No money for education

Since I don't really understand the Pro's rant, I'll dissect it to crystallize the topic for myself (and the voters.) 1: The resolution is obviously advocating that the federal government cut funding for public education. As a result, a better resolution would be, "Resolved: The U.S. Federal Government should cut funding for public education." 2: The Pro states, "big business is telling us what to teach..." I assume this is an argument against organized curriculum, or (if you want to extend it that far) the No Child Left Behind Act. 3: He cites a Berkeley example, but to my knowledge the federal government provides no funding for private colleges (Harvard, Stanford, etc) just pays for public schooling (community colleges.) Maybe they provide funding for STATE colleges, I'm not sure. Clarification is needed, but until that is done (by the Pro, because I'm not going to discuss colleges.) That said, on to contentions: ==== C1: Education is a fundamental human right. ==== http://www.un.org... Article 26 of the UN's Universal Declaration of human rights states, "Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit." Moreover, article 22 states, "Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality." In today's society, an education is a key component of the exercise of economic, social and cultural rights within society (especially that of America.) The poor are often subjugated (social), they have inferior access to superior care (economic) and they are eliminated from upper circles, preventing aspiration into a higher echelon of power (cultural.) Two separate articles of the UN's declaration of human rights provide us with details proving that education is a human right. ==== C2: Federal funding is necessary to ensure all individuals are able to access their right to education. ==== Often the poor and minorities are denied equal access to education. Federal funding allows those who cannot afford private schooling to access education at an equal level with all other individuals. The Pro is advocating a plan that would require schools to revert to a system of tuition-based education in all levels, meaning that "private" schools would be only type of school. Private schools are notoriously well known for high tuition rates, and these high tuition schools would not allow access to those who cannot afford them. As a result, a private education system would literally block out all of those unable to afford high expense tuition costs. Besides the poor, those in the middle class with multiple kids would struggle to pay for all of their child's tuition. It is a burden enough on parents to pay for multiple trips to college, but if one experienced college like tuition fees for all 12 years of primary education, then it stands the reason that those who struggled to afford college would not be able to afford it in this new system. The problem is, without federal funding to education, the gap of uneducated children would widen - allowing all of the poor, and a large portion of the middle class to fall in. ==== C3: Curriculum based education provides the most stringent standards for student development. ==== Classes that allow entirely free teacher autonomy will allow good teachers to teach, but it will also allow bad teachers to teach. Insofar as curriculum forces bad teachers to teach at least adequately, then those students who are at-risk for a poor education are now better off. Additionally, a good teacher will be able to innovate to fit a curriculum, thus his or her teaching ability is slightly, if at all, impaired. Essentially, curriculum provides standards that require teachers to be at least moderately competent in their field. ==== C4: Capitalist-based schooling will exacerbate socioeconomic problems between minorities and the white, upper class. ==== Insofar as minorities are generally less well off financially than whites, if we build upon the reasoning of contention two then those most likely to not receive an education become minorities. The more minority students that are uneducated, the less likely it is that the minority-white economic gap will shrink. Instead, high-rollers in the upper-middle to upper class will still dominate the higher echelons of the workforce, while the lower classes will have 0 access to the means necessary to allow them to transcend these divisive lines. Public education allows lower class students to excel at a close to equal level with their majority counterparts, and as a result it allows more lower-class kids to permeate the educated, skilled workforce. ==== C5: Privately funded education will not benefit the economy. ==== Drawing upon the reasoning of contention two once more, if more students are left out of the loop then more american workers are uneducated and unskilled. In the globalized world we live in, it is necessary - if america is to remain competitive - for it to be made up of a highly skilled, highly educated workforce. We are not longer an industrial-based nation (like China), where manual labor is the primary source of income. America is now a post-industrial nation, where services in the technology sector are the most important goods that we sell. The less individuals that receive the skills and knowledge necessary to do these tasks, the worse off the American workforce is. Either the American economy will lose its global competitiveness, or it will be forced to revert back to an industrial economy to meet the ability of its workers. Either way, the economy suffers. It is because education, a fundamental human right, can only be adequately provided by the Government, that I must negate.