Date of Award

Fall 9-5-2025

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Education

First Advisor

Eilene Edejer

Abstract

This thesis investigates how contemporary U.S. educational accountability policies—namely No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Race to the Top (RttT)—redefine the role of teachers through a compliance-oriented lens. Moving beyond logistical and emotional impacts, this study applies Plato’s Allegory of the Cave as a philosophical framework to uncover the intellectual and ethical constraints imposed on educators. Through qualitative document analysis of federal policy texts, three metaphorical themes—shackles, shadows, and enlightenment—emerged to represent how teachers are bound by data-driven mandates, compelled to perform surface-level success, and yet still retain the potential to guide students toward deeper intellectual engagement. The findings reveal a systemic misalignment between policy rhetoric and the philosophical purpose of education. Rather than empowering teachers as ethical and intellectual leaders, current policies reduce them to technicians of performance metrics. While glimpses of mentorship and reflective practice appear in policy language, they are often instrumentalized to serve outcome-based agendas. This study calls for a radical reimagining of educational policy—one that restores teachers’ moral agency, honors their intellectual labor, and repositions them not as agents of implementation but as keepers of light in a system too often defined by shadows.

Download

Share

COinS