RESOLVED: An ideal form of No Child Left Behind would be beneficial to the welfare of the USA

I would like to start out by saying I do NOT find Pro's arguments abusive. In last year's tournament I had an opponent call me abusive for the same thing. I don't understand why people believe a flawed resolution is abusive and if a person is to dwell on that, they are offended. First of all abuse is when a person is beaten and mugged in a back alley, not semantics. Secondly, a lot of judges just dismiss the argument, even if they shouldn't. I am definitely given a huge obstacle with the resolution considering it was not very well written. Furthermore Pro's definition as it applies to the resolution is "perfect, but existing only in the imagination". That would beg the question as to why you would want to debate the topic since it's clearly not attainable. Overall it's a poorly written resolution. So without further ado I will attempt to hurdle the obstacle. The adjective definition in cons case for ideal is the one that should be used. In the resolution it is an adjective, not a noun. I would like to define a couple of terms in the resolution as well: Welfare: -the good fortune, health, happiness, prosperity, etc., of a person, group, or organization; well-being: to look after a child's welfare; the physical or moral welfare of society. (The second example clearly shows there are two different types of welfare in society; just another flaw in the resolution) Beneficial: -Advantageous. Both definitions were taken from dictionary.com With both terms defined I would like to look at the resolution more carefully. According to the resolution, NCLB is supposed to be advantageous to the fortune, health, happiness, and prosperity of this fine nation. That's the nation as a whole, not just one person or one group of people, but rather a majority of this country. Those are the four areas in which pro needs to prove that a new form of NCLB can help (remember that pro is given the burden of implementation since it is he who is advocating a change in the status quo). These 4 areas can be simplified into one; prosperity. The prosperity of a nation leads directly to improved standards in health care, standards of living, and longer life expectancies. For the majority of this country prosperity also leads to happiness. Many people's goal in life is to make money and that is what drives them and makes them happy. I stress that not all people are like that, but a majority of American's are and like I said we are talking about the majority of people, not one person. In no way do I advocate those people's lifestyles since money can't buy happiness. Unfortunately most people think it can and sadly this is a large reason why the suicide rate in our country is so high. Neither prosperity nor the implementation of NCLB can affect fortune, which can also be termed as luck. Therefore that leaves us with one goal of the pro. He is to show how NCLB improves the prosperity of our nation. As con my job is to simply show why NCLB is not beneficial to the United States welfare. First we will begin by looking at NCLB. As pro has pointed out, NCLB is designed to make schools and teachers more accountable. What he did not point out is that children's names and phone numbers are given to army recruiters. I believe my opponent will clearly say that an ideal form of NCLB will do away with this aspect, however if he does not, I don't see any way this can be a good thing. He also did not point out how the government goes about implementing NCLB. The government sets the precedent of what states and schools need to do, however the states define the standards. Basically, the better the schools combined test scores, the more money in the schools pockets. This gives large incentives to teachers to make sure their kids do well. And here is where I will begin my contentions. 1) States define the standards. - The states are required to make a standardized test to test the schools within the state. The state is awarded money from the national government based on how well the students in the state do. This means that states are given the incentive to make their tests very easy so that they receive the maximum amount of funding possible. Missouri is admittedly one of these states. The goal of NCLB is to guarantee equal education for everyone, but the opposite effect has taken place with NCLB and that is bound to continue whether it's the current NCLB or an ideal form of it. With the lowering of standards, students are less likely to succeed in the workplace, which is bad for the prosperity of the United States. http://cbs2chicago.com... 2) The use of standardized tests - Standardized tests are mandatory to gauge a state as a whole, but are standardized tests a good thing? Standardized tests, especially NCLB inspired ones, cover a narrow area of learning. When teachers know that their jobs are on the line based on how well their class does on a test, they are inclined to teach to the test, rather than what the kids should be learning. Therefore kids receive a very narrow education. My junior year of high school, every junior had to take what is called the Dakota STEP test. Every core teacher, English especially, spent over a month talking about the test and test strategies rather than trying to improve the minds of the ones they taught. Our school took the test very seriously and everyone that improved on their 8th grade scores received a prize anywhere from movie rentals to a Wii. This was to assure that nobody made "Christmas trees" on their scantrons. I did in fact improve my score and received a free chalupa with 6 free movie rentals (I was the last student drawn before the four "big" prizes were drawn. Oh the inhumanity), but I did not learn anything in any of my classes for a month-plus because of the focus on these tests. Here is an article calling into question the use of standardized tests. http://www.fairtest.org... 3) Schools receive funding based on scores - This only serves as incentive for the school to remove students that do not perform as well on such tests. It also provokes states to set lower standards on their tests, which I have already touched on. Here is a link. I'd like to point your attention more notably to the bottom of the page and the chart. The chart shows the disparity of toughness between state tests and national tests. It's quite astonishing. http://www.susanohanian.org... Finally, 4) It costs money - From 2001 (the time of implementation) to 2007, the department of education's budget has gone from $42.2 billion to $54.4 billion. $24.4 billion of that was given to NCLB. An ideal form would cost even more. A billion dollars of that is used for a program called "reading first". Statistics show that this program does not do its intended purpose, which is to improve the proficiency of reading in between the first and third grades. It did not accomplish its goal and the government is simply throwing away money we can't afford to lose. It cannot be said that spending like this, especially spending that gives no results like reading first, increases the prosperity of the country. http://www.usatoday.com... http://www.ed.gov... That is all for this round. I eagerly await for my opponent to make arguments as to how NCLB can improve this nation's prosperity and the rebuttals of my case. I would also like to know how you created a hyperlink for your source since mine don't appear to be clickable. I would appreciate if you gave me an answer in the next round, but if you decide to take all 8,000 characters or just don't want me to know, I understand. Thanks.