School super choice will be first for county

Worcester County’s public school system is about to make history, locally at least, as the board of education is on the verge of naming its first female superintendent of schools.

With local candidate Annette Wallace and Baltimore County’s Monique Wheatley-Phillip the finalists in the school board’s selection process, leadership of the county’s public schools by a woman is guaranteed.

To many people, this wouldn’t seem to be a terribly significant event. Because the field of public education draws many more women to its ranks than men, the odds would seem to favor a woman ascending to the top administrative post in any school district. Yet, that isn’t how it has worked over the years.

Studies by various institutions show that women’s career advancements within the administrative ranks end at the school principal level more often than not.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 77% of teachers are women and 23% are men. Those percentages are almost reversed — 73% to 27% in favor of men — on the leadership end of the hierarchy, according to Education Week online. This is even though more women than men, 66% to 34%, reach the career steppingstone level of school principal.

Although it is unpopular these days to talk about inherent bias, it is obvious that something of that nature has been going on for generations in the nation’s public schools.

Most probably, the Worcester County Board of Education wasn’t thinking about that as it began its pursuit of someone to fill the job opening created by the retirement of current Superintendent Lou Taylor at the end of June.

To the local school board’s credit, members simply went after the best candidates, and that is what they have in Wallace and Wheatley-Phillip — two highly qualified people who, as it turns out, happen to be women.