Margaret Grogan

Laying the Groundwork for a Reconception of the Superintendency From Feminist Postmodern Perspectives

This article reviews the literature on the superintendency over the past 50 years to understand what has been written about the position. By juxtaposing the traditional with ideas from feminist and postmodern literature, a possible reconception of the superintendency is offered. This is grounded in acknowledging postmodern paradoxes that emerge using this approach. Recognizing such paradoxes allows the questioning of the current superintendency. This leads to suggested leadership strategies that differ from the traditional in hopes of a more socially committed superintendency in the future.

Equity/Equality Issues of Gender, Race, and Class.

Concerns with equity issues in education have largely given way to concerns about quality and excellence. Bell and Chase (1993) argue that from the beginning of the 1980s, federal policies have focused on the establishment and enforcement of performance standards rather than on equity standards. And even when the focus was on equity, apart from affirmative action policies in some arenas, what was really targeted was equality. Talking of gender equity, in particular, Stromquist (1997) points out that although the U.S. government describes both Title XI of the Educational Amendments Act of 1972 and the Women’s Educational Equity Act (WEEA) passed in 1975 as legisla tion for equity, the laws, at best, offer equality of opportunity in terms of access and resources. “To provide equity would be to give greater support to women in order to ensure that they ultimately reach a condition of equality with men” (p. 55). Odden (1995) agrees: “Despite our rhetoric about equal outcomes, our equity orientation has been one primarily of access” (p. 12). Thus, when Charol Shakeshaft poses the question: “Are women repre sented in administration in equal proportions to their representation in teach ing?” she is not referring to any extra efforts that have been made on behalf of women to enable their entry into administration that would provide equity. She is looking simply at the numbers, unreliable as they are, to determine if there is equality of representation. The answer is no. “Females are overrepre sented in teaching and underrepresented in administration” (p. 100). Beyond

Notes to Athene: Mentoring Relationships for Women of Color

This article describes the ways in which mentoring provides the means for women of color to gain entry and access into educational administration. Briefly, the authors sketch the mentoring relationships of their respondents of color and explore how issues of race and gender might have affected careers in educational administration and how mentoring aided in negotiating their way within Whitemale-dominated organizations.

A Black Woman Superintendent Tells

This poem was composed from the interview data of a participant in a qualitative study on what it is like to be a woman superintendent. These are all her words. The author has rearranged them a little and added or deleted a preposition here and there. The author chose this method of representation to capture the superintendent’s original rhythms, images, and metaphors.