Search Consultant

School Administrator, Feb, 1994 by Linda Chion-Kenney

Boon or Bane to Non-Traditional Candidates for the Superintendency

For a quarter of a century, Carroll Johnson has helped school districts choose their superintendent. More than 150 searches in 25 states later, Johnson doesn't "rise to the bait" when asked whether a "good old boys network" exists.

"If the good old boys network means getting good information from people you know who are knowledgeable, then yes, there is that sort of thing," says Johnson, a former superintendent who is recognized for helping women and minorities advance in education. "But if it means influence contrary to the interests of the district being served, I'm against it."

Nevertheless, the underrepresentation of women and minorities in the superintendency begs a closer look at the question: Do search consultants help or hinder the advancement of non-traditional candidates into the ranks of education's top leadership positions? The answer is yes and no, depending on who is asked.

"There's a good old boys network whether people believe it or not," says Susan, a superintendent in a Midwestern state who asked that her real name not be used for fear her remarks might hurt her chances for another superintendency some day.

"Most men superintendents," she adds, "when they think of their own replacements, don't think of women, and boards have the same mindset."

But Sandra Terril, superintendent of the 1,250-student Piper Unified School District in Kansas City, Kan., tells of a different experience. As the first woman superintendent in Kansas 10 years ago, she says, "I had incredible support from my male colleagues and I still have tremendous support."

Over the past decade, she adds, "I have interviewed for two superintendent positions that I didn't get, but I don't think gender had anything to do with it."

Differing Views

The two divergent perspectives show just how hard it is today to make definitive statements about the nature of superintendent searches. Charol Shakeshaft, who chairs the department of administration and policy studies at Hofstra University, notes: "I wouldn't want to make a blanket statement either way. In our research we found that some search firms helped and some search firms hindered."

One thing, however, is certain: Women and minorities are underrepresented in the superintendency. Of the 1,724 superintendents responding to AASA's 1992 Study of the American School Superintendency, only 182 (11 percent) were women, minorities, or both. The study further found 6.7 percent of the respondents were women, up from 1.2 percent in 1982 and 1.3 percent in 1971. In all, 67 minority superintendents responded to the survey.

While 40 percent of the women superintendents in the survey said discriminatory hiring practices were a minor problem for them, almost four times as many women as men reported it as a major problem. Close to 60 percent of minority superintendents, compared with 16.6 percent of non-minority superintendents, said hiring discrimination is a major problem for minorities.

"It seems to me," Susan says, "that when [the education] profession is 75 percent female overall, what is happening is that women are not encouraged to go into the superintendency, and they're not given a fair shot when they apply."

"In my state," she adds, "the percentage of women superintendents has risen from 2.5 percent to 6 percent, and it's taken us 11 years to get there."

"It's absolutely appalling," says Joan Curcio, an associate professor of educational administration at Virginia Tech University and a past president of AASA's Women's Caucus, "that so little progress has been made in the 15 years I've been involved."

Lingering Discrimination

Interviews with school officials, consultants, and researchers suggest, however, that search consultants may not be the problem but part of the solution. Greater roadblocks to access, they say, may be a school board's biases, a potential candidate's failure to network and plan for career advancement, the profession's lack of attention to succession and mentoring, societal attitudes, a growing disenchantment with the superintendency as a career aspiration, and selection criteria that are unduly limiting.

Susan, for example, maintains she was denied a superintendency in a larger district even though her predecessor--a male--had made the same career move.

"Nobody ever thought there would be a problem of his going from a district of 900 kids to a district of 5,500 students," Susan says. "But when I applied for the same job after he retired, size of district was used against me. I think that's just a smoke screen for not considering a woman.

Shakeshaft, who has written widely on this subject, prefers to call it a "fake screen." The way discrimination works, she says, "is not that you hold women to a higher standard, but that you hold men to a lower standard. You lower your expectations. [A consultant may say] 'I know you wanted someone who has been in a large district, but this guy can do it.' That's what we have documented. Discrimination is unconscious, unexamined, but it still exists."