts in one state.

14. A Snapshot

15. Filling in the Lines

16. Susan and Theresa Susan and Theresa, stood out among all the others in their drive and determination to become superintendents. They spoke at such length and with so much enthusiasm, that their stories became a complete portrait. If “it’s going to happen” these are the women who are trained, available, and positioned to make it happen. They make up what Brunner (1999) refers to as “the greatest untapped pool of candidates for the position of superintendent of schools.”

17. In comparison with current women superintendents… • The profile of these women aspiring to the superintendency matches up in many ways to the women who currently are superintendents. • This group of aspirants differs in one way from current women superintendents. Women superintendents are more often than men to jump from the classroom directly into a Central Office position, first as instructional coordinators, with the principal position the second most often (86). • Only four of these aspirants’ first positions was as a coordinator (resource teacher; instructional consultant, etc). Six of the other women’s first position was as an assistant principal, and one began her administrative career as an elementary principal.

18. Other Leadership Attributes • Ethical conduct • Advocacy for children • Collaboration • Inclusion • Consensus building

19. How They Conceptualize the Superintendency • They ranked communication and listening skills as the most important competencies a superintendent should have. • Leadership and knowledge of curriculum, instruction and assessment were second. • Other competencies mentioned were political savvy, integrity and honesty, being a team player, and interpersonal skills.

20. What could account for the inability of this accomplished and talented group of women to achieve their dream of being a superintendent? “I don’t think we slowed them down any. I think we gave some better insight into the position and all of the nuances in to the superintendency. And I think that two or three decided that it was not for them” [emphasis added]. (Gillian WSI Director)

21. Not for them… • In coming to this decision, most of these women were hurt by the absence of mentors and professional networks. • Most of them had spent their lives in education, with literally no career planning.

22. Not for them.. • Issues of preference (rejection by hiring authorities, and anti-feminism); prejudice (discrimination and stereotyping); and perception (social norms and being the “other”) emerged. • In the 3 years that have elapsed since the conclusion of these programs, not a single one of them has been hired as a superintendent.

23. This study shows: • Women do aspire to be superintendents. • Women have not been considered seriously for the position. • They have not been encouraged to think of it as a career goal. • This lack of encouragement and lack of professional and personal networks and mentors has resulted in a deep ambivalence on the part of these women about seeking the position.

24. Questions • Why was it necessary to create “special” preparation programs for women and not for men? • Why were the women so quick to believe that they needed what was being offered? • Why are traditional preparation programs sufficient for men but not for women?

25. And More Questions • How do we account for the anomaly of women who really are going after the position but fail to achieve it? • How many other women are attempting to advance to the superintendency and are failing to do so? • What accounts for the success of the current women superintendents, on the one hand, and the failure of the WSI and MMSP candidates on the other?