The No Child Left Behind Act in the Global Architecture of Educational Accountability
Abstract
Three features of international organizations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) appear in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), tension between centralized goals and historically localized practices and authorities; links between education policy goals and a set of rhetorical arguments centered on human capital; and competitive comparisons among education systems, comparisons that mix market rhetoric with prestige dynamics. An international perspective reveals that US debates echoed international education policy debates and the workings of global education governance. While the OECD does not have authority to issue strict mandates, it and other international organizations provide a form of soft governance layer in which multilateral surveillance plays a major part. As it developed, this soft governance layer included surveillance of education systems, a development that in the US began before NCLB, accelerated during the NCLB era, and remained after the revision of federal US law in 2015.
Info
Journal Article, 2022
UN SDG Classification
DK Main Research Area
Social Science
