302 K-12 LEADERSHIP PRACTICES
systems work toward accomplishing educational objectives, school boards (and in some cases
mayors) in charge of hiring superintendents need to know if non-traditional superintendents
possess the skills necessary to e ffectively lead and improve school systems.
Traditionally, state boards of education wanted superintendents to complete graduate
programs and certification programs in education. A comprehensive knowledge of pedagogy,
curriculum practice, and education leadership theories was viewed as essential to ensure
student success.
However, over the past four decades, leadership licensure and certification requirements
have gone through cycles of increasing regulation followed by deregulation or a loosening of
requirements. Reports such as A Nation at Risk (1983) contributed to this cycle so that by the
mid 1980s, most states (41 states or 82%) had regulations that required school leaders to
complete a prescribed program of graduate study and subsequently obtain a state-issued
license (or certification) to practice (Kowalski, 2005). Yet, the persistent failure of many
school systems to improve education, particularly for those most at risk of academic failure,
has led to calls for radical reforms, including eliminating licensure and certification
requirements for school leaders.
Some scholars (Kowalski & Bjork, 2005; Tucker, 2003) have asserted that traditional
superintendent licensure requirements are not practice-based and do not address the actual
requirements of the job and concluded that corporate or military leadership skills are
appropriate and transferable to the public school system. In the extreme position, Hess (2003)
called for deregulation of the position entirely to allow school boards (or mayors) to hire
executives and military professionals from outside the educational sector (see also Usdan &
Cronin, 2003). Taking a more moderate stance, Cooper, Fusarelli, Jackson, and Poster (2002)
proposed changes or modifications to licensing requirements to make them more directly
related to the actual demands of the position. While “cast[ing] the widest possible net” to
attract talent (Usdan & Cronin, 2003, p. 18) may seem like an appropriate strategy, it may
have unintended and often negative consequences, as the data from this study illustrate.
Even as scholars and policy makers debate the utility of superintendent licensure, non-
traditional leaders are increasingly occupying the superintendencies of some of our nation’s
largest school districts. Dating back to the hiring of David Hornbeck in Philadelphia in 1994,
John Stanford in Seattle in 1995, and Paul Vallas in Chicago in 1995, the appointment of non-
traditional superintendents has become somewhat of a trend among urban school systems,
prompting a cover story on “The Outsiders” in the June 2001 issue of The American School
Board Journal. Currently, systems in The Council of the Great City Schools (CGCS), a
coalition of 66 of the nation's largest urban public school systems, have seven (10.6%) non-
traditional superintendents. However, little is known about these non-traditional
superintendents. Are they effective leaders in the education sector? Are they able to improve
the often failing systems they are charged to reform? In this exploratory case study, we
explore these questions and others.
URBAN SCHOOL LEADERSHIP
Being the superintendent of a large urban district has been described as the toughest job in
America because of the challenges of leading such incredibly complex organizations. For
example, the New York City Department of Education has an annual operating budget of
nearly $13 billion, comparable to Fortune 500 companies such as Continental Airlines and