Mandatory Summer Classes for Students Taking AP/Honors Classes

First off, I want to compliment my opponent. He is intelligent, and an agile debater. Unfortunately, we agree on nothing in this debate. I will counter my opponent"s arguments that he gave both in this round and the previous rounds. The Financial Problem: I see several problems with my opponent"s argument. First of all, my opponent is arguing for a fee to be placed on the summer school classes that, according to him, should be mandatory for all students taking A.P/Honors courses. The irony of this is that the fees will cause the people who need the summer programs the most -- impoverished, disadvantaged students -- to turn away from the programs. I don"t know how much these programs would charge per student. Most summer courses I have found charge between 300-400 dollars. How on earth is a family earning, say, 14 dollars an hour going to pay for that? Personally, I cannot imagine how a student living in one of those families would convince his parents to pay for a program costing even a quarter of that price. Your program would create a needless class-based divide between students. A.P. students already need to pay a significant fee for the A.P. test. Please don"t make them pay more. My opponent is severely overestimating the amount of funding his programs could get. 31 out of the 50 states have decreased funding for schools since 2008 (the report I have for this is from 2014, but it effectively captures the point). Of those, 15 have cut funding over 10 percent. As such, these budget cuts have persisted in the majority of our nation, and a new report has indicated that federal spending on education has, in total, decreased by over 20 percent. The problem is a lot less "subjective" than my opponent thinks. He will never, ever have a chance of getting the funding his program would require. I don"t understand how the equations my opponent has put forth make any sense whatsoever. While I am not an economist, if one has a budget of 9,500 dollars, it seems to me that he/she cannot spend more than that. The actual equation, it would seem, would be more like (total budget) >_ ((cost per student per day) (number of students) + (general cost of janitorial services per day) + (cost of electricity and other general costs per day)) (number of days). I couldn"t find a way to type a greater than or equal to sign, so I just used >_. Also, I would like to question my opponent"s idea of how much of a janitorial/maintenance staff would be present at the schools. If, according to my opponent, all A.P/Honors students per district would be concentrated into a single school, it would seem that a good many janitors would be needed. My sources for this are listed below. http://www.cbpp.org... http://www.usnews.com... Brain Drain There are a number of statements that my opponent made that are clearly either questionable or incorrect. According to my opponent, "creative activities" can "potentially harm" students" minds. This is ridiculous, and I would like to ask my opponent where he found evidence for this. My sources indicate that creative activities such as painting, modeling, and drawing (art and music in general) often significantly improve the processes of "long-term memory, concept construction, and the activation of the neural networks that are used when the brain processes information using the highest forms of cognition." While more research is needed on the subject, participating in creative activities is certainly beneficial to one"s learning and mental development. And I never stated that creative activities helped the flexibility of memory. I stated that it serves as a way to combat "brain drain." Honestly, I couldn"t find any sources that stated that "brain drain" was a problem with high schoolers. Most simply listed solutions for occurrences of brain drain in elementary/middle schoolers, without giving any indication that the problem persisted through high school. Perhaps this is because, as I indicated, many high-schoolers have plans over the summer. Most of the solutions to brain drain were simple, low-effort activities, such as reading and listening to educational programs. Probably the most difficult activity was joining a summer camp. In fact, one of my sources specifically advised against enrolling students in two months of school during summer break. Most of this section of my opponent"s argument was" incoherent, to say the least. I have never, for instance, heard of "AP BCO." When I googled it, I got a type of airplane used in middle eastern airlines. I honestly have no idea what "AP BCO" is, so it would be awesome if my opponent could clarify this. http://www.privateschoolreview.com... http://www.teachthought.com... https://www.destinationimagination.org... Students taking high-level courses already promote the idea of summer education At this point, I"m questioning how much of my opening statement my opponent actually read. I never stated that students taking A.P/Honors courses promoted the idea of summer courses. Rather, I stated that many students taking high-level courses already had sufficient prior knowledge of the A.P. curriculums to render summer courses unnecessary. I stated that many students gained knowledge of the A.P. curriculums through summer camps. That is, they gained prior knowledge in a form completely different from formal education. This is completely different from what the instigator stated. I acknowledge that this claim is quite subjective, but it is often true. The Jeopardization of Summer Plans I acknowledge that some students will not have summer plans. But many will. You cannot just expect people to give up their entire summer"s worth of vacation and free time in order to take unnecessary summer classes. On another note, you have not "addressed" my agenda. Your proposed solution either involves me ditching my 3-d Modeling class, which I value a lot more than your proposed summer courses, or taking online classes. And while I admire your proposal for online courses, they are completely unfeasible and at least partially ineffective. Online classes have their own problems. They are unrealistic, for a number of reasons. First off, not everyone has a computer, and not everyone has access to the internet. It may seem difficult to believe in this day and age, but it is true. Students living in poverty or located in rural areas may either not own a computer or not have reliable internet access. Just like my opponent cannot just expect that all families with A.P. students are willing to ditch their summer plans in order to send their children to summer courses they don"t need, he cannot simply assume that every student in the United States of America has constant access to the internet. There are other basic problems, including the possible failure of the server on which the classes are operated, the susceptibility of the system to hackers, and problems with individual student computers. Online courses also have elevated dropout rates, and, according to a study from the University of Colorado, will often cause struggling students to fall behind in the other, more traditional courses they are taking. Occasionally, attrition rates for larger online programs have been as high as 90%. Just as importantly, online courses make effective communication between struggling students and teachers nearly impossible, facilitating the rise in failing students. Ultimately, online classes are not a viable option, especially for students who do not have at least a basic prior understanding of the subject they are studying -- like the students who would be taking the summer classes. http://www.ion.uillinois.edu... https://depts.washington.edu... The Issue of Counting Summer Classes as a Semester My opponent has gone against his original debating stance. He was, originally, arguing that every student taking any A.P/Honors class should have to take a summer course to achieve at least a basic understanding of the subject that students were studying. He has since changed his view to the proposal that not all students should be forced to take these classes. As such, he is arguing against himself. I would just like to point this out before I continue. The instigator has completely ignored the structural problems that I brought up. The problem was with the subject of incorporating students" grades into the system; it would be difficult to give students the proper credit for taking advanced classes. My opponent has completely missed the point of my argument, and has not really provided a good solution. Letting each school do as they will with students" grades is really not a viable option here -- it opens too much room for an unreliably variable system. Conclusion Hopefully, my opponent can realize that the idea of summer school may appear to be beneficial, but is in fact incredibly complicated and problematic for the vast majority of students. I maintain my position that students should have an uninterrupted summer break.