: Public high school students in the United States ought not to be required to pass standardized exi

Affirmative Constructive Resolved: Public high school students in the United States ought not to be required to pass standardized exit exams to graduate Definitions: Ought: Used to indicate moral obligation or duty Standardized exit exams: A test that if passed, graduates you from high school. Graduate: To advance in a new level of skill, or achievement. Observation 1: Government is the source of the problem. Too much government is never good. The great society act is one example, on how government intervention, harms the systems it is trying to help. The act tried to help, education, Medicare, and Medicaid. 1) The Great society act created the public schools we have today, that are atrocious. The act gave the schools 1 billion dollars to reform, but the schools have wasted that money, and the chance of a good system. The government failed to help with education. 2) The Government lists Medicare as a "high-risk" government program in need of reform, in part because of its vulnerability to fraud and partly because of its long-term financial problems. Ronald Reagan states, "If you don't stop Medicare and I don't do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free. George H.W. Bush states, "Described Medicare in 1964 as "socialized medicine." The government made a bad system. This is why we can't have standardized tests because it all stems from the failures of the great society. So we look at the past to predict the future. Valued Premise: Quality Education, The only way public schools in the United States will have quality education is by keeping government standards and regulations out. They have already corrupted the public school system, and by implementing standardized test, the government is taking more control, and telling the students what is important to learn, so the students can't make choices for themselves. There are two impacts, 1), by negating the resolution you are letting the government take more control of the public schools when they have already destroyed them. 2), By setting the standardized test as the standard the government is telling the students what is important to learn, therefore not letting the students make their own choices. Valued Criterion: Fairness, By administering standardized exit exams, we are being unfair to minorities, tax payers, and students. We strive for fairness, yet this graduation requirement keeps us from achieving this goal. Therefore, public high school students in the United States ought not be required to pass standardized exit exams to graduate. My VC directly links to my value premise because if we are fair to everybody, they are all getting a quality education. Contention 1: Standardized exit exams are unfair to students in districts that have greater needs and fewer resources Sub-point A: There is a better chance that privileged children will pass the tests, because the tests are biased. Many standardized tests are unfair, because they require knowledge and skills more likely to be possessed by children from a privileged background. This discrimination is normally shown in norm-referenced tests where the goal is to spread out the scores often creates questions that require knowledge gained outside of school. This provides a great advantage to those students whose parents are wealthy and well-educated. This is unfair to minorities that do not have these experiences that are needed to pass the tests. For instance, according to CEP figures, on the first attempt to pass the state exit exam last year, there was a gap of more than 40 percentage points between the pass rates of white and black students. Contention 2: Perverseness in Public Schools Joel Klein, the man in charge of public schools in NYC, lists perverse incentives, States are rewarded for increasing the proportion of students who pass their exams, but not for raising a child's score from low to nearly good enough to pass, or brilliant. So they are tempted to lavish attention on those on the cusp of passing, while neglecting the weakest and strongest students." As you can see from this quote a school is not rewarded for helping a way below average student to become average. So there is no incentive for the school to do so. So they only help the "on the cusp of passing students" so they can get rewarded, while they neglect the weakest and strongest students. Link this back to my VC of fairness. Sub-point A: Tests limit schools Standardized exit exams are extremely expensive. The state Department of Education says that it should cost about a total of 160 million dollars over six years to create and administer these tests. Schools across the US are cutting back on creative programs, such as the arts, sports, and music because of budgets, but they are creating these expensive exams. No one has the right to deprive students of the arts, because they think that these tests are more important. It's not fair that the Department of Education is choosing what the core subjects are. Creativity is an important part of the childhood of students. These exit exams are socially unequal and unfair. Contention 3: Other nation's way of teaching students According to the fair test website, the national website for open and fair testing they state," The U.S. is the only economically advanced nation to rely heavily on multiple-choice tests. Other nations use performance-based assessment where students are evaluated on the basis of real work such as essays, projects and activities. Ironically, because these nations do not focus on teaching to multiple choice tests, they even score higher than U.S. students on those kinds of tests." Other nations use these types of methods that require individual thinking and becoming independent and thinking for themselves. Finland teenagers are among the smartest in the world, and they have no exit exams to graduate high school. The public schools make sure that the teachers are well trained and responsible. And instead of pushing kids to GT, they help with the struggling students. Every teacher has a master degree, and the government gives them more freedom. The Finland dropout rate is 4% to US's 25. We need to adopt Finland's method Contention 4: Standardized tests are useless. New Jersey must have an educated work force with young men and women who can handle the demands of our technological age. For years, New Jersey has claimed to have the highest graduation rate in the nation. This is an absurd claim. Students in New Jersey high schools are required to pass the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA) in order to earn a diploma. According to Commissioner of Education, Lucille Davy, the HSPA is an eighth grade level test. A score of 47 percent is required to pass the language section and 50 percent to pass the mathematics section, scores that would be considered failing in most testing scales. If students fail the HSPA three times, they are eligible to have an alternative assessment conducted, the Special Review Assessment (SRA). Initially, the SRA was meant only for children with severe learning problems that prevented them from taking and passing the regular timed test. It was never meant for everyone who failed the HSPA. But, over time, the SRA was weakened until almost every child that failed the graduation test three times was given the opportunity to take the SRA. In fact, according to Rev. Reginald Jackson of the Black Ministers' Council in testimony he gave before the State Board of Education in April, nearly 20 percent of New Jersey students receive their diploma through the SRA. If we subtract the children who are given this back door diploma, New Jersey ranks in the mid-range of the United States graduation rate, not first. We need a test that means something. If a child does not have a severe physical or mental problem he or she should