Resolved: Public high school students in the United States ought not be required to pass standard e

For this round, I will start by defending my case, then move onto attacking my opponent's case. My opponent stated that my value of justice does not relate to the resolution, but I have clearly shown that it does in my affirmative constructive. Justice is the principle of right action. It would only be just if exit exams are not upheld, because exit exams take away some students' constitutional rights. Even IF these high stakes are "useful", we cannot allow them to take away some students' constitutional rights. Due process gives students four main rights: 1. Students have the right to expect that the test is an accurate evaluation tool. 2. Students have the right to only be tested on material that they were taught. 3. Students have the right to expect that the test and their level of preparation for the test meet professional standards. 4. The state must prove that the students have been fairly adequately prepared to take the test and have a fair chance to pass it. An educational system should provide tests that would improve students' learning. But if we ignore how these tests disregard many students' rights, that will impact their learning, making the tests unjust. Some of this information was obtained from an article called "Due Process Rights of Grade School Students Subjected to High-Stakes Testing." by William P. Quigley, a professor at Loyola University in 2001. My opponent states that I did not provide a value criterion, but I did, as it was mentioned in my affirmative construction. I will restate it again: maximizing educational equality. My opponent did not address my first contention, so I assume that he agrees with it. Since he did not address it, he cannot bring this contention up again in his next speech. In my second contention, my opponent stated that having no exit exams will not eliminate dropouts, but he did not provide any evidence and did not care to elaborate, so this argument has no weight in this round. In my third contention, he did not directly address my argument. But even as he didn't, I will respond to his argument. He says that we need the fundamental skills from the exit exam tests. But as I showed in my affirmative construction, high school graduates need much more to be able to succeed in the "real" world. According to the article on FairTest, college professors and employers stated that high school students need to be able to "analyze conflicting explanations, support arguments with evidence, solve complex problems that have no obvious answer, reach conclusions, conduct research, and engage in the give-and-take of ideas. Also needed are attributes such as good study skills, time management, awareness of one's performance and persistence." ABSOLUTELY NONE OF THESE ARE SKILLS THAT ARE MEASURED IN EXIT EXAMS. This clearly shows that exit exams do not benefit students and help them succeed later on in life. This argument shows that even though my opponent didn't make a direct and valid argument, I can still defend my case by addressing it anyway. Now let's move onto my opponents case: My opponent values quality education in this round. But in order to provide quality education, you need my value of justice. Justice gives its people several inalienable rights, but also brings to the society education. So with justice, you can achieve quality education, so you need my value to achieve his value. Therefore, my value is superior to his. He states that I am "inherently valuing quality education since we are debating about how exit exams effect the system," but this isn't true. We aren't seeing how exit exams are effecting the system. We are seeing how they are effecting individual students, as they are the ones whose rights are being taken away. Again, I should mention that we cannot provide students with exit exams if they take away their rights, no matter if they are useful. So if they are taking away students' rights, then they are not helping those students, so they are not providing them with quality education. My opponent's value criterion is accountability, but I don't see how that relates to the resolution. If he says that exit exams will hold certain teachers accountable, but then in his example, he talks about how the tests will motivate students. These things do not relate, so his value criterion is not upheld. In his first contention, he states that high school exit exams ensure that high school students meet basic educational standards, and that they show what needs to be improved in a school system. But you can't hold a school accountable for bad teaching based on one simple test. It wouldn't be a very accurate measurement, as one test cannot accurately show how "good" a student's school environment is. Also, he talks about the importance of having basic education. But wouldn't that be demonstrated through their GPA's and end of course exams? GPA's reflect how well a student is doing in his or her class. Classes teach basic education, and much, much more. So if they are passing, then it shows that they have acquired the basic education and more, and if they aren't passing, they haven't, so they must repeat a year. This shows that the exit exams prove to be redundant if we can use GPA's and end of course exams. My opponent's second contention is basically the same as the first. It talks about how the government can help the schools. Again, this test isn't accurate at showing which schools are "good" and which are "bad". For all of these reasons, I strongly urge an affirmative ballot (plus my opponent urges an affirmative ballot, which is what he said at the end of his first speech =).