1. i
Crises, Deficits and Ideologies in the Congressional Debates of the NCLB:
How Presidential Influence Impacted Early Childhood Education Initiatives
A Dissertation
Presented for the
Doctor of Philosophy Degree
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Winnifred (Wendy) Diane Hall
August 2006

2. ii
Abstract
The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, was proposed by President George
W. Bush in January 2001, debated by the 107th Congress of the United States
throughout the following spring, and signed into law on January 8, 2002. The need for
reform was predicated on the belief that there was a crisis in education and that our
schools were failing to adequately prepare children to succeed and compete on a global
level. Reading was singled out as a particular area of concern that the new legislation
would address. This qualitative study sought to discover how the Bush administration
impacted education - specifically early childhood education - through a new education
policy and what role ideologies played in mandating specific requirements within the
legislation. The data for this study included Presidential speeches and position papers,
and the transcripts of the NCLB debates in both houses of Congress. Three cornerstone
issues were selected from the results for discussion: testing, failure, and parent
involvement, with cultural deficit theories providing the theoretical foundation for the
study. Analysis of the discourse revealed that the President and his ideological beliefs
did influence the direction and substance of the reform effort as evidenced by his two
proposed early childhood reading programs included in the final bill. Conservative
ideologies, both radical and centrist, were the basis for specific requirements in the
areas of accountability, standards of excellence, and testing.

3. iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER
PAGE
I
INTRO
DUCTION. . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .
1
Rationale. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Objectives of the Study. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
II RESEARCH
CONTEXT. . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . .
5
Review of the Literature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Deficit Theories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
The “Culture of Poverty” Theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Cultural Deficit
Theory. . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . 9
Project Head Start. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Compensatory Educational Programming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Human Ecological Systems Theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
The Achievement Gap. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Missing Pieces in Education Reform . . . . . . . . . . .

4. iv
. . . . . . . . .
20
How Congress Works. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
III METHODS. . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . 29
Justification for Study. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Sampling Decisions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Context. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Setting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Players. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
The Timeline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Sampling Limitations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Data Collection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Types and Sources of Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Data Recording Procedures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Methods of Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Steps in Analyzing the Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
An Analytic Example. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Verification of the Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
IV RESULTS. . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . 41
Principles of the Blueprint for Education Reform. . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Accountability for Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
The Accountability Principle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Rewards for Success. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Consequences for Failure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Systemic Educational Failures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Federal Responsibility in the Reform Effort. . . . . . 55

5. v
Standards of Excellence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Annual Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
National Testing Programs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Achievement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Improving Teacher Quality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Flexibility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Empowering Parents with Choices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Proposed Program Initiatives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Reading First. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Early Reading First. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Head Start Reform . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . 79
Ideologies and the NCLB. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Liberal/Progressive Ideology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Neoliberal Ideology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Neoconservative Ideology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Far Right Ideology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Religious Right Ideology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Chapter Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Introduction of Cornerstone Issues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
V DISCUSSION.
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . .
. . . 93
Testing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Early Childhood Education and Testing. . . . . . . . 103
Failure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Parent Involvement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Ideological Implications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Testing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Failure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Parent Involvement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Recommendations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
REFERENCES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

6. vi
VITA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149