High School Education should be simplified and focus on specialization.

Criticism: 1.Math is important to society, as I have said before. Math and science are the most important subjects in our modern society and the more that is known about them, the better off students are. I do not quite understand what your social studies plan is or how it applies here. Could you please explain it in more detail? 2.Yes, public speech is a nice skill, but not as important as reading. If the Pro could give more specific detail than "most jobs", this argument might be acceptable, but everyone can and should read for the benefits I have stated above. 3.The Pro's argument against science has no logical basis. He argument is pretty much that anatomy and medicine are important because you get sick a lot, but knowing how the world works is not important because you aren't in the world very often. You are in the world and exposed to physics and chemistry just as often as you are exposed to anatomy. Also, just because you get sick doesn't mean you need to know anatomy. The doctor knows enough without you contributing your knowledge. 4.It would still be impractical to get a real selection of career classes in a high school even without core classes. Colleges are much bigger than the average high school because they need all the room to fit all the classes. While a lot of different subjects might fit at a high school, it would be impossible to go into depth on them. 5.The Pro misunderstands my argument about the cost not decreasing. It is true that the students would pay less, but the cost would not just vanish. The government would have to pay the price for college level education. It would be impractical to have the government pay for college classes for high school students with the current financial state it is in. 6.Classes building on each other would help retention of information because previously learned ideas would be used later on. Also, the Pro has given no benefits to not having core classes build on each other. Until he can provide some benefits, my argument stands. 7.It is more important to expose students to more classes than to let them pick their favorites. I am not saying that most students hate school, only that those who do not like it will chose easy classes. Many students are lazy and do not think about what will be the best for their future. They would chose classes that are easy and somewhat acceptable to them, not those that would get them a good job. 8.Again, please explain your social studies program. Defense: 1.Math should be taught all four years because it is important to understanding the world in which we live. Also, if you teach it for longer, all the skills gained from math will increase. 2.You will rarely get a student to enjoy reading by making him read encyclopedias. Schools would use more entertaining books that get students into reading. This way more students would develop life-long reading habits and gain the benefits of reading. Also, how often would these research and critical reading skills be used? I do not see how "all jobs" would benefit from researching. 3.The medicine and anatomy skills would not be used any less that chemistry or physics. The Pro claims that medicine and anatomy would be useful if you get sick, but when was the last time the doctor asked you to diagnose the problem for him? All sciences would be useful to understand the world around you. 4.The Pro says that he has "disproven" the idea that taking all core classes at once would reduce information retention, but this is false. He has not disproven anything, as I have already shown. 5.The Pro seems to think that it is impossible to have a basic computer class, but this is not true. The required computer class(es) would teach only keyboarding, word processing, spreadsheet and power point use, and basic internet navigation, as I said before. Electives would still be offered for more advanced classes. Also, the Pro says "I emphasize using computers in all the other classes." He said nothing about this in his plan, only adding it after seeing my plan. I know there is no real rule against this, but it seems kind of unfair to change what you are arguing for after the debate has started. 6.The Pro says that people already know what they are interested in, but this is not backed up by the statistics. After getting out of high school 80% of potential college students don't know what they want to major in and 50% of college students switch majors after starting. [1] If the Pro cannot produce any reasonable evidence to counter this, then it can be assumed that most students don't know what they want to do. In his closing remarks, the Pro makes many statements that go against his position. Firstly, he says "I do not care about making people more intelligent." Making people more intelligent is the major goal of schools. He also says "today's high schools force students to make career decisions today, and I believe my plan will actually take the pressure to know exactly what they want to do off of the student." This goes directly against what he is advocating because his plan forces students to choose what kind of lasses they want to take early on. Finally, he says "students will also be exposed to different things when the useless core classes are cut down." They would actually be exposed to far less under the Pro plan because they would only choose the classes that they like. I should win this debate because I am exposing the students to more subjects and helping them choose what they want to do with their life. They can take more specific career focused classes at college because that is what college is for. I also teach more important classes because computers, math, and science are the basis of our society. 1. http://www.nbcnews.com...