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

I'll cover some faulty logic in PRO's case, then summarize. ====== Topicality ====== 1. "when he outlined his plan, he merely stated: 'The should government continue to maintain it's monopoly on public schools, and allow students to attend whichever public school they choose, provided their grades warrant it.' This has nothing to do with exit exams" We can't compare grades to see if they 'warrant it' without a single standard by which to score, ergo, standardized exit exams. Even if I didn't make that clear in that sentence, it's pretty obvious reading the 7,900 other characters accompanying it what the value of the exams is. I've stated it, and I've reiterated it (multiple times.) ============== Rich/ Poor Dichotomy ============== A. My opponent says that the students who don't switch schools will now be worse off. He has given no reason to believe this claim. At minimum, they are receiving the same education they would have gotten otherwise. However, I posit that my plan actually HELPS those students. Read the multiple arguments I've made (which he seemingly forgot about in his last speech) that say allowing students to switch schools creates competition. This means the bad schools have to work hard to get better, as opposed to the current system where their low education level remains stagnant. This benefits the students in those schools, because now those schools will have to improve or be shut down, which means you can take my opponent's point and vote for me on it. B. i. This is a flat out lie. His 'stossel card' doesn't say anything about schools not being shut down. Read it for yourself. ii. I know of a school in my area that was disaccredited[1] last year by the school board. It's not too uncommon. iii. Under my counterplan, they will have to shut down underperforming schools because of the low attendance. ====== My Case ====== ========= Inherently Bad ========= My opponent just re-posts a bunch of quotes from some professors (I think they're professors, at least,) who are apparently infallible. My arguments on this area of the debate were: a. If the government is inherently bad, it doesn't make sense that every single country that outperforms us has a government monopoly on education also. b. The ability of parents to send their children to different schools if the current school is failing gives the politicians, now, an incentive to actually care. c. His sources all criticize the status quo. I'm not advocating the status quo. d. Even if there were a problem. We could easily fix it. Just tell the politicians to fix it or vote news ones to office. Rather than give any substantive argument to any of these, he just states that these people he is citing have allegedly claimed that the government is inherently bad and can't be fixed. He can't explain why that this is so, except that some dude says it is. He doesn't address any of the arguments I make, except that "they're wrong because Harrison has to be right!" He has no logical reason why the government is inherently bad, so you can drop this argument right here. ============= Blatant Contradiction ============= In Round 3, my opponent says: "I'm not advocating we privatize education." "I don't have to advocate we privatize anything." "I don't have to advocate an alternative." In Round 4, he says: "I'm not saying that I don't have to offer an advocacy; I do" PRO made it pretty clear that he wasn't advocating anything in particular last round. I'd say it's more than a little unfair for him to now turn around in the last round and say "Oh, I've been advocating this all along; he just misunderstood." === Fiat === Fiat is Latin for 'let it be done.' [2] He seems to be arguing that "Well, even if he's got the better plan, the politicians won't go through with it." 1. If you buy that, what are we debating about? Which our plans is more likely to make it through congress? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the resolution asks what we 'ought' to do, not what we are more likely to do. 2. Raising the difficulty of an exit exam isn't a particularly controversial issue. There's no reason why Congress would oppose it, rather, evidence has proven the opposite. The number of exit exams has been steadily increasing over the last few decades. [3] 3. He conveniently doesn't mention what he's been advocating here. If raising the standard is too big of a request to get through Congress, what hope does his plan of abolishing the government school system have of being passed? Absolutely none! Going by his own logic, you'd vote for me here anyway, because his evidence shows that the status quo stinks, and my solution is the only one that Congress would pass. ============ Abusive Argument ============ "I offered a very specific standard; measure a student by their grades over four years of coursework." 1. He didn't so much as mention this in Round 1 or 2. This was an entirely new argument hidden in 1 sentence in the middle of a paragraph in Round 3. 2. That does absolutely nothing to solve the problem. My original argument here was that we need a way to compare schools based on education, not advertisement. His idea of coursework doesn't do this. Every school, every class, has different coursework. There is no way to compare one student's 'coursework' grade to another. ====== Summary ====== 1. You vote on him not having a standard. At one point PRO said he was getting rid of government monopoly. When I defeated that argument, he turned around and said "I don't have to advocate a standard." In this last speech, he first says that he has been advocating a standard all along, then changes the standard to requiring students to complete coursework. His position has changed at least 4 times, and he's losing on every position anyway. He is PRO and instigator. He hasn't even advocated anything, so there's no way he can win this debate! 2. The only disadvantage he gives to these tests comes from his faulty logic. Two people said the government works poorly. Schools are run by the government. These school exams will work poorly. He hasn't been able to justify 'why' the government works poorly at all, or why those problems will continue to happen, or why they can't be fixed by my counterplan, just that "Harrison says so." Absent that, he has no case. 3. He never tries to argue that his system doesn't make the rich richer and the poor poorer. That's a clear vote CON. 4. His only solution for comparing the educational standards of different schools is given halfway through the debate, in no more than a short paragraph. It doesn't even work, though, because this 'coursework' varies by teacher! 5. Yet another argument he has missed in his last speech is that my counterplan, which allows students to choose their own school, fosters competition and forces public schools to keep high standards. 6. He has taken this debate so far off track, that he seems to forget what his standard was, which is preventing government monopoly. I've certainly won the argument that government monopoly is good (in his last 2 speeches, he even says that he doesn't advocate privatization) so the fact that exams strengthen government monopoly wins me the vote by his standards! This debate has a clear-cut victor: CON ===== Sources ===== [1] http://dictionary.reference.com... [2] http://dictionary.reference.com... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org... This has been quite a good debate, even if this topic is already through. I actually have 260 characters left, 250 more than usual.