This paper describes the roles that women have played in the public schools of the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries and analyzes changes in their status and level of participation during this period. After an introductory section addressing the purposes of the international symposium at which the paper was read, the second section provides a historical review of women's role and status in schools: as elementary and secondary teachers, as administrators, as school board members, and as federal employees. The third section addresses three issues directly related to women's role in public schools: (1) the relation between women's position in the educational hierarchy and the rise of feminism, (2) the organizational structure of schools and how women's experience in these organizations differs from men's, and (3) the legal remedies of the 20th century women's movement. The fourth and final section provides a feminist perspective on the neglect of women's ideas and experiences by most educators and historians of the American educational experience. Topics include the "universalist bias" (ascription of universality to male experience and perspectives), the "machismo bias" embedded in the methodological structures of inquiry, the "devalue of education bias," and the "contemporary school marm bias." Statistical tables are appended, along with a six-page bibliography. (TE)