Few would disagree that school superintendents have an extremely demanding job. At a panel discussion, three experts—Janice Ellen Jackson of Boston College in Massachusetts; Emery Dosdall of the Edmonton Public Schools in Alberta; and Michael Usdan of the Institute for Educational Leadership in Washington, D.C.—shared their perspectives on the state of the superintendency. The panel's moderator was Diane Berreth of ASCD.
Janice Ellen Jackson and Michael Usdan
Superintendents are expected to keep students safe, raise achievement scores, gain the confidence of the community, and keep a possibly divided school board on track, said Emery Dosdall, who has been a superintendent for 19 years. "The expectations continue to grow," he said, yet they are often conflicting and confusing. As a result of the pressures put on superintendents, he noted, "fewer and fewer people are coming to the plate to take on leadership positions."
The superintendency is undergoing a major transformation, said Janice Ellen Jackson. Superintendents used to operate in a "rules-oriented" environment, and their focus was on keeping order, she said. Today, by contrast, superintendents are operating in a "results-oriented" environment, and their focus must be on improving achievement for all children.
What qualities do today's superintendents need to be successful? According to Jackson, superintendents need to
- Show courage. "It takes courage to shift [the focus] from control to learning," she said. Intense public scrutiny makes the job even more difficult. "We're an open book in public education."
- Know how to manage complex organizations, including the business side.
- Pay attention to relationships and human interactions. Superintendents need to model good personal relations.
According to Michael Usdan, there are three components to a superintendent's job. First, there's the political- and community-oriented part of the job. "Essentially, you're a politician," he said. Second, there's the management component. Large school districts are "massive, big businesses," he noted. Third, there's the instructional leadership component, which is new.
Today's superintendents need to have "a laserlike focus on student achievement," Usdan said. They are expected to be instructional leaders—even though no one is certain what that term means. "We've had a sea change in expectations," he observed.
Some progressive districts are reconfiguring the superintendency around a team focus, Usdan added, because "a single individual cannot handle all of these dimensions." In the past, superintendents were trained to be "omniscient." Today, however, they need to surround themselves with people who are smarter than they are in certain areas, he said. "The job has to be redefined and reconfigured."