Students not passing all classes should be ineligible to play high school sports

=Arguments= So starting out with TAKS testing; I usually don't make these kinds of arguments, but right now I feel I'm fairly qualified to do so. And also, just as proof; -> . http://www.debate.org... I'm 17 years old, born and raised in East Texas. when I started 5th Grade, TAKS tests where instituted as a replacement to the [1]TAAS; This last school year (my junior year) the TAKS was finished. In fact I had to take three of the EOC tests to try them out for the kids coming up; it was just as painfully easy as the TAKS test. None of this standardized testing has done any good, and these scores mean absolutely nothing. I received a commended on all four of my exit level TAKS tests this year; and none of them have helped me at all. The reason the EOC's are even thought to be so necessary is because of how many kids are still failing classes and dropping out in the first place [2] Texas utterly fails to graduate 3 out of every 10 students, that's just under one third! Yes the article I linked to said the EOC was going to be more rigorous, simply because there is a fallacious idea that more rigorous testing will do any sort of good. The fact still remains however that it will not. Teachers will still be required to stick to a strict regime of teaching what is necessary for the test; the students will in turn still suffer as this is a painfully artificial way to teach. And while test scores for these tests will be great, and continue to get better as teachers fall into the patter of continuing to teach students things they will never use after high school. Next, my opponent agrees with me that not all classes are necessary, but goes onto claim that these classes teach students essential skills such as effective time management, problem solving, and the ability to accomplish tasks that aren't necessarily enjoyable. However with the exception of problem solving, it is not the school's job to teach kids these things. And we also have to remember that blatantly punishing these kids instead of helping them, and giving them an actual education does not good for the children, and especially not for the society these kids will be going into. Also let's talk about problem solving for a minute; we live in a type of society where a lot problems can only be solved by going out of the frying pan and into the fire. Even if I got perfect grades in all of my classes, if I studied trigonometry and rhyme schemes all day, if I knew all of the presidents and the periodic table; It wouldn't help me find my way home if I got lost while in town. It wouldn't help me fix my truck if my engine broke down while going down the road, and it wouldn't tell me how to respond to my loving wife of 23 years our only son ran off the road and killed himself because he was darned worried about making it to school on time (Purely fictional examples by the way). But if these where really such a big issue plaguing the minds of the educational institutions, then how come classes like Home Economics, and Ag Mechanics aren't graduations requirement? Again, the educational system needs major reforms; and simply booting these kids out of their sports, or whatever else other activity they're in will do no good on a large enough scale to warrant the good outweighing the bad. There are bigger issues at fault, so at least let the kids play their sports and at least generate some revenue for the schools I also want to make a quick point that society works as a body; not on an individual by individual basis. not every-one needs to know how to do everything; we need to focus on our strengths and allow help from others. However that is exactly what the current educational system tries to do. So while Billy Jones does graduate with honors and get accepted into Harvard like Joey Smith, it doesn't make their contribution to society any less valuable. Next my opponent claims that it is unrealistic to believe that those who joins sports teams aren't necessarily going to be as competitive in the classroom First, if they play sports for the love of competition is is incredibly likely given the right incentive. Competition. Second, those who only play sports for recognition from their peers likely wouldn't care that they where kicked out anyway. They would find another way to get attention, it's those who have a passion for sports whom are truly going to suffer. Third, if a person who truly cared for sports was kicked off of the team for a bad grade instead of the school system having them put more emphasis on working at this subject; it should show that they legitimately need help on that subject. Fourth, it's exactly this attitude that causes so many kids to fail in the first place; we assume that athletes are just a bunch of big smelly jocks who can't add two plus two; When really their mind probably just doesn't work in such a way. The problem is something that can be extended from my prior argument with TAKS testing, all of this focus on passing grades and such kills the purpose of Second, again No-Pass No-Play isn't exclusive to only sports but includes others things as well. Debate, Number Sense, Ready Writing, all of which are academically based. Even other various extracurricular activities that aren't necessarily academic or athletic have positive effects; they even teach these problem solving skills my opponent claims are so necessary [3]. Now finally my opponent makes the claim that students don't genuinely trying their hardest; Again, Extend all of the arguments I've made about education needing some major reform. Many students do have a passion for sports, because the passion is put in them, they where given a reason to love it. - The fact that my opponent has provided so much information on how these athletes try harder academically during the school year would prove first off, that they don't just play sports for the attention as my opponent has claimed; but that they play it for a sincere passion of the game - Next the way these students try harder to keep their grades up to stay eligible seems to be akin cramming for a test; they keep their grades just above the red long enough to play when their sport is in season; and then they quit. However just like cramming doesn't work in the long run [4] neither does this system. They don't really learn anything; all No-Pass No-Play does is continue to keep alive this utterly fallacious idea that these standardized testing and such are doing any good. "Some students simply will not try their hardest in the absence of such policies. " All I have to say to this is that if you need to threaten them in order to for them to get their grades up to passing; they're not going to learn anything. Learning is a process that continues our entire lives, and throughout the entire course of it something stands out as solid; that if you're only focused on the end product (i. e. a passing grade) you gain nothing out of it. Like I said before I made commended on all of my TAKS tests this year, in fact I made a perfect grade on my English/Language arts TAKS! But any-one who reads through my debates on here will see I makes tons of spelling mistakes, and use generally poor grammar. Thus I gained nothing from my TAKS test preparations. =Conclusion= Education needs some serious reform, and not allowing students to play sports because they're failing will not help anything in the long run. Even worse It could even encourage cheating, and false expectations later in life. We must instead focus on improving education as whole, not blame the students who in the end are the real victims of a poor education. Vote Con! =Sources= [1] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] . http://www.idra.org... [3] . http://sitemaker.umich.edu... [4] . http://www.sciencedaily.com...