In the country’s 500 largest school districts, one-third of superintendents were women as of July, according to the 2025 update of the ILO Group’s Superintendent Research Project.
The education strategy and policy firm, which launched the initiative in 2021 to track national trends related to the role, says this is the highest level it’s observed to date, citing data as far back as 2018.
Additionally, women accounted for 39 percent of new superintendent appointments in the past year.
ILO Group projects that by 2054, there will be equal numbers of women and men serving in the position in the country’s most populus districts.
By gender, according to the update, more superintendents who are women have earned doctoral degrees (74 percent) compared to men (69 percent) — a trend consistent with the prior year.
Women were most likely to be selected as superintendent in districts that chose a leader internally and/or where they had served as an interim superintendent, ILO Group found.
Overall, most new superintendents were internal hires in 2025. “Men are more likely to rise to the superintendency as external hires and to have previously served as superintendents or assistant superintendents,” according to ILO Group.
Turnover
Superintendent turnover is also at historic rates, with 114 of the 500 districts (23 percent) considered having at least one leadership change between July 1, 2024, and July 1, 2025.
“The role of superintendent is one of the most influential in public education and yet data show that districts and states continue to face destabilizing turnover,” said Julia Rafal-Baer, ILO Group co-founder and CEO, in a statement. “This year’s findings make clear that the leadership churn we once considered temporary is now the new normal, and it is straining districts at the very moment students need steady, effective leadership the most. By tapping into the full pool of highly qualified, battle-tested leaders already in our schools and state education agencies, we can both improve leadership stability and ensure every community has the leadership it needs to meet today’s challenges and deliver for students.”
Similarly, at the state-level, 20 percent of states saw transitions in leadership in the last year. Fifty-three percent of state superintendent roles are filled by women in 2025, up from 47 percent in 2024.
