Chapter 29 Self-Check Quiz

Multiple Choice (12 questions)

1. What approximate share of K-12 education funding in the United States comes from the federal government?

a) About 25% b) About 9% c) About 50% d) About 1%

2. Why does the federal government's role in education rest on the spending power, the commerce power, and the Reconstruction Amendments rather than on a direct grant of authority?

a) Because the Department of Education was abolished in 1995 and never restored b) Because the Constitution does not include education among Congress's enumerated powers, and the Tenth Amendment reserves non-delegated powers to the states c) Because the Supreme Court has explicitly held that education is a state matter and barred federal involvement d) Because Article IV explicitly assigns education to the states

3. Which federal program represents approximately $18 billion in annual K-12 funding targeted at high-poverty schools?

a) IDEA b) Title I c) ESSA d) PSLF

4. Which of the following best describes the empirical record on charter-school outcomes as captured by Stanford CREDO research?

a) Charter schools systematically outperform district schools by large margins. b) Charter schools systematically underperform district schools by large margins. c) Average effects are small but statistically significant, with substantial variation across cities and sectors — strong urban results in some places, weak or negative results in virtual charters. d) Charter schools have not been studied rigorously enough to draw conclusions.

5. The Supreme Court's 2023 decision ending race-conscious admissions in selective higher education was:

a) Grutter v. Bollinger b) Regents v. Bakke c) Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard / UNC d) Fisher v. University of Texas

6. Which of the following best characterizes the political trajectory of Common Core State Standards?

a) Adopted with broad bipartisan support, then opposed from both right and left, with formal withdrawals or rebrandings in many states by the late 2010s b) Adopted by Democratic states and opposed by Republican states from the start c) Imposed by federal mandate on all states beginning in 2010 d) Successfully implemented in all 50 states with sustained bipartisan support through 2025

7. Which 2023 Supreme Court decision struck down the Biden administration's plan to cancel up to $400 billion in federal student debt?

a) West Virginia v. EPA b) Biden v. Nebraska c) Sackett v. EPA d) Department of Education v. Brown

8. Per-pupil spending across U.S. school districts varies approximately:

a) Within a few hundred dollars across all districts b) From about $8,000 to over $30,000 per pupil c) From about $20,000 to about $25,000 d) Identically across districts within each state

9. Which of the following federal programs serves students with disabilities and was originally promised 40% federal funding but has consistently received around 13%?

a) Title I b) IDEA c) Section 504 d) ESSER

10. The educational realignment refers to:

a) The 2002 reauthorization of ESEA as No Child Left Behind b) The 2015 replacement of NCLB with ESSA c) The post-2016 sorting of voters along educational-attainment lines, with college-educated voters moving toward Democrats and non-college voters toward Republicans d) The shift from chalkboards to digital instruction

11. Which statement most accurately describes the Title IX pendulum across recent administrations?

a) Title IX rules have remained stable since 1972 with no meaningful changes b) Obama-era guidance, Trump-era 2018-2020 rules, Biden-era 2024 rules, and Trump-era 2025 rules have substantially varied on procedural protections, definitions of sexual harassment, and gender-identity recognition c) Title IX has applied only to athletics and has never been extended to sexual misconduct d) The Supreme Court struck down Title IX entirely in Dobbs

12. Per-student state appropriations for public higher education since 2008 have, in real terms:

a) Roughly doubled b) Remained stable c) Declined approximately 10-15% nationally on average d) Risen approximately 50%

Short Answer (4 questions)

13. In 100-150 words, explain why per-pupil spending varies so dramatically across U.S. school districts and identify two policy mechanisms that states have used to mitigate the resulting inequities.

14. In 100-150 words, summarize the strongest argument for and the strongest argument against broad federal student-loan cancellation. Identify which empirical claim underlies each argument and which is most contested.

15. In 100-150 words, describe the substantive concerns raised on each side of the debate over gender-identity policies in K-12 schools. Be careful to steel-man rather than caricature each position.

16. In 100-150 words, explain why education policy has become a federalism battleground in the 2020s, drawing on the chapter's discussion of constitutional silence on education, the limited federal role, and the educational realignment.

Answer Key

Multiple Choice: 1. (b) About 9% 2. (b) The Constitution does not enumerate education among congressional powers, and the Tenth Amendment reserves non-delegated powers to the states 3. (b) Title I 4. (c) Average effects small but significant, substantial variation by sector 5. (c) Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard / UNC 6. (a) Adopted with broad bipartisan support, then opposed from both right and left 7. (b) Biden v. Nebraska 8. (b) From about $8,000 to over $30,000 per pupil 9. (b) IDEA 10. (c) Post-2016 sorting along educational-attainment lines 11. (b) Substantial variation across administrations on procedure, definitions, and gender-identity recognition 12. (c) Declined approximately 10-15% nationally on average

Short Answers — Sample Strong Responses:

13. Variation arises primarily because U.S. K-12 funding rests heavily on local property taxes (~36% nationally). Districts with more valuable property generate substantially more per-pupil revenue at the same tax rate. State equalization formulas attempt to mitigate this — Texas's "Robin Hood" recapture provisions require wealthier districts to share property-tax revenue with poorer ones; New Jersey's Abbott v. Burke litigation produced state-supreme-court-ordered supplemental funding for identified high-poverty districts. Federal Title I funding adds a third layer for high-poverty schools. Even with these mechanisms, within-state and between-state variation remains large, and per-pupil spending differences correlate with persistent achievement gaps.

14. The argument for cancellation: federal student debt is a systemic problem reflecting decades of state-funding decline, predatory practices in some sectors, and disproportionate burden on Black borrowers; cancellation is consumer protection with macroeconomic benefits. The argument against: cancellation is regressive (graduate-degree holders carry the most debt and on average earn more); it raises fairness questions (borrowers who paid off, didn't attend, or attended cheaper schools don't benefit); and Bennett-hypothesis concerns about institutions raising prices in anticipation of relief. The most contested empirical claim is the distributional effect of program design — different cancellation structures (income caps, balance caps, Pell supplements) produce different distributions.

15. Progressive concerns center on student safety (mental-health implications of non-recognition, supported by empirical literature), the developmental significance of identity recognition, and protection from discrimination. Conservative concerns center on parental rights to be informed about and shape their children's gender-related decisions, single-sex spaces (with competitive-fairness questions in athletics having empirical content), and concerns about appropriateness of certain instructional content in early grades. Both sets of concerns are substantive, and most advocates on both sides operate in good faith. The disagreement over how to weigh these concerns — particularly on parental-notification policies and athletic participation — is genuine and unresolved.

16. The Constitution's silence on education makes K-12 primarily a state-and-local function (~91% of funding); the federal role is limited to specific levers (Title I, IDEA, civil rights, ESSA). When Americans want to debate education policy, the relevant decision-makers are state legislatures and 13,000 school boards, not Congress. Combined with the post-2016 educational realignment — voters sorting along college-attainment lines — education has become both a politically significant axis and a domain where political conflict is channeled into thousands of local battles rather than resolved through federal lawmaking. Federalism is the structural reason; realignment is the political reason; together they explain why education has become so contested.