The PTA Is Born (1897)
This Day in Esoteric Political History
Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia
4.6 • 982 Ratings
🗓️ 18 February 2025
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It's February 18th. This day in 1897, 2000 educators, parents and legislators are gathered to kick off a new organization that would come to be known as the Parent Teachers Association.
Jody, Niki, and Kellie dicsuss how the PTA has advocated for important issues over the years, and what kinds of activities the PTA works on in today's education environment. They also discuss how much parents should be involved in their kids' schools...
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia. My name is Jody Avergan. |
| 0:09.8 | This day, February 1897, the National Parent Teacher Association is founded. It was known then as the National Congress of Mothers. |
| 0:19.4 | Shout out to Alice McClellan-Burney andern-Hurst for holding a meeting of over 2,000 parents, teachers, school staff, and legislators to kick off this new organization. |
| 0:30.7 | Obviously, at the local level, we know the kinds of things that PTAs do. |
| 0:34.5 | They bake sales and movie nights and fundraising for school programs. |
| 0:37.6 | At the national level, the PTA has really been an advocacy organization. They fought for |
| 0:42.4 | legislation that addressed things like child labor and juvenile justice and mandatory |
| 0:46.9 | immunization, school lunch programs. I want to give a shout out to listener Diane for suggesting |
| 0:52.4 | this one that we talk about the founding of the PTA. |
| 0:55.3 | And I'm not sure if Diane wrote in because I've mentioned like offhandedly on the show a couple times that I am I am involved in a PTA. |
| 1:02.3 | But it's true, folks. |
| 1:03.5 | You are listening to the voice of the PTA co-president at my daughter's public elementary school in Brooklyn. |
| 1:09.4 | And I think I should also confess to all of you |
| 1:11.9 | and to Nikki and Kelly that it was in prepping for this episode that I realized for the first time |
| 1:17.6 | that there was a national PTA association. We haven't been in touch. We're not part of it. I checked |
| 1:23.2 | their website. There's a directory on there and everything. We're not part of it. So like, as soon as we |
| 1:27.7 | finish recording, I'm going to go make sure that our PTA is listed on the directory. But that's |
| 1:32.3 | actually part of what I want to talk about is kind of the mark of a successful organization is |
| 1:36.3 | it, like, lets all this sort of independent grassroots things sort of blossom underneath it. |
| 1:40.8 | But anyway, here as always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter |
| 1:45.9 | Jackson of Wesley. Hello there. Hello, Mr. Co-President. Hello there. I know. You have to |
| 1:50.2 | address me by that from now on. Very, very prestigious position. Kelly, are you involved in the PTA? Is there a |
... |
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