How women have advanced from the educational ranks to the highest
administrative positions in the public schools is revealed in figures
just compiled by the United States Bureau of Education. Four states,
Colorado, Idaho, Washington, and Wyoming, have women at the head of
their state school systems, and there are now 495 women county
superintendents in the United States, nearly double the number of ten
years ago.
In some states women appear to have almost a monopoly of the higher
positions in the public-school system. In Wyoming, besides a woman state
superintendent and deputy superintendent, all but one of the fourteen
counties are directed educationally by women. In Montana, where there
are thirty counties, only one man is reported as holding the position of
county superintendent.
The increase in the number of women county superintendents is most
conspicuous in the West, but is not confined to that section. New York
reports forty-two women “district superintendents,” as against twelve
“school commissioners” in 1900.