Public High School Students and Exit Exams

Hello everyone it's been awhile hasn't it....don't think any of you remember me. Any way I think my opponent for making this an LD debate and wish him luck in further rounds. Lets get started I affirm the resolution Resolved: Public High School students in the United States ought not to be required to pass Standardize Exams to graduate. Before we start this debate I would like to define the following: Required: By necessity or law Public High School: A secondary school in the United States supported by public funds and providing free education for children of a community or district. Standardize Exit Exams a test a student may be required to take in high school in order to show proficiency in a class or to exhibit basic proficiency in math, English, Science and other core subjects to gain a high school diploma. Graduate: To be granted an academic degree or diploma Moving on to my value for this round, I will be using that of Societal Progress. By having a Standardize test that is supposed to measure the quality of education be flawed, which I will further elaborate in my case, and do more harm than good does not help education the slightest bit and adds no value to high school diplomas that students have to take standardize test to achieve. Students are walking away with diplomas in hands but with limited knowledge. This is because the tests are extremely easy and can be lowered to the states liking which awards the school and not the students. If we were to get rid of Exit exams we would have students actually walking away with valued diplomas that can actually contribute to society bettering it as a whole than those who have none. For my criterion I will be using that of Pragmatism. In an ideal world we would have just one national Standardize Test so that the states wouldn't have control over them so the couldn't fluctuate the bar to make it unchallenging and extremely easy. But unfortunately we don't and unfortunately they do. There are studies showing that Exit Exams harm students and teach them nothing. So if we were to be pragmatic about this we would see that these are not working and not helping society progress and need to be rid off. Con 1: Exit Exams are flawed and do more harm than good to students. Even though students are passing Exit exams, according to the National Center for Education Statistics 40% of college students are taking remedial education. Texas colleges reported in-state high school graduates needed more, not less, remedial classes after high-stakes testing was introduced. Also the success of the schools is dependent on the performance of the students. The federal funds are given only to those schools that perform well, which adds an incredible amount of pressure on public schools to constantly evaluate their performance or fluctuate the bar that has to be passed. What this leads to is an increase in school dropouts. Harvard University found that students in the bottom 10% of achievement were 33% more likely to drop out of school in states with graduation test. The National Research Council found that low-performing high school students who are held back do less well academically, are much worse off socially, and are far likelier to drop out than equally weak students who are promoted. What is happening here is that students who are passing exit exams are going on to college but needing remedial courses, which defeats the purpose of them in the first place. What they are supposed to do is filter out students who know what is required to from those who don't but it still passes those who don't know because the states have the bar so lowered that the students don't learn anything and need remedial classes. All it's really doing is raising the dropout rates and hurting their education. Being pragmatic about this and getting rid of them would set a realistic bar for students to pass and not have as much pressure on them therefore having more students walking away with diplomas to help contribute and progress society. Con 2: Do to Exit Exams, curriculum flexibility is limited. The state requires teachers to teach a curriculum that is related to the test. This leaves a very narrow opportunity to teach non-related test material. Because the test are so basic and are only multiple choice they don't make the students analyze situations, think critically nor do they make them conduct research which are important attributes, according to the National Research Council, that students need in college. Also Susan Brooks-Young reports that every teacher expresses frustration about no having time to allow students to explore and create their own meaning through project base learned activities. As a result the joy of learning and teaching has been significantly diminished what the exit exams are doing is getting rid of the most important skills that a student needs in college. They lower the bar so low that anyone, without the knowledge thy need, can be able to pass it. If we were to remove exit exams teachers can teach the skills that are required for college and help society progress. I will now end Round 1 and pass it over to my opponent