Where Oh Where Have the Black Superintendents Gone?

By Joseph Williams Originally appeared in Word in Black Second only to California in the number of school-age children, Texas is at the vanguard of a long-anticipated national demographic trend: most of the state’s 5.4 million public school students are Black and Latino, surpassing whites as the majority population.& But a new study found that the army of superintendents who run school districts in the Lone Star state — top administrators who control local curriculums, budgets, and disciplinary policies — is dominated by white men.& The University of Texas at Austin study, titled “Untapped Talent: An 11-Year Analysis of the Texas Superintendent Workforce,” also found that women and minorities in the field typically are underpaid compared to whites, more often work in under-resourced urban schools and struggle to advance to higher-paying positions in better-funded schools.  “The superintendent workforce doesn’t reflect the state student population,” resulting in white educators setting policies and standards for Black and brown students, says David DeMatthews, an associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Texas at Austin College of Education. DeMatthews was lead researcher on the study and one of its co-authors.& “About 80% of superintendents in Texas are...