Why superintendents turn over

Grissom, Stephanie, & Andersen, Stephanie. (2012). Why superintendents turn over. American Educational Research Journal, 49(6), 1146-1180.


If you live or work in an urban school district as I do, you are used to the “revolving door” syndrome in the school superintendent’s office. Every few years, you expect to hear that yet another superintendent is on his or her way out, and the district is once again looking at replacement candidates.

It’s a familiar sequence of events. Usually, the departure of the superintendent is not a pleasant thing, and the news media get involved, so we see and hear it all. Sometimes there are accusations of wrongdoing or of inappropriate behavior. Sometimes there is a feeling of betrayal when it is learned that a successful superintendent who just last week proclaimed possibilities for the district, and convinced us of his commitment to our district, is a candidate for a position in another large urban district. Sometimes we hear stories of conflicts between the superintendent and the school board. If there is a board election, new candidates arise and claim they will do a better job. Sometimes long-time board members are ousted in these elections, and there are hard feelings. There are dramatic resignations by board members who decide they cannot continue. Different people try chairing the board, with varying results. If the superintendent is not leaving voluntarily, we hear about expensive contract buyouts, and there is public outrage at the cost of that, especially when so many families in the district are struggling to survive. All of this drama provides fodder for news stories. It’s better than reality television—or worse than reality television, depending on your viewpoint.

Next, there’s word of a search for a new superintendent. News leaks out about finalists, and some of them come to town. Of course, the best faces are put forward, but then the stories leak back from the districts the candidates are coming from, and the stories do not sound so different from the one that played out when our superintendent left. Finally, a candidate is selected (sometimes not the first choice after the top candidate turns us down). There are “meet and greet” events and meetings, and everyone hopes for the best. There usually is a “honeymoon” when the new superintendent presents his or her vision and plan, and big changes are once again initiated, changes that this time will solve our district’s problems. Teachers complain about the fast changes, though if the initiatives pushed by the previous superintendent were odious enough, the new ones are more likely to be embraced. Then, usually once we are too deep into the new initiatives to change course quickly, we begin to start hearing of problems again, or perhaps we are suddenly shocked to hear that the superintendent whose plan we were pinning our hopes on has been lured by more lucrative and greener pastures in another district. And so the cycle continues.

Grissom and Andersen’s article really doesn’t tell those of us in urban districts anything we do not already know. The revolving door pattern I describe above is very common in urban districts, but Grissom and Andersen suggest that it is mainly limited to urban districts. In more affluent suburban districts, for example, superintendents tend to stay longer, and more often leave for reasons such as retirement. They may also leave for more lucrative positions, but not so often as those who have been able to document success in urban districts do. It is clear from the article that superintendent turnover differs for different kinds of school districts, and that if good research is going to be done on issues surrounding superintendent recruitment and retention, those differences should be teased out rather than obscured by data aggregation. Rather than really providing us with anything conclusive here, the authors seem to be suggesting pathways for doing future research in better ways.

What this article doesn’t get into is how to stop the revolving door in urban districts, which for me is the kind of information that is really needed. Because a change in superintendents often brings curricular changes, which often are changes in reading programs and assessments, too frequent changes in the superintendent’s office can be disruptive and may be a factor inhibiting learning. With too many changes, there isn’t time to see achievement gains. Moreover, teachers become disillusioned, and over time, develop a “this too shall pass” outlook that leads to disengagement. I’ve seen it repeatedly in my experience working in schools in several urban districts in my large metropolitan area, and I don’t think the constant change is a good thing. The idea of “home-grown” superintendents with deep roots in our area appeals to me, and recently there have been trends in that direction in my area. Flash, dash, and constant change may be good for the news media, but not for our children. Let’s try commitment and stability, and see what happens with that.