Saviors or System Supporters: White Women Educators

Unpacking the Historical Roots of White Women in Education

Mandy Griffin and Katy Swalwell delve into the complex history of white women in American education, exploring their roles from the 18th century to the present and how these roles have been shaped by societal norms and systemic issues. The discussion includes the evolution of public schools, the feminization of the teaching profession, and the exclusion of educators of color, focusing on the impact of figures like Horace Mann and Catherine Beecher. The episode also critiques current educational practices and emphasizes the importance of critical reflection, curriculum inclusivity, and understanding the socioeconomic contexts of education.

Transcript

Speaker 0:00

Hi, this is Mandy Griffin. And I'm Katie Swalwell, and welcome to our Dirty Laundry, stories of white ladies making a mess of things and how we need to clean up our act.

Mandy 0:15

Hi everybody.

katy 0:16

Hi. I feel very rusty today. It's been a while.

Mandy 0:20

I know. this is what we do. We like

katy 0:22

I

Mandy 0:22

project and we're really good

katy 0:24

know. I know.

Mandy 0:25

and

katy 0:25

And then we

Mandy 0:26

we

katy 0:26

fall off.

Mandy 0:28

oh, okay, we gotta take a

katy 0:29

I

Mandy 0:29

for

katy 0:29

know.

Mandy 0:30

And then it turns into a much longer than a minute, but

katy 0:33

Yes, a metaphorical minute. I was laughing today because I thought, gosh, if we were better organized about this season, what I wanna teach you today probably would've been like the very first thing we did. But I don't think it matters, like time's, not linear. We're li we're, this is a quantum podcast. You're here, there, layers of things. It's fine. You, you can learn things out of order.

Mandy 0:54

But can I teach one really quick lesson about when time is important? Just

katy 0:58

Okay.

Mandy 0:59

this, like my A DHD brain just went squirrel when we

katy 1:02

Yes. Okay. Okay.

Mandy 1:03

let me take this moment to educate people on something in the medical field, since that's what I do. For

katy 1:10

Yeah.

Mandy 1:10

listening who has not heard I work, my main job is in the emergency department and one of my. Biggest pet peeves in the entire world is when I ask a patient, when something started, when did your chest pain start? When did your headache start? When did you start vomiting? And they're just like, oh it's been a while. And I'm like.

katy 1:29

I, I absolutely say that. Yeah. Yeah.

Mandy 1:33

that mean to you? Was it

katy 1:35

Mm-hmm.

Mandy 1:36

Has it been like three months? Has it been like, I don't, a while does not help me. Like I want a date and a time. Or when people say something like, oh, it started when I got home from work. don't live with you. I don't know when you got home from work. know what

katy 1:50

Yeah.

Mandy 1:51

schedule is like. No. And the youths love to say it's been a minute, like that's their thing for instead of a while, it's been a minute. I'm like, Oh so one minute ago. So you had a symptoms for a minute and then you came into the It makes me so irritated. Of course, when I'm talking to someone, I

katy 2:08

Oh yeah.

Mandy 2:09

and professionally. I'm like, tell me exactly what that means to you.'cause I don't know, is that a day or

katy 2:13

In this moment, I'm, I'm picturing me in the room, like whispering into the patient's ear oh, she hates you. Oh, she's being nice, but she fucking hates you. Just to

Mandy 2:24

like,

katy 2:25

reveal you. I know,

Mandy 2:27

give me a

katy 2:28

but here's.

Mandy 2:28

timeframe. That

katy 2:30

In defense of these patients because this is absolutely how I respond. It is hard because when something initially starts happening, I don't really start tracking it until I've noticed that it is on repeat a little bit. It's not like your period where you're like, oh, here it is today, and I put in my calendar.

Mandy 2:51

calendar every

katy 2:52

Oh, I, it's why I put in my calendar. I'm like, okay, it's happening. B, you know, otherwise I won't remember, but at least I, I know it's this thing that's happening that I mark on my calendar. If I have like indigestion or oh, I have weird hip pain. It's oh, it's, who knows? It could be a million different things. It's not like I get into my calendar and I'm like, hip pain. I don't wanna be the neurotic nightmare person who's four, 4:12 PM March 7th, hip pain. It, it like, then it would just be nonstop me logging things, you know? So it's like you, you have to give it a bit before you start to say, yes, this is a thing. And then, so whenever I do, whenever a doctor asks like, when is it started? I'm like, well, I started. Tracking it at this time, but that it, it's always some indeterminate period before that. Plus, I rarely just have any sense of where and when I am. Let's just be honest, like I'm floating through this universe. So the fact that I got to that appointment and I am there is a feat.

Mandy 3:57

sense and I'm, I'm completely on board with that when we're talking about like issues that you're going to see a primary care for when you're in the emergency room.

katy 4:07

Okay. Yeah, that's totally fair. That's, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Mandy 4:10

been going on for a while.

katy 4:11

That's

Mandy 4:12

Because

katy 4:13

fair.

Mandy 4:13

answer to a while is, well, it hasn't killed you yet, So go make an appointment with

katy 4:18

So go home.

Mandy 4:20

and get outta

katy 4:21

Oh. Oh my gosh.

Mandy 4:22

there's tons of people out there listening to this that are gonna be pissy about this now.'cause I've been on the boards. I know. People hate emergency rooms. They hate emergency room providers. They think we don't care.

katy 4:32

You do care. No, you care so much.

Mandy 4:35

your primary care provider. And I know that primary care in this country sucks. And I

katy 4:40

know that.

Mandy 4:40

super hard to get into anybody. And I don't like when people are legitimately and like earnestly coming to the ER because they can't get into their primary

katy 4:51

Right, right, right.

Mandy 4:52

That's fine. But that is, I'm gonna tell you Right. now, that is not how. Most people present to the er. You think that most people are reasonable, not the people that come to the ER all the

katy 5:02

Do you think the hospital would be willing to pay me to sit out front and be like a concierge that's welcome to the hospital, and then I would be the buffer.

Mandy 5:13

Screener?

katy 5:13

right, who's scream. I'm like, great, you this is what is happening to you. You can move to the left, and the left is like the exit to the hospital. And then someone gives you information about primary care doctors who are taking patients or whatever. Maybe that would be a service I could provide.

Mandy 5:29

and that's like a good selling point for universal healthcare'cause that is

katy 5:34

Oh, yeah.

Mandy 5:35

work in countries that have universal healthcare. If you go to the ER and you don't have an emergency, they send you over to the urgent care or the primary care, but that's because they know that you'll be accepted there.

katy 5:46

Right.

Mandy 5:47

medical system, there's no guarantee that you're

katy 5:49

No.

Mandy 5:50

by any of

katy 5:51

No.

Mandy 5:51

people. So one. Hospitals just take everything, even if it's bullshit, because they don't want the liability of dismissing something that can't be

katy 5:59

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mandy 6:00

two, because quite frankly, hospitals make a shit ton of money off of patients coming into the er,

katy 6:06

Mm.

Mandy 6:06

the providers. So get this straight. Let me also educate on this. you get an ER bill, the percentage of it that's going to your actual medical provider is minuscule.

katy 6:16

Mm-hmm.

Mandy 6:17

that is going to the hospitals is astronomical, and

katy 6:21

Okay. This is

Mandy 6:22

CEOs of

katy 6:23

okay. That's my question is.

Mandy 6:25

millions of dollars, and all of the other C-suite people underneath them. And like for example, I took Sam several years ago and he broke his arm. My hospital bill was$2,600. He just got an X-ray. That's it.

katy 6:41

Mm-hmm.

Mandy 6:41

ER for like less than an hour. He got an x-ray and a splint,$2,600. The physician portion of that bill was$80.

katy 6:49

Oh

Mandy 6:50

So this is where our anger should be

katy 6:53

yeah. I mean, you don't need to sell me.

Mandy 6:55

We know, we

katy 6:56

On universal healthcare. You don't need to sell me on anger and rage. Yes, that, oh my God, that's, ugh. We'll knock on all the wood that, yeah. No, no, no, no, no. This is good. This is helpful. Thank you for the education. For those of you who do not know, Mandy is a trained physician's assistant in the er. I am trained in the world of education, which is actually what we're gonna talk about today is education. So now we're gonna enter my world. Let me school you. Pun intended. But this season we've been talking about. The weaponization of white women as mothers. And one of the things that we keep coming back to and circling around is schooling and education and white women as moms interfacing with schools in all kinds of ways. And we've had amazing interviews so far with historians and organizers and just, we keep kind of circling this connection, but I wanna make it super, super clear today that. Pro. I will just say, I think the way this is my stance after doing some of this background research for today is that the most profound way that white women weaponize their motherhood is through education, is through being teachers and schooling. And I think it's cousin social work, which we'll get to, like how the, you know, just work with children that you get paid for, let's put it that way. Paid underpaid for, we can put that out there. Even So, I have a couple articles that I read to prep for today and I am kind of teeing us up for. A whole bunch of stuff and I'm going to lay out sort of my map for the next two to four years since we don't regularly record. Who knows how long this is going to take. Maybe six weeks. We'll see how it goes. Okay. But I really think that even just thinking of the word we've chosen for the season of weaponizing motherhood

Mandy 8:53

Mm-hmm.

katy 8:54

actually not even that metaphorical. It's. It's sometimes literal.

Mandy 8:58

Yeah.

katy 8:59

first article that I pulled is by two scholars Zeus, Leonardo and Erica Boaz. And Zeus Leonardo is one of my favorite scholars who studies race like in a sociological kind of way. I think his work is just so incredibly helpful, and this is from. A chapter they wrote called Other Kids Teachers, what Children of Color Learn from White Women and what this says about race, whiteness, and gender in the handbook of critical Race theory and education. And they say, just as every army is composed of different tactical positions in order to secure or conquer a territory. So does whiteness consist of its own foot soldiers officers in generals who perform different functions but whose allegiance to whiteness is not the question with respect to white women. Although they may not call the shots, they often pull the trigger. Yep.

Mandy 9:49

that's pretty

katy 9:50

I

Mandy 9:51

sums up everything that we've,

katy 9:52

I know it's a tagline for this podcast.

Mandy 9:55

Yeah,

katy 9:56

I know.

Mandy 9:56

the trigger.

katy 9:57

Yes. I mean, I honestly sometimes do call the shots like I'm thinking about Elizabeth Gillespie McCray's book that we read and all the ways that white women in the South that she was tracking over many decades. We're increasingly, I think, power brokers in all kinds of ways, but not in formal positions of power. Very rarely in institutional formal positions of power. So when we talk about Zeus, Leonardo Erika Boas, we're talking specifically about white women teachers, and that's what I want us to kind of pivot to as we're thinking about the weaponization of motherhood and how white women exercise that through the profession of teaching. And again, this is what I. Was trained in, I am an educator. This is what I went to school for. What cracked me up was that I was reading stats on white women in education and in 2020 the average teacher, like the typical teacher across the US was a 43-year-old white woman. I was like, hi. Hi. Yeah, so the te and this actually, I think this is, these stats are, are super, super interesting to me. So the, in 2011, the teaching force was 80% white women. Was that higher or lower than 1986? Like 30 years before. 80% white women in 2011.

Mandy 11:20

I mean,

katy 11:21

Okay.

Mandy 11:22

higher just'cause I'm always on the end of things more horrible now.

katy 11:26

Oh, you're right. Correct. Ding, ding, ding.

Mandy 11:28

trajectory of where we're headed.

katy 11:30

Yes. Not great. We'll circle back to this in a little bit, but in 1986 it was 69% of teachers were white women, so more white women. The profession is more. White women ish than it was. And the, at the same time, the demographics of public schools are increasingly diverse. And so there are more and more students of color. So in the same year that the stat of 80% white women teachers existed, it was 50 ish percent of public school students were students of color. And now it's about 56% across the nation. And even this isn't just, even classroom teachers. 77% of principals are white. 89% of superintendents are white. 79% of school board members are white, and principals and superintendents are disproportionately white men. There's like a whole bunch of gendered stuff going on. And this is bad for so, so many reasons. We have tons of research showing just the internalized bias that so many of these educators. Are likely to have and not interrogate. And so there are ways that it plays out in terms of mistreatment of students not catching examples of harmful curriculum. You know, perpetuating that there's a lack of representation, which is not good for the kids in the classroom. But then even if you lift up, it's also just bad because. Working in education is a fairly stable middle class professional option, lower middle class professional option, and so that's just not, it's increasingly less. Accessible to families of color. So there's even like an economic kind of like work angle to this too. But we just know that it's not, and it's not to say that a 43-year-old white woman, cough, cough, wink, wink, couldn't be an amazing educator to. All kinds of kids, right? Like that's of course possible. But the work that that requires and the preparation and training and like unlearning that, that requires is so intense and incredible. And I've worked in many teacher education programs and like the best ones I've worked in are barely doing that, you know?

Mandy 13:46

Oh. And it has to be really intentional, I

katy 13:49

Yes.

Mandy 13:50

in order for it to actually be successful. and I think that's the part about it that. Always gets lost is that you can think I would never do, I would never treat a student Of color differently.

katy 14:02

course, right?

Mandy 14:04

history or under represent things intentionally. But unless you actually look at what you're doing and what's happening based on data, then that is just what happens because that's how the system's set up.

katy 14:18

Mm-hmm. Yes, exactly. And we're gonna talk about the system, why it was set that way, how it is set up. So Leonardo and Boaz talk about, and this is again kind of like a, a good summary of our podcast from enslavement to colonialism. White women have done the work of white supremacy specific to their own place in the hierarchy, producing their own contradictions in the process. And they talk about how they are. So often relegated to social and biological reproductive roles, which is why teaching as an extension of motherhood, because it's caring for children, it's trying to shape children and the future generations, it is such an extension of motherhood. And as the profession of teaching became feminized, that connection of like mother and teacher has just become really, really tight. They do say, and this is, I like this because you always are asking people like, what can we do? So what does that mean? And the chapter ends with really specific action steps. And I think what we're gonna work on today and in the next several episodes is what they are recommending we do. And really, this is also the heart of our podcast. One critically reflect on racialized and gendered histories and how you are implicated in them. Boom. Two, make race and race history part of the curriculum and fight for its maintenance within the curriculum. Yes. Three, teach race as a structural and systemic construct with material differential outcomes that are institutionally embedded, not reducible to identities. Great. And four, work to understand and teach race not as a personal crusade. That is a socio historical construct through which we are all unequally produced. Great.

Mandy 16:00

Yeah,

katy 16:00

Okay, so get into your time machine. This is just as you laid out the joys of the healthcare system. This is a crash course in the history of public schools, and I want to take a little bit of time to do this because my plan is to work us through. Different historical moments and phases and feature some of the white women at these phases. And so it's really useful to have this context and I think it's going to shock people just how recent some of what we take for granted with public schools is that it's actually pretty new, this idea. So, okay. Early Republic, the United States like Revolutionary War time. Late 18th century. Okay. This is literally one of the terms in, in one of the articles I read was hodgepodge and that is what it was, that there was no system of schooling. That it's like real scattered, I don't know, scattershot. So you've got some churches that have schools, you have some local communities who've pitched in for kind of like a proto public school. You've got traveling. Tutors for wealthier people. You've got charity schools that I'm picturing, like orphanages, I don't know. You know, just places that are trying to keep kids informed or not even informed, honestly, just contained in some way. They're we're elite boarding schools pretty early on for fancy pants. There were some like homeschool kinds of things. Some apprenticeship. Work things going on. Just a real mess.

Mandy 17:41

over the

katy 17:42

So.

Mandy 17:43

sort of like colonialistic, like schools for indigenous populations they're trying to assimilate. Maybe

katy 17:51

we'll get to boarding schools. Oh, for, we're gonna have a whole lot to say about genocidal boarding schools for sure.

Mandy 17:57

Yeah.

katy 17:58

there, there were some free schools, like what we would maybe think of as like a public school in the northeast and even a few free schools for African American children, but very, very limited and not in a systematic way. Okay. So. The revolution's happening. We have this like democratic federal republic form of government that's being implemented and the original kind of. Conversations around what needs to happen is really looking at what, what is needed in that kind of government. And this is actually a question that I ask a lot in workshops that I facilitate, is we live in a pluralistic, diverse democratic society or a society attempting. Some measure of democracy that has really deep inequities. And so what does that require? What skills, what knowledge, what values? It's a prompt that I present a lot to people, and there's always been a whole bunch of ways to answer that question. So if I were to ask you like, what are the skills, knowledge, and values that you think. Are necessary for people living in that kind of like a, even if we just say democratic society, like really simple, what are, what would you say are the knowledge, skills, and values needed?

Mandy 19:18

Knowledge, skills and values. And I would say like I think of social programs, like start off with, what is it? What does being in a society offer someone? Like why would you be in a society and want to come together? a group of people rather than, you know, homesteading or being off on your own. What are the

katy 19:36

Hmm.

Mandy 19:36

to that? And then that's I think where I start thinking about then what do you need to set that kind of thing up so you know, your

katy 19:46

Hmm.

Mandy 19:46

basic safety things like road sanitation. Whatever other kind, you know, you're just rudimentary like responder kinds of things, and then getting into sort of like healthcare, education,

katy 20:02

Hmm,

Mandy 20:02

defense, you know? I

katy 20:04

so, that's such an interesting answer. An understanding of the common good and why you should give a shit, basically. Yeah, I think that's really important. A lot of times when I ask that question, people will talk about being informed, you know, so being able to read about or learn about issues of the day, to care about accuracy of information, to be able to discuss things with people who disagree with you. Like if you think about the core function of a citizen as voting, which is not obviously the only function of a citizen, but you think, okay, what does someone need to be a good voter? Like ideally. Being informed, you know, caring about other people, like there's some basic things. So that's all part of the conversation early on. But there's also like character and virtue and that that's right away, that's not, there's never consensus about what the virtues should be. Right? You know, maybe there's some overlap with people, but. That's, that's tricky. But this, these are like the early things, like to care about each other. What are the political and social issues? What does it mean to be a wise voter? Selecting representatives to understand the rights and freedoms they have to resist demagoguery, ideally, you know, not that that would ever happen. But there, there's just a, like a whole mess of things. Of course, at this time. Keep in mind that. Almost everywhere. It was just white property owning men who could vote, who had full citizenship. So already, if we're thinking about some kind of public education, having like a civic mission that already is not evenly applied to everyone because not everybody has the same access to citizenship who's living in this community, right. So right off the bat, there was also an understanding of what that meant for girls. Oh, because girls are going to become mothers. We need them to care about these things too, so that they're raising children who can be good citizens, basically.

Mandy 22:17

Boy, children to

katy 22:18

Boy, the boy children, right? And then girls to be future mothers.

Mandy 22:21

Yeah.

katy 22:22

And again, we're talking just about like white girls in that. So there's all even if you're thinking just civics and you're not, of course there's other things like, oh, you want people to be able to get a job and you know, capitalist reasons, like there's a whole bunch of stuff. But that's how it gets kind of set up is that girls should also be educated because they are going to be mothers who. We need to educate virtuous people, right? Yep. Of course, this is like ignoring enslavement and public schools even early on. So this, we're talking like 1780s, the federal government, early, early US federal government starts giving a whole bunch of land that they have. Stolen from native people to new states as they enter the union with the agreement that those new states set aside a portion of those lands to support public schools, including public universities. So if you've heard of a land grant university, that these are land grants, that's that's what it is. So it was totally dependent on colonial settler colonialism. The land theft and that some of that land would then be reserved for building communities around schools. So there's also this like dark connection to the creation of public schools to land theft and. Yeah, that genocide. So there's that. Yeah, of course. Then you have like early 18 hundreds. The industrial revolution is really, really picking up. You have at up until this point, the schools that did exist, most of the teachers were men. But as the Industrial Revolution picks up, this is when the, the profession starts changing. Not that women weren't also part of the industrial revolution or working in factories or whatever, but as, as the industrial Revolution combined with capitalism is opening up economic opportunities, especially for white men, white women become like teaching is a way for them to have some sort of honorable professional work that is. Seems to be appropriate for them because it involves children. So the profession gets feminized, and this is like rabbit hole. We could go down for another day. I'm fascinated by this. It's still, there's modern research being done about this for college attendance for different professions. It's called the tipping point theory, that when enough women are in a space that men evacuate it. Completely. So it's like a few women are fine, but then once there's more women, it suddenly becomes like a girl job and then gone. The boys are gone. Right. So with this is re modern research shows white collar jobs tip for when it's 25 to 45% women, then men start leaving that field, and blue collar jobs is lower. It's 13 to 30%. Women in a position, then men start leaving that field. It's not wild. So

Mandy 25:22

Yeah,

katy 25:22

you get, you, all you need are like a quarter of the teachers to be women. For men to be like, Ew, girls, do this job. I'm out.

Mandy 25:31

it just

katy 25:31

So then

Mandy 25:31

that whole like thing about where do men actually even like women

katy 25:35

I dunno. I dunno. It's so weird. I don't understand. I don't understand. I.

Mandy 25:41

at least they're not socialized to actually like women.'cause everything that they're taught is to be like, Ooh, girls

katy 25:48

It's so, it's wild. I, I am raising a son. I think about this all the time.

Mandy 25:53

All the

katy 25:53

And of course, as professions, feminize salaries decline for the exact same work, right? That's like it over and over and over and over and over, and over and over. It happens. And in teaching, it's one of the first professions that we see this happen.

Mandy 26:04

Yeah.

katy 26:05

you do have men then shifting to like leadership roles in public education. But that's it. Okay, so now it's feminizing. 1830s Horace Mann, maybe a name people are familiar with, is this legislator in Massachusetts who is into the idea of public schools and that they should be, quote, universally available to all children free of charge and funded by the state. But of course, universal is, has a gigantic asterisk because it's 1830. So let's be real. Okay. So he starts arguing for this idea of common schools and that everybody will benefit. And I actually am very, I say things like this all the time in different jobs that I have is everyone benefits from strong public schools. It doesn't matter if you have your own kids.

Mandy 26:52

of course.

katy 26:53

everyone benefits, right? And I, I do believe in a deeply civic, broadly defined mission of schools, more than a career mission, more than a college readiness mission like the Civic. Just being like a decent community member is who gives a shit about other people. That's a core, to me, that's the most important thing. Other people would say other things, but. They're wrong. Okay. So, but they, so this idea that man had is that we'll have reading, writing, arithmetic, we'll have some social studies, some rhetoric, and like some philosophy. We'll have moral instruction. We'll, we'll, poor kids, middle class kids, and, and especially we want rich kids to also be part of public schools because the point is to have this mix. But of course it's not like the full mix. Because there's massive segregation.

Mandy 27:42

Yep.

katy 27:43

But even his argument was still considered like some kind of reform. Right. And of course, even his, like this version of things still kicks up massive resistance. I'm sure you are shocked. So he's arguing against. Private schools and wanting to make sure that everybody is there, right? And so of course you have snooty snoots who don't. They think of it as like the ta, and we still hear this today, that they're thinking about taxes that are going towards common schools as being akin to tuition. So they're like, why would I pay for somebody else's kid to go to school? It's so shortsighted and selfish. I am editorializing again. I'm right. So that's fine. And it's infuriating, but this is right off the bat, right?

Mandy 28:33

yep.

katy 28:34

you've got people who.

Mandy 28:36

are fine. Where we literally pay to subsidize rich people sending their

katy 28:41

Yeah.

Mandy 28:41

to

katy 28:41

Right, right.

Mandy 28:42

That's

katy 28:43

Yes, yes, of course. Yes. Okay. So this is one of those classic moments in history where you have the baddy bads, but then you have the people who are arguing for something that maybe feels better, but they're still, it's still complicated because of course, the people arguing for common schools still don't. They're not arguing for desegregated schools or like for every kid to go to school, and they're, they're also seeing it as a way to eliminate poverty, crime, social problems. And it sure there's an element of that, but it's capitalism is why there's poverty. You know, there's other things going on that you can't put on schools, which is still a problem. There's just so much oh, schools, schools will be the answer to everything when it's, it's a part of the equation, but not the full equation. Some early leaders, this comes from a department of Ed, history of public schools, argued that the costs of properly educating children in public schools would be far less than the expenses of punishing a jail and criminals and coping with problems stemming from poverty. It's just, it's, you still hear that rhetoric today, which is basically blaming the individual person instead of being able to understand these systems and structures. But this, all this rhetoric is very, very, very old. So horseman succeeds, common schools get started and people in the community come together. School boards get formed and it. Actually a lot in most places becomes this hub of the community. Like the school is the heart of these communities, especially in small rural communities for sure. But of course it's, there's massive exclusion, massive segregation race and ethnicity. I think we've been very clear about that in many other episodes for all different kids of color, all different, ethnicities and the boarding schools, we will absolutely dedicate a lot of time to that. Just that, because that in and of itself, white women, wow. There is like a gross, gross, gross, gross history there. There's also gender segregation. And even when schools are co-ed, often girls get different curriculum than the boys do, like girl curriculum, you know, or they can't do these things because if they do that, then their ovaries will shrink, you know, they won't be able to have babies. Um, there's all sorts of it concerns for students with disabilities and they're not served at all or really mistreated language issues. Religious bias. This is actually where Catholic schools boom, is that Catholic kids were discriminated against because so many of these, the common schools, the public schools are deeply embedded in Protestant Christianity. Like the early readers like. McGuffey readers, we're actually gonna do a special episode just on McGuffey and how bullshit they are. So there it's just all super white Protestant Christians. So Catholics are like, fuck this, we're gonna do our own schools. Okay. So through the 19th century, public schools are growing, growing, growing. There more and more states are. Taking charge of, of public education and putting it into their state constitutions. It's not a federal thing. There are federal initiatives, but it's actually the state's responsibilities. So here's where I'm gonna have you guess some stats. Are you ready? Okay. Get ready. 1830. How many kids in the us what percentage of children. By children, I mean five to 14, like K eight were enrolled. What percentage in 1830?

Mandy 32:07

I'm just gonna go with 30%,

katy 32:09

Ooh, 55. Higher than I would've guessed too. 1870. So 40 years later, what do you think the percentage is?

Mandy 32:18

Maybe 75%.

katy 32:21

Ooh, 78. If I had a prize to give you, I would give it to you. Okay, then let's think about high school. Things start out at the elementary level. In 1910, how many Americans had completed high school? How many US adults had completed high school?

Mandy 32:39

because high school? was not considered like something necessary. It was like

katy 32:43

You're right.

Mandy 32:44

so maybe like 16%.

katy 32:47

Oh my God, you were so good at this. 14, 14%. This is my grandpa. That's, yeah, for sure. And then in 1970, how many US adults had completed high school?

Mandy 33:01

I would put it more at 60%.

katy 33:03

Holy, you should today go buy every lottery ticket you can find. It's 55%

Mandy 33:11

tonight. Get

katy 33:12

Vegas, baby. It's why you live there. I know. Don't, don't lie. And then in 2017, it's 90%. So in a hundred years it went from 14%. High school graduation rates to 90% high. Like that's pretty astonishing. So we take, I think we just take it so for granted that this is just. Like the system and how it works, but it's really recent.

Mandy 33:35

Yeah.

katy 33:36

the forties as World War II's happening, teacher education is becoming more standardized. Teacher unions are becoming stronger, so they're requiring professional accreditation. Okay, so this is where the white Womanness just gets even more entrenched because most accredited teacher ed programs were at universities that did not allow. Students of color to attend. So if you now have requirements that in order to be a teacher you had to go to an accredited program, but that accredited program does not let you in. Good luck becoming a teacher. Right. So that is a problem. A lot of teachers unions would not allow members of color. So that's a problem. And then we've talked about this a little bit before. 1954 is Brown v Board of Education Court case, and this is when tens of thousands of black educators who were teaching in the segregated schools cannot get jobs anymore. They are fired, laid off by districts because the white superintendents do not believe that they can teach or should teach white children. So before Brown View Board of Education, but that before that court case of all educators in the country, about 35 to 40% were black teachers. After Brown View Board, it dropped to 7% and it still hasn't recovered, which is just shocking. So who fills that void? White women. Yeah, it's still, it's still just super low. So it's the history of this and understanding why is so important. And I can tell you as someone who has worked with pre-service teachers, so many well-intentioned white women, like so many, and they truly believe like. When you don't know any of this history and you don't know this context, it's so easy to believe that I wanna be a teacher because I love kids,

Mandy 35:29

Mm-hmm.

katy 35:30

I'm passionate about education. It's well, kind of, but you also wanna be a teacher because you are being brought up in this deeply racist. Class gendered society that is funneling you this way. That's also a massive part of it and giving you opportunities that other people haven't had that it's not a coincidence. If you look around and everybody else is a white woman, you shouldn't be like, I bet it's just innate. I bet we all just love children more than anybody. Like what the fuck? That cannot be the reason.

Mandy 35:59

No. Yeah.

katy 36:01

So what's up?

Mandy 36:02

Yeah.

katy 36:02

I would love the, oh my God. Wouldn't it be amazing if I, like when I was a professor, if I had opened a class and one of my students was like, why are we all white women? That would be. I, I would just say like a plus

Mandy 36:14

for the

katy 36:15

pass.

Mandy 36:15

the semester.

katy 36:16

You can just start teaching. Like it's, it would be amazing to just have someone notice it and vocalize it and wonder about it, because that is a huge part of the problem is that it's not even something people are curious about. Or maybe they kind of notice it, but then they don't, they bury it or dismiss it or what, you know, it's look around. When you are in a place and it's all other people, think about the reason why that might be because it's never just a coincidence. Come on.

Mandy 36:44

Yeah.

katy 36:45

Okay?

Mandy 36:45

same could definitely be said in medicine, like

katy 36:48

Mm-hmm.

Mandy 36:49

and you know that, I mean, I, I get called a nurse every single shift that I work, and it's not like any disrespect to nursing'cause they have a very hard

katy 37:00

No, sure

Mandy 37:01

And they, it's like fantastic.

katy 37:03

Mom.

Mandy 37:03

That there are people who wanna do it, but

katy 37:06

Right

Mandy 37:07

just no, I'm, I'm not a nurse. Just because I'm a female

katy 37:11

Mom.

Mandy 37:11

room in a healthcare setting doesn't

katy 37:13

I know. No, for sure.

Mandy 37:15

Yeah.

katy 37:15

Well, last couple things in this timeline to just set the stage. So 1965 is when the Elementary and Secondary Education Act passes and the individuals with Disabilities Act, and this is the first time that legislation. Is laid out at a federal level that is unequivocally committed to what we would say is universal education. Like for the first time in a more real substantial way, it's talking about children in poverty. It's talking about children of color, children who are learning English as a second language, children with disabilities, girls like. And this is why this legislation is also under attack right now, but 1965 is not that long ago. So just I mentioned this before, but the Constitution, the US Constitution does not mention education. Right. And, and that being said, there is federal, like the ESEA, the IDA, those are federal. Pieces of legislation. The Department of Education is like a, well, it was, I don't know where it stands right now, but there are federal like interventions, but it's really the states that make all sorts of decisions, like the school calendar, the standards, testing requirements, graduation requirements, teacher licensure, like all of that is at the state level. And then funding, um, most, so about half of school funding comes from the state. A little less than half comes from local. Taxes, like property taxes typically. And then this tiny, like single digit percent, like seven 8% comes from federal monies. So it's one of those things where if the federal money, if they say they're not going to give it to you for some reason, it's hard to. Lose that percentage, even though it's relatively small, it, most schools still can't say like, yeah, take 8% of my budget. I'm gonna ignore your stipulations. Which right now is scary because the stipulations are bonkers, which I made into a five syllable board. Yes. So what we're going to look at moving forward is we're gonna dig in first to pre 20th century, like 18th, 19th century. This, all of this digging deeper. The next time we're gonna talk about this woman, Catherine Beecher. So get ready for that. And then we're gonna take a a bunch of time to talk about boarding schools for indigenous children because that is

Mandy 39:34

Yeah, there's a lot of

katy 39:35

horrific.

Mandy 39:37

women shit going down there.

katy 39:39

Oh my God. And it's act. It's just not something in the US that there's nearly enough awareness about. I think Canada has done a way better job, but wow. Holy shit. And then we're gonna pivot to look at the 20th century and 21st century. And honestly, both of these white women are pitched as save your mother figures. Who are using their work as teachers and in this like weaponized motherhood, white womanness kind of way. Um, but there are some differences that I think are really interesting. And when we get into the 20th, 21st century, there are a few white women that I cannot wait to talk about, and that includes Wendy Copp, who founded Teach for America, Aaron Gruel, who is the, ooh, the, an English teacher, gosh, I, now I'm blanking, but we're, she's famous for being like a savior sort of teacher. And Luanne Johnson, who's the dangerous minds real life person. There's so many examples, but I think especially in popular culture, the white woman. Saves students of color trope. We're gonna really unpack and dig into that when we get to the 21st century. So put on your

Mandy 40:52

up.

katy 40:53

belts,

Mandy 40:54

Here

katy 40:54

we're going to, we're gonna dive into Catherine Beecher. If anybody wants to poke around a little bit before then,

Mandy 41:00

Okay. Sounds

katy 41:01

good to see you.

Mandy 41:03

Yes. Okay. I am

katy 41:04

All right.

Mandy 41:05

for this. Well, excited. You know, whatever. to know what words we should use.

katy 41:10

We are eager to learn more.

Mandy 41:13

Yep.

katy 41:14

Yes. Alright,

Mandy 41:15

it next time. bye. everybody.

katy 41:17

bye.