Leveraging Political Spectacle to Understand the Opt-Out Narrative in State Politics

• In Event: 43.036 - Citizenship, the Public, and Education in the 21st Century

Abstract

Ironically for a post-truth era, standardized testing provides a veneer of objectivity regarding student success. However, some policy entrepreneurs are resisting standardized testing specifically and the neo-conservative and neo-liberal assumptions behind compulsory testing generally. This paper examines the leadership and rhetoric utilized by Opt Out Arizona in their two-year legislative effort to legalize opting out. In this post-truth era, alternative theoretical frameworks are needed that recognize facts do not necessarily have a common determinable meaning and that people do not necessarily react rationally to their knowledge. The framework of political spectacle provides one such alternative theory and is used to interpret and understand this state legislative drama.

Author

• Michael Szolowicz, California State University - Bakersfield