Baker & Rafal-Baer: 16 professional programs create a diverse candidate pool and give Long Beach education leaders skills & support needed to succeed. Well-prepared, well-supported school and district leaders can make incredible differences in student success. Schools and districts need capable administrators for both the challenges they face today and what lies ahead tomorrow.  High-quality […]

“She’s delightful.” “She knows academics, but can she handle a budget?” “She’s just her old boss in a skirt.” “I wonder about her personal commitment if she won’t move her own kids here mid-school year.” These are just a sampling of the things said to or about women pursuing leadership positions in education. Gender bias manifests in […]

Fewer than 33% of the 500 largest districts have female superintendents, though most teachers are women. Some ways to fix that imbalance.

The pandemic has impacted every facet of American education and the consequences, both academic and beyond, could reverberate for decades to come. But while much of the focus of the pandemic’s effects has been on classroom experiences and learning acceleration among students who need it most, there is another crisis stemming from COVID-19: staggering turnover rates […]

America seems more ready than ever for long-overdue conversations about race, gender and opportunity. One setting where those conversations matter a lot is in our schools — the places that explicitly define opportunity in our children’s formative years. When we select people to lead our education systems, we send a loud signal to our children […]

Education is one of America’s most female-dominated professions, yet the sweeping majority of school systems are led by white men. Often, the reasons are subtle. Sometimes, they’re not. One not-so-subtle moment happened at the July 14 meeting of the Sarasota County School Board, where several members proceeded to explain why they were eliminating the sole […]

New report outlines 3 steps to help women become top school leaders In schools, we tell all children that they can be anything they want. It’s a striking irony that the leaders of our school systems — district superintendents and state chiefs — overwhelmingly are white men. A report that we at Chiefs for Change are releasing today takes […]