That on balance, the NCLB act has improved academic achievement in the United States

Two things to observe: FIRST: when evaluating the round and the different logic my opponent and I present, it's important to observe that while quotes are a good tool for explaining analysis, statistics are always more reliable. For example, if you're buying a car the dealer says is brand new, and the odometer says that it's been driven 200,000 miles, you're obviously going to trust the odometer. This is going to be important. SECOND: This is more for organization - just note that my opponent concedes state test scores are not the big issue. Instead, and this is what he acknowledges, the debate is going to be centered around NATIONAL test scores. On to the cases, we'll start first with the Neg Case, and then we'll move on the Affirmative. Contention One: First, let's look to the point he says about NAEP testing. He drops state testing standards, and asks us to look at the national levels. I concede that national levels are at an all time high. This is irrefutable. It is important to note, however, how fast we've gotten there. To draw a parallel, say you're examining an athletic player's improvement in basketball. For the last 15 practices his accuracy has jumped 3% each practice. You implement a new shooting regiment, and now his accuracy only improves by 1% each practice. You thus conclude that your new training program has STIFLED his achievement. While he is still achieving, he's doing it slower than before, and as a result you conclude that the new program has not improved academic achievement. This is the most important point, as he never actually refutes it. National test score increases have STAGNATED since the implementation of NCLB. The website he links doesn't actually say "increased more in the last 5 years than in the previous 20 combined", it simply says test scores are at all an time high, which I've already shown is insufficient to prove achievement has been increased. The study about how test scores have increased actually talks about state proficiency markers, which he agrees are flawed. Next, he talks about how GPA is insufficient - I'd like to observe that academic achievement can best be defined as how much students are learning. Better test scores mean better learning (at least, that's his logic) and so we could also conclude that better grades mean better learning. This isn't so. The statistics I give you actually say that the average grade in 2000 was a C-, and it remains so today (2009, I believe ;)). As a result of NCLB, there have been literally 0 improvements to GPA. So unless teacher grading has all of a sudden gotten much harsher (which doesn't make sense, as teachers actually decrease the standards they hold their kids to - look to the logic in my first contention for that) it stands to reason that GPA does assist us in evaluating the affect NCLB has had. Contention Two: The first two paragraphs he makes can be grouped. He misses the point entirely. The argument that I am making is that NCLB has lead to lowered testing standards on state tests. As a result, teachers teach to those lower standards - eliminating higher order thinking skills. The whole, "teachers don't know what's on the test" argument represents more misunderstanding - they have access to all previous state tests. As the tests progressively get worse, so do the classes. Moreover, these classrooms focus on "test taking strategies" which have nothing to do with the curriculum at all. As for NAEP Stagnation, as this is the most important point in the round, let me cite several sources backing this up. He asserts a point with no evidence, so I'll cite three different sources that outline the lowering of of achievement since NCLB's inception. First: CEP: "average NAEP scores also increased in math but at a slower rate than in previous years. Math results for grades 4 and 8 climbed dramatically in the early 1990s, leveled off in the mid-1990s, and then rose again between 2000 and 2003. Scores increased more modestly between 2003 and 2005, when the 4th grade average score increased by 3 points to 238, and the 8th grade average score rose by 1 point to 279. " Second: UC Berkeley: "the rate of improvement was faster before the law, NCLB is slowing down our progress nationwide. " Third: Different UC Berkeley Study: "Negative advances have been seen in eighth grade reading scores since the inception of NCLB in 2002. " Fourth: Harvard: "Growth rates have either slowed or stagnated since the inception of NCLB in 2002. " AFFIRMATIVE CASE: A: he drops subpoint a. B: Okay, he gives us this nice quote by the Manhattan Institute. That's fine, but look back to the beginning of this where I told you that statistics are better than quotes. If students should be performing better in science and history, it does not make sense that test scores in those areas are falling. . http://nces.ed.gov... is the full PDF file, it's from the Dep. of Education. Contention Two: Sorry, that's not the CEP Study. First: High-low achievement gap is a result of high performing students performing worse. Tom Loveless of the Fordham Institute writes, "The narrowing of the gap during the NCLB era is largely due to smaller gains by high achievers. " Second: Black-White Achievement Gap has not shrunk. His CEP Study talks ONLY about state testing, so that's not an accurate marker of how the achievement gap as shrunk. When we look to national testing a study by UC Berkeley reports, "long term data show that the Black-White achievement gap closed from 44 points in 1971 to 26 in 2004, yet no progress has occured since 2002 in closing the achievement gap, mean gains have slowed since 03 and progress in closing ethnic gaps has stalled. " Moreover, that same Harvard study I quote for Growth Rates also elaborates into the achievement gap. The author, Jaekyung Lee, writes, "NCLB does not appear to have an impact on improving reading or math achievement. .. NCLB does not seem to have helped the nation and states significantly narrow the achievement gap. " Contention Three: Chester E. Finn, Senior Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution reports: "Lawmakers blundered when they confused "qualified" with "certified" teachers. There's no solid evidence that state certification ensures classroom effectiveness -- and the booming success of programs such as Teach for America, which sends recent college graduates into troubled schools, suggests that certification may be wholly unnecessary. By requiring certified teachers in every classroom, No Child Left Behind makes it harder for district and charter schools to attract energetic and capable people who want to teach but take a less traditional route to the classroom. " Sunderman and Kim of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA Elaborate, "NCLB as worsened inqequities in the distribution of qualified teachers, skilled teachers avoid or leave low-performing schools schools that are identified as in need of improvement. Schools identified as needing improvement under NCLB are most likely to have the least qualified teachers. " To summarize: The points to vote off of in this round are as followed: 1) NCLB has caused growth rates in areas of academics to slow. I cite four different studies to back this up, one of which he relies on heavily in his own case (the CEP). Linking back to the basketball player analogy, if the new system caused decreases in improvement, one would NOT logically conclude it has improved achievement. 2) NCLB has not shrunk the achievement gap. There are three separate studies to support this, that all discuss NAEP not the flawed state tests which his study addresses. 3) NCLB encourages good teachers to LEAVE schools that need their help the most. Again, two studies to support this. Moreover, "certified" does not mean "qualified" - if these teachers had become better, we would see improvements on NAEP tests. We do not.