From Rankings to Lives: Bartlet Frames an Education Emergency
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Bartlet discusses the U.S.'s poor performance in international math and science rankings with Dr. Stanley Keyworth, highlighting systemic educational failures.
Bartlet reveals his considerable SAT scores, showcasing his academic prowess while subtly hinting at his perfectionism.
Bartlet connects educational shortcomings to high infant mortality rates, framing both as critical issues requiring immediate attention.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Professional curiosity with underlying warmth; attentive, slightly amused by Bartlet's self‑revelations, then swiftly deferential when the crisis intrudes.
Dr. Stanley Keyworth listens, lightly probes, and offers interpretive help—questioning Bartlet's associations (airplanes, death), registering surprise at the SAT confession, and maintaining professional composure as the session is interrupted by crisis news.
- • Clarify Bartlet's metaphorical language and surface anxiety (airplanes/dreams).
- • Provide a stabilizing, reflective space for the President to process responsibility and guilt.
- • Preserve the therapeutic frame even as White House operations reassert themselves.
- • Exploring metaphors (airplanes/death) can unlock emotional material.
- • Bartlet's confessions are sincere and diagnostically useful.
- • Maintaining composure will help the President transition back to duty.
Concerned and driven; a controlled moral outrage over systemic failure undercut by private perfectionism and a rising, uneasy anxiety that becomes urgency when interrupted.
President Josiah Bartlet frames a policy diagnosis in intimate, confessional terms: citing international rankings, teacher qualification statistics, and infant mortality, confessing near‑perfect SATs and admitting distracting anxiety; he answers the intercom and pivots toward immediate action when alerted to closures.
- • Make sense of the educational data and diagnose a policy response.
- • Translate abstract rankings into moral/political imperatives (link education to infant mortality).
- • Contain personal anxiety enough to return to public duties.
- • Shift from private rumination to decisive action once alerted to the external crisis.
- • Systemic educational failures produce real human consequences (children dying).
- • The presidency must turn moral diagnosis into policy action; some problems are addressable by leadership.
- • Personal competence (his own academic credentials) matters to his authority and credibility.
- • Some forces (nature, bad luck) are beyond presidential control, but institutional failures are not.
Implied vulnerability and passive suffering—used to motivate Bartlet's moral argument.
The 'Little Children' are referenced indirectly as the human focus of Bartlet's shift from statistics to moral urgency; they do not speak in the scene but function emotionally as the vulnerable beneficiaries of policy.
- • Serve as the moral anchor for Bartlet's argument (implicit goal).
- • Highlight the human stakes behind abstract policy statistics.
- • Children's lives should be protected by policy.
- • Statistical decline equates to diminished human well‑being.
Portrayed as a structural problem—no direct emotion but framed as victims and contributors to institutional decline.
Math teachers are invoked as systemic actors whose lack of subject expertise (one‑third without major/minor) is used as evidence in Bartlet's critique of public education; they are discussed rather than present.
- • Receive resources and training (implied policy goal).
- • Improve subject expertise to raise student outcomes (implied).
- • Teacher preparation is crucial to student performance.
- • Current staffing patterns signal systemic neglect of education.
Represented as an impersonal statistic that fuels Bartlet's moral indignation rather than shown with affect.
Science teachers are cited (half without subject majors/minors) as part of Bartlet's evidence, functioning as an institutional fault line that justifies federal intervention and spending.
- • Be retrained or replaced to improve curriculum quality (implied).
- • Secure better resources and standards (implied).
- • Qualified teachers directly affect national competency in science.
- • Teacher credentialing failures reflect deeper systemic problems.
Passive, used as a framing device to comment on paralysis and entrapment.
Agatha Christie is invoked as a cultural touchstone in Bartlet's quip about being 'one‑third of the way through an Agatha Christie story,' providing a literary metaphor for stalled movement and isolation.
- • Provide an evocative metaphor to capture the sudden paralysis of movement.
- • Help Bartlet articulate the mood of being stranded and cut off.
- • Literary metaphors can clarify complex situations.
- • Reference to a familiar genre signals shared cultural meaning to the staff.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
Seventh grade textbooks are cited rhetorically as evidence of misallocated resources—being used in ninth grade—illustrating how increased spending didn't translate into appropriate materials and highlighting systemic neglect and curriculum mismatch.
The private study phone/intercom functions as the narrative pivot: it rings, Bartlet answers, briefly converses with Leo, and through it the private therapeutic conversation is abruptly converted into operational crisis — serving as the plot device that dissolves privacy into command.
The No. 2 pencil is invoked jokingly by Bartlet as a hypothetical cause for identical SAT scores, functioning symbolically to deflate his own perfectionism and introduce levity before the interruption; it is a rhetorical device rather than a physical prop.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Cyprus is mentioned as one of the only countries ranking below the U.S. in the study, used comparatively to shame American standing and add rhetorical force to Bartlet's critique of education.
The President's private study is the intimate setting for the therapeutic, analytical exchange—an enclosed space that allows Bartlet to shift from policy diagnosis to personal confession before being intruded upon by institutional communications and crisis news.
Dulles Airport is named among closed transport hubs; its shutdown's mention instantly elevates the conversation from policy critique to crisis management, emphasizing paralysis of national mobility and logistical disruption for the administration.
The Church of the Nativity functions as the immediate external crisis node: Leo reports it is closed, turning what had been a private discussion into an urgent diplomatic/security problem and signaling potential international complications on Christmas Eve.
The Washed Out Bridge appears as a metaphor Bartlet uses to describe being 'one‑third of the way through an Agatha Christie story'; it highlights physical and narrative isolation—routes cut off and momentum halted.
Singapore is invoked as a benchmark for low infant mortality; Bartlet contrasts it with the U.S. to convert educational statistics into life‑and‑death policy stakes.
Organizations Involved
Institutional presence and influence
Public schools are the locus of the failure Bartlet diagnoses—underqualified teachers, inadequate textbooks, and misleading test scores are attributed to systemic problems within this organization, making it the target of proposed federal intervention.
The International Math and Science Study supplies the factual backbone for Bartlet's diagnosis—its ranking (U.S. 19/21) triggers the conversation and justifies policy concern and spending reallocation.
The Church of the Nativity, referenced as closed, functions as an organizational actor whose closure signals security/diplomatic repercussions; its inaccessibility immediately alters the administration's operational priorities.
The Dulles Airport Authority is implicated when Dulles is reported closed; its operational decision amplifies the sense of immobilization and creates logistical constraints for the administration.
The 'International' airport (represented as an organization) is cited as closed alongside Dulles, collectively signaling a breakdown in national mobility and increasing the scale of the emergent crisis the President must manage.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Bartlet's concern about infant mortality rates directly causes him to task Josh with the urgent policy initiative, linking personal guilt to political action."
"Bartlet's concern about infant mortality rates directly causes him to task Josh with the urgent policy initiative, linking personal guilt to political action."
Part of Larger Arcs
Key Dialogue
"Bartlet: "There's a new international math and science study. We rank 19 out of 21 countries.""
"Bartlet: "I got 800/790. For the life of me, I can't imagine what I got wrong.""
"Bartlet: "So our schools have reached a crisis and our infant mortality rate is two and a half times what it is in Singapore. So what I think we should do for starters is, we should keep more people alive, then send them to school.""