Executive Perspective
Our Role in Readying Superintendents
By Daniel A. Domenech/School Administrator, June 2017


Over the past four years, AASA has engaged hundreds of members in professional development activities.

Each year, more than 80 superintendents in three cohorts participate in the National Superintendent Certification program. An additional two cohorts, one with the University of Southern California and another with Howard University, participate in the Urban Superintendents Academy. Several cohorts are engaged in the Aspiring Superintendents Program, and soon there will be an Aspiring Superintendents Program for women in education leadership.

Most recently Julia Keleher, the secretary of education for Puerto Rico, requested that AASA provide the training for all of their newly appointed superintendents.

Faculty Acumen
Working with these current and aspiring superintendents has been a real pleasure.

In my opinion, the superintendency is the hardest job in America. The short tenure of the position speaks to its level of difficulty and the current climate is not making the job easier. Inadequate resources and finances combined with unjustified criticism and attempts to privatize public education mandate that superintendents indeed must be super.

AASA’s professional development programs have been designed to sharpen the skills of our educational leaders so that they can overcome the challenges they face and provide their students with the best education available.

A critical component in the success of the programs is the faculty. In all cases, they are experienced and proven superintendents who function as teachers, coaches and mentors. The participants are exposed to real-world situations and are asked to bring to the group the problems they are confronting in their schools and districts.

The collegial environment is a plus as the participants network with their cohort members and establish relationships and confidences that allow them to grow together.

All the programs have established impressive records in the number of aspiring leaders who are hired as superintendents, often before they have completed their training or soon thereafter. Similarly, many participants in the certification program attract the attention of search consultants who seek them out as candidates for other, usually larger, districts.

Equity Foremost
A common theme among all the programs is to instill in the participants the idea that they are to be the champions for children and for public education.

Education equity is a strand that runs through the curriculum. They must be the education leaders in their communities, and they must fight for and protect the rights of students who otherwise would go unprotected. Our participants also must be the change agents who will not reform but rather transform education into the 21st-century institution it must be to ensure every child, regardless of income, race, nationality or religious affiliation, is ready for college and/or the career that will make him or her constructive members of our society.

We cannot continue to do what we always have done and wonder why so many of our children continue to fail, why there is an achievement gap that will not disappear, why inequity is tolerated and why the best educational system in the world is denigrated by so many of our citizens. We cannot afford to have others who, at best, are ill informed as to the problems facing public education or, at worst, are driven by financial gains, to capture the upper hand on the transformation agenda.

It is the superintendent who must lead the way — not alone, but with the support of the parents, the staff and the community they serve. We recognize from previous Phi Delta Kappa public opinion polls that to know your school is to love it. Parents and the surrounding community always have been supportive. Their low regard of public education is directed at those “other schools in other places,” informed by the constant criticism in the media.

A New Generation
The transformation is well underway. Hundreds of our school districts have made the digital leap and they are using technology to move toward the personalization of instruction. Students are being allowed to proceed at their own pace rather than be subject to the pacing guides that would leave them behind. Seat time requirements are waived in realization that students can learn anywhere they have access to the internet.

The agrarian calendar is giving way to year-round schooling, eliminating the summer vacation learning loss. High schools are partnering with their local colleges and students are graduating with college credits and in many cases an associate’s degree.

This is the new generation of superintendents, taking the lead while learning from their mentors, coaches and each other — transforming public education for the benefit of the children we serve.

Daniel Domenech is AASA executive director. E-mail: ddomenech@aasa.org. Twitter: @AASADan