“Learning Can’t Occur in Chaos:” A Critical Policy Discourse Analysis of No Excuses Charter School Websites

This critical policy discourse analysis examines how No Excuses charter schools communicate their school goals and environments, and how they represent and portray their current and prospective students in online materials. We also aim to understand how the No Excuses paradigm has evolved and how, if at all, it is currently represented by these charter networks. We focus on whether and how the discourse in these materials may reflect deficit perspectives or contain language that shapes the construction of students and their families as policy targets, and thus create discourses that may ultimately be harmful to racially-minoritized students.