Resolved: Public high school students in the United States ought not be required to pass standardize

I negate, the value is education as the resolution questions how we "ought" to prioritize our educational standards. Education is premised upon allowing individuals to be successful in life by gaining knowledge at school. The only way to ensure that students actually are achieving that knowledge that was taught to them at school is to hold them accountable to a standardized test. This means that we place a value that at least guarantees that a diploma has some value and can be utilized throughout life after high school. My criterion is creating effective standards. CI) standardized exit exams create effective standards. First, national standards are necessary to avoid a race to the bottom between districts graduation records. Betts writes: Decentralization would likely lead to inefficiently low standards. Suppose each district's non-college bound graduates are pooled to some extent with graduates of other districts in the labor market. Employers do not distinguish graduates of any district that chooses a different standard. The reward to raising standards in any given district is thus attenuated. The district's graduates would be of higher quality, but would not be fully identified as such, and so would only reap some of the benefits; the rest of the gains would spill over to graduates of other districts, with whom they are pooled in the labor market. As a result of this "externality", local standard-setters have an incentive to free ride on the standards of other districts, establishing cutoffs that are too low to maximize their collective welfare. A centralized standard-setter would avoid this problem. Thus, no standards would allow for no cutoff of any educational requirements and districts ultimately cannot guarantee welfare. Also, a race to the bottom would be established because: 1.Districts would want to to maximize the amount of people they have in the work force to gain money, but individuals would ultimately not prosper because they have not been educated because the educational requirements of their districts are so minute. 2.Schools reputation or funding can be primarily based upon how many students graduate, i.e. if a school only graduated 10% of their students this would reflect negatively on the school and the school may receive lower funding. Thus, schools will lower the quality of education in favor of lowering the quality of standards. Off A)The aff must specify an alternative requirement for graduation in the AC. B)The aff did not specify an alternative C)Standards 1)Clash- I have no basis to attack the aff if they don't specify an alternative because there is no stable aff world, because they never specify the type of standardized exit exam they are rejecting. Different schools have different requirements, i.e. differing numbers of years of science and days in attendance are required, so I have no world to attack absent specification. Also, without some specific advocacy, they cant prove what they are saying is comparatively better than the negative world so they are not meeting their textual burdens to affirm. This means the aff can't claim to be implicitly using the status quo minus tests because there is no distinct status quo to take tests from. The NC can't show tests provide MORE equal evaluation without an alternative to compare. Clash is key to fairness because if I can't contest arguments because of an arbitrary advantage I can never defeat my opponent, making this round infinitely unfair. 2)Moving target- if the aff does not specify an alternative they can co-opt any of my advantages to testing by advocating an alt in the 1ar that has the same benefits. By not specifying an alt they have the ability to claim that the generic notion of testing doesn't have any of the disadvantages I am claiming in my NR. Furthermore, this shifting nature allows them to co-opt all of my benefits because they never have a stable advocacy where there is a clear delineation of what their position is, meaning they can make new links and say some of my benefits are theirs in their next speech. Don't let them say I wouldn't have specified in the 1AR because I can't know that so I am forced to either invest time in theory or let myself be abused, so the potential abuse is still a voting issue. Whether or not they attend for shifting to happen, with out a specific affirmative alternative some shift is inevitable. If there is any debate on the nc, because obviously they have to test the uniqueness of the disadvantages the negative is running, then they would have to shift their advocacy because any nit is impossible to do that without shifting unless there is an alternative because any uniqueness would lead to a shift, because there would be some sort of specification for uniqueness, but to avoid that debate you need to have a specification in the ac, this is any example for why this interpretation is better for both sides. Being a moving target is unfair because I never have the ability in round to prep and create a strategy that will allow me to win because my opponent can just change what their position is rendering my in round prep and strategy useless, meaning I would not be able to form a stable advocacy against them, making the round unfair. 3)Ground: the aff can always run generic disads but I cannot challenge the uniqueness of the disads because they do not have a specific aff world to check uniqueness against, for example it is unfair because kids have met other requirements to graduate but standardized tests arbitrarily stop graduation, but that could be true of any individual requirement, meaning I cannot question the uniqueness of the disads unless they have specified what the requirements look like. Thus in order to have fair ground I must have other arguments to be able to make to test the uniqueness of their claims. I cant have this ground when they don't specify this nc because I don't know what other requirements that are put on the children look like. Ground is key to fairness, because in order for debaters to equally be able to make arguments, they must have arguments to choose from. By limiting my ground my opponent is skewing my ability to make arguments thus creating an unequal playing field making the round unfair because he has an arbitrary advantage over myself. Furthermore, the text of the resolution evaluates graduation requirements, meaning high schools need some way to determine graduation. Though, requirements are comparative. Certain tests are adopted because certain schools felt certain requirements didn't ensure students knew the material as well, thus to prove the res true the aff must compare an alt to testing. 4)Fairness precedes substance because if the substantive debate is unfair it cant be evaluated as one side is advantaged. And is a voting issue because debate is a competitive activity premised on equal opportunity to win so rules ensuring that must be enforced.