Debate on Education Funding in The West Wing

From The West Wing (Season 2, Episode 4, “In This White House”)

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Run time: 2:28

Clip Description: A debate in the The West Wing quickly moves to traditional Republican vs. Democrat arguments over what level of government should be funding education and making decisions about education. While this episode aired in 2000, the arguments among Democrats and Republicans are similar today.

American Politics Concepts Discussed/Connected To: This clip can discuss the influence of educational funding and the impact it has within the federalist system.

Possible Uses in Classroom: This clip can be used for discussions of education funding, federalism, and political party platforms.

Discussion Questions

Under a tenth of American K-12 funding comes from the federal government; the rest is state and local, and the local share leans heavily on property taxes. Washington’s main lever is therefore conditional money — do this and you keep the grant. Does that arrangement make the federal role too small to matter much, or does attaching conditions give Washington far more influence than its share of the dollars would suggest? Argue it either way, and say what evidence would settle it.
Funding schools from local property taxes means district wealth largely determines district spending. In San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973) the Supreme Court held that education is not a fundamental right under the federal Constitution and declined to disturb those disparities; the fight moved into state courts under state constitutions, where it still is. Is unequal-by-geography funding a constitutional problem, a policy problem, or simply the price of local control — and what exactly do you surrender if you centralize in order to fix it?
The case for local control assumes the people nearest a school know best what it needs. The case for national standards assumes a child’s education should not depend on which county they were born in. You probably believe both. Pick the concrete case where they collide — a district that wants to spend half the state average, or a state that wants to opt out of a national test — and say which of your two commitments you drop first, and why that is not just picking the outcome you already preferred.

Assignment

Every state constitution contains an education clause, and the wording varies enormously from state to state. Find your state’s clause, then find one adequacy or equity lawsuit brought under it. Separately, pull per-pupil spending figures for the wealthiest and poorest districts in your state; state education departments publish them. In two to three pages, say what you think the clause actually requires, whether the spending numbers meet it, and then answer the harder question: is a court the right institution to decide how much money a constitution requires a legislature to spend, and if not, who is?

Clip hosted on Critical Commons.