The US should Ensure Access to Quality Education For Everyone

I don’t think my opponent has successfully argued for the resolution, “The US should Ensure Access to Quality Education For Everyone”. There certainly is a lot of appeal to emotion regarding the fairness of the rich getting private education but not much in the way of why the US should ensure this. Pro concedes that the US Constitution doesn’t allow for the US to meddle in education. Sure, the states perhaps should ensure access but this not the argument that Pro initially makes. You can see the gradual concession below:Round 2: “If it is the will of the people, or if it benefits the people, it should be passed into federal law. ”Round 4: “The states can ensure it because they are the ones responsible for education, and the federal government can ensure it by providing a financial incentive to the states. ”Round 5: “In fact, they seem to have no authorization to give the state any money for education. Hmmm. .. I maintain that the states and people are still able to ensure quality education. ”The states are not the US and it was clear his original intent was for policy to be set at the Federal level. So, in this respect pro concedes the resolution and agrees with my position. But even if Pro hadn’t conceded the resolution, pro’s premises don’t necessarily support his conclusion. P1) No matter how hard you work education levels determined by how rich you areWhile the ability to pay has an impact on education, 53% of those who were poor at sometime in their lives went on to college. There are multiple ways for the non-rich to get to college: scholarships, grants and loans. The government, private scholarships and even the schools themselves offer financial aid to try to even the playing field. The reason 47% of the poor don’t make it to college? There’s no way to be certain but some of it probably has to do with cultural reasons such as a higher value placed on working than education, etc. I think the claim that I assume the poor are less intelligent is a red herring. I want all Americans to succeed and I think Pro and I just disagree on the way to get there. Clearly, if some non-rich attain higher education, then there is more at play then simply how much money one has. If wealth is not the only determinant of education levels then this premise cannot be true. P2) Racial segregation will be decreased with everyone having the same knowledgeOpportunities denied to blacks due to racial segregation is completely different than segregation due to income. Blacks were forcibly oppressed during segregation and not allowed any opportunity to succeed. Not having money for private education is a barrier but not an insurmountable one and certainly not banned by law as was the case during racial segregation. Pro’s premise changed during the debate from racial segregation to economic segregation. Even if the two were somehow synonymous, economic segregation does not necessarily mean a better education. Being from the Chicago area, I’m sure Pro is aware that there are quite a number of high quality public institutions and that some are even better than private schools. In the same website Pro gets their private school statistics from it says that 85% of rich families send their children to public school. The fact that the rich can send their kids to private school but don’t doesn’t strike me as a ringing endorsement of private schools as superior. Even if private school were somehow proven superior doesn’t mean that the US (Federal government) should implement a voucher program. P3) Educational placement should be according to abilityI agree with Pro here that educational placement should be according to ability. But Pro’s proposal seems to indicate that all the rich and non-rich who are smart enough will go to private school. If we assume that private school is quality education and all the smart kids left then public schools would be full of “children left behind” in poorly performing schools. This would negate the resolution in that not every child would have access to quality education. Conclusion:The burden of proof was on Pro to prove that the US should ensure access to quality education for everyone. Pro conceded that the US, as in the Federal government, should not ensure access to quality education for everyone. Also, pro’s arguments do not seem to support the resolution. As a libertarian, I agree with Pro that it is the states and not the US that should ensure quality education. Private schools may be a part of the solution but I think that there is inherently anything superior about private schools than public ones. Perhaps, the solution is for the states to improve their public schools. Pro seemingly hasn’t even considered this option.