Why Do People Want To Become School Administrators?

By Beryl Darrah

Before I retired, I spent 40 years working in the field of education, both here in the United States and South Vietnam.  During these forty years, I taught at the secondary level, at the junior high school or middle school level, and at the elementary level.  I spent ten years as a counselor at both the elementary and secondary levels.   And I also held a wide variety of other thankless (and often non-paying) jobs ranging from technology coordinator, drug education coordinator, Title 1 coordinator, professional development coordinator, Intervention Team coordinator, Parents As Teachers coordinator, track coach, cross-country coach, and intramural director.  I probably served as a chairman or a member of every committee ever devised in a public school----text book selection committees, QPA committees, school improvement committees, American Education Week committees, teacher selection committees, curriculum committees, technology committees, study committees-----and almost anything else with the word “committee” following it.

Among my certifications are secondary history and government, middle school English, elementary school teacher, elementary and secondary counselor, and elementary school administrator.

I have taught in schools ranging from the smallest to the largest; from the most modern to the most primitive.  I started my career in education in a two-room school in Rice County, Kansas.  I taught all the subjects in grades five, six, seven and eight.  As I recall, I had a total of twelve students.  Some time later, I taught for a year in South Vietnam with the International Voluntary Services.  I won’t even begin to describe that experience, except to say that this was my “primitive” teaching experience.  I also served as an administrator as the Chief of Education for South Vietnam for two years.  During this period of time I had about 72 American teachers under my supervision, plus several non-teaching Americans and Vietnamese.  I was also on the faculty of both Saigon University and the Buddhist University in Saigon as a language instructor.  Later, after I returned to the USA, I taught social studies and language arts in George Caleb Bingham Junior High School in Kansas City, Missouri.  This was my experience in a large school.   For three years, I “home-schooled” a physically handicapped girl for two hours after I left my regular teaching job for the day.  And, my regular teaching job for 34 years was as a teacher in Valley Falls, Kansas.  It was here that I spent the majority of my professional life teaching first in the high school, but getting promoted successively to junior high school and finally to the sixth grade, before assuming the position of counselor.

If you are wondering why I have gone into such detail about my experience, let me tell you.  I suppose that for many years my ultimate dream or ambition was to be an administrator.  But as the years passed by, the ambition began to diminish and the dream began to fade.  I began to realize that I no longer had any desire to become a school administrator.  Maybe this realization became more pronounced after I had become a counselor and began to work closely with the principal and superintendent.  Maybe it was after I began to take on the “semi administrative” jobs that were mentioned earlier.  But, whatever it was, there came a point in time when I realized that this was no longer an ambition of mine.

In my teaching career, which spans 40 years, I have worked for eleven building principals and eight school superintendents.  Although a couple or three of them were the result of internal promotions, that is a total of nineteen different administrators.  And, that does not count the administrators who tended to come and go at the high school.

During the twenty years that I taught sixth grade, I taught with a grand total of TWO different teachers.  One of these teachers is now retired but is still working for the school district in another capacity.  The other teacher had to leave when her husband received his PhD and was offered a position teaching in a college.

Recently I was thinking back on all the different administrators who have come and gone during my tenure as a teacher, counselor and administrative support person.  Somebody asked me who my favorite administrators were.  By “favorite”, I assumed they were asking whom I thought were the most effective.  As I took some time and mentally went down through the list, I could come up with only one administrator that I thought was truly knowledgeable about what he was doing and was effective in getting the job done.  I could, however, think of several who were completely  ineffective and who obviously had no business being a school administrator.

All this reflection prompted me to start thinking about why so many teachers aspire to become school administrators while others are content to remain in the classroom and teach students.   The simple matter is----there is little that distinguishes the training of an administrator from that of  a teacher.  There is certainly no test that a person takes that indicates that a teacher is so talented that he or she is destined to move out of the classroom and into that magical realm of administration.  Realistically (and sadly) speaking, many, many teachers who remain in the classroom know much more about education, about the art of teaching, about the practical matter of transferring knowledge from one person to another, about the mystical power to inspire a learner and about the mundane day to day details of making a classroom and a school work.

It is possible that a vast majority of teachers may even be brighter than the average administrator.   They have made better grades in college.  They may have been a more successful teachers.  They may have been more respected by both students and faculty.  And it is entirely possible that they still are.

What was it about being in the classroom that made the aspiring administrator want to leave it?  Let’s be honest.  All it takes for anybody to become an administrator is time, money and some perseverance.   Money to pay for the classes.  Time to invest in taking the classes.  Perseverance to stick with it until the required number of credits are completed.

I know. I did it.

There is no “calling”; no baptism; no ordination.  Take your classes.  Send your transcripts to the State Department of Education.  Pay the money for the fee.  Receive your certification through the mail.  Start looking for a job as administrator.  It is as simple and straightforward as that.

Let’s get back to considering why a person might want to become a school administrator.

Let me admit, first of all, that back in that day and age when I had lofty ambitions about becoming a school administrator, is was mostly because of the prestige that I felt went with the position.  It would be the crowing highlight of a distinguished career as an educator.  I would go out “on top”.  And my social security and retirement benefits would be higher as I faced old age and retirement.

But somewhere along the way----I think it was after I had become counselor and had begin to work more closely with the administrators and take on some quasi-administrative duties of my own.----I began to have second thoughts.   I began to realize that I simply was not cut out to be a school principal.  The thought of having parents yelling and bitching at me was not very appealing.  I was afraid that I would simply tell them to go ____ themselves.  The idea of constantly answering to a superintendent who has sometimes has very little grasp of what is going on in the classroom, but feels that he (or she) must react to every negative remark by a patron, was not something that I wanted to be part of.  Trying to maintain discipline, often without the support of the parents and sometimes the superintendent, looked like a hopeless situation.  Trying to be an educational and instructional leader to a diverse group of teachers, most of whom are covered by strict tenure laws and often continue to “to their own thing” with little threat of  punishment, looked frustrating.  Living with the knowledge that school board members, who have written and approved a “chain of command” policy, but seldom follow it,  get most of their information through their social and personal contacts----information that is rarely, if ever, passed on to the appropriate person, makes life dangerous for an administrator who is not covered by tenure laws, to say the least.

Of course, I have painted the picture rather harshly to illustrate my own personal doubts about becoming an administrator.   Obviously there are degrees of truth to each of these doubts.  And, obviously, there are people who thrive and flourish in such situations.  They are master educators, skilled organizers, effective communicators, wise disciplinarians, and adroit diplomats.   Usually they are “people lovers” who genuinely like people and have a knack of getting along with them.  They are adept in the art of persuasion.  They have a good understanding of human nature.  They tend to be stable people with highly a developed sense of ethics, values, and morals.  These people have a good chance of being good and effective administrators.  A school with high morale among its teachers, staff, student body and parents; a school that is achieving at a high level; a school with a minimum of discipline problems; a school with a high attendance rate; a school with happy and contented learners is usually a reflection of its principal, and to a lesser extent to its superintendent and board of education who empowers him or her.

But, surely I do not need to point out that many administrators to not place high on such a rubric.

It is interesting to take a brief look at “supply and demand” in comparing the supply of administrative candidates to that of certain other fields in education.

Generally speaking (and you can check out your own area and its situation), some positions are almost impossible to fill.  Each year, thousands of special education vacancies go unfilled across the nation because there are simply not any qualified and certified teachers to fill them.  Math teachers, science teachers and computer teachers are also in short demand.  Many schools (if not most) are forced to actively recruit teachers for these positions.  Rarely is there a list of candidates to choose from.  Vocal and instrumental teachers are almost non-existent, as are art teachers, industrial education teachers, home economic teachers, and foreign language teachers.  Even counselors are in short supply.

It is no mystery why these teachers are not available.  Students with majors in these fields can make much more money by taking a job in the private sector.  They often can start at twice as much money as a school district can offer them.  And experience teachers are leaving the field of education to pursue jobs in the private sector, too.  Not only do these people know they can make more money working in a job out side the school setting, they know they do not have to put up with the stress of dealing with kids all day.  They do not have to deal with principals and other administrators.  They know that unhappy or irate parents are not going to be harassing them.  They know that usually their job will start at a definite time and end at a definite time, with no “extra duty”.

So, back to the question of why teachers want to become administrators.

1.  I would hope that the major and overriding reason is because they possess the qualities necessary to make schools better and to help teachers teach more effectively, which, in turn will help students to achieve at their maximum level.  And there is no doubt in my mind that this is the reason why many people want to become school administrators.  They feel they can take their positive experiences, their expertise, their understanding, their dedication and their unique talents and use them to improve the quality of schools and to enhance the quality and quantity of learning that goes on within their walls.

Most of these administrators are compassionate human beings who have the ability to relate authentically to teachers and staff and also to the students to lead and inspire them to do their very best.  They are usually innovative and resourceful people who go beyond the ordinary in finding ways to encourage and uplift the people around them.  They are not afraid of trying new ideas, of taking positive risks, to venturing into the unknown in order to promote increased learning and better teaching.  And, maybe more important, they encourage their teachers and students to do the same.

These administrators usually feel secure personally, they have a positive self-concept, and, for the most part, do not feel they have to constantly “prove” themselves to others.  They can admit when they are wrong, put it behind them and head another direction.  And they are able to afford this option to others, too.  They welcome new ideas, whether these new ideas are their own or whether they come from somebody else----possibly a teacher, or heaven forbid, a student.  They do not feel threatened because they do not always have all the answers.   These administrators lead by example.  They can say not only “Do as I say”, but also “Do as I do.”

2.  It has also occurred to me that another reason that a person might want to become an administrator is because of the power, or least the perceived power, that comes with the job.  I suppose that within the education community, at least, the title of principal probably does carry with it a certain amount of prestige, at least perceived prestige.

Have you ever noticed that some people just are not content unless they are the boss?  Of course, they may not know what is going on, or they may not be very good at the job they are doing----but they like to be in control.  Maybe it is a personality flaw.  Maybe they are simply insecure.  Maybe they feel inadequate, and being in control helps them to overcome or compensate for these feelings.  I am not sure what the answer is.  However, in my tenure as an educator, I have encountered at least one administrator who fits this pattern almost perfectly.

As far as I know, this administrator never actually taught a single day in a regular classroom.  His entire experience had been teaching PE and Drivers Education.  Along with some other rather serious problems, he was very defensive about his lack of  classroom experience and his obviously ignorance of some very basic knowledge of teaching methodology and pedagogy.  But one thing was for certain, he thoroughly enjoyed being the boss----playing the part of the “big dog”.

It has been said that in order to be a good leader, a person must first be a good follower.  It would seem that many people who become administrators in order to exercise power were probably “problem teachers”.  They were probably the ones who constantly disagreed with the rules, argued with their principal, complained about all the “stupid rules” they had to follow, babbled on and on in faculty meetings about all the faults of the school, the students, the parents, the school board, the “system”, the administrators, the curriculum-----but rarely, if ever, offered any constructive suggestions to improve the situation.  Or, if they did offer suggestions, they made it clear that their suggestions were the only “right” suggestions, and everybody else was wrong.

They are basically unhappy people who cannot tolerate other ideas, who cannot bear the thought that somebody else may be right, and are too narrow minded to consider other suggestions, ideas, and concepts.  Being an administrator affords them the opportunity to impose their will on others with little fear of contradiction.

This type of administrator makes life miserable for everybody, and fortunately their tenure is usually quite short.

3.  Here is another broad category that I think many administrators fit into.  As young college students they choose to become teachers because:  1.  They really think they will enjoy working with young people.  2.  They want to coach, and being a teacher is part of the price they have to pay to accomplish this.  3.  They only have to work nine months, and then they have their summers free.  4.  They set their goals on a given profession, but somewhere along the way, they find it is either too difficult for them, or they are simply too lazy or not sufficiently motivated to put forth the effort required for the degree.  So, what can I do?  I will become a teacher.  I can probably handle that.  Anyone can become a teacher, can’t they?

Anyway, once they start teaching, they find that teaching is a very demanding profession.  To be a good teacher takes a lot of  effort, long hours of work, and a lot of dedication.  There are lessons to be prepared.  There are tests to construct.  There are papers to grade.  There are parents to deal with.  There are discipline problems to deal with.  There are meetings to attend.  There are constant deadlines.  There is the constant expectation that students will do well on State tests and standardized tests.  There is always a greater or lesser degree of stress that is always present.

And, the pay is not good!  To a young college graduate, who has been living on practically nothing for four or five years (unless they have rich  and generous parents),  twenty-seven or twenty-eight thousand dollars probably seems like a small fortune.  But they soon get in touch with reality.  The car they want to buy probably costs more than that!  And they hadn’t counted on federal taxes, state taxes, social security, retirement, union dues, and insurance!

They begin to wonder.  Why am I doing this?  Why am I working so hard and why am I under so much stress and pressure for practically poverty wages?  It just isn’t worth it.  But what am I going to do?  My degree probably isn’t going to get me very far out in the private sector----that is why I am teaching in the first place.  But wait.  I will go back to school, get my Masters Degree and become an administrator.  Those people don’t have to work nearly as hard as I do.  They don’t have nearly the amount of stress that I do.  And, beside that, they are really raking in the bucks.

No doubt some of this category of administrators go on to be quite good at their job.  But, on the other hand, probably an equal number simply bring their lazy attitudes with them, and it isn’t long before they begin to feel the same way about their job as administrator.

4.  I could be wrong, but I suspect that the main reason that any teacher would aspire to become an administrator and would exert the time, effort and money to become certified as an administrator has something to do with money!

I think that many teachers like their job as teacher, and they probably wish they could continue teaching for the remainder of their career.  But for many teachers it simply a matter of economics----they have to make more money to support themselves and their families.  As a teacher, there isn’t much prospect of “advancement” except to become an administrator.  Many teachers sponsor all sort of extra-curricular activities in order to supplement their teaching salary.  But, unfortunately, even sponsoring several activities really doesn’t increase a teacher’s salary by an appreciable amount.  And the extra amount of money a teacher earns by doing this certainly is not commensurate with the amount of additional work that the activity demands.  It is only a matter of time before the teacher begins to realize that assuming a variety of sponsorships isn’t the answer.  They find themselves spending more and more time away from their family.  They often find themselves spending as much time working on their extra-curricular activity as they do their regular classes and for infinitely less pay.  This time can come from two places:  They can spend time outside of school hours working, as the expense of their own free time and their families, or they can begin to work on it during their regular classes.

It is no secret that many teachers have “second jobs” in order to supplement their incomes.  This, also, soon begins to take its toll.  So often a teachers simply puts two and two together and decides the only way to continue working in the field of education is to become an administrator.

I don’t know if this is good or bad.  It depends on the motivation, I suppose.  If a teacher really loves working with students and is dedicated to helping students learn.  If they really can’t imagine doing anything else with their life.  If they are willing, and capable, and eager to put their expertise, their training, their knowledge and their experience to work in helping students become better learners and in helping teachers become better teachers, then it is good.

If it is simply a way to escape what the teacher perceives as drudgery and to make what they think is an “easy buck”, then it is bad.