Private School vouchers should be utilized in the United States.

"There are even more Department of Education studies showing the superiority, so if my opponent wants to get into a study-war, then bring it on, I've got more than enough studies to use" Not only have you failed to provide any of these supposed additional studies, but also fail to realize that its not the number of studies one has but the quality of the studies and what they evaluate that determines their validity. The department of education studies only look at the test scores etc, and ignore other important factors in determining whether the schools are actually successful. The study I cited actually takes into account other factors not related to the schools that affect education. These factors will not change whether the students attend a private or public school. When these factors are accounted for, private schools are not actually any better than public schools, in fact they are slightly worse. Also, this study evaluated 10x more data than previous studies, which also makes it a much better study than others. "This creates the survival of the fittest effect, weeding out bad schools, and letting everyone go to good schools." If it does work that way all you do is eliminate schools, without any actual plan to create new schools for the students, meaning there wont be schools for students, leaving some students without schools to attend. This is far far worse than attending a bad school, it would be much better to actually work to improve the schools that are not doing well than implement a plan which eliminates schools that we need to actually educate our students. Opp argues schools failing This doesn't mean that vouchers will actually do anything to fix the problem. Cut down on the administrative costs and you save money, taking out that private schools save money. There is no reason this could not be implemented. My opponent also ignores that some of those administrators may be necessary to deal with problems that private schools don't have to worry about, so moving more students to private schools would cause them to need more administrators, meaning this argument gains my opp nothing. "The incentive to compete is offered by the fact the the faculty has their jobs on the line, and they are forced to work to keep their school up to par." This incentive exists with or without vouchers, teachers can always lose their jobs if they are bad teachers. That means vouchers instigate nothing new in terms of competition, so this is not a reason to vote pro. "Then my opponent claims that bad teachers will be fired vouchers or no vouchers. Unfortunately he is wrong. Often teacher's unions prevent schools from firing teachers for being bad teachers. If you want I can provide studies." But you didn't, which means you have no evidence for this. Unions can prevent people from being fired arbitrarily and provide them benefits, but if they are bad teachers they are not doing their jobs they wont be protected by the unions. And even if they are, this would still exist with or without vouchers, so vouchers do nothing beneficial. "Also, the government is to d*mn inefficient to do something about huge bureaucracies. the only way it will happen is if they're forced to do so, as vouchers would do." There is no evidence or warrant for this, and passing reforms through congress WOULD force them to do this, vouchers might or might not as it relies on them choosing to. Columbia: because private schools are less horrible than public schools there doesn't mean this is true in America, which is what were talking about. My study actually evaluates the US, and shows that public schools are actually better than private schools. Same with Sweden, its not evaluating the US, so my study is far more applicable. "He then says that some students will not be able to attend private schools, citing transportation problems. IF this is a real problem private schools will offer transportation to those who need it so they can tap that market." Why? Private schools that are considered good schools already receive more applicants than they can accept, so they have no incentive to provide transportation. "Also, addressing the school scarcity problem, the private school market would be forced to undergo expansion as demand increases, if the school operators want money they will expand their programs to fit more students. If the private schools can't take enough people public schools will still be there to take all who need the education. They won't be any worse off if this happens, so there is no real loss." Private schools will not be forced to do anything, they are already at max capacity for their facilities. They have no incentive to spend millions on increasing the size of their school to make a few more thousand dollars. Less schools mean less students will be educated. Some students wont be able to go to private schools(parents cant get them there for one, also there is limited space in private schools, they don't have to accept everyone, and have an incentive to keep their student numbers down because one big selling point they use is low class sizes). More students trying to get into private schools will mean more and more students either stuck in public schools that nobody is doing anything to help, or those schools will be closed and there will be students who have no schools to attend. What are they supposed to do? Hope that more private schools will open so they will be able to go to school? Vouchers are not a solution to the problem, it's a bandaid that makes people feel like theyre doing something, but really they're just covering up the problem. "1. My opponent forfeited a round" That doesn't mean I haven't upheld my side of the resolution, and is not a reason to vote. "2. Vouchers cost less" There is no reason this is true, private schools will probably need some of the administrators public schools need if they start to accept all students. Also, the money issue can easily be solved by mandating the public schools eliminate a lot of the unnecessary administrators, and it would actually make sure that the changes happened "3. Private schools provide an equal or greater education, especially when compared to inner-city schools." Not true, see the study I cited, public schools are actually better on average. And the solution for failing innercity schools is to actually work to fix their problems than do nothing and let the schools shut down, which is what my opponent wants to happen. "4. Vouchers have negligible negatives" This isn't true, eliminating schools means there will be students who wont be able to even attend schools. We both agree school is incredibly important for future success, so my opponent's plan is to eliminate schools without any plan to replace them? This will only hurt students, and is hardly negligible. "5. Vouchers solve problems other plans can't solve" Vouchers solve nothing, they make us feel like were doing something while making everything worse. "6. Vouchers have historically been effective in improving education." Not here, and here is where it matters. In the US, public schools are actually better. Heres why you vote con. "I agree that if there is no reason to use or not use vouchers CON wins" My opponent agrees that absent reasons to use vouchers you vote CON. There are no reasons to use vouchers, they won't save money that cant be saved other ways, they don't put students into better schools, actually worse ones(see study), and they won't make schools better by eliminating schools without replacing them. Best case for my opponent is that vouchers aren't bad, but also provide no benefits. That is enough to vote con. Moreover, my opponent wants o eliminate schools without a plan to replace those schools, leaving students either in worse schools, or without a school. Either way, its worse for our students than by implementing vouchers