The Rhetoric of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001: History, Economics, and Coercion
Open Access
- Author:
- Hlavacik, Mark Joseph
- Graduate Program:
- Communication Arts and Sciences
- Degree:
- Master of Arts
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- October 12, 2009
- Committee Members:
- Thomas Walter Benson, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Thomas Walter Benson, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor - Keywords:
- No Child Left Behind Act of 2001
education policy
Rhetoric
coercion
statutory rhetoric - Abstract:
- This thesis undertakes a rhetorical examination of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). Since it was signed into law in January of 2002, NCLB has dominated the policy discussion of public education at the national level and deserves attention as a critical episode in the development of American attitudes toward public education. This thesis studies the language of the law itself, rhetorically analyzing the text of NCLB. Although NCLB is the textual focus of this project, this examination of NCLB must draw on additional texts as they are necessary to contextualize the rhetoric of NCLB within a broader historical discourse on public education in the United States as well as within the contemporary cacophony of federal education policy. Particular attention is paid to the rhetoric of authority operating in NCLB. This thesis examines the ways in which NCLB justifies, executes, and enforces its authority through rhetoric, taking a chapter to address each. This focus on authority connects the rhetorical components of NCLB with some of its social and institutional implications. In order to do so, this thesis examines how: (1) the legal history of NCLB is mobilized as a justification for its authority, (2) NCLB executes its authority over education through the characterization of education as economic, and (3) NCLB enforcement its authority through coercion and depoliticization resulting in the first federally endorsed pedagogy.