No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subject to discrimination under any educational programs or activity receiving federal financial assistance.
 --From the preamble to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972

The most significant role played by the federal government in advancing the state of sex equity in educational administration, as well as in most other issues involving social change, has been through legislation. "Old habits and time-honored gender roles," write Gupton and Slick (1996), "are nebulous and stubbornly resistant to change throughout a society. The two alternative approaches to . . . discrimination [are] using mandates or changing societal attitudes" (p.145). These authors make the point that discrimination of women in the workplace will continue to need legislative backing until there is concrete evidence supported by hard data and women's experiences to prove sex equity in the world of work has indeed been achieved to a level no longer justifying legislative overseeing. Unfortunately, this seems to be how many societal prejudices and biases are overcome and ultimately (over much time) widely changed. And so, the federal level's role in addressing issues of discrimination is a critical one in facilitating societal change. "Political pressures and laws and regulations have been, and continue to be, a potent force in removing barriers in both society and education systems" writes Adams (1982) quoted in Flansburg and Hanson (1993).

As a result of these varied pieces of legislation (e.g., Title IX, Equal Pay Act, Women's Educational Equity Act) related to equity issues in schools and in the workplace, federal funding has been made available for nearly three decades to states, various agencies, colleges/universities, and interest groups to provide skill development, professional enhancement, and other training opportunities for women.  In the field of education, many of these activities have been designed to raise the level of women's participation in the decision-making process in the field of education and, more importantly, to increase the number of women administrators at the local, state and national levels.

This paper seeks to inform the reader by (1) describing a few of the more significant federally funded initiatives related to increasing sex equity (with particular attention to those aimed at improving the status of women aspiring to or currently in educational administration), (2) analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of these efforts, and (3) concluding with the authors' up-to-date analysis of the paradigm shifts that should occur in the current thinking about the issue of underrepresentation of women in educational administration; key suggestions for women seeking administrative careers in education; recommendations for making federally funded programs and services geared toward achieving gender equity more effective for today's women; and the authors' concluding thoughts about this topic. Ultimately, this paper reinforces the paradigm shifts in thinking about women in education that should undergird future research and guide reflection, discussion, policy-making, and practice. These shifts move from the current trend of focusing on womenís skills that will enable them to perform above and beyond their job descriptions and capabilities toward training administrators with the power to recruit, hire, mentor, retain and promote women in leadership positions.  While it is important to continue enriching womenís experiences and upgrading their skills, these activities (by themselves) have not resulted in  fully opening and/or significantly expanding the opportunities for women in the workplace, and this includes women in leadership roles in education.
 

Federally-funded Initiatives Advancing Women in Educational Administration

Southeastern Desegregation Assistance Center

One of the federally-funded, non-profit organizations charged with the responsibility of providing professional development for women educators in order to enhance their visibility and increase their numbers in educational leadership is the Southeastern Desegregation Assistance Center (SEDAC).  Known for its work in desegregation and equity across race, national origin and sex/gender, one of SEDACís goals is to provide technical assistance and training which will improve the overall status of women in educational leadership and administration in the States of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.  This section of the paper looks at a random sampling of conferences, institutes and training agendas that SEDAC has co-sponsored, supported financially, and/or endorsed for nearly three decades.  To assess the effect of  SEDAC activities, a number of women who have participated in SEDAC activities on sex/gender issues in general, and women in administration events in particular,  were interviewed regarding their perceptions, professional and personal development.

It is strongly suggested here that there is a need to establish collaborative working relationships and/or  viable partnerships between those who are now in key administrative positions and (potential) women leaders.  The challenge is to develop meaningful alternatives which will maximize the use of women's talents and skills, respect and acknowledge their ability to contribute in the decision-making process, and be accorded equal status in educational leadership.

The Southeastern Desegregation Assistance Center was among the first organizations in the United States to receive federal support to carry out the civil rights mandates regarding desegregation and equity across race, national origin, sex/gender and different abilities.  There are ten Desegregation Assistance Centers in the country, however, SEDAC's work in the "deep south" is complicated by the region's history of segregation that has resulted in the persistence of racism and sexism in both rural and urban communities.

Over the span of nearly 30 years, SEDAC has received approximately $800,000 per year or $24 million in federal funds.  An important part of the grantís initiative is that, in addition to dealing with desegregation, race and national origin issues, SEDAC will also deliver technical assistance to state and local education agencies to improve the quality of education for female students and the participation of women in education administration.  To this end, records show that SEDAC has provided support (only upon request of organizations, colleges or universities, state and local education agencies) in the following ways:

1. By becoming members of and/or subscribing to womenís professional organizations and interest groups including: American Association of University Women (AAUW), National Organization for Women (NOW), National Coalition for Sex Equity in Education (NCSEE) and Womenís Sports Society.

2. By co-sponsoring conferences, institutes and training programs which address issues pertaining to women in administration and Title IX (educational equity for women in sports, math, science and other traditionally male-oriented fields).

3. By providing financial assistance to individuals, organizations and educational institutions in order to meet specific expenses for seminars, workshops, conferences, meetings and other events (e.g., honorariums for speakers, registration and expenses of participants, cost of meeting rooms, and so on).

4. By working closely with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the Department of Justice on current policies and mandates regarding womenís rights, sexual harassment, affirmative action and equal employment opportunity.

The description above gives a misleading picture of the actual SEDAC support, performance and commitment to womenís issues.  For instance, memberships to organizations and interest groups have not translated into meaningful SEDAC participation in and/or lending a voice for womenís causes.  In co-sponsored events, SEDACís involvement ìbehind the scenesî have been limited to giving financial support for specific activities.  On questions regarding legal matters (e.g., sexual harassment, hiring/firing policies, grievance process), SEDAC usually refers inquirers to OCR, private civil rights lawyers, consultants, state and/or local education agencies.  Moreover, throughout its history, SEDAC has never hired a part or full-time staff dedicated to addressing womenís issues (in July 1996, under a new administration, the Centerís Assistant Director also bears the responsibility of ìGender Equity Coordinatorî).'

When compared with other SEDAC activities, SEDACís overall involvement in the area of ìwomen in administrationî may be best described as insignificant when considering the amount of time, resources and actual dollars expended on girls/womenís issues.  Therefore, it is not surprising to find that in SEDACís constituency, the southeastern states, there has been very little progress (if any) for women administrators in terms of qualitative and quantitative placements in educational leadership.

A former middle school principal (African-American woman who now directs a cultural diversity program) commented:
You will find more women hired as principals in elementary schools.  If we are in high school settings, women are more likely to be found in smaller or less prestigious schools.  From what I can see, men tend to get assigned to the best schools with the most resources and community support.  I might add that the men in these positions also tend to be White.  This is why I gave up being a principal.  I felt that I was on a dead-end job.  No matter how I try and apply, I will never move up to a bigger and better school.

A woman who was recently appointed as an assistant principal in a high school magnet academy summarized her feelings in the following way:

I was very happy when I received this appointment.  But that wore off very quickly.  Ever since I became an AP, I feel like a doormat -- I welcome parents and other people who are visiting the school and I get to show them around.  I was given a walkie-talkie to monitor the hallways, cafeteria, bathrooms, and school grounds. This is not the job that I applied and interviewed for. As a single mother, I need this job.  As a well-educated person, my mind is in a wasteland.

An in-depth analysis of training agendas designed to broaden womenís skills, talents and marketability indicates that:

1. While participants generally express satisfaction on the timeliness and types of training they have received, there are no indicators on how such training will affect short and/or long-term job retention and upward mobility.

2. Training topics tend to raise the level of womenís performance, efficiency and management of their everyday lives (e.g., time and stress management, improving womenís health, networking, dealing with discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace, variety of ìhow toísî).  Although the topics seem to raise womenís self-esteem and competency in their current positions, there are no indicators of how participants could move effectively in higher level positions or gain acknowledgment and respect in their respective workplaces.

3. Conferences, institutes and training sessions tend to showcase women and men who have already reached or are reaching positions of leadership, expertise and prominence in their respective fields.  Even though participants gain a better perspective on ìwhoís who,î ìwhoís where,î and/or ìwhoís involved with what,î such events rarely (if ever) provide direct linkages between participants and the educational experts/leaders that would lead to, i.e., mentor-apprentice relations.

4. Federal funds are granted based on proposerís goals and objectives.  In the case of Desegregation Assistance Centers, performance monitoring and accountability have been lax particularly on womenís issues.  For example, the January 1997 meetings of the ten regional DACs reveal that directors have placed sex/gender as very low in their priorities by not including womenís equity issues in any part of their agenda (race, national origin and physical abilities were the prevailing equity issues).

Attendance records in SEDACís co-sponsored activities indicate that the southeastern states have an abundance of highly qualified, skilled and capable women with strong leadership potential.  The thousands that have attended local, state and national professional development institutes have included mid-level administrators, college instructors, principals, assistant principals, master/lead teachers, consultants, directors and coordinators of educational programs. They come from different racial and cultural backgrounds -- Asian/Pacific Islanders, Blacks/African-Americans, European Americans/Caucasians, Hispanics/Latinos, Native Americans, and those from mixed heritage. It seems that the underrepresentation of women and minority groups in educational leadership can be explained by other factors, not from lack of available, talented women.

A regular participant in SEDACís co-sponsored annual event for women educators, an administrator from Dade County Public Schools, shared the following opinion:

            In every conference, you hear speakers and workshop presenters talk about the ìglass ceilingî for women
            in management positions.  What are they talking about?  Many of us are outside the so-called ìglassî and
            far from worrying about the so-called ìceiling.î I feel that I am being constantly by-passed by people with
            little or no experience -- younger men and women from different backgrounds have been hired for the
            positions that I applied for.  Right now, I am training my new boss how our office operates and Iím
            supervising our office staff until he gets familiar with each personís responsibilities.

These comments denote several levels of concern which include racism, sexism and ageism.  That is, in spite of qualifications, experience and loyalty to the organization, other considerations seem to weigh heavily in the process of hiring and/or promoting women.

The prevailing agendas of SEDACís co-sponsored activities tend to reflect the idea of conferencing and training ìfor the women, by the women.î  For instance, event committees and subcommittees are almost always led by and composed of (predominantly) women.  Male membership is usually reserved for ìmale-feministsî, those who are user-friendly to womenís causes, and/or donors of monetary and/or in-kind contributions on the movement for equity/ equality issues.  However, it seems that women dominated committees and subcommittees responsible for launching and maintaining professional development activities have had very little impact, if any, on the recruitment, selection, retention and promotion of women in administration.

Another trend which needs scrutiny is the overdevelopment of women above and beyond their already high credentials.  Prevailing agendas seem to emphasize the need for women to develop further skills to cope with stress resulting from (greater) demands on their intellectual, mental and physical abilities.  For instance, sociological studies show that in spite of modern technology (e.g., office computers, interoffice communication systems, vacuum cleaners, microwave ovens, washers and dryers), the amount of time and energy required to do womenís work has not diminished significantly.  If anything, modern machines and technology have created a false perception that women today have more leisure and easier time when compared with their pre-modern era counterparts.  It would seem that time and stress management training would do little to improve womenís skills unless more time (beyond 24 hours a day) is provided to perform their work and home-related expectations.

The observation of a literacy program director exemplifies the points mentioned above:

            School district restructuring forced a reduction in the number of office personnel.  But the work that
            needed to be done was not decreased at all.  Instead, the work was redistributed to the different
            departments which now have lesser number of employees.  Most of us (women) began to share
            clerical and support staff.  I noticed that most men in our building retained their secretaries and other
            folks.  So, even though the responsibilities look like they had been redistributed evenly to key people,
            women administrators did not have the extra help that men were provided.  To get things done, I have
            had to work late and, in most cases, take work home on weekends.

Separate interviews of three women who have succeeded in acquiring leadership positions in their local school districts in Florida, Georgia and Kentucky indicated that they did not know about federally funded opportunities for womenís professional development.  The Georgian remarked:

            You could say that I am "ìhomegrown."  My parents lived here all their lives, I grew up here and
            everybody knows my family.  I went to college on scholarship and that was the only time I left home.
            I came back after college and began teaching.  Years later, I decided to go for my masterís degree and
            I am now working on my doctorate.  It may be true that it is "who you know" that counts.  Sometimes
            I wonder if I would have had the same opportunity in cities or towns where I am a stranger.

The administrator from Florida had a different experience. She earned her bachelorís degree in Puerto Rico and taught there for a few years.  She married and joined her husband in New York City.  The couple moved to Florida in order to find what they deemed desirable educational opportunities for their two small children.  She related that:

Good timing, good luck and my Spanish-speaking ability must have worked for me when I looked for a job.
I started substitute teaching and doing volunteer work at my childrenís school so I could be near them.
Everybody got to know me -- the superintendent, the principal, the children, all the teachers and staff.  The number of Spanish-speaking families was increasing at that time, and I volunteered to translate for parents and their children.  When I got a job offer to work for a private company, I announced the possibility of ending my volunteer work.  At the urging of the school principal who vouched for my abilities, a job was created for me at the school district.  Since then, I have worked hard and moved to bigger and better positions.

The Kentucky educator was proud of her growth from a classroom teacher to a school district administrator.  Throughout her graduate school years, her professor guided her career growth and opened the doors for job possibilities.  She noted:

I was working full-time as a teacher while going to graduate school part-time.  Even though there were many times when I wanted to give up working on my masterís degree, I had a wonderful relationship with all my professors.  One of my them became my lifetime mentor.  She gave me pep-talks and was patient in listening to my ideas and interpretation of what I was learning.  This is not to say that she was easy on me.  On the contrary, she demanded the best out of me and I, in turn, made sure that I met her expectations.....Even now, with a fax or phone call, she would readily write a letter of recommendation on my behalf.  This was an ideal mentor-apprentice relationship.

The above examples suggest that there are various settings and alternatives which can be developed and explored to raise womenís status in educational leadership.  There is a common element which seems to have contributed to the three womenís paths to success: familiarity with the people who had the authority to hire them.  Such familiarity has raised the level of confidence that the decision to hire the women is a good one -- that, in addition to meeting the basic qualifications for specific positions, the women have a well-grounded history of desirable personal character which complement the organizationís goals.
 

The Women's Educational Equity Act - Equity Resource Center

The Women's Educational Equity Act (WEEA) passed in 1974 was designed to take proactive steps toward making education more equitable for girls and women by providing incentives and guidance to schools and community groups.  The WEEA Program, operating under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Education, funds projects aimed at developing model educational programs, training, materials, and research to promote educational equity and transform educational systems. WEEA projects must have national, statewide, or general significance and address all levels of education.  WEEA grant recipients may provide direct services to a target group or may develop educational materials that are disseminated through the WEEA Equity Resource Center.

In addition, to numerous grants, the WEEA Program established two support mechanisms: (1) the National Advisory Council on Women's Educational Programs and (2) the WEEA Publishing Center, now titled the Equity Resource Center. The National Advisory Council was established by Congress to inform the secretary of education about educational equity issues, make recommendations related to WEEA's operation, and to assess WEEA's funded projects. The council was dissolved by Congress in 1988 because of increasing pressure from women's groups who felt that the council as formed by then-President Reagan was having a counter-productive effect on gender-equity issues.

The second WEEA mechanism (still operative) is the WEEA Equity Resource Center. The Center, located at Education Development Center, Inc. and under the direction of Katherine Hanson, was established to support the work of WEEA-funded projects. In FY 1997 with a budget of $2,000,000 the Women's Education Equity program awarded the following grantees:

Montclair State University    $72,566
Upper Montclair, NJ

Yakima Valley Community College   $61,678
Yakima, WA

School District of Palm Beach    $205,560
West Palm Beach, FL

South Dakota Dept. of Labor    $163,746
Pierre, SD

Board of Education of Prince George's County $199,275
Upper Marlboro, MD

Massachusetts Pre-Engineering Program, Inc. $181,515
Boston, MA

Source: Melissa Oppenheimer with the U.S. Dept. of Education - Office of the Under Secretary, Budget Service (See Appendix C for WEEA's funding history from 1976 to 1997)

According to a report on Title IX  and WEEA, the Center "...provides assistance to grantees in developing products and in publishing and disseminating those products. In this way, work is shared nationally, and internationally, and allows others to learn from and build on the efforts taking place in local schools and communities. The publishing center maintains a national network of organizations and individuals working in sex and race equity, and works to keep equity issues visible within education discussions, as well as to link individual projects with national educational equity work" (Flansburg & Hanson, 1993, p.5).

In 1992 the Center expanded its networking capacity with the addition of electronic networking. Through its initial link with EquityNet, the Center now shares resources and information with over 4,000 social service organizations and individuals who subscribe to EquityNet which has greatly increased gender equity awareness and access to WEEA resources in a market that had heretofore been difficult to reach (Oppenheimer, 1997).

The Center also moderates EDEQUITY (Educational Equity Discussion List), a theory and practice discussion list that focuses on educational equity and serves as a forum for over 500 subscribers who discuss how to attain equity, improving education for all. [To subscribe, send the message subscribe edequity (without a "subject" line) to MAJORDOMO@CONFER.EDC.ORG].

Word is WEEA's newsletter (formerly titled Digest) and is distributed free to those interested in gender equity and multicultural education. The August (1990) issue of the newsletter is devoted entirely to women in school administration and the barriers to their advancement. This issue includes valuable information on resources and publications available to women seeking administrative positions in education.

The WEEA Equity Resource Center can be accessed with WEEAPUB@EDC.ORG on the internet.
 

Women's Bureau - U.S. Department of Labor

 The Women's Bureau was created by Congress on June 5, 1920, and given this mission: to formulate standards and policies which shall promote the welfare of wage-earning women, improve their working conditions, increase their efficiency, and advance their opportunities for profitable employment. Most of the Bureau's work over the past seventy years has focused on entry level issues pertaining to women's access to non-traditional jobs and training outside the professions. In the 1980's the Bureau began to advocate more forcefully policies and practices to help make work and family needs more compatible - an issue that women administrators cite often as a complex problem and barrier to their advancement into higher levels of administration in the profession. For the 1990's, as women in educational administration and other fields of work continue to enter the workforce at ever-increasing rates, the Bureau continues to emphasize the need for helping people resolve conflicts in balancing work and family responsibilities.

From its position in the Office of the Secretary of Labor, the Bureau participates in departmental policy making and program planning, and serves as a coordinating body in the Department of Labor for programs affecting women. The Bureau has ten regional offices headed by regional administrators whose work is to implement national programs and policies, develop local initiatives to address local needs and disseminate information and publications that support fair treatment of women in the workplace. In addition, the Bureau initiates and supports research pertaining to women in the work force, tests innovative ideas and approaches through demonstration projects that help prepare women to enter or reenter the work force, move into new areas of work, or move up on their careers.  It carries out an information and education program through publications, audiovisuals, media relations, feature articles, and public speaking (The Women's Bureau: Milestones, 1990).

Valuable statistics and information on the history and current status of women and work in the U.S. can be obtained from the Women's Bureau (i.e., the completion of four major studies of women and work funded by the Bureau and released in February of 1992). One of these studies, "Breaking the Glass Ceiling in the 1990's" by Terry Scandura of the University of Miami, investigated the career experiences of top level female executives to identify obstacles to women's career advancement to top-level positions. Important findings related to women pursuing educational administrative careers of Scandura's study include (1) the path to the top for women is through line authority; (2) positive perceptions of career mobility potential were more prevalent for males than for females; (3) having a mentor appears to be an important characteristic of the career of women to make it to the top of their organizations; (4) having a mentor was positively and significantly associated with higher salary levels and better self-concepts; (5) a significant lack of family-supportive policies existed, or if they did, they were rarely implemented; (6) women with dependent children under age 18 living at home had lowered career promotion expectations, increased job stress, more intent to leave the organization, and less mentoring than women without dependents.
(U.S. Dept. of Labor, Scandura, 1992).

A particularly helpful publication issued by the Women's Bureau is the 1993 Handbook on Women Workers: Trends and Issues. In the introduction, the Bureau explains that "(T)his handbook is more issue-oriented than previous handbooks published by the Women's Bureau; thus, it attempts to create a better understanding of some of the forces that influence women's participation or nonparticipation in the work force and that affect their general economic well-being" (p.xiii).  Chapter 12 of the handbook is titled "Legal Rights of Women Workers" and includes a detailed account of recent legal developments and federal government initiatives affecting women in the workplace. A section of this chapter describes the work of the Department of Labor in dealing with the proverbial "glass ceiling" that is particularly pertinent to women educators in advancing their administrative careers. The authors admit that "...partially because of the difficulty in evaluating top executive-level recruitment and promotion patterns, corporate mid- and upper-level management has rarely been routinely included in compliance reviews performed by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. As a result, they conclude, "corporate employment practices with regard to executive opportunities for women and minority employees have not received the attention that the opportunities for lower level employees have received" (p. 218).

The Glass Ceiling Commission - Office of the Secretary of Labor

Chapter 12 of The Handbook on Women Workers also includes the findings of a yearlong study of the "glass ceiling" titled "A Report on the Glass Ceiling Initiative." Partly as a result of this study that documented substantial barriers to women's advancement up the corporate ladder past the middle-management level, the Civil Rights Act of 1991 mandated the establishment of a Glass Ceiling Commission housed in the office of the Secretary of Labor.  This Commission, composed of 21 members, is charged with conducting a study of opportunities for and artificial barriers to the advancement of women and minorities to management and decision-making positions in business. This chapter also describes the status of women in state and local government positions where they state that "(A) glass ceiling in government limits the participation of women at the highest levels of the policy-making process.  Few women hold high-level political appointments to cabinet positions. In addition, the majority of women in government, especially women of color, still face barriers that restrict their opportunity to advance beyond the lowest level jobs" (pp. 221-222).

This Glass Ceiling Commission obviously funds numerous studies, some of which were reviewed by the authors of this paper.  One of these reports confirms the existence of sex discrimination in the workplace by concluding the following in its executive summary:

 * Race/ethnic and gender employment segregation is widespread in the U.S. economy. The allocation of many women of all ethnic backgrounds and minority men to lower quality jobs than they can perform directly creates gender and race/ethnic earnings inequalities.

 * Both racial and gender occupational segregation and earnings inequalities have been reduced since the civil rights legislation of the  1960s, but reductions in inequalities are uneven, reversible, and incomplete.

The summary draws many conclusions and includes a number of helpful recommendations pertaining to hiring and promotion, job stereotyping, public and private policy initiatives, and research initiatives.  In a special section on "glass ceilings"  the authors conclude that the segregated job structures for women and minorities prevent them from ever competing for top managerial and professional positions in large corporations and government agencies. "The higher one rises in a managerial or professional hierarchy the more likely future promotions are based on trust, social similarity and access to the informal networks of power and influence in the organization. Women and minorities are particularly disadvantaged on these dimensions in many workplaces," they contend, and they go on to say that the job of integrating lower levels of management is far easier than cracking glass ceilings (U.S. Dept. of Labor: Report by Thomaskovic-Devey, 1994).

Still another example of the work of the Glass Ceiling Commission is a report entitled "Managing Diversity and Glass Ceiling Initiatives as National Economic Imperatives" written by Cox and Smolinski (1994).  These authors attest to the dilemmas often caused by the workforce composition unique to the United States: a workforce that is among the most gender and racioethnically diverse in the world. One of the most critical challenges posed by diversity in the workplace is to eliminate barriers to entry and success in middle and senior manager jobs which may be related to group identity factors such as gender and race (i.e., break the "glass ceiling").

Reports such as these give needed reinforcement, increased visibility, and helpful recommendations to issues of discrimination that must continue at the national level in order for equity to be achieved throughout the country.
 

National Center for Education Statistics - Office of Educational Research and Improvement

The center is  described as "...the primary federal entity for collecting, analyzing, and reporting data related to education in the United States and other nations. . . . NCES activities are designed to address high priority education data needs; provide consistent, reliable, complete, and accurate indicators of education status and trends; and report timely, useful, and high quality data to the U.S. Department of Education, the Congress, the states, other education policymakers, practitioners, data users, and the general public" (U.S. Dept. of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Kopka and Korb, 1993, p. ii).

One of this center's publications relevant to women in education is Women: Education and Outcomes released in September of 1996. Included among its 99 pages of tables, charts, and graphs depicting statistical information on the trends of all descriptions in the participation by women in higher education and in the labor market in the U.S. is information on the doctoral degrees in education conferred by institutions of higher education by sex, 1970 to 1993. The data reveal that in 1970-71 21% of the doctoral degrees in education were earned by women while they earned 59% percent of the doctoral degrees in education in 1992-93. Charts depicting the ratios of men to women teachers at the university level as well and the ratios of men to women K-12 teachers dramatically portray the dominance of male professors in higher education and female teachers in K-12 schools (pp. 58-59).  Not listed in the Table of Contents, but buried in an Appendix of Additional Tables, there is even a table depicting the distribution of male and female principals, with the information broken down by grade levels; indicating the dominance of male principals in middle and upper schools, and the concentration of female principals at the elementary levels (pp. 83-84). What is missing, however, is also noteworthy: no mention is made of the numbers of male superintendents to female superintendents, the top-level executive position in public school education. Certainly, it seems not only reasonable, but also desirable for a book published by the National Center for Education Statistics that is expressly focusing on women in education to include vital statistics regarding how many women are advancing to the office of chief administrator of schools in this country. Where else should this information be collected if not by the country's officially designated and publicly funded Office of Educational Research and Improvement?  Research on this topic is too often impeded by the scarcity of readily available, complete data regarding gender and administrative positions in education.
 

Paradigm Shifts About the Underrepresentation of Women in Educational Leadership

From the perspective of shifting our paradigms, there is a need to examine what has worked well for women who have attained success in obtaining high-level administrative positions (with or without participation in federally-funded professional development for women). In their recent book, Highly Successful Women Administrators: The Inside Stories of How They Got There (1996), Gupton and Slick report the results of their national study to determine what women in positions of power in education did to achieve their career goals. In chapter nine of their book, the authors describe the evolution of issues pertaining to women's underrepresentation in leadership positions in education (as well as other fields). The change in many of the causes for women's underrepresentation in educational administration has created new areas of concern which, in many instances, replace or need to be added to current thinking about the issue. These changes, the authors suggest, have created the need for rethinking (or shifting our paradigms) about where the attention and work need to be focused in order to help women advance in the field in an equitable fashion to their male counterparts. These shifts are revisited, expanded, and reinforced in this paper based not only on Gupton's cited work but also on the experiences and research of this paper's co-author, Assistant Director of SEDAC, Rose Marie del Rosario:

1. The need to shift from focusing most of the attention on women's lack of aspirations for administrative careers to their need for better support systems. As both Gupton and del Rosario have observed from their research and work with women educators; for the most part, women aspiring to positions of educational leadership have good skills and the proper credentials to be successful in administration.  What they most need is assistance in sharing the responsibilities of work and home and supportive work environments that recognize and nurture their potentials for success as leaders.

2. The need to shift from women's lack of necessary qualifications (they now make up almost 60% of the persons receiving doctor's of administration degrees in education) to a greater scrutiny of the kinds of training and education they are experiencing. This shift speaks to del Rosario's concern that most of SEDAC's activities are conducted "for the women, by the women" without important involvement of male colleagues who need to be included if significant change in the hiring, assigning of duties, mentoring, and promotion of women in the workplace is likely to occur, since these functions are primarily dominated by White males.

3. The need not only to continue but to expand entry level equity concerns to include on-the-job and retention problems of women who acquire administrative positions. A positive step taken by the OFCCP is the inclusion in their compliance handbook for businesses and corporations of a chapter added only recently addressing the glass ceiling phenomenon experienced by many middle-management women.  This chapter includes several new areas to which organizations must be sensitive if they are to perform  equitable personnel practices (e.g., Identifying High Potential Employees - does the company have any mechanism for identifying persons with high potential for advancement? What is the race and gender composition for these people so identified? Relocation and Overseas Assignments - are relocation and overseas assignments important to advancement? Are there safeguards to ensure that prejudgment on willingness to move does not bias job offers involving relocation? and Cash Bonuses, Stock, and Stock Options - at what level are employees eligible for cash bonuses, stock grants, and stock options? Among those eligible, what standard is used to determine whether a person receives cash bonuses or stock?)

4. The ultimate shift, of course, is from access to equity wherein societal attitudes, and thus practices, related to gender and minority equity are changed to the extent that true equity is genuinely sought and achieved, not just token pieces of it attended superficially and sporadically to meet legal compliance or to satisfy the latest federal mandate.

Suggestions For Women Aspiring To Administrative Careers

What seems poignantly clear is that:

1. Education in the appropriate field is the first and foremost consideration.  Human resource personnel look at the level of education as a primary criterion for hire.  It is important to have a bachelorís, masterís and/or doctoral degree from accredited schools in the United States*. The degree must be in line with the required position.  (In recent years, hirers have found the value of considering people from ìrelated fieldsî when educational background is combined with experiences in, e.g., teaching in the classroom, education administration, work with children and youth-related programs, and so on.)

2. Meaningful experience counts.  Quality of experience is analyzed according to the position applied for.  According to a personnel administrator in Dade County, Florida, it is not necessary for ìexperienceî to be derived from a paid position.  Rather, the experience must be related to the desired job and should demonstrate capabilities and personal traits which degrees, by themselves, could not provide.  Experience covers a wide range of talents, skills and abilities that tend to enrich oneís educational background and the ìcapacity to leadî in educational leadership.  In most instances, experience is earned over a period of time.  For example, the first few lines of a typical job announcement for a program director state the minimum requirement as , i.e., a master's degree in education, child psychology, counseling or related field and five yearsí experience working with at-risk youth. In spite of the relatively broad description of requirements, focus of the initial sorting of applicants is based upon the basic description; in other words, those without a masterís degree and five years experience need not apply.³

3.  Record of improving and updating professional qualifications is important.  Changes in technology (i.e., modern machines, access to and use of computers and hard/ software), transitions in the course of human affairs (i.e., demographic character of urban and rural communities, attitudes toward people from different backgrounds, increased awareness of environmental and global concerns), and socio-political forces governing the workplace and local/national priorities in education present challenges which leaders must contend with in the process of day to day administration.  In keeping with the trend of ìpreparing for leadership in the 21st century and beyond,î women who aspire to be a part of todayís and tomorrowís administration must be well equipped to deal with the transformations affecting the educational environment.  For instance, children/students are now exposed and have access to sophisticated methods of modern communications such as e-mail, internet and worldwide web.  On the other hand, there is a noticeable rise in the number of students who are non-English speakers (both from the American ethnic enclaves and immigrants from third world or developing countries) with a broad range of intellectual and linguistic proficiencies -- some are fully prepared to meet the challenges of a global community, but most are in need of special assistance to keep up with the academic level of (same age or cohort) mainstream American society.  More and more, those aspiring to become education administrators must gain new knowledge, skills and proficiencies that are appropriate in today's world. Participation in professional development opportunities is critical.  And, women should consider investing and re-vesting in themselves to stay competitive in the current and future job market.

4. Networking should be an ongoing personal and professional pursuit. Who you know remains an important element in lateral and upward mobility. While it is important to generate and maintain linkages with oneís peers, those who aspire to achieve higher positions must develop networks beyond like me professionals (i.e., those in higher positions and includes people from disciplines different from oneís own area of expertise).  This means that there is a need to create opportunities and professional settings where meaningful and lasting personal connections can be initiated between (potential) mentors and apprentices or mentees, as well as between employers (persons with the authority to hire) and women aspirants. The idea here is to generate a friendly environment where, through authentic networking, women are able to demonstrate talents and skills in the course of dialogue and social interaction.  Over time, the authenticity of the socialization process between, i.e., mentors and mentees, establishes familiarity -- an element which tends to validate women's worthiness for valued positions.

5. Strategic and long-range planning should guide the direction of one's career. When compared with male counterparts, women seem more likely to zigzag through a career path. In a brief interview of five women aspirants for high level administrative positions, all experienced deviations from their original tracks due to marriage, children, family priorities, lack of geographic mobility, and other reasons. The interruptions have served as barriers to womenís aspirations, although such interruptions have very little, if any, significant impact in men's career path plans or upward mobility.  The need to shift paradigms challenges women to determine the importance of career objectives in relation to other priorities. Self-determination (along with personal virtues and social values which support one's ambition) and a well-planned strategy can be used to direct and guide oneís road to attaining the desired position,  in spite of expected and perceived interruptions along the way.
 

Supportive Action Needed At The Federal Level

Recommendations for federal level activity to improve women's workplace status include:

1. To a lesser degree, maintain current professional development opportunities for women.

2. Promote greater collaboration among organizations and agencies that are vested in the status of women in general, women in educational leadership and administration in particular.

3. Engage employers, particularly those with the authority to create jobs and hire people, in developing and nurturing opportunities for women to advance.

4.  Take immediate action through established offices such as the Women's Bureau, OERI, and especially the National Center for Education Statistics, to collect, disseminate, and make readily available more detailed information and statistics  related to the numbers of men compared to women in positions of educational administration at the state and local levels of government.

5. Continue to fund federal initiatives such as WEEA, the Desegregation Assistance Centers, the "set-aside" funding component (repealed in the summer of 1995) for sex equity programs under the provisions of the Carl Perkins Vocational Education Act, and other federally funded state-level personnel and projects related to sex equity issues. Do a better job of targeting, coordinating and making known the existence of these services to women educators, school systems, and universities.

6. Require better accountability of federally funded initiatives. Evaluate and collect pertinent data to demonstrate and document the effectiveness of initiatives in promoting women's career advancement.

7. Be the foremost example. Use government as the model of fair practices and treatment of employees for the ultimate good of all - the employees, the organization and the nation.
Conclusion

In spite of the seemingly broad implications of federal initiatives for women,  little is known about the actual impact of such initiatives on the state of women's participation in educational leadership.  While there seems to be an increase in the number of women holding key administrative positions (e.g., principals, assistant principals, superintendents, and so on) in many school districts, there are questions about the "qualitative" and "quantitative" factors in regard to such placements.  For instance, how do such positions compare with men's placements in similar positions in terms of salary, fringe benefits, school image, prestige, geographic location, students/ faculty's demographic profile, community support and chances for upward mobility?  And, within school districts, state and national levels, which leadership positions are more likely to be assigned to women than men? A good way to investigate the issue of parity is by asking the right - although oftentimes hard - questions . . . then having the courage and commitment to make needed changes for the ultimate good of all.

 References

Cox, T. & Smolinski, C. (Jan., 1994). Managing diversity and glass ceiling initiatives as national economic imperatives. (Report for U.S. Dept. of Labor Glass Ceiling Commission). Ann Arbor, Michigan: The University of Michigan.

Flansburg, S. & Hanson, K. (1993). Legislation for change (A working paper #3). Newton, MA: Center for Equity and Cultural Diversity, Education Development Center, Inc.

Gupton, S. L. & Slick, G. A. (1996). Highly successful women administrators: The inside stories of how they got there. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (1996). Women: Education and outcomes, NCES 96-061.  Washington, DC

U.S. Department of Education, Office of the Under Secretary - Budget Service. (1997, March). Program data on women's educational equity (CFDA No. 84,083). (taken from program files and faxed by Melissa Oppenheimer to authors). Washington, DC.

U.S. Department of Labor, Glass Ceiling Commission. (1994). Race, ethnic, and gender earnings inequality: The sources and consequences of employment segregation. (Report by Donald Thomaskovic-Devey at North Carolina State University). Washington, DC.

U.S. Department of Labor, Glass Ceiling Commission. (1994). The impact of recruitment, selection, promotion and compensation policies and practices on the glass ceiling. (Report prepared by Roosevelt Thomas, Jeff Porterfield, John Hutcheson, and Carol Pierannunzi with The American Institute for Managing Diversity). Washington, DC.

U.S. Department of Labor, Women's Bureau. Breaking the glass ceiling in the 1990s. (1992). (Study conducted by Terry A. Scandura, University of Miami). Washington, DC.

U.S. Department of Labor, Women's Bureau. (1990). Milestones: The women's bureau celebrates 70 years of women's labor history. Washington, DC1990.

U.S. Department of Labor, Women's Bureau.(1993). Handbook on women workers: Trends and issues.  Washington, DC: 1993.
 
 
 

' SEDAC has given high priority to the organizationís goals regarding desegregation and race (Black and White). It has included national origin and other minority issues among its priorities only in recent years.

² Unless the applicant has provided evidence of ìequivalencyî to U.S. earned degrees, education obtained from foreign countries is usually considered insufficient to meet required qualifications. Equivalency may include formal statement(s) from accredited U.S. colleges/universities and/or coursework at a local institution of higher education to meet internship, certification or other requirements.

³  Human resource personnel are quick to add that the definition of ìmeaningful or related experienceî is flexible and negotiable depending upon the scope of the position, individuals or members of the group responsible for reviewing applications, letters of recommendations, references.
 

Sandra Gupton  is Associate Professor of Educational Administration at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. E-Mail: sgupton@ocean.st.usm.edu

Rose Marie Del Rosario  is President of Genesis Network and former Assistant Director/Gender Equity Coordinator for the South Eastern Desegregation Assistance Center. E-Mail: gennetwork@aol.com

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AWL Journal Volume 1, Number 2, Winter 1998