Framing the Common Core: An Analysis of Four Key Policy Actors

Abstract

Background/Context In recent years, the American political context has become increasingly divided, as exemplified by the debate over the Common Core State Standards. Initially a bipartisan national venture, the standards became immersed in controversy soon after their introduction in 2010. In the aftermath, a growing body of research has examined the Common Core at the policy level; yet little empirical research has analyzed the public messaging of key interest groups involved in the Common Core debate. Research Design This empirical study draws on frame analysis to unpack the public discourse of four policy actors involved in the debate over the Common Core: the Gates Foundation, Heritage Foundation, National Education Association, and education historian Diane Ravitch. It examines policy documents released by each actor to first understand the central public frames present in their discourse about the standards, then unearth the implicit logics embedded in these frames. Findings/Results Four underlying logics—market, technical, democratic, and pragmatic— emerged from the explicit frames used by the four actors. These logics overlap, some existing on both sides of the debate, with opponents such as Gates and Heritage Foundations often using competing public frames about innovation or freedom, while also drawing on similar implicit market-based assumptions about the purpose of education to inform their arguments for and against Common Core respectively. Conclusions/Recommendations These findings suggest intriguing similarities in the discourse of key actors involved in education reform and add nuance to growing fears that market-based logics dominate modern education policy. Yet some of the discourse still draws on democratic logics, the expressions of which between different actors. Methodologically, frame analysis emerges as a productive means of unpacking hidden or obscured ideas within policy and the discourse about that policy, especially when paired with the concept of logics, which mediate values and action.