Public High School Students In The United States Ought Not Be Required To Pass SEE's To Graduate

John Dewey once said "Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another." Thus, I stand in firm negation in today's debate. Resolved: Public high school students in the United States ought not be required to pass standardized exit exams to graduate." I offer the following definitions from Merriam Webster Dictionary for clarity. Ought: used to express obligation, advisability, natural expectation, or logical consequence. Standardized: to bring into conformity with a standard. V: Societal Welfare Societal Welfare is defined as the wellbeing of a society in matters of health, safety, order, education, and economics. Societal Welfare must be held as the highest value because if the wellbeing of a society is in jeopardy, so is the wellbeing of the people living in it. VC: Educated Citizenry Educated citizens are vital to societal welfare in the fact that the more educated our society is, the likelier we are to make good decisions and ensure that individuals have the opportunity to maximize themselves to their full potential. Contention One: Standardized exit exams are the best way to measure knowledge. Lionel Brown, 2006. Standardized testing is the best alternative for comparing student performance across different education systems because human judgment is error-prone. Decades of evidence show that the quality of teachers' tests pales compared with more rigorously developed large-scale tests. When used for purposes of accountability, standardized tests can provide more objective and less ambiguous evidence. In one international study that looked at the effects of dropping and reintroducing standardized tests in 29 industrialized countries, academic standards declined, students studied less, curricula became incoherent and selection and promotion became arbitrary after standardized tests were dropped. Contention Two: Standardized exit exams improve education for future generations. Jack O'Connell, 2007. The exit exam has been responsible for significant improvements in our schools, targeted specifically at our neediest students. The California High School Exit Exam has helped our neediest students as much if not more than any public school reform in the last 30 years. Because of the exit exam, more individual attention and more resources have been devoted to struggling students than ever before. And they are working. The California High School Exit Exam is not perfect. But it gives us accountability, and shines a powerful light on our students who need the most help. It has led to more help for those students than anything that has come before it. Contention Three: The majority of students pass the exams. Jack O'Connell, 2007. Results show that an estimated 90.8 percent of graduating seniors have passed both the English-language arts and the mathematics portions of the exam, including an additional 1,759 students who passed the May administration of the exam. "While I will not be satisfied until all California students are successful in gaining the skills measured by the exit exam, I am pleased that the achievement gap is narrowing," O'Connell said. "It is clear that all students are working hard to gain the critical skills necessary for a diploma and for survival in today's global economy. I credit the exit exam for focusing both students and schools on meeting this challenge. We need to sustain this effort until the achievement gap is erased completely." The test is an important benchmark in ensuring that students will be successful in meeting the challenges they will face either in college or the workplace. If they are not able to meet the standards of the exam, how can we, as parents and educators, expect them to be successful in college or the workplace? We need to make sure that they are adequately prepared for the world beyond high school. For all these reasons and more, I respectfully urge a negative ballot in today's debate & will now move to my opponene't case. Go to my opponent's value of Societal Welfare. We agree societal welfare is a good thing, so this debate will be determined upon who upholds it better. The reason my opponet cannot possibly uphold societal welfare is because there are no standards in the Affirmative world. There needs to be a basic level of education before we can ever hope to go on to higher education. If there are cracks in the basic education level, one's higher education levels will fall through as well. In the Negative world, I am ensuring students get that basic level of education, while the Affirmative only hopes they will, thus I subsume my opponent's value. Next, let's move to my opponent's value criterion of Maximizing Positive Social Mobility. Now, my opponent says students will not have opporotunities, but what we have to see is they will have more opporotunities because of the fact that each individual will have the same, basic, equal level of education, thus we can ensure everybody has the opporotunity to prosper within society, and not just some people. Now, go to my Opponent's Contention One, Sub Point A. Firstly, I would like to point out that it is not the test's fault that these students are socioeconomically disadvantaged. That is a problem out of anyone's control, thus not a fault in the test itself. Secondly, these tests will just prove advantageous for these groups because it will ensure that everybody, including the socioeconomically disadvantaged get a basic level of education, and will not just be pushed out of high school. Let's move to my opponent's Contention One, Sub Point B. Through this, my opponent implies that females will fail the test. But would this mean that females should never take Standardized Tests due to the imperics my opponent has provided? This would be an inequity within schools, which the standardized exit exam solves for. Now let's look at my opponent's Contention One, Sub Point C. My opponent claims that the exit exams are strongly correlated with increased drop outs, but provides no justification. Just because drop out rates go up, doesn't nessecarily mean it's due to the exit exams. Also, it isn't the end of the world if you fail this test. You have the opporotunity to take it multiple times, so through this we see fairness because the students are not required to pass the first time. If they fail the first time, they can look over what they missed and improve it for next time. Next, let's go to my opponent's Contention Two. Now, my opponent tells you all these horrible things are going to happen if we implement these exit exams, but what we have to see is that there is no justification behind these claims. These people will not lose their social mobility, because as I have previously stated, just because you don't pass the first time does not mean you are denied a diploma. As my C-3 states, most students pass these exams with an additional 1, 759 students passing the second time around. And even if you do fail it to the point where you are held back, this doesn't ensure you will drop out. So, for all these reasons and more, I strongly urge a negative vote in today's debate.