In matters both big and small, women in education leadership are treated, spoken to and viewed differently than their male colleagues. And it impacts everything from their assignments and salaries to promotions.
The career moves available to aspiring women leaders often set them up to lead in the toughest conditions in schools and districts with the highest stakes and the least margin for error. When states and districts fail to confront the reality of this glass cliff, they constrain the advancement of some of their most capable current and would-be leaders.
New survey data from the nonprofit I founded, Women Leading Ed, illuminates the experiences and perspectives of women who confront the bias that creates and reinforces both the glass cliff and the glass ceiling. And research on women in education leadership points to the same conclusion: The gender gap will persist unless states and districts make systemic changes to how leaders are recruited, trained, supported and advanced through the career ladder.