The inequities associated with gender imbalance in leadership require national attention. Wilson (2004)
found that of 435 seats in the House of Representatives, only 59 are women; of the 100 senators, only 14 are
women. Only 24 women have ever been governors in the United States . Women are nearly half the
workforce, yet we make up only 12% of top executives and hold 12.4% of board seats in 500 of the
country's largest companies. Although these statistics are significant, they are not nearly as staggering as the
statistics about the positions held by women in the superintendency. Of our nation's 13,728 superintendents,
1,984 today are women. Although 72% of K-12 educators are women in the United States , 87% of the top
leaders in the school districts, the superintendents, are males according to the U.S. Department of Education.
Many questions have been posed and researched about why there are so few women in the superintendent
position. Also, search committees have been formed and new programs have been put into place to recruit
women into administration. Yet, there has been an inconsequential increase nationally in identifying and
hiring women to the superintendency (Nogay, 1996). In reviewing research on women in the
superintendency, several common strands have been identified that speculate reasons why there are so few
women in the superintendency and possible solutions to this significant issue.
Besides the commonly held belief that women are discouraged from the superintendency, there are six
documented reasons that are substantiated across literature related to why women are not at the top of
school districts. The six categories encompass a wide range of issues including credentials, school boards,
positions held, job structure, age, and mentoring.