Time to close superintendent gender gap

It's hard to believe on the cusp of 2008 that a female former math teacher would be asked while interviewing for a superintendent's job whether she could handle a school budget.

We don't fault Diane Cody, who later landed a job as superintendent at Winfield Elementary District 34, for wondering at the time whether male job candidates also were being questioned about their finance abilities.

Yes, it's nearly 2008, and yet it remains true in Illinois and the suburbs that women are the minority among superintendents. Cody shared her anecdote with Daily Herald Staff Writer Emily Krone in a recent story that shed light on our superintendent gender gap. Even in a profession that was one of the early few where it was acceptable for women to work, few women work in the top spot. Krone's analysis found only 26 percent of Illinois superintendents in the last school year were women and only 27 percent were women in the Daily Herald's suburban coverage area.

Women dominate in most all other jobs in K-12 education. More than 75 percent of teachers are women and more than half of the state's principals are female. But few hold the equivalent of the CEO's office and that's something that ought to concern us all. Do we really want to send a message to our boys and girls that being in charge is only, or mostly, a job for men?

We don't know how many qualified women are applying and don't win the jobs, but we do know some women purposefully decide not to apply sometimes because of the long hours required, family obligations, unwillingness to move their families and societal pressures. We don't know of women who want or expect to be hired for any job simply because of their gender.

We certainly don't support a quota system, but we do support diversity of gender, age, ethnicity, culture and experience. We understand the challenges of achieving employment diversity in the still white-dominated suburbs, but we also know that diversity of experiences and perspectives can enrich and enlighten a workplace whether it's a newsroom, a police department, a manufacturing plant or the offices charged with giving our children the best schooling possible.

A woman superintendent might see different solutions to challenges than a male superintendent. Both should be represented in our school systems.

"I would be satisfied if the demographics of school leadership … would reflect the demographics of the 48 million children we serve," Arlington Heights Elementary District 25 Superintendent Sarah Jerome told Krone. "It always helps in terms of role models to see someone who looks like you doing some great work."

We strongly encourage search firms and our local school boards to strive for and perhaps even require qualified female candidates in their finalist pools as superintendent spots open. That could be a key first step toward ensuring our school leaders more accurately mirror our communities of children.