The 2000 Election and the Politics of Accountability

• In Event: 33.066 - The Role of Politics in Educational Policy Making and Implementation

Abstract

While much has been written about the rise of high-stakes testing and accountability policy at the federal level, almost no scholarship has examined the role that the 2000 presidential campaign played in constructing this policy regime. My paper begins to fill this void and suggests that the twenty-first-century accountability regime owes its existence partly to the electoral considerations and incentives that arose on the 2000 campaign trail. By matching public opinion trends with a rhetorical analysis of candidate speeches, debate performances and TV advertisements, my narrative paper suggests that the electoral incentives pressing on the Gore and Bush campaigns dramatically altered the partisan dynamics of education reform, leading both parties to converge in support of test-based accountability.

Author

• David Casalaspi, Michigan State University