The Road Less Traveled: Early Childhood Teachers' Rare Ascent to the Superintendency and Its Impact on Leadership

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 4:15 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Leading the Littlest Learners: Working Toward a Pre-K Inclusive Research Agenda in Educational Administration

Abstract

Purpose
State governments continue to invest in and integrate early childhood education (ECE) programs like Pre-K into K-12 public school districts (Friedman-Krauss et al., 2024). However, little is known about the backgrounds, experiences, and ECE leadership approaches of superintendents who oversee these programs. This study compares ECE and non-ECE teachers’ matriculation into the superintendency and explores leadership approaches of superintendents with ECE experience.

Perspectives
We employed sensemaking theory to investigate how superintendents with ECE backgrounds make sense of leading ECE programs within their districts. This theory allows us to examine superintendents' mental models of ECE; models that act as filters through which they make decisions about district organization, resource allocation, curriculum, and measures of success (Evans, 2007).

Data and Methods
Within our single-state case study (Texas), we conducted a mixed methods parallel convergent design. Texas serves 10% of all U.S. students, represents national diversity in district size and geography, and has made substantial recent investments in ECE. We accessed statewide longitudinal data from the Texas Education Research Center (ERC), creating a dataset of all Texas superintendents' historical teaching records from 1995-96 to 2023-24. We categorized superintendents by teaching experience (PreK-K, 1st-12th; by AERA Conference, will have more fine-grained categories), and tracked career progressions to compare likelihood of advancement to the superintendency.

For our qualitative component, we used the ERC to identify 41 current Texas superintendents with ECE experience or certification. In January 2025, we recruited 37 superintendents for which we could identify e-mails. Four superintendents agreed to participate in semi-structured interviews focused on ECE background, training, and leadership practices. We are currently recruiting 2-4 additional participants. We analyzed transcripts by applying codes inductively based on our theoretical framework and allowing codes to emerge through the constant comparative method (Miles et al., 2014).

Results
The ECE teacher-to-superintendent pathway is extremely rare: just 118 of 2,600 superintendents over 9 years (2015-2024) had ECE teaching experience. Across 10 teacher cohort-years, the proportion of non-ECE teachers who made it to the superintendency (0.08%) was more than double that of ECE teachers (0.03%) (see Figure 1). The proportion of non-ECE teachers who matriculated to an assistant principalship was between 7-47% higher than ECE teachers, depending on the cohort-year. In contrast, the proportion of non-ECE teachers who matriculated to the superintendency was consistently over 100% higher than ECE teachers (see Table 1).

Our interviews revealed that superintendents with ECE experience strongly believe in ECE's importance for academic achievement, particularly regarding literacy development. State accountability measures appeared to focus their sensemaking of ECE on ensuring students reading on grade-level by third grade. This narrow focus on achievement outcomes appeared to limit their leadership practices towards academics while limiting the importance of children’s social, emotional, and physical development in their decision-making.

Significance
The extreme underrepresentation of ECE-experienced educators in the superintendency suggests missed opportunities for informed early childhood advocacy at the district level. By understanding how the rare superintendents with ECE experience navigate their roles, we can better support the development of leaders capable of building equity-oriented early learning systems.

Authors

• Rachel Sue White, University of Texas at Austin

• Lauren C. McKenzie, University of Texas at Austin

• Christopher P. Brown, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Jinseok Shin, University of Texas at Austin

• David E. DeMatthews, University of Texas at Austin