Education Week - September 17, 2014 - 10

DIGITAL DIRECTIONS > Tracking news and ideas in educational technology
www.digitaldirections.org
Female Ed-Tech Chiefs
Seen to Face Inequities
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
by groups such as the International
Leadership Network for Women in
EdTech, formed in June in part to
improve career opportunities and
compensation for women in the
public and private ed-tech sectors.
At the national level, the difference
between what women and men
are paid for similar work is receiving
renewed attention as a significant
policy issue. The so-called gender
pay gap is widely recognized,
although calculating its exact size
and nature can be difficult because
of differences in workers' qualifications
and variations in how their
work and compensation are structured.
In
recent years, President Barack
Obama and other leading Democrats
have pushed for, but failed to
pass, a federal Paycheck Fairness
Act.
For workers in technology-related
jobs in the private sector, the gender
pay gap is significant, but narrower
than for workers with similarly
high-paying jobs in finance, business,
or health care. Women, however,
are underrepresented-often
dramatically-in such positions.
In public education, meanwhile,
the dynamic appears different:
Women are well-represented, but
information on their access to, and
compensation for, specific districtlevel
leadership positions is scattered.
If
female officials in school technology
are being undervalued, as
the new CoSN/Education Week analysis
suggests, it's important to call
attention to that reality, said Jean
Tower, the director of technology for
the 4,700-student Northborough
and Southborough public schools in
Massachusetts.
"Superintendents who do the hiring
need to own the data," said Ms.
Tower, who also chairs CoSN's board
of directors. "And my colleagues
have to make sure they understand
the playing field so they're equipped
with the information they need to
advocate for themselves."
Less Pay, Lesser Titles
The Education Week Research
Center's analysis of CoSN survey
data focused on responses from
230 individuals-152 men and 78
women-who provided enough information
to determine their gender.
The survey targeted the highest-ranking
technology official in
each school district.
Eighty percent of the women responding
reported having an advanced
academic degree, compared
with 68 percent of the men.
And 85 percent of the female respondents
reported having been in
the K-12 ed-tech field for 10 years
or more, compared with 73 percent
of the male respondents.
10 | EDUCATION WEEK | September 17, 2014 | www.edweek.org
Despite those advantages in credentialing
and experience, just 37
percent of the women reported
earning more than $100,000 a year,
compared with almost half the men.
And 64 percent of the female respondents
reported holding a relatively
prestigious title, such as chief
technology officer, chief information
officer, or district technology director,
compared with three-fourths
of the men. A significantly greater
proportion of women than men had
lower-level titles such as technology
coordinator or manager.
For Mr. Krueger, who has led
CoSN for 20 years, the findings were
a surprise, mostly because women
have traditionally found more technology-related
career opportunities
in public school systems than in
other sectors.
"There simply haven't been
women in [technology] leadership
positions in business and health
care and higher education," he said.
"But in K-12, a lot of [women] come
up through the instructional side of
the house to head up technology."
The numbers back up that perception.
Women who responded to the
CoSN survey were significantly more
likely to have professional backgrounds
in education or instruction
than were males: Fifty-nine percent
of the women came up through the
classroom versus 42 percent of the
men.
That women appear to earn less
than men even when they do land
a district-level tech-leadership position
may reflect a continued overvaluation
of the technical skills
frequently associated with men
who come from a technology background,
especially among the leaders
of the country's largest districts,
Mr. Krueger said.
One reason for optimism about
correcting the apparent gender
pay gap in the K-12 ed-tech field,
he said, is an emerging recognition
that an effective district chief technology
officer must also understand
the educational mission of schools
and the importance of effective col80%
68%
85% 73%
A GENDER PAY GAP IN K-12 ED TECH?
New survey data provided by the Consortium for School
Networking for exclusive analysis by the Education Week
Research Center suggests noteworthy inequities in the
professional opportunities and pay available to women
technology leaders working in K-12 school districts.
To view CoSN's complete 2014 IT Leadership Survey,
visit: www.cosn.org/ITsurvey2014
Female district technology leaders who responded to CoSN's
2014 survey report being more experienced and equally or
better credentialed than their male counterparts ...
Have graduate degree
Have 10+ years experience
in the K-12 ed-tech field
laboration across departments as
diverse as curriculum and finance.
"We see more and more superintendents
saying, 'I want someone I
can communicate with, who has a
vision of what learning looks like,' "
Mr. Krueger said.
Long Climb
Women currently hold the top
... But report earning less money than men and
being less likely to hold a top job in their field.
Earn more than $100,000/year
Hold prestigious title
technology jobs in the 345,000-student
Miami-Dade County, Fla.,
schools; the 316,000-student Clark
County, Nev., school system; and
Tennessee's 81,000-student Metropolitan
Nashville schools, among
other prominent districts.
But for Alice Owen, now the executive
director of the Texas K12 CTO
Council, which is a state chapter of
CoSN, the new survey data offer a
disappointing reminder of the professional
barriers women still face,
despite such advances.
Ms. Owen retired last year as
the division director of technology
services for Texas' 34,000-student
Irving school district, where for 10
years she managed one of the longest-running
1-to-1 student computing
initiatives in the nation.
Throughout her career, she said,
opportunities in educational technology
were available for women with
curiosity, initiative, and a willingness
to move in search of better situations.
But it wasn't easy.
As a classroom teacher in the
64% 75%
37% 48%
1980s, Ms. Owen said, she became
an "early adopter" of the newfangled
personal computers that her school
purchased. She checked them out
from the library and kept them in
her classroom for the entire school
year because other teachers weren't
sure what to do with them.
Later, as a principal, she made
SOURCE: The survey data included in this analysis are a subset of CoSN's 2014
IT Leadership Survey. They include responses from 230 K-12 technology leaders. Data were
analyzed by Denise Shorey, the president and CEO of consulting firm e-Luminosity, and Holly
Yettick, the director of the Education Week Research Center.
Jean Tower meets
with Andrew
Mariotti, the network
administrator for the
Northborough and
Southborough public
schools. Ms. Tower is
also chairwoman of
the board of
directors for the
Washington-based
Consortium for
School Networking.
such successful use of her school's
first computer lab, she said, that her
superintendent was persuaded to
invest in providing more machines
for every classroom.
And after becoming a districtlevel
staff-development director,
Ms. Owen said, she found that there
was no existing computer program
capable of effectively managing the
extensive records she had to keep.
So she and a friend built their own
software, which they eventually sold
to a number of other districts.
After her own climb up the K-12
ed-tech ladder, she said, it's disheartening
to see that a gender pay
gap apparently persists for those
following her.
"Women should receive the pay
they deserve," Ms. Owen said.
It's not clear whether such a gender
pay gap exists in other K-12
leadership positions.
According to the Alexandria, Va.based
AASA, the School Superintendents
Association, for example,
the overall median salary of female
superintendents is actually higher
than that of their male counterCharlie
Mahoney/Prime for Education Week

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Education Week - September 17, 2014

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