FREE ESSAY ON WOMEN IN EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION: THE GLASS CEILING IS STILL THERE

WOMEN IN EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION: THE GLASS CEILING IS STILL THERE

WOMEN IN EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION
THE GLASS CEILING IS STILL THERE
Several people at the conference dealt with the problems women encounter in getting into
administrative positions in schools and colleges and when they do, the obstacles they
encounter in making their jobs successful. Their discussions brought home to me the
reality of my own mother's experience. As children we witnessed our mother struggling,
summer after summer and during many school years in the evenings, with those courses
required for an administrative license. The state gave her that license some twelve years
ago, but she is still teaching mathematics in high school. We used to tease her when we
were growing up calling her "principal mom" and "assistant principal mom" and the like
and pretending that she called us into her office for punishment. We do not do that any
more because we know it won't be fun and games any more but it will be a cruel joke if we
did that. What made her disillusioned about the career of an administrator in her school
system in which she served nearly a quarter of a century?
It has to do with what is known as a glass ceiling. Administrative positions are open to
all qualified persons. They are up there within everyone's view. All you have to do is
qualify yourself with the appropriate education and skills. The law of the land makes
every person eligible for them. All employers proclaim in their policy statements that
they are "equal opportunity employers." But when women reach for them, the invisible
ceiling stops them. A cruel tease indeed!
My mother said she would not talk to me about her own reluctance to pursue an
administrative career, despite all the efforts she put in to qualify for it. She said I
should talk with teachers or other personnel in the school systems who had no personal
involvement in order to get objective observations. So I interviewed more than 25 people
from Superintendents and Principals through Vice Principals, Department Heads,
Counselors, Teachers and Teachers' Assistants to Security, Cafeteria and Maintenance
Personnel, in two different school systems. My findings were quite revealing of the
invisible glass ceiling.
Let me start with the lowest level positions in the school systems—maintenance
workers, security personnel and cafeteria workers. Strictly speaking, they cannot be
called part of the education system. Their jobs do not have anything to do with the
educational system, they could be in any other place than the school, but the way the
heads of their departments are chosen will show how endemic gender discrimination is to
the entire school systems, from bottom to top. In fact, it is ingrained in the culture of
the school systems as it is in the culture of many other organizations in the public
life. 
My innocent ears were offended hearing the tale of a woman security officer describe what
was going on in the South Bend School Corporation at her level of employment. She has
much more seniority than most of the chiefs of security in the school system, but the
chief's position along with all the benefits go to the men who, in her judgement, were
less qualified, experienced and conscientious. She pointed out to her own chief, a
pot-bellied man who sat by a closet and snacked all day, according to reports, which
could not be far from the truth judging from his appearance. "Only men can handle the
tough situations; he does all that sitting in that chair while I do the simple things
like breaking up fights, confiscating guns and knives and searching out drug pushers,"
she stated.
Among maintenance workers there were only very few women. The chief janitor in one
school, a fair man who has a couple of women in his staff, a rarity, said that women are
intimidated by furnaces and electrical systems, so they don't sign up for janitorial
jobs. But he also added that "not that they are welcome either; I don't mind them, but
the guys in other schools will hire a women only if they can not even find a dead body."
I asked, "can a woman ever become the chief janitor?" The answer was a plain and clear
"never."
The cafeteria was a completely different story. Practically all the workers in the
cafeterias of all schools are women. I asked the head of the food service department in
one high school, who I thought was a fair-minded lady, why it was that all cafeteria
workers are women. She said men do not generally apply; cooking and serving food is a
women's job, they think. She also added, " We don't want them anyway, you can hardly find
one who is not sloppy and dirty." But I observed, and she agreed, that there is no
injustice involved. There is no built-in obstacle for men to be hired or promoted in food
service.
Leaving the support staff level and getting to the heart of the educational enterprise,
we come to the teaching staff. Instantly, one notices that the elementary schools are
mostly staffed by women teachers. However, the administrators by and large are men. The
South Bend School Corporation, for example, has approximately 25 elementary schools. Of
these, twenty of them have men principals while nearly 70% of teachers are women. I asked
one of the male principals why there is such a disparity between male/female ratios of
teachers and administrators in elementary schools. He said that it is the "mother thing,"
women are more suited to teach little children and they are attracted towards the
elementary age kids, that is as far as teaching is concerned. The administration,
however, is another matter. There you need men. They, according to him, are better
organizers, disciplinarians, and of course father figures. A woman principal had a
different view. For her it is the "old boys' club at work. They simply do not want to
give women top jobs even in elementary schools," she said. 
When you go up to the Middle School level, the disparity worsens. Of the eight middle
schools I visited, six had male principals while the teaching staff was fairly evenly
divided. From what I could surmise from the conversations with teachers and
administrators, there is no good reason for the disparate male/female ratio in the
building administration, except the continuing resistance against women.
A veteran teacher told me that in all his memory he could not think of one female
principal in any of the five South Bend public high schools. In the 1998-1999 school
year, however, there are three female principals, a majority! But, they are relatively
new appointments, two of them only a year ago and the third just this year, but she is
only an acting principal. A female superintendent who is also relatively new made these
appointments, though they were not very popular. As a result, one of the regular
appointees has tended her resignation, the second is on the verge of doing so, and the
acting principal's fate is hanging in the balance.
One of the school staff related to me the reception the acting principal received when
she came to take charge of the school and for a few weeks thereafter. To start with, she
was appointed at the last minute, as a last resort when none of the candidates the school
system offered the job to accepted it. When she came to the building for the first time,
very few faculty persons greeted her. One of the two vice principals, a male who had
applied for the principal's job unsuccessfully, greeted her sitting on his chair and with
his feet on his desk. He arrogated the principal's authority to himself, calling faculty
meetings, making policy decisions, addressing the school community through the public
address system and complaining to the corporate administration about the acting
principal. The department heads, counselors, and teachers also started to set their own
rules. Being placed in such a tough situation, a weak person would have been totally
broken, but the acting principal stood her ground, asserted her authority and established
discipline within a few weeks. It was a superhuman task.
In high schools, between the teachers and building administrators, stand the department
heads. My curiosity peaked when I noticed that almost all department heads, other than
home economics and special education, were men, in all five South Bend high schools. What
I learned was that these were all appointees of men principals, hanging on to their jobs,
wielding whatever little authority they could claim over their fellow teachers. The
culture of male domination governed this low level of administration as well.
Coming to the top level of administration, the South Bend School Corporation never had a
woman superintendent in its entire history until five years ago when the present
superintendent was appointed. She got the job by default when three outside finalists,
all men, declined the offer. She had not been ranked among the finalists despite the fact
that she had been a very successful principal in the corporation, with a national
reputation as an educator. Being a woman and an African-American were two strikes against
her. Her appointment divided the teachers and the community at large along racial lines.
A prolonged and bitter teachers strike further divided the community. In spite of her
accomplishments in bringing about fiscal discipline and solvency to the corporation, she
barley got re-appointed for two short years after the first three-year term. Efforts are
mounting to release her even before the two years are up. Resistance against the
superintendent by the combined forces of antifeminist and anti-minority groups in the
school system itself and the larger community have paralyzed her administration. Lack of
discipline and moral within the schools result in the failure of the process of education
itself. It is no surprise, therefore, that the South Bend students are among the lowest
achievers on the ISTEP. The sad story of South Bend schools is a classic example of how
damaging to the public good discrimination against women and minorities can be.
It is also important for us to look beyond the local scene to the national picture to see
what role is given to women and minorities in the administration of educational
institutions. Several recent studies were able to unveil some hidden truths about women
and minorities in the educational administration. The 1990 study by Patricia T. Whitfield
entitled Status of Access of Women and Minorities to Administrative Positions in Idaho is
a case in point. This study focused on the status of women and minorities in
administrative positions in Idaho public schools. Statistically Whitfield documented that
among administrators of Idaho public schools only approximately 20% were women and only
about 7% minorities. She cites the "old boy network," family responsibilities, lack of
mentors or role models, a late entry into career tracks, and difficulty in gaining
credibility as the reasons for this poor representation of women and minorities. As for
the possible remedy for this situation, Whitfield received different responses from the
administrators and members of the women and minority groups. While the administrators
indicated that change/progress would come through their efforts, the women's and minority
groups felt that progress will come only through equal opportunity policies and
legislation. I am sure that similar responses will be forthcoming from other comparable
groups in all parts of the country. (Patricia T. Whitfield, Status of Women Minorities
toAdministrative Positions in Idaho. ERIC TITLE NUMBER: ED 323907).
It is also important to compare the status of women in administrative positions in higher
education with what we have seen in the nation's school systems. Let me start with a
local women's college, Saint Mary's College of Notre Dame, Indiana. This is a college
founded some 155 years ago exclusively for women by women religious of the Holy Cross
Congregation. All major administrative positions were held by the Sisters of the Holy
Cross up until 1967. This college was also the sister institution of the larger
University of Notre Dame, across the road, founded about the same time exclusively for
men by the Priests of the Holy Cross. In 1967, when the then president of Saint Mary's
died and another well-qualified nun was not available to fill the role, the sisters
appointed Saint Mary's first male president, a priest. In 1970, Notre Dame proposed a
merger with Saint Mary's. Fearing the total absorption of Saint Mary's into larger Notre
Dame, the sisters withdrew from the merger. However, they inadvertently entered into
another dangerous situation, the male domination of the school. This happened when they
appointed the first layman president of the college, hoping that would bring Saint Mary's
in tune with the modern age. For the next 29 years, the administration of the college
passed into almost exclusively male hands. Only in 1999 did they appoint a woman
president and a female administrative team, after three decades of male domination.
While Saint Mary's College's link with the Holy Cross Sisters made it easy for its board
to revert to its traditional administration by women, what is happening nationwide in
higher education is quite different. A 1982 study by Kathryn M. Moore documents the low
status of women in administrative positions in higher education. Moore studied the career
issues, educational concerns and the professional, educational and personal backgrounds
of 2, 896 senior college administrators from all parts of the United States. The focus of
her study was the status of women and minorities in educational administration. She
discovered that women and minorities represented a shocking 20 and 8 percent of the
sample, respectively. Even more disturbing was her discovery that women and minorities
held only low level positions such as registrar, librarian, and financial aid director.
In contrast, men held positions like President and Chief Financial Officer. Of the 653
deans in the survey only 90 (13.8%) were women. Half of these women deans were in the
fields of nursing, home economics, arts and sciences, and continuing education. As for
minorities, only 5.5% of them were among the deans. These statistics tell the cruel hoax
American society still plays on its female citizens despite decades of equal opportunity
enforcement. (Women and Minorities. Leaders in Transition: A National Study of Higher
Education Administrators by Kathryn M. Moore. University Park, PA., Center for the Study
of Higher Education, Pennsylvania State University, 1982. P.64.).
Leaving the broad, nationwide survey, let us now take a closer look at one institution of
higher learning, University of New Hampshire, an institution with a relatively high
reputation. A 1993 study ordered by the university president on the status of women
showed that out of 16 principal administrators (president, vice president, and deans) of
the university, only one was a woman and she was only a temporary appointment. At the
next level, the Academic Administration level, 27.3% were women. At the executive
management level, women held only 21.8% of the positions. But at the management or
supervisory level (support staff level) 60.8% of the employees were women. 
The story becomes even grimmer when we look at the compensation level of employers at the
University of New Hampshire. Of those employees making $35,000-55,000, 54% were women. Of
those making $55,000-66,000 only 31% were women. Of those making above $65, 000 only a
meager 19% were women. When different groupings were employed, the glaring and shameless
fact came out, that is out of all the employees making less than $30,000, a towering
83.3% were women!
The study also indicated that the situation at the University of New Hampshire was fairly
typical of all universities in the country; only much worse in many other schools.
(University of New Hampshire President's Commission on the Status of Women, July 1993).
The issues relating to the status of women were placed in a broader, national perspective
by the Federal Glass Ceiling Commission in 1996. Rene Redwood, then Special Assistant to
the Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, summarized the findings of this commission in a
speech she gave at the "Working Women's Summit" held by Women in Technology International
(WITI) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in September 1996. The most telling data she
included in her speech was that in the top 1000 industrial and 500 service companies in
the United States, 95% of senior level managers were men of which 95% were white. Of the
5% of those managers who were women, only 5% were minority women. This translated into a
total of 2,100 senior women executives out of the 42,000 top-level executives.
She also pointed out the disparity in salary levels between men and women on a national
level. While non-Hispanic white males with bachelors degrees received an average salary
of $47, 181, the females with bachelor's degrees in the same ethnic group received only
an average of $31, 338. Of those with masters' degrees, non-Hispanic white males received
an average of $57, 371, but females in the same ethnic group with master' degrees
received only an average $38, 391. Reliable statistics about the salary levels of other
ethnic groups are not available but it is safe to assume that they are appallingly
disparate.
While statistics document the injustice of the system, they do not suggest solutions for
the problem. Solutions can be found only if men and women of good will come together and
seek them out. There are many organizations that address these issues on the local and
national level. There are also laws on the book that could be brought to bear when
institutions are insensitive to the issues of equality. However, in order to bring about
fundamental changes, we have to work at the roots of our culture. This is where educators
have an advantage. It is their hands that mold the next generation. They can change the
whole outlook of society if they put their minds to it. Let us hope, therefore, in a
generation or two, we can make the statistics look very different.
NOTES ABOUT MY SOURCES
1. For information about women in administration in local schools, I interviewed 25
individuals at various levels of employment, from maintenance staff and cafeteria workers
to teachers, principals and Superintendents of South Bend, Mishawaka, and
Penn-Harris-Madison School Systems.
2. For information on local colleges and universities, I interviewed 12 professors and
administrators at Saint Mary's College and the University of Notre Dame.
3. For information on the status of women in educational administration on the regional
and national level, I used the following sources:
a. Patricia T. Whitfield, Status of Access of Women and Minorities to Administrative
Positions in Idaho. ERIC TITLE No. ED 323907.
b. Kathryn M. Moore, Women and Minorities. Leaders in Transition: A National Study of
Higher Education Administrators. ERIC TITLE No. ED 225459.
c. University of New Hampshire President's Commission on Status of Women. University of
New Hampshire, 1993. 
d. Rene Redwood, The Glass Ceiling: The Findings and Recommendations of the Federal Glass
Ceiling Commission. Washington, D.C. 1996.
WOMEN IN EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION
THE GLASS CEILING IS STILL THERE
ANAND PULLAPILLY
JULY 30, 1999