Private School vouchers should be utilized in the United States.

"My opponent's failure to rebut any of my points signifies his tacit agreement, assuring a PRO victory. Thank You. " Hardly, it means i had other stuff going on and forgot about this debate, ill respond to your points right now. . http://educationwonk.blogspot.com... "A large-scale government-financed study has concluded that when it comes to math, students in regular public schools do as well as or significantly better than comparable students in private schools. The study, by Christopher Lubianski [sic] and Sarah Theule Lubianski, [sic] of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, compared fourth- and eighth-grade math scores of more than 340,000 students in 13,000 regular public, charter and private schools on the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress. The 2003 test was given to 10 times more students than any previous test, giving researchers a trove of new data. Though private school students have long scored higher on the national assessment, commonly referred to as "the nation's report card," the new study used advanced statistical techniques to adjust for the effects of income, school and home circumstances. The researchers said they compared math scores, not reading ones, because math was considered a clearer measure of a school's overall effectiveness. The study found that while the raw scores of fourth graders in Roman Catholic schools, for example, were 14.3 points higher than those in public schools, when adjustments were made for student backgrounds, those in Catholic schools scored 3.4 points lower than those in public schools…"Over all," it said, "demographic differences between students in public and private schools more than account for the relatively high raw scores of private schools. Indeed, after controlling for these differences, the presumably advantageous private school effect disappears, and even reverses in most cases. "" This clearly shows that when other factors that influence education are accounted for, private schools are not better than public schools. They appear so because they receive the students already in the best position to succeed who have already shown they are good students. At best for my opponent, there is no reason to implement vouchers, which means you vote CON. Add in the downsides of vouchers, and they are more likely to be harmful than helpful to students, and you vote CON. Unicef Stat: Here's a quote from the article. "We didn't really get into why. We found out that there was no one answer" This proves at best that our schools need improvement, not that vouchers will do that. Also, many other countries only test their best students, whereas we test everyone, which could also be a big factor. NCLB:Under NCLB, if a school was failing you could attend a different school, and it created a system of accountability, if your school doesn't do well you lose money(same thing vouchers are supposed to do that would work). That also gives schools an incentive to compete. It didn't work, vouchers are a different mechanism attempting to do the same that NCLB attempted. There is no reason its actually different or would work any better. Money: Ill agree that public schools waste a lot of money on administrators. The solution is to force them to cut those costs, so the money goes to the students education instead. That can be achieved through a government mandate easier than competition, without the negative side effects of vouchers. Also, part of the reason that public schools may need more administrators is because they have to deal with far more problem children than most private schools do, so vouchers would either A get those students into private schools who would also need more admins, or B they wouldn't receive an education at all, which is far worse, as my opponent agrees education is important. Teachers: Competition always exists between teachers, if they are bad teachers they will be fired and replaced whether there is a voucher system in place or not. Vouchers won't change that, so it's a non-unique argument. "Socialism almost always fails, public education, like it or not is a socialist concept. Because there is no competition, schools will fail. A voucher system would force schools to compete for students and funding, creating a successful capitalist system. " That's an assertion because you don't like socialism, that doesn't mean the private sector would be better at it through competition between schools. Furthermore, the biggest reform that seems to be needed with public schools is to majorly cut down on administrative costs. The easiest way to do that is by the government requiring them to do that, rather than letting some schools become worse and harming the students waiting for the market to cause them to decide to fix it. Brookings Study: At best this shows is that in Colombia a voucher system worked, all that can easily be explained by their public schools being poorer. And the students still had to be admitted to the private schools, so the students the study referred to were still ALREADY the better students, which isn't evidence that the private schools are better. Sweden: This is not evidence that a voucher system would work in the US, which is what this debate requires. "Next, my opponent claims a quality education is a luxury. If that is his argument, than sure, he can win this debate, but I contend that quality education is not a luxury, but a necessity for success and prosperity. " I said private education is a luxury, I agree that education is a necessity for success, and yet my opponents plan would limit that education only to those who can get in to private schools, which is even worse given that private schools aren't actually better at providing a quality education. "we can't assume it will be inaccurate, simply because other programs have been before. " OK, but that applies to more than determining eligibility for vouchers, you cannot assume that because something has worked in other countries it will work here, or that it is best for the US. "The whole point is survival of the fittest schools to educate our children. Our children don't deserve a bad education. And, to answer my opponent's concern about the effectiveness of competition, that is precisely why competition would be so successful, only the best would survive. " 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). 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? "universal education will continue regardless of my opponent's unwarranted claim, and maybe the end of public education would not be so bad. Our children deserve the best possible education, and if that can't only be found in private schools than so be it. " Not only is it not, but relying on the private sector means many students wont receive any education at all, which is far far worse than relying on public schools, especially when many of them are as good or better than private schools. There are problems with our schools, but vouchers are not the answer to solve the problems, which is all I have to show in this debate.