Women have difficulty advancing up the career ladder in many professions.
Education is no exception even though it is a field heavily staffed by women.
Most of the decision-making administrative positions superintendent, assistant superintendent and principal are held by men.
Eighty-six percent of the elementary school teachers in New Jersey are women.
Females exhibited a stronger tendency for the desired whole-brained leadership style than the males in this study but they had the least authority.
However, only eighteen percent of the elementary school principals are women.
The pattern persists in higher administrative levels. Females have an 11% chance of becoming a middle school principal, a 9% chance of becoming a high school principal, a 9% chance of becoming assistant superintendent and a 4.5% chance of becoming a superintendent.
This situation will not improve in the near future mainly because administrators in the position of hiring other administrators to work with them prefer to choose people like themselves. This is human nature.
Since women are obviously different from men, not only in appearance but also in the way they think, it is difficult for men to choose them over their own sex.
There is even a name for this phenomena. It is called the "old boy network." As a result, women are denied the opportunity of contributing to the decision-making process and the educational system is denied the special insights and experience of women.
Dr. Cynthia Norris reported the brain hemisphere characteristics of creative leadership among selected educational administrators in Tennessee. She studied 27 superintendents, 37 principals, and 39 supervisors chosen by a panel of experts for their effective leadership, plus 12 superintendents chosen at random as a check.
She was looking for the combination of left-brain logical thinking and right- brain intuitive thought that current theories hold is the best for creative leaders.
The superintendents, all men, were strongly oriented toward left hemisphere style and higher in technical rather than conceptual skill. Principals, mostly men, exhibited a balance in left-right brain dominance and a high level of innovation in their leadership and were highest in conceptual skill. Supervisors, who were mostly women, were the most whole-brained of three groups studied and ranked highest in human skills.
Females exhibited a stronger tendency for the desired whole-brained leadership style than the males in this study but they had the least authority.
Dr. Norris concluded by suggesting that women in education be given more line authority and decision-making roles because they surpass men in the holistic approach they brought to leadership.
She also feels that in this new age of maximizing human potential, the time has come to allow women the increased opportunity to fill positions of authority in education.
Unless something changes, education is going to lose its most valuable resource---intelligent, imaginative women. We are not using the potential of the women who are already in the field and since it is very difficult for women to break into the administrative ranks, we will not be attracting women innovators in the future.
First published in 2001
Permalink: https://www.cassandrasclassroom.com/columns/we-need-women-in-education-administration