22 September, 2026
Roughly eight in ten U.S. teachers are women, yet only about three in ten superintendents are. That gap is a result of decades of misguided ideas about how (and where) women can succeed. But now, we know that women are highly effective leaders in all areas, including education.
The question is no longer whether women belong in educational leadership. It is when they decide to make the move and how they prepare for it.
When Does a Teacher Know She’s Ready to Lead?
Deciding to become a leader isn’t usually a light bulb moment, it’s a consistent pull teachers feel toward wanting to solve problems outside of their own classrooms. Teachers know they’re ready to lead when they come to a defined idea about where challenges can be solved and are ready to invest time and resources to build the skills and authority it takes to solve them.
Moving From the Classroom to a Leadership Role
The move from classroom to leadership usually unfolds gradually through the volunteer roles teacher-leaders take on before becoming a principal, superintendent, or other kind of leaders. Common interim steps include:
- Chairing a department, grade-level team or curriculum committee
- Coaching newer colleagues
- Redesigning assessments, pacing guides or intervention systems for a whole grade or school
- Mediating non-student conflict — with parents, colleagues or administrators — without losing focus on students
Many of the skills relevant to these opportunities — leadership, mentoring, curriculum design and conflict resolution — are transferable from the classroom; the difference shifts primarily in scale and scope. Influencing a school means shaping the instructional priorities under which every teacher works.
How Returning to School Fits Into a Full Life
Teachers are seen as having a lot of free time (what teacher hasn’t heard the old stereotype about being “done with work after 3 p.m.”?), but grading, curriculum planning and after-school activities often take place after the school day ends. Many teachers are also managing their families, household, relationships and personal commitments.
With women in K-12 leadership already reporting making greater career sacrifices than their male colleagues, the decision to return to school is not easy. But, universities understand this reality and have built educational leadership master’s degrees that work with the needs of working educators.
Flexible scheduling, evening live sessions, independent coursework and hybrid delivery let a working teacher stay in her classroom while preparing for what comes next. There will still be a time investment, but these programs keep demands manageable so leadership preparation adds to the work teachers are already doing.
Why How You Learn Matters as Much as What You Learn
Curriculum determines what a graduate program covers, but format determines what the student can actually do. A program can have the most theoretically perfect curriculum in the world, but if an educator has to give up their responsibilities for years to be in the program, it will never work. Instead, a flexible format and dedicated cohort are what encourage educational leadership students to advance their education, and therefore their district.
The Case for Hybrid Learning in Educational Leadership
The strongest preparation puts a teacher in front of real problems, gives the frameworks to analyze them and then sends her back to a school where she can try the analysis out. Hybrid learning is the modality that most closely matches that loop. Online coursework builds the theoretical grounding. In-person campus immersions or live online classes provide the case-based discussion and peer critique that require presence to work.
Peer-to-peer discussion feeds problem-solving in schools, and vice versa. A dilemma raised in an in-person session gets tested in school meetings, and an observation from that meeting becomes the material for the next discussion. A curriculum with hybrid delivery recognizes that the iteration is the point.
How Small Cohorts Build Lifelong Professional Relationships
A small cohort changes the underlying math of a graduate program. When the same 15 or 20 people move through coursework together, they see one another under pressure and learn how others use different methods to solve similar problems. That is different from having a mentor, who guides from a step ahead, or a sponsor, who advocates behind closed doors. A cohort is a lateral network of peers who know your work.
The professional value shows up in the years-long network that follows graduation. The classmate who was an instructional coach becomes a principal in a neighboring district. The one who was a curriculum specialist ends up leading assessment for a state agency. All these individuals are great colleagues, but they’re also references and referrals to high-level leadership roles. How a program structures its cohort determines whether those connections form once and fade, or hold as career-long infrastructure.
To learn more about the online programs at Lehigh University College of Education and download a brochure, please fill out the form. You can also talk one-on-one with an enrollment specialist directly by calling (610) 215-2867 or emailing us at edprograms@lehigh.edu.
What Is the Real Impact of Women in Educational Leadership?
When women lead schools and districts, measurable things change for students and for the women who follow.
How Female Educational Leaders Change Student Outcomes
Leadership is the second-biggest school-based influence on student learning, behind only classroom teaching. The gender-specific evidence is thinner, given that women-run schools are far less common than men-run, but results are trending positively. A UNESCO-IIEP study in Benin found that students in schools led by women scored 0.31 standard deviations higher in reading, and similar patterns have emerged in Madagascar, Togo and Senegal.
Most of the strongest gender-specific data is international, and U.S. researchers are still building comparable evidence. The picture is best read as promising rather than settled. What the research does support is that female leadership is associated with measurable gains for students, not simply with symbolic representation.
The Ripple Effect of One Woman’s Leadership
The ripple effect of female leadership is structural, not just inspirational. One woman in a superintendent’s office or a principal’s chair changes who sits on hiring committees, who gets tapped as an assistant principal and who a rising teacher can call for advice.
ILO Group researchers have found that majority-female school boards are more likely than majority-male boards to select female superintendents, meaning leadership begets leadership at the level where hiring decisions are actually made. And when more women lead, we move further toward a fair and equitable education sector.
Turn your passion for education into expansive leadership.
Learn more about Lehigh College of Education’s Master of Education in Educational Leadership (K-12).
Become an Education Leader With a Master’s From Lehigh
The Master of Education in Educational Leadership (K-12) degree from the Lehigh College of Education gives education professionals the training they need to work in leadership roles within a wide variety of educational settings. This program is available in online and hybrid formats, offering students the flexibility to learn from home 100% of the time, or join us for summer immersions at our Bethlehem, PA campus.
All students work through a comprehensive core curriculum. Hybrid students can also choose from six tracks with coursework that aligns with varying educational leadership credentials and career areas:
- General Education and Leadership (choosing your own electives)
- Principal Certification
- Curriculum and Instruction
- Social, Emotional and Behavioral Wellness
- Special Education Leadership
- Independent School Leadership
Learn how the College of Education is supporting its students
Our faculty provide comprehensive instruction on key skill areas for education leaders, including organizational leadership, research, data-based decision-making and diversity, equity and inclusion.
The Lehigh College of Education is home to top-ranked academic programs. We prepare students for leadership roles in evidence-based, cross-disciplinary inquiry that shapes educational practices on the national and international level.
Learn more about the M.Ed. in Educational Leadership (K-12) by downloading a brochure, or start your application today.
