In the Name of National Security: How the United States Government Infiltrated Public Education through the Foreign Service Institute

This dissertation analyzes the political and historical themes in U.S. Government primary source documents to uncover how a military language assessment framework found its way into Kindergarten through Grade 12 public schools. The emerging themes from the document analysis process are contextualized into three major periods reflecting milestones in foreign affairs: The Early Cold War, Entrenchment of a Bi-Polar Foreign Policy, and the Presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Framed through the period contexts, the study findings reveal that the United States' growing involvement in foreign affairs led to a crisis of jeopardized National Security. To fortify the Foreign Service Institute and the U.S. Military's objectives, the U.S. Government formulated policy that impacted public schools. As a result, public schools have become a recruitment source for bilingual candidates to serve as Foreign Service agents or military officers. Although most educators have experience responding to government mandates, they remain unaware of the depth of power that government and policy formation has in schools. This dissertation fills a gap in the literature and admonishes educators to be alert to the origin of educational initiatives they support