Aimee Howley, Edwina Pendarvis and Thomas Gibbs, Education Policy Analysis Archives
October 16, 2002
Based on responses from 508 Ohio principals, this short report seeks to determine "what conditions tend to attract and what conditions tend to deter principals from considering the superintendency." The authors seem untroubled that, "Despite the efforts of some districts to look for talented leaders from outside the ranks of the educator workforce, the traditional career path for educational administrators involves the move from teaching to the principalship to the superintendency." Why, one wonders, should this linear progression be taken as a given? One does not have to look far across the landscape of American education (outside Ohio) to find leaders from business, the military, law, and higher education running a variety of school districts. There are now "alternative" school leaders at the helm of districts ranging from New York City to Seattle to Okaloosa County, Florida to Benton Harbor, Michigan. The fact is, as the authors note, the modern superintendency has become a highly complex mix of the educational, managerial and political, and no one person can be an expert in all of these domains. Successful superintendents know how to lead a team of individuals that bring an array of talents to the table. The authors argue for creating incentives that focus on drawing the best and the brightest school principals into the highest levels of school administration, though their suggestions strike us as obvious and humdrum. No harm in doing those things but why not also create incentives and alternative pathways that could attract the best and the brightest from an expanded universe of candidates? This report is available online at http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v10n43.html.
