Dive Brief:
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White men continue to represent the largest portion of superintendents in the nation’s 500 largest school districts, at 44% this year, according to data released Tuesday by ILO Group, an education strategy and policy firm. Just 40% of superintendents in these districts are men and women of color.
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At the same time, the superintendency’s gender gap “remains stubbornly wide,” as women held just 30% of district leadership roles, ILO Group said. Some 16% of superintendents are White women, and 14% are women of color.
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The turnover rate among superintendents in large districts also remains high at 20%, just a slight dip from 21.4% in 2023 but still higher than pre-pandemic turnover rates of 14% to 16%.
Dive Insight:
Despite women representing the majority of public school teachers, they remain underrepresented in district leadership.
“Amidst continued high turnover at the top, the barriers preventing the advancement of talented women, especially women of color, remain deeply entrenched in our education systems,” said Julia Rafal-Baer, CEO of ILO Group, in a statement. “Women are frequently diverted from crucial leadership opportunities through biased career pathways, damaging stereotypes about their leadership capabilities, and inequitable pay.”
Rafal-Baer is also CEO of Women Leading Ed, a national network for women in district leadership. To address concerns about a lack of diversity in the superintendency the network recently released a playbook for education leaders. The playbook calls for actions like these at district, state and federal levels:
- Establish and promote support systems that prepare women for leadership roles.
- Offer family and well-being supports.
- Set public goals for putting women in leadership roles and be transparent on progress toward those goals.
- “Rebalance” the hiring process and promote best practices such as building a diverse applicant pool and ensuring that hiring managers prioritize diversity.
- Ensure financial fairness by conducting pay equity audits and including salary ranges in job postings.
The persistently high turnover rate among superintendents in large school districts comes as additional research has identified top stressors for those in the role — particularly as schools recover from the pandemic’s drain on student academic performance and well-being.
A Rand Corp. survey of 190 superintendents released this week found that superintendents’ top job-related stressors to be:
- Navigating district budgets (71%).
- Students’ mental health (68%).
- Staff shortages (65%).
- Educators’ mental health (61%).
- An intrusion of political issues and opinions into education (60%).
However, similar to last year’s findings, roughly 6 of 10 superintendents said the stresses of their job are still worth it, according to Rand. The latest survey, which Rand said was representative of school districts nationwide, was conducted in spring 2024.
