Walk into a classroom in any public school in the country, and you鈥檒l likely see a woman in front of the class.
Take a detour into the principal鈥檚 office and those chances go down.
By the time you get to the superintendent鈥檚 chair, particularly if it鈥檚 in one of the 500 largest school systems, the odds of finding a woman sitting there are about 3 in 10.
Education is largely powered by women, but in the rooms where big decisions are made鈥攊.e., the superintendents鈥� offices鈥攖he power brokers are often male.
Education Week has reported on the structural factors and barriers that have resulted in the low number of women in the top district position鈥�from outright and implicit bias, lack of mentors and supports, to personal choices.
Those factors were exacerbated during the pandemic, when women in all sectors bore a heavy toll.
Female superintendents in large districts, for example, were more likely to be replaced by men when the positions became vacant during the pandemic years, according to the ILO Group, which focuses on increasing the number of women in the superintendency.
We鈥檝e also explored pay disparity in the principalship.
In a 2021 paper published in Economics of Education Review, researchers Jason Grissom Jennifer D. Timmer, Jennifer L. Nelson, and Richard S. L. Blissett looked at Missouri principal data and found that female principals made approximately $1,000 less annually than their male counterparts鈥攅ven when the type of school, performance, and working hours were considered.
Throughout March, which is Women鈥檚 History Month, Education Week will feature interviews with female K-12 leaders鈥攁t the school and district levels鈥攁bout their experiences in the education workforce and how they think the sector can address the gender disparities in high-level positions, as well as salaries. We鈥檒l also be asking them about challenges they faced, their advice for up and coming female leaders, and other lessons and highlights from their professional journeys.
