How Long Has This Been Going On?
November 17, 2011 8:44 PM Subscribe
What is the average length of tenure for a primary and secondary public school district Superintendent in the states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut? The average superintendent has been employed as the superintendent in their current district for how long? Cites please.
The only data I can find is a study done by the American Association of School Administrators done in 2010 cited by Theodore Kowalski in his book, The American school superintendent: 2010 decennial study. This book is not available online. I am not sure if this study or the book even has this specific data, I only think it likely. Kowalski seems to be the go to in academia regarding secondary public school administration. I have had a friend with access to the AASA member login search that website, and she found no statistics and no report.
I just want this one statistic.
The only data I can find is a study done by the American Association of School Administrators done in 2010 cited by Theodore Kowalski in his book, The American school superintendent: 2010 decennial study. This book is not available online. I am not sure if this study or the book even has this specific data, I only think it likely. Kowalski seems to be the go to in academia regarding secondary public school administration. I have had a friend with access to the AASA member login search that website, and she found no statistics and no report.
I just want this one statistic.
Response by poster: Thank you Ms McGee. I have been told in NY State, that in urban districts it is about 2.5 years, and in suburban about 5.2, but the person who told me had no cite other than, "that is what I heard." Granted, that person is in the education world, but I was hoping for something more concrete.
Checking with a Superintendent search firm sounds like a great idea. While they might not have scientific data so to speak, I am sure they can give me good data from their own experience and could point me to the right source. From what I know, most of the folks who conduct the searches for these firms are former superintendents themselves.
Thanks again and good night.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 9:30 PM on November 17, 2011
Checking with a Superintendent search firm sounds like a great idea. While they might not have scientific data so to speak, I am sure they can give me good data from their own experience and could point me to the right source. From what I know, most of the folks who conduct the searches for these firms are former superintendents themselves.
Thanks again and good night.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 9:30 PM on November 17, 2011
A lot of the papers I pulled up seemed to be addressing the "misconception" of 2.5 years, saying it averaged 5.2 in larger urban districts.
We recently did a superintendent search and what we found was that unless a superintendent did something actively criminal, it's very difficult to get rid of them before 3-4 years. One year they're learning the ropes, one year they're implementing their system, and one year the whole city is in revolt and the school board is jumping ship. (If some of the board continues to back the super, it'll take an election cycle or two while people run on the platform of "getting rid of the super," which recently happened in a small district around here and, having gotten rid of the super, half the newly-elected board decided running schools was boring and they weren't going to bother with doing it correctly and managed to precipitate a teacher strike.) While among the ranks of the most-talented large urban supers, we did see there's some poaching after 1-2 years -- like you're serving in a Kalamazoo for five years and get a strong reputation and get hired to a Little Rock for two years and get poached to a Houston for a really cherry salary and a chance to be on the national stage at a really big district with significant resources. (And significant problems.) But those superintendents also have to stay in place long enough to BUILD a reputation. Which is to say, given that even the absolutely catastrophic superintendents usually manage to entrench for 3 years, and the successful ones tend to stay at a good fit for 5-10 years, I'd be surprised if it was as low as 2.5 years. You'll have a few 1-2 years pulling down the average but also some much longer-serving ones pulling it up.
Most of the superintendents we talked to agreed 5-10 years was the right length at a large urban district -- long enough to make meaningful change and bring in good people, but too much longer than 10 years and you start to develop a cult of personality; you run out of good ideas; and your weaknesses start to entrench in the system. Which is interesting because the community is still looking for the guy to come in and run the schools for 30 years -- and we had one of those, much beloved in the community, still alive, but while many of the good things in our schools are due to his work, many of the problems are also due to the fact that he was there thirty years and his weaknesses went unaddressed and multiplied and entrenched. (Personnel problems that have been hanging around 20 years because Beloved Longserving Super liked them are really hard to address.) The longer-serving supers anymore tended to be near the end of their careers and in a good fit, so they were looking at about 15 years and retirement.
Anyway, I would be surprised -- shocked, even -- if it's as low as 2.5 years. But if your person wants it to be the old 30-years model, as many communities do, I think that's misguided too. (There is some apparently correlation with superintendent service length and student scores, but that's not from just keeping supers around -- that's from ideally keeping GOOD supers around. Some effect doubtless from the upheaval that surrounds any change to district programs; stability increases scores. But really, deck chairs on the titanic.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:52 AM on November 18, 2011
We recently did a superintendent search and what we found was that unless a superintendent did something actively criminal, it's very difficult to get rid of them before 3-4 years. One year they're learning the ropes, one year they're implementing their system, and one year the whole city is in revolt and the school board is jumping ship. (If some of the board continues to back the super, it'll take an election cycle or two while people run on the platform of "getting rid of the super," which recently happened in a small district around here and, having gotten rid of the super, half the newly-elected board decided running schools was boring and they weren't going to bother with doing it correctly and managed to precipitate a teacher strike.) While among the ranks of the most-talented large urban supers, we did see there's some poaching after 1-2 years -- like you're serving in a Kalamazoo for five years and get a strong reputation and get hired to a Little Rock for two years and get poached to a Houston for a really cherry salary and a chance to be on the national stage at a really big district with significant resources. (And significant problems.) But those superintendents also have to stay in place long enough to BUILD a reputation. Which is to say, given that even the absolutely catastrophic superintendents usually manage to entrench for 3 years, and the successful ones tend to stay at a good fit for 5-10 years, I'd be surprised if it was as low as 2.5 years. You'll have a few 1-2 years pulling down the average but also some much longer-serving ones pulling it up.
Most of the superintendents we talked to agreed 5-10 years was the right length at a large urban district -- long enough to make meaningful change and bring in good people, but too much longer than 10 years and you start to develop a cult of personality; you run out of good ideas; and your weaknesses start to entrench in the system. Which is interesting because the community is still looking for the guy to come in and run the schools for 30 years -- and we had one of those, much beloved in the community, still alive, but while many of the good things in our schools are due to his work, many of the problems are also due to the fact that he was there thirty years and his weaknesses went unaddressed and multiplied and entrenched. (Personnel problems that have been hanging around 20 years because Beloved Longserving Super liked them are really hard to address.) The longer-serving supers anymore tended to be near the end of their careers and in a good fit, so they were looking at about 15 years and retirement.
Anyway, I would be surprised -- shocked, even -- if it's as low as 2.5 years. But if your person wants it to be the old 30-years model, as many communities do, I think that's misguided too. (There is some apparently correlation with superintendent service length and student scores, but that's not from just keeping supers around -- that's from ideally keeping GOOD supers around. Some effect doubtless from the upheaval that surrounds any change to district programs; stability increases scores. But really, deck chairs on the titanic.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:52 AM on November 18, 2011
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For state-specific stats, try state school boards or school associations. Superintendent search firms (there are such things) will also probably have this data and could probably provide it for your specific states.
It is almost certain to be widely variant between large urban districts, suburban districts, and rural districts, which may add considerable noise to your data. Also New York City swallows up all the searching I did on New York state. This appears to have data for New Jersey (jump to page 86). I'm too sleepy to look for Connecticut but the terms I tried were "average length of superintendent tenure [state]" in google.
This also wouldn't be very difficult to research and calculate for yourself, just terribly tedious.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:14 PM on November 17, 2011