Education in the United States.

Although I find that a bit condescending (especially when came to a definition of the US), I was referring to definitions that you felt were needed. As you didn't so much as mention them in the rules or any other area in your opening post, I assumed that if you felt anything needed clarification you would bring it up in the first round. I accept all definitions proposed by the Pro.As we both hold burden of proof, I will first prove why Schools should not be privatized before rebutting his case.Con Case:1.) Private Schools offer rates that not all parents can afford (although I believe this to be common knowledge, I will provide citation(s) at the Pro's request).2.) If all schools are made privatized, then all parents must pay these rates in order to educate their children3.) Thus, logically, if parents cannot make these tuition payments, and the free (or nearly free) public education is cut out of the equation, then children in middle to lower class households will go without education.4.) If children are stripped of their institutionalized education, then educational rates in the US would fall drastically, as students are no longer granted access to a proper education.5.) This decrease in education will lead to less overall intelligence [1], less skilled workers entering the workforce, and the loss of what many supporters of this resolution are trying to gain: a higher level of education for the US as a whole. As I have proven why education should not be privatized, I will now move to my opponent's argument.Pro Case:1.) Although we still hold the 14th best rank in the world[2], a respectable title, it is true that our public educational system has not produced as high of a gain as we would hope. However, this is not a valid reason to abandon public education as a whole. The reduced education rate of Public School would pale in comparison to the educational rates of those without a set educational system.2.) My opponent's source merely shows that Private Schools have higher educational levels than public schools, which I will not attempt to refute. What I will state, though, is that when according to my opponent's source "[3]", the private schools themselves are not the actual reason why the students attending them excel. It states that "The NAEP results that show better math and reading scores for students in private schools may not be a result of anything the private schools do.". And so pushing public school kids into private school will not actually fix the problem, but rather transfer the problem from public schools to private schools, and so the educational improvement Pro is trying to achieve will not occur. Because pro's evidence refutes his own contention, this contention is negated.3.), Actually, what your source said on teh subject in full is "The NAEP results that show better math and reading scores for students in private schools may not be a result of anything the private schools do. It could well be that those children have more highly educated, and wealthier parents, than those in public schools, on average. We know there is a direct correlation between standardized test scores and a parent's income and education level, so reading and math scores don't make the case that those schools are actually better."[3], which is far different from you're implying it says about private schools. My opponent's source does not prove that private schools help increase intellect, simply that wealthier students attend private schools, and it is the wealth these students possess that leads to their higher educational levels, not the private schools. Therefor, you could take these wealthy kids and put them in public schools, and their performance would not change, and so there is no reason to assume that Private schools would increase these skills. Furthermore, putting public school kids in a private school education wouldn't provide them with this higher level of income, and would instead put more of a financial strain on the parents, and so these benefits would not increase in Private schools, negating his entire third contention, if not his entire case.4.) I have proven throughout my case and my rebuttal of my opponent's case that the student achievement of individual students cannot be proven to rise only because of the institution of the private schools and so the academic rates are irrelevant, and that although the government may save money, a much higher financial strain will then be put on the taxpayer, hurting the economy in the long run. Therefor, the goals my opponent is trying to achieve through the resolution cannot be fulfilled, and so this contention is negated.In light of these points, I urge the audience to vote Con. Works Cited:1.) http://www.education.com...2.) http://www.guardian.co.uk...3.) http://voices.washingtonpost.com...