The politics of knowledge: Implementation of *policy and curriculum in the District of Columbia public schools

Although the District of Columbia Public School System (DCPS) has one of the highest per student expenditures in the nation, it has consistently produced some of the highest dropout rates and lowest test scores. In spite of numerous reform efforts, reports of what ails the system are similar, regardless of when they are published. The Passow Report of 1967 found the same issues as did the District of Columbia Control Board when it declared DCPS to be in a "state of emergency" and assumed governance in 1996. My dissertation will address this question: How does a dysfunctional system such as DCPS continue to operate and legitimate itself?;My goal is to make empirical application of theory in the Human Sciences to an analysis of DCPS in an effort to provide the depth of understanding necessary to affect change. Habermas's theory of communicative action informs my prescriptive insight. Applying John Langshaw Austin's speech act theory and Rae Langton's application of it, I examine how DCPS Central Administration communicates policy to the classroom teacher. Taking Clifford Geertz's analysis of common sense as a cultural system for my conceptual framework, I challenge common sense assumptions in school administration practices by examining the language and slogans of curriculum documents and meetings. I make use of Martin Heidegger's analysis of "the They" as a basis for examining the use of "neutral" institutional language. For insight into the structural operations of DCPS, I draw from Talcott Parsons's functionalist model, and address the inadequacies of this model for DCPS, relying on Emile Durkheim's discussion of anomie. American sociologists of education Henry Giroux and Michael Apple, who acknowledge their debt to the Frankfort school in the development of their work, contributed much to my theoretical approach. Their work informed my examination of the history of DCPS within the context of national curriculum movements in the 20th century.