Destined to Rule the Schools » (1st Edition)

In 1909, when she became the superintendent of the Chicago schools, Ella Flagg Young proclaimed that women were "destined to rule the schools of every city." After all, women accounted for nearly eighty percent of all teachers by 1910 and their ascendance into formal school leadership positions could not be far behind. After World War II, however, a backlash against single women educators and a rigid realignment of gender roles in schools contributed to a rapid decline of women school administrators across the country, a decline from which there has been little recovery to the present. Destined to Rule the Schools tells the story of women and school leadership in America from the common school era to the present. In a broad sense, it offers an historical account of how teaching became women's work and the school superintendency men's. Blount explores how power in school employment has been structured unequally by gender. It focuses on the superintendency because an important component of the effort to establish control of schools has occurred in contesting the definition of this position.

Booknews

Blount (curriculum and instruction, Iowa State U.) takes her title from a proclamation by the superintendent of the Chicago schools in 1909, that because nearly 80% of teachers were women, they would soon dominate administration as well. She describes the era, and how backlash against single women educators after World War and a rigid realignment of gender roles in schools led to a rapid decline in women administrators that has changed little to the present. She suggests that the positions were made appointive to reduce the influence of newly enfranchised women voters, and explores the role of homophobia in creating and perpetuating the rigid gender roles. One chapter has been published separately. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.