No Job Left Behind: The Presidential Platform on 21st-Century Education Goals

• In Event: The Politics of Accountability in Educational Decision Making: Implications of Research for Education Policy Reform

Abstract

Americans have long viewed education as an antidote to society’s ailments, while acknowledging that the antidote itself needs repair. As perceptions of social and economic problems change, so do the goals of education reformers. This discourse analysis of presidential debates, campaign speeches, state of the union addresses, and education budgets revealed the ways in which presidents and presidential candidates have framed education goals thus far in the twenty-first century. Using Labaree’s (1997) framework of democratic equality, social efficiency, and social mobility as competing goals in American education, we found that all three goals played a prevalent role in the discourse. However, all goals tended to perceive education as a solution for economic growth and American competitiveness in the global marketplace.

Authors

• Ariel Tichnor-Wagner, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Allison Rose Socol, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill