That on balance, the NCLB act has improved academic achievement in the United States

okay so ill go over a few preliminary things, go onto the NC and then AC my opponent states that you should observe that statistics are more reliable than quotes, while this may be true in some cases, it is quite often the case that statistics are misrepresented and/or inflated in their presentation, translating into very misleading and seemingly insisputable evidence. such is the case with several of the statistics that the negative gives us today. i will elaborate on how the statistics used today by the NEG are misleading when i come upon them in my analysis and closing arguments. furthermore, i did kick the state test score debate, but did not contend that the debate should be centered around national test scores, what i argued is simply that when it comes to test scores the national tests are the most reliable. what this debate really comes down to my subpoint b where I discuss the fundamental skills that are gained by nclb and how they generalize to all other subjects on the academic spectrum. NC ---- it is flase to claim that i never refute the negatives "Stifled achievement argument", as i do so in R2 when i discuss what the neg statistics are really saying. the analogy that the negative uses is inherently flawed. this is because they compare the players to the test scores saying that the player has consistantly increased in accuracy for the last 15 practices, making the argument that test scores have been consistantly increasing before the implementation. however, this is not the case, as test scores were rather dysmal in the 90's all the way up until the late 90's and early 2000's where they take a giant leap and continue to grow until today. the more appropriate analogy would be a basketball player who consistantly gains 1% accuracy per practice, than for two practices gains 5 to 6 percent accuracy. afterwards he continues to increase by 3 % and is the most accurate that he has ever been. my opponent states that the website i link to doesn't actually say what i claim. just because my opponent fails to read the source of which i provide, does not mean that it isn't actually there. i quote verbatim from that very site under the bolded section entitled "The long-term Nation's Report Card (NAEP) results" For America's nine-year-olds in reading, more progress was made in five years than in the previous 28 combined." conclusivley, test scores on the NAEP are the highest they have ever been and continue to grow because of NCLB next, my opponent continues to talk about GPA, however, he completley neglects to refutemy argument about how GPA is subject to inflation by teachers and other erreneous factors making it unreliable to the assesment of achievement. national standardized tests are less subjective are are not influenced by other factors when determining achievement. thus there is really no inherency between the neg's GPA argument and NCLB. Contention 2: the negative provies you with NO evidence oncesoever that asserts that teachers have eliminated higher order thinking skills or even lowered standards since the implementation. States have lowered their measures of AYP but there is no evidence indicating that this has had an effect on teaching standards. Teachers may have access to previous state tests, but the tests aren't the same. Just because i've taken the act before dosen't mean that i'm going to go from a 23 to a 36 because i've seen it. this furthers my argument that teachers only teach the curriculum when preparing for NCLB because they dont actually know the answers to the test, just what kind of material will be presented. thus, teachers must further student's foundational knowledge of those fundamental subjects such as math, reading, and science, as they are now all part of NCLB tests. my opponent fails to realize that the matthews in 06 card advocates what i am claiming directly, and as such it loses him this argument. AS FOR THE NAEP because there is so much up and down with these national test scores it goes to show that there really is not a whole lot of inherrency between NCLB and test scores. my opponent and I can obviously argue about whether or not the NAEP tests have slowed due to NCLB, but at the end of the day, there is not a whole lot of inherrency on both sides of the test scores debate. as we don't really come to a consensus on the test scores, consider this debate as a wash, no child left behind hasn't dramatically helped test scores, but it hasn't hurt them either. However, with this aside i win the debate in several other areas. on to the AFF A: this debate comes to a wash. B: this is what wins me the debate. If you actually take time to look through the one hundred and twelve page report that my opponent links us to,you will see that my opponent is serverely flawed in his analysis. if you look to page 34 of the you will see the REAL international test score improvement within science. on page thirty four if you look to the fourth grade report, we can see that test scores fell drastically in the mid to late ninties however from 2003 to 2007 (THE TIME WHERE NCLB IMPLEMENTATION COMES INTO EFFECT) we can see that test scores begin to make a climb from what they were. so the claims made by the negative are inherently false when he states that international test scores have falled since the implementation. the evidence from the manhattan institute is not just some dude making a statement, it was a study done to lend empirical evidence to the notion that math and reading do generalize to all other subjects. as it was empirically proven by a study, this renders it to be the most tangible, inherent, and reliable piece of evidence in this debate round. When you have 235,000 more kids that have gained those fundamental skills just because of NCLB (Which is yet another piece of inherent evidence) those kids then generalize those skills to other subjects areas. this also negates his "teaching to the test argument" if the Matthews in 06 card didn't. Contention 2: I will concede that since the test score debate has come down to a wash, this debate does too come down to a wash. Contention 3: My opponent states that stats and empirical evidence are the most reliable and valid pieces of evidence in this round, however when i give evidence that states "Gitomer in 2007, the academic profile of the entire candidate pools have improved. Teacher improvements are consistent across gender, race/ethnicity, and licensure area." why is it that my opponent uses theoretical pieces to refute it? VOTERS 1: Subpoint B hundreds of thousands of students have gained fundamental math and reading skills which generalizes to all other subjects 2. Teacher quality has improved reguardless of demographics 3. the neg case has no inherency. thank you and please affirm