School District Leaders as Agents of Equity and Public Education Futures

Despite more than six decades of education reform, public education systems in the United States have failed to provide equitable opportunities for quality education for every student enrolled. Secondly, public schooling has not kept pace with emergent thinking or technologies, especially as education reforms have narrowed the curricula to a few subjects. Studies about education leaders have focused too narrowly on principals and teachers or boards of education. Meanwhile, superintendents have been elevated to be virtually autonomous throughout public school districts. Yet the study of superintendents as potential levers for social change has remained woefully unexamined. This article reports on a study of school system superintendents within the theoretical frameworks of futures studies and educational leadership. This study was unique in focusing on education system leaders’ perspectives about equity and the future.

Read more in the Journal of Futures Studies