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Every two years, the release of data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) generates a wave of research and commentary trying to explain short- and long-term trends. For instance, there have been a bunch of recent attempts to "explain" an increase in aggregate NAEP scores during the late 1990s and 2000s. Some analyses postulate that the accountability provisions of NCLB were responsible, while more recent arguments have focused on the "effect" (or lack thereof) of newer market-based reforms - for example, looking to NAEP data to "prove" or "disprove" the idea that changes in teacher personnel and other policies have (or have not) generated "gains" in student test scores. The basic idea here is that, for every increase or decrease in cross-sectional NAEP scores over a given period of time (both for all students and especially for subgroups such as minority and low-income students), there must be "something" in our education system that explains it. In many (but not all) cases, these discussions consist of little more than speculation.

"More than seven years ago, a 44-year-old political scientist named Anthony Marx became the president of Amherst College, in western Massachusetts, and set out to change its admissions policies. Mr. Marx argued that elite colleges were neither as good nor as meritocratic as they could be, because they mostly overlooked lower-income students. "

"In the intensifying debate over the future of education, two camps seem to be emerging. On one side, there are people like New York University professor/former Deputy U.S. Education Secretary Diane Ravitch who argue that larger social ills such as poverty, joblessness, economic despair and lack of health coverage negatively affect educational achievement, and that until those problems are addressed, schools will never be able to produce the results we want. On the other side, there are so-called "reformers" who want to radically change (read: charterize and/or privatize) public education under the premise that the primary problems are bad/lazy teachers and "unaccountable" school administrators."

Friday's jobs report could kick off the worst quarter for state and local government jobs on record. And teachers are at the center of the bullseye.

For decades, scholars have debated the purpose of U.S. education, but too often ignored how power brokers outside of the educational arena define education or the consequences of those definitions. This study examines how one of the most prominent categories of U.S. leaders, state governors, defines education and discusses the policy implications. We examine gubernatorial rhetoric-that is, public speeches-about education, collected from State of the State speeches from 2001 to 2008. In all, one purpose gains overwhelmingly more attention-economic efficiency. As long as governors and the general public, seen enthymematically through gubernatorial rhetoric, define education in economic terms, other purposes will likely remain marginalized, leading to education policies designed disproportionately to advance economic ends.