The Role of Superintendents in Leading Districts to Cultural Proficiency 237
standards set by the state and federal accountability systems (TEA, 2005). In order to keep up
with challenging legislation and changing population demographics, the superintendent, as the
district chief executive officer, has a complex leadership role. In fact, Houston (2001) noted that
the superintendent was responsible for providing the “final answer” (p. 429) for school success.
One of these complex roles involved building cultural leadership (Schwahn & Spady, 1998).
Just as in all of the states in the United States, today, Texas students participate in high stakes
testing in a climate of changing student demographics. According to the 2004-05 Texas
Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) (TEA, 2005), 45.8% of students participating in
the Texas accountability testing were labeled At-Risk. More than 60% of students participating in
the testing process were minority students (44.7% were Hispanic and 14.2% were African
American). At the same time, 54.6% of Texas at-risk students were below the poverty level. In
contrast, only 8.9 % of the teachers were African American and 19.5% were Hispanic—for a
total of 28.4% minority teachers to 60.9% minority students.
Despite the changes in demographics of students in the education system, there has been little
change in the education system and the focus has continued to be the Americanization of students
through the public schools (Spring, 2004). Howard (1999) noted that few educators were
prepared to teach a population of students who represented such a wide variety of cultural
backgrounds. Yet, while the demographics of the students continues to change, many educator
preparation programs have only recently begun to address the need for training in cultural
awareness (Tucker, Reinke, Ivery, Mack, & Jackson, 2005). While beginning to do this is a
positive action, the minority representation of administrators is very low. For example, fewer
than 5% of superintendent positions were held by men and women of color across the United
States (American Association of School Administrators, 2000).
Superintendent Role
Aseltine, Faryniarz, and Rigazio-Digilio (2006) noted that the role of the superintendent in
leading was complex and requires the ability to communicate ideas and vision while informing,
facilitating, cheerleading, supporting, empowering and, when necessary, confronting those who
refuse to make the change to believe that all students can be educated. This viewpoint is
especially important with the multicultural/diversity issues in schools today.
Schein (1992) argued that the way an organization changes or does not change begins when
leaders place their own values on the group. Schein added that the unique talent of a leader is to
understand the situation in the district and facilitate that change. In order for education leaders to
change a district so its personnel understand cultural differences, the superintendent must look
into his or her own assumptions about the students in their district and be willing to pursue
effective ways to successfully educate all students from every ethnic and social background
(Lindsey, Roberts, & Campbell-Jones, 2005).
Cultural Challenges
There are many cultural challenges that districts must face. Examples of these are discussed
by Rubinstein-Avila (2006) who argued that most districts are unprepared to handle the
population growth of limited English speaking students that has occurred over the last three
decades. Teacher preparation has not been meeting the needs with only 2.5% of limited English
language teachers receiving the specialized training needed to help today’s students (Ruiz-de-
Velasco, Fix, & Clewell, 2000). Research by Bunch, Abram, Lotan, and Valdez (2001) has
shown that English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers lack the necessary training in such