The Purpose of Education in America, Clinton to Obama

Presidents exercise influence over policy discussion and options in America by the frequency and language they use to describe the current conditions, the perceived problems, and the solutions. The ability for presidents to articulate problems and solutions assumes an underlying purpose exists. This study examines how presidents frame the policy discussion for education in America and how they describe the purpose of education in the public record: the benefit of education is for society (common good), or the benefit it to the student (private good). Then the study examines the extent to which those frames stay consistent or are variable within and between administrations. The study utilizes presidential issue framing and agenda-setting to examine historical documents in the Public Papers of the President archive to determine the articulated purpose using the framework proposed by David Labaree. This study focuses on three administrations of the most recent period of federalism in education policy in America, starting with Bill Clinton and ending with Barack Obama. The study found that President William Clinton used the purposes of Social Mobility and Social Efficiency most frequently, President George W. Bush used Social Efficiency – Public Good and Social Efficiency – Private Good most, and President Barack Obama used Social Efficiency – Public Good more than all other frames. All three presidents maintained relatively consistent use of their prominent frames throughout their administrations with some indication that slight shifts may occur. All three presidents had low utilization of the frame Democratic Equality, and all used the combined frame Social Efficiency the most. Some variation between the utilization of the second-level codes of Private Good and Public Good do exist between administrations. The prominence of the combined frame Social Efficiency across administrations may suggest a more crystalized definition for the purpose of K-12 education in America.