Chapter 1: Historical Pathways of Women in School Executive Positions

Anyone who has observed public schools undoubtedly has noticed that women tend to teach and men tend to rule. Statistics bear out this conventional wisdom. While women hold nearly three-quarters of the teaching positions, they hold relatively few principalships and account for only 5% of superintendencies (National Center for Education Statistics, 1996; Blount, 1998). Those who defy the weight of these numbers are the women who expertly manage schools from the principalship or central office, or the men who, surrounded with happy children, teach in primary classrooms. In spite of the courage of these isolated individuals who transgress conventional gender roles, public schooling continues to be a highly gender segregated and stratified institution. There is, however, a danger in accepting this common-sense observation as a description of the natural, inescapable order of things. If we believe things have always been this way, then we fail to ask the deeper question about how the current state of affairs has evolved, and we limit ourselves in our aspirations for something better, something perhaps more noble and equitable.