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

Shauna D'Alessandro, president of the South Hills Area School Districts Association, states that "After 13 years of class work, class participation, term papers, projects and classroom projects, [this graduation requirement] may deny a diploma to children who may not be able to demonstrate proficiency on a standardized test." Today in the United States, several states require students to pass exit exams in order to earn their diploma, but instead of actually achieving their main goal of "significantly improving student achievement", these exit exams are actually unfairly denying hard-working students from earning their right to graduate. Thus, I affirm the resolution: Resolved: Public high school students in the United States ought not be required to pass standard exit exam to graduate. I will offer the following definitions to clarify today's debate: Ought – Used to express moral obligation Standardized – To compare with a standard In today's debate, I will value justice. Justice is defined in Merriam-Webster's Dictionary as the principle of right action. Moral is defined as "conforming to the standard of right behavior". And since ought is "moral obligation", my value links to the resolution because justice equals moral, so something that is just is also morally obligatory. Therefore, my value of justice links to the resolution. Education is very important in today's society, because it determines our future. So, my value criterion will then be maximizing educational equality. Educational equality links to justice because if we give students equal opportunity to achieve education, then it is morally right, because everyone is becoming equal. Therefore, it would only be just if we all had an equal chance at education. Contention 1: Standardized exit exams do not demonstrate a student's intellectual capacity. Critics of the exit exams say that the test does not show other aspects of students' intelligence and achievements. It wouldn't be fair if a student obtained many achievements and perfect grades, but didn't pass a simple standardized test. Many students are auditory and/or physical learners, ones that are able to do better when the tests include listening and/or physical work. Standardized tests include neither one of those, which is unfair for those students. According to an article on FairTest, the national center for fair and open testing, published on May 2nd, 2008, several college professors and employers, high school students must 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." Many of these skills and abilities are not measured in the exit exams. The exam is also not a fair way to measure the basic skill levels of minority students, because the test requires higher skill levels, and that would make it harder for them to pass. Studies showed that minority students, such as African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asians, scored lower than white students that were on the same academic levels. Since students have different talents and abilities, then they would be at a disadvantage if the test was implemented upon them, so not having exit exams will uphold my value criterion of maximizing educational equality. Contention 2: Standardized exit exams cause more students to drop out of high school. These exit exams can seem intimidating to students, and make them naturally feel tempted to give up, because they seem to be at a dead end. This is especially true for minority groups. Exit exams are typically required in states that have higher rates of African-Americans and Hispanics, which would cause more people with those racial backgrounds to have the exit exams as a requirement. Fairtest states that in states with relatively easy exit exams, 5.2 percent more African-American male students dropped out than ones in states with no exit exam requirements. In 2003, when the tests became harder, 43 percent fewer students took the exit exams. The difficulty of the tests is determined by each state. This also suggests that there are few alternatives for students that can't pass these exams. These tests have created a two-point-one percent increase in dropouts, which means that 40,000 less high school students will receive diplomas for this reason every year. Because exit exams intimidate some students and cause them to drop out of high school, they would not be able to equally promote education. Contention 3: Standardized exit exams are sometimes different from the curriculum being taught at a school. The tests are moving from testing the basic reading and math skills to harder, more in-depth questions on multiple other subjects. At some schools, students may see material on the test that teachers have never even taught them before. One effect this could cause is teachers being forced to be teaching to the test. This wouldn't be able to benefit the students. If teachers are focusing on teaching material on the tests, then they would arrange their teaching around material and ways to make their students score higher on the exams. Their focus would be on this, but their focus really should be on teaching as much as possible on topics important in their course. They also may be regularly giving students practice tests and old test questions to improve their scores, and this may actually heighten their score, but won't be able to teach the students more in the class. Also, school districts with low-incomes have less money to teach, so they sometimes don't always teach everything that will eventually be on the test. This wouldn't be fair for those students, because it wasn't their fault they weren't able to understand some of the material on the exams. Therefore, exit exams should not be used as a graduation requirement, because they don't demonstrate a student's intellectual capacity, cause a higher rate of dropout students, and are different from the material taught at school. Without exit exams, justice would be upheld.