In order to truly desegregate urban schools, there must be a focus on finding, hiring, and supporting black women superintendents. Examines the lack of black women among public school superintendents; strengths that black women superintendents bring to urban school districts; factors contributing to their success; challenges they face; issues in…

Examines the lack of literature on black women in leadership positions, especially in education, and offers some suggestions to help fill the void of black women in the role of superintendent, assuring that black women seek the superintendency, are hired, and are retained. (SLD)

Studied a sample of 12 Hispanic American women seeking and being appointed to the superintendency. Demonstrated that the succession to the superintendency was controlled by school board members and former superintendents who held search committee membership. Hispanic women are hired when it is perceived that Hispanics were the source of school…

Describes the context of a city corporation's attempt to initiate educational reform, focusing on two city school administrators, a newly hired Latina superintendent and an African American female assistant superintendent. Uses the metaphor of a tempest to describe the tension between the urge for rapid reform of the new superintendent and the…

Discusses recent feminist theory, in particular feminist theory related to "cyborg" identity and examines some media representations of a woman-of-color superintendent. Suggests that the cyborg image offers alternative ways to consider the issue of diversity and educational leadership, including the superintendency. (Author/SLD)

Describes one small Illinois school district's experience with collective bargaining. Emphasizes the superintendent's role. (PKP)

Discusses the advantages and disadvantages of being either an inside or outside candidate for a superintendency. (PKP)

Reviews 50 years of superintendency literature. Offers a possible reconciliation of the superintendency by juxtaposing the traditional with ideas from feminist and postmodern literature. Recognizing postmodern paradoxes allows questioning of the traditional superintendency and leads to more caring, socially committed leadership strategies.…

Cryss Brunner's edited volume is a well-organized review of gender issues in school administration. It offers clues about administrative roles and concepts integral to the field and furthers understanding of women's administrative experiences. The studies lay an excellent foundation for further empirical investigations into causes of women's…

The Policy Governance model's philosophical foundations lie in Rousseau's social contract, Greenleaf's servant-leadership, and modern management theory. Policy Governance stresses primacy of the owner-representative role; full-board authority; superintendents as chief executive officers; authoritative prescription of "ends," bounded…

A Colorado superintendent allowed to resign for personal reasons later sued the district, claiming confidentiality provisions had been breached. The Colorado Supreme Court reversed lower court rulings favoring the district. The settlement agreement does not violate the First Amendment, but merely applies state law requiring people to keep their…

Much confusion exists today among board of education members and superintendents about governance roles, especially when a district is low performing and the public is demanding bold reform. Part of the confusion comes from the definition of reform. To many Americans, school reform means fine-tuning what education historian David B. Tyack calls…

This article examines a conflict that arose in 2004 between a federal court's oversight of desegregation and the implementation of the public school choice provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act in Pinellas County, Florida. School system leaders challenged the statute on the grounds that it would likely disrupt a controlled-choice plan…

The superintendent/board relationship continues to be a subject of particular interest for those who study school leadership and those who serve in the superintendency. One issue that will likely be addressed during any superintendent employment discussion is the inclusion of pay for performance incentives. The widespread use of executive bonuses…

In a recent issue of the "AASA Journal of Scholarship and Practice," Hilling (2004) described procedures for obtaining a fair compensation process for principals, and the thrust of this work was on establishing internal consistency for salaries among administrators. This article addresses similar concerns, but differs in several important ways.…