Public high school students in the US ought not be required to pass standardized test exams to gradu

========== His Conclusions ========== A) "My opponent is not topical" How does he draw the conclusion that I am off topic? "He doesn't show how sending students to a school of their choice means they are obligated to take an exit exam. " Except, I am fairly certain that I've already said: "[Exams] give us an objective way to measure the quality of education across school systems in order to choose the best school to go to. " The ability to choose between schools is useless if you have no means to evaluate which is better. In a world without exams, for example the one my opponent advocates, you go by the strength of their ad campaign or their reputation. The purpose of exams is to give us a means to evaluate the ability of these schools to teach, not just advertise. === B) "He has no way to evaluate impacts; he can't hijack my case as my case and his are mutually exclusive" Of course our cases are mutually exclusive, and mine is clearly better. I'm not trying to "hijack" anything. Anyways, let's see how we should evaluate impacts in this round. He gives us a value and criterion of Education through stopping government monopoly. My argument was quite simple: stopping government monopoly leads to worse education. This means the better he achieves his criterion of stopping the government monopoly, the worse he achieves the value of education. You simply vote for me if exams lead to more government monopoly, and his contention 2 says they do. === C) "I have proved that in the US (the limits set by the resolution) government monopoly of schools and exit exams are always bad. " "He fails to provide any statistics as to how this new plan will cost" My plan is to let students go to whatever school they want. This saves the government money because they don't need to spend on verifying that the students live where they say they do. -Contention One, Subpoint 1: He tries to use the example of other countries to prove his point. When I show that this actually proves my point, he decides to claim that we can't use other countries as an example. An important part of debate as a competitive activity is reciprosity. Anything he can do, I can do. If he can prove his point by comparing us to other countries, so can I. HE NEVER DENIES MY ACTUAL POINT, THOUGH. My point was, other countries do better than us and they all provide public education. If we want to succede, privatizing education wouldn't make sense. This means that this point is still a reason to vote for me. --- -Contention One, Subpoint Two This is a poor argument if I ever did see one. "government mandated standards are always bad" "[Warren and Grodsky] clearly state that any time a government runs a test it will always lower the standards. " For clarification, his card actually says: "politics wins out over principle and the exit exam, the passing threshold, or both are altered to increase the share of students that passes the exam" We live in a (democratic) government run by the people. If we can easily recognize the problem (that the standards are too low), then we can fix it. Further more, this doesn't actually say that the standards are unreliable like he claims it does, just that they are too low. It still remains that a single, national standard made with collective imput from multiple teachers, professors, and professional test makers (like the SAT is) will always win out in reliability in comparison to exams that vary by teacher or by school. THIS IS STILL A TURN FOR ME. A single, collective standard is much more reliable than everybody just choosing their own standard which means these exams will always be the better solution for providing accountability. --- -Contention Two "Policymakers are the ones who set the standards, and thus they always set them at point too low. If you uphold a government monopoly in the US, the standards will always be bad. " This is his only justification, he just restates it a bunch of times: "He can't just magically "set the bar higher" for many reasons" "politics will always win out over educational principle" "even if the standards are set high initially, they will always be lowered due to high failure rates" We are in a democracy. Elect the people who will solve the problems. If the standard isn't being raise, call up your senator and tell him so. The politicians don't control us, we control them! ====== My Case ====== "On his first point: A: We live in a capitalist society. Schools have the right to do that. " That doesn't make it a good thing. It's certainly a problem, and you're conceding that. "B: This argument is non-unique. There will be rich and poor schools regardless of which side you vote for. " The government can't arbitrarily kick people out of the public schools. It isn't a private enterprise. The problem is private schools simply saying "you can't be here because your low grades reflect poorly on us. " The government can't do that, so it is quite "unique. " "C: Look to the turn I make on his framework; if students get to choose, then schools percieved as "good" will become flooded with students, leaving poorer students in the "poor" schools to suffer. " There is no reason why the poor students wouldn't go to the better educated schools also. --- "On his second point: A: This is a self-contradiction. He claims that students who don't go to private schools due to costs get a "2nd rate" education in the public system. He is admitting government schools are bad. This turns this argument against him. " 1st class education = the rich private schools 2nd class education = poor private schools I said nothing about government schools being bad. "B: The fact that people are poor doesn't mean they are dehumanized. In fact, by saying that is so, my opponent is contradicting himself again. " I fail to see how this is me contradicting myself. I also fail to see how either of these address my argument. What I said was: in a system where more money can buy you more education, the poor just stay poor and the rich get rich. He never denies this, he just beats around the bush, saying things like: "Ha, my opponent admits the government is bad! " or "well, just because the poor stay poor doesn't necessarily mean they are dehumanized. .. " The problem still remains, if we don't have a government monopoly, we'll see education divided into social classes rather quickly. ====== Summary ====== This debate really has come down to whether government monopolization is good or bad. I'm winning every argument so far for why it's good: His subpoint 1 compares countries. This analysis clearly shows that public > private. He doesn't deny it. He just makes the absurd claim that, because the resolution says US, comparisons to other countries somehow aren't allowed. His subpoint 2 demands accountability. One collective standard > 1,000 individual standards. We can't even compare 1 score to another if they are on 2 different tests. Having a single, standardized exam provides more accountability here. His contention 2, he admits, isn't an independent voting issue. It operates on the assumption that government monopoly is bad. I am winning every other argument in round, so there's every reason to assume otherwise. My contention says that the poor are stuck in poverty without the system I advocate. He makes pointless assertions like "that will happen anyway" or "that's not exactly dehumanizing" without addressing the real problem of our society being divided into social classes. I am winning offense on every contention, including his, to show that my plan is superior. He says my plan is mutually exclusive to affirming, and it is. We can't have my plan if we affirm. Every point in this debate shows why my plan is superior to affirming. With that in mind, the only logical option, then, is to negate the resolution.