Deck 15: Education

Question 1

Under President Obama, federal education reforms adopted under No Child Left Behind

A) were mostly gutted.
B) were mostly continued.
C) were mostly ignored.
D) were mostly devolved to the states.

Answer 1

B

Question 2

After winning office and gaining bipartisan backing from Congress, what act did George W. Bush sign into law?

A) No Child Left Behind  (NCLB) Act
B) Federal Education Act
C) Education Reform Act
D) Education Defense and Preservation Act

Answer 2

A

Question 3

What did George W. Bush highlight when he focused on the poor achievement of many children attending public schools?

A) High school drop-out rates of poor and minority students
B) Reading levels of eighth- and twelfth-grade students
C) The achievement gap between rich and poor and white and minority students
D) Poor teaching styles in public schools

Answer 3

C

Question 4

Which of the following is TRUE regarding public education in America?

A) The politicization of education policy is a new experience.
B) Policy shocks are an irregular occurrence for most public education policies.
C) With seemingly cyclical regularity, America's education system comes under criticism every generation or so.
D) The policy equilibrium of education politics is generally not upset.

Question 5

When did the concept of free public education become a part of American society?

A) When the colonies were first established
B) During the American Revolution
C) After the adoption of the Bill of Rights
D) After the Civil War

Question 6

In most states, which of the following is directly responsible for administering public schools?

A) State Board of Education
B) Federal Department of Education
C) American Federation of Teachers
D) Local school districts

Question 7

Expenditures on all K-12 institutions in the United States

A) is less than $10 billion annually.
B) has decreased because of pay cuts for teachers.
C) has increased along with the growth in enrollment.
D) have generated large statewide debts in every state.

Question 8

Which of the following was NOT a part of George W. Bush's agenda for the school system while he served as governor of Texas?

A) Greater school choice
B) Creation of charter schools unrestrained by state regulations
C) School vouchers
D) Adequate and equitable funding of public schools

Question 9

Which of the following is NOT true regarding the Democratic-sponsored "Goals 2000: Educate America Act," passed in the 1990s?

A) It reauthorized all federal education programs.
B) It developed a voluntary national system of skill standards and certifications.
C) It created midnight basketball leagues in public housing projects.
D) It was signed into law by President George W. Bush.

Question 10

A form of a special-purpose local government that operates public schools is known as a

A) school district.
B) school charter.
C) State Board of Education.
D) school superintendent.

Question 11

Which of the following is NOT true?

A) Recently, most of the growth in student population has occurred at the elementary school level.
B) At the K-5 level, there are nearly as many students in private schools as public schools.
C) Funding for public schools has not increased at the same rate as the growth in enrollment.
D) Some states rely on lotteries to fund public education.

Question 12

Under which administration did the U.S. Department of Education heavily increase its involvement in public education by tying federal funding to specific educational goals, measured by standardized tests?

A) George H.W. Bush
B) Bill Clinton
C) George W. Bush
D) Barack Obama

Question 13

Which of the following is the main reason residents of Chappaqua, NY, likely spend more on public education than those living in Detroit, MI?

A) Public opinion polls show that residents of Detroit don't value public education.
B) Residents of Chappaqua can afford to pay for quality public schools.
C) Residents of Chappaqua rely heavily on private funding for public schools by Martha Stewart, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Kiss lead guitarist, Ace Frehley.
D) The federal government provides more grant-in-aid to Chappaqua than Detroit.

Question 14

Local and state control over public education has become

A) more constrained, largely due to increasing national educational standards.
B) less constrained, largely due to increasing federal assistance.
C) more constrained, largely due to the successful political lobbying of teacher unions.
D) less constrained, largely due to bureaucratic and institutional changes.

Question 15

Roughly what percentage of America's gross domestic product (GDP) goes towards K-12 education?

A) Less than 1 percent
B) 8 percent
C) 16 percent
D) 24 percent

Question 16

Which state was the first to require children to attend school, either public or private?

A) Idaho
B) Georgia
C) Illinois
D) Massachusetts

Question 17

Which of the following is an accurate characterization of the making of current education policy in the United States?

A) A robust competition among the states and school districts, with little federal intervention
B) A system with heavy federal government involvement
C) A structured system with the Department of Education overseeing education policies that are passed by state legislatures
D) A system with communities solely responsible for financing the public education of schoolchildren

Question 18

Which of the following is NOT true regarding public education in America?

A) Public education is viewed by many Americans as a fundamental right.
B) Public education inculcates and enriches students with civic responsibility.
C) The level of funding for public education is fairly even across the states.
D) Some states and communities have decisively placed more emphasis on delivering high-quality public education in order to cultivate a creative class in their community.

Question 19

In 1983, President Reagan's blue-ribbon panel, the National Commission on Excellence in Education, issued a report entitled

A) "An Uneducated Nation".
B) "A Nation at Risk".
C) "A Nation Under Siege".
D) "An Unprepared Nation".

Question 20

Under which administration did the U.S. Department of Education increase the level of funding for public education while relaxing some of the federal standards placed on states and local school districts?

A) George H.W. Bush
B) Bill Clinton
C) George W. Bush
D) Barack Obama

Question 21

Today, the nineteenth century legacy of "Baby Blaine" constitutional amendments

A) endures.
B) is essentially irrelevant to public education debates.
C) has been overshadowed by debates over mandatory physical education courses.
D) has been forgotten.

Question 22

Which region of the country tends to finance public education to a far greater extent with local property taxes?

A) Midwest
B) West
C) Northeast
D) South

Question 23

Which type of funding for public education is designed to avoid inequalities across property-rich and property-poor districts?

A) Local property taxes
B) Categorical grants
C) State general funds
D) Block grants

Question 24

What percentage of all public schools nationwide is run by locally elected school boards?

A) 30 percent
B) 50 percent
C) 70 percent
D) 90 percent

Question 25

The number of school children in most school districts is

A) less than 5,000.
B) between 5,000 and 9,999.
C) between 10,000 and 39,999.
D) 40,000 or more.

Question 26

The system of financing schools has been wholly reformed since the 1950s, with school districts

A) relying more on funds from local revenue sources.
B) relying largely on federal revenue sources.
C) relying less on local revenue sources and more on state revenue sources.
D) spending, on average, 55 percent of their annual budgets on pre-school education.

Question 27

The Texas education plan that set up regional taxing authorities, which then shares local revenues across rich and poor districts, is informally known as the

A) Equal Distribution Plan.
B) Robin Hood Plan.
C) Jackie Chan Plan.
D) Robbing Peter to Pay Paul Plan.

Question 28

Heavy reliance on local property taxes to fund public education

A) has been found to be unconstitutional in numerous state supreme court decisions.
B) began and continues to flourish in California.
C) has not been proven to show disparities and inequities in and across districts.
D) is the direct result of an increase in federal education funding.

Question 29

The major source of revenue for public schools in the 1920s was

A) from the federal government.
B) from private donations and philanthropists.
C) from local school districts.
D) from state government.

Question 30

In which region of the country does state control over education tend to be greater?

A) Midwest
B) West
C) Northeast
D) South

Question 31

All of the following statements are true regarding the financing of public education EXCEPT:

A) State governments have increasingly provided a greater proportion of the financing of public education.
B) Over time local governments have decreased the proportion of financing they provide for public education.
C) For every dollar spent on primary and secondary education, roughly 92 cents flows from state and local governments.
D) Due to the number of mandates flowing from Washington, D.C., the federal government has begun to provide a great proportion of the financing of public education.

Question 32

Which region of the country traditionally has been the highest in per-pupil spending?

A) Midwest
B) West
C) Northeast
D) South

Question 33

Currently, which of the following sources provides the most K-12 education funding, on average?

A) State governments
B) Local governments
C) The federal government
D) Private contributions

Question 34

Which state has a unitary, state-run system for public education?

A) Hawaii
B) Pennsylvania
C) New York
D) California

Question 35

Which of the following is NOT true regarding Florida and its Bright Future's Scholarship Program?

A) Until 2009, it covered 100 percent of college tuition for Florida high school graduates who earned at least a 3.5 grade-point average and scored over 1270 on the SAT.
B) It is funded by the sale of lottery tickets, costing the state roughly $350 million annually.
C) Republican lawmakers sponsored the program due to worries of a "brain-drain," losing their top high school graduates to universities in other states.
D) The program was adopted by citizens via a ballot initiative in 1998.

Question 36

Which of the following is NOT true regarding local school board and state relations in public education in most states?

A) The local school board appoints a superintendent and hires staff and teachers.
B) The state legislature determines the annual tax levies for operating expenses and the capital construction budget of school districts.
C) The local school board helps to determine the curriculum.
D) Over 90 percent of public schools are run locally by elected school boards.

Question 37

James Blaine, a Republican U.S. Representative from Maine, became known for his proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would have prohibited states from

A) taxing the wealthy.
B) providing public funds to support private, religious schools.
C) regulating the alcohol and gambling industries within their borders.
D) having a governor.

Question 38

According to the text, which of the following is NOT true regarding school district responsiveness?

A) Appointed school boards tend to be at least as responsive as elected ones.
B) The structure of school boards does not necessarily impact the educational policy a school board adopts.
C) School boards that are closest to the people- those run in New England-style town meetings, for example, tend not to reflect public opinion any better than school boards within a city or county government.
D) Local public opinion toward public education, especially of minorities, tends to be underrepresented by school boards that are unelected.

Question 39

Which of the following statements is true?

A) There were more school districts in the 1930s than there are today.
B) There were fewer school districts in the 1930s than there are today.
C) Most funding for public schools today comes from the federal government.
D) There has been virtually no change in the number of school districts since the 1930s.

Question 40

Which of the following is NOT a function of most state Boards of Education?

A) Establish certification standards for teachers and administrators.
B) Launch ballot initiative campaigns to increase funding for public education.
C) Create state testing programs.
D) Set high school graduation requirements.

Question 41

One of the fastest growing reforms in K-12 education has been

A) charter schools.
B) homeschooling.
C) school voucher programs.
D) education management organizations.

Question 42

Are school districts responsive to public opinion? Are there differences in responsiveness between appointed school boards and elected school boards? Be sure to provide at least two examples.

Question 43

Schools that are publicly funded and still operated by a school district, but are freed from the administrative, staffing, and pedagogical constraints of traditional public schools, are known as

A) private schools.
B) branch schools.
C) charter schools.
D) transitional schools.

Question 44

What kinds of people are most likely to homeschool their children? What do proponents and critics say about homeschooling? Be specific.

Question 45

Which city's has the nation's longest-standing school choice voucher program?

A) Milwaukee
B) Detroit
C) Washington, DC
D) Dallas

Question 46

When states have permitted their school districts to hire for-profit companies to run some of their public schools, the companies are known as

A) Education and Tutoring Centers
B) Education Management Organizations (EMOs)
C) Institutes for Education
D) American Education Associations

Question 47

Which of the following is NOT true regarding existing voucher programs in the United States?

A) The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that all school voucher programs are unconstitutional.
B) Voucher programs, broadly defined, include not only tuition subsidies paid for by state governments, but also benefits through tax deductions.
C) Critics charge that vouchers siphon funding from public schools, weakening them for the children who remain there to be educated.
D) One of the driving forces behind the privatization of public education is the idea that through competition and school choice, higher quality education will result.

Question 48

Which idea advocates the elimination of the education "monopoly" held by the public sector and teachers' unions?

A) Private schooling
B) Government subsidization
C) Education disparity credits
D) School vouchers

Question 49

How are public schools organized and who finances them? Drawing on examples from your own state, make the case for or against more state-level funding to offset inequalities across local school districts.

Question 50

How have some states been able to keep tuition levels down but maintain the quality of their institutions of higher education? Cite examples in specific states. Do you think these plans will endure?

Question 51

Skeptics of online learning claim all of the following EXCEPT:

A) Virtual courses do not provide the kind of intellectual exchanges that are possible in classroom settings.
B) Students who are not self-disciplined may not be able to work independently to motivate themselves to do well online.
C) Online courses lack sufficient oversight compared to in-class instruction.
D) Because of the technology involved, online schools are more costly to taxpayers than traditional schools.

Question 52

What is a school voucher program? What are some of the pros and cons, and why is this kind of program controversial?

Question 53

The No Child Left Behind Act

A) forces schools not making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) to be closed down the following academic year.
B) was found to be unconstitutional by the Florida Supreme Court in 2005.
C) attempts to narrow the achievement gap of students.
D) has been praised for its lavish spending on in-school educational programs.