VIDEO

Audio*
In 2001, President George W. Bush signed
the No Child Left Behind Act into law, which

FOOTAGE OF NCLB SIGNING CEREMONY set a nationwide standard for elementary and
C-SPAN
LINK http://www.c-span.org/video/?168090secondary education, and provided federal
1/education-bill-signing-ceremony&start=1138
funding to under-performing schools through
grants. But federal funding has been
insufficient in providing support for lowincome schools, and the interstate
discrepancies in per pupil expenditure are
FOOTAGE OF THE ESEA DEBATE
C-SPAN
LINK

startlingly great. Despite the governments

good intentions, middle and upper class
schools are thriving and growing while lowincome schools are getting left behind.

CUT TO MICHAEL LEACHMAN

TITLE SLIDE HERE?

POINT 1: MONEY SPENT PER STUDENT

IN COMPARISON TO RANKING
FADE TO FOOTAGE OF SCHOOLS IN
MCPS, PGCPS, ACPS, FCPS, DCPS AND
SCHOOLS IN NEW YORK

During the 2011-2012 school year, public

schools in Prince Georges County, one of the
lowest ranking school districts in Maryland,
spent $10,408 per student. The same school

year, during the 2012 fiscal cliff, the New York

City school district, which has over a million
students and is Americas largest school
district, spent $20,226 on their students. A
difference of $9,818. A study done by the
Thomas B. Fordham Institute shows that
Arlington and Fairfax Counties gave more
funding to schools with a larger percentage of
students who qualify for free-and-reduced
lunch while other school districts in the DC
area did not. Maybe if every district had done
something like this, the numbers wouldnt
have been so drastically different.

Per pupil expenditure varies greatly from

state to state. The Federal government gives
POINT 2: PER PUPIL EXPENDITURE
VARIES GREATLY FROM STATE TO STATE

nearly two thousand dollars in annual per

pupil expenditure to Alaska, for example, but

FADE TO GRAPHICS: ALASKA IN

COMPARISON TO UTAH

less than five hundred dollars to Utah. On

average, the amount of per pupil expenditure
provided by the federal government varies
from six hundred dollars to seven-hundred

and fifty dollars.While this one-hundred and

fifty dollars may seem like a small
discrepancy, it is actually enough to provide
FADE TO FOOTAGE OF KIDS LINING UP IN
A LUNCH LINE

seventy-five students with reduced-price

lunches for a week.

INTERVIEW W/ PATRICIA ONEILL

(forty-five seconds-one minute)

While most agree that public schools have

CUT TO FOOTAGE OF CHARTER
SCHOOLS)

insufficient funding, It is a common argument

that privately-run charter schools are more
effective than giving money to a failing
system, but they are not the best solution to
the problem.

If public schools were given the money that

they should be receiving, we would have
Choice #1; however, because of all the
FADE TO SCHOOL CHOICE COMIC

money going to charter schools, we

unfortunately have Choice #2.

Public education is a vital aspect of Americas

growing economy. It is the responsibility of
the President to advocate for public education
funding so that every student has the tools
they need to enter the American workforce.

FADE TO FOOTAGE OF OBAMA ON

EDUCATION
FADE TO CREDITS (VIDEO FOOTAGE OF
US EDITING)