Amazingly, only 25% of the nation’s school superintendents have experience at the elementary level, and this is closely related to the even more shocking fact that of our nation’s 13,728 superintendents, only 1,984 (14%) are women. “Yet 72% of all K-12 educators in this country are women… and 75% of elementary classroom teachers are women” (Glass, 2000).

A recent EdWeek article suggests that a person’s name may impact a person’s likelihood of being selected for a superintendency. In a study intended to examine school superintendent demographics, researcher Rachel White discovered that there’s a greater than a one-in-four chance that a superintendent’s name is one of fifteen: John, Michael, David, James, Jeff, Robert, Steven, Chris, Brian, Scott, Mark, Kevin, Jason, Matthew, or Daniel. “In fact, it’s just as likely for a district to be led by a man with one of those names as it is for one to be led by a woman with any name” (Peetz, 2023).

To examine the “demographics” of urban school district leaders, NCEED conducted an informal poll of the names of superintendents from the twenty-six NAEP TUDA school districts (listed below). Of the 26 districts, only two (8%) of the superintendents’ names appeared on the list of frequent names identified by White (2023) – Christopher and Mike. Since districts often look for leaders with backgrounds and experiences similar to the families in their community, perhaps, that is not a surprising finding. More surprising was that nearly half (46%) of the urban district leaders were women.

It is possible that women leaders are less likely to apply for positions in rural and suburban districts. It is also possible that non-urban districts are less likely to hire women. However, since 77% of public school teachers are women (Pew, 2024) and 56% of public school principals are women (NCES, 2023), the fact that nearly half the urban superintendents are women suggests that urban districts are more focused on the candidates’ experience and qualifications than their gender (or ethnic) background, at least, compared to other districts.