Debating Education
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debating education EASTERN EVIDENCE DEBATE HANDBOOK 1999-2000 NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL DEBATE TOPIC PAGE ARGUMENT SECTION GENERAL 2 DEFINITIONS OF POLICY TERMS (NOT TOPICALITY) 5 TOPIC BACKGROUND ON EDUCATION REFORM 7 NEGATIVE VS. CASE 8 NO HARMS OR SIGNIFICANCE 28 NO SOLVENCY 126 NO INHERENCY 129 NEG AGAINST TECH IN SCHOOLS 138 NEGATIVE CASE TURNS 139 FOCUS ON GRADING IS BAD 148 FOCUS ON GOING TO COLLEGE IS BAD 153 BUREAUCRACY BARRIERS TURN CASE 158 SCHOOL REFORM IS COUNTERPRODUCTIVE 163 PRESSURE ON STUDENTS CAUSES HARMFUL STRESS 166 NEGATIVE COUNTERPLANS 167 STATES CP & FEDERALISM DA 194 DESCHOOLING COUNTERPLAN 230 RECONSTITUTION COUNTERPLAN 236 DISADVANTAGES 237 POLICY CHURN 241 DISABLING PROFESSIONS 252 LABELING 262 CURRICULUM TRADE OFF 272 PROPS UP CAPITALISM 282 INFRINGES ON STUDENTS RIGHTS 297 CRITIQUES 298 CRITIQUE OF CREDENTIALISM 308 CRITIQUE OF WORK 325 AFFIRMATIVES 326 AFF HARMS & SIGNIFICANCE GENERAL 340 AFF SOLVENCY GENERAL 345 AFF INHERENCY GENERAL POLICY DEBATE 2000 - EASTERN EVIDENCE HANDBOOK - http://debate.uvm.edu/ee.html 347 CHOICE/VOUCHER AFF 372 SCHOOL UNIFORM AFF 382 FIRST AFFIRMATIVE SPEECHES The diskette version has over 150 pages of evidence not in this handbook. The CD-ROM has the extra evidence, plus a video of a mini-debate for novices, extensive instructional materials, tournament software, and Internet research links. EASTERN EVIDENCE is a non-profit educational program of the Lawrence Debate Union and the University of Vermont. Lawrence Debate Union, 475 Main Street, UVM, Burlington, VT 05405; [email protected], 802-656- 0097 POLICY DEBATE 2000 - EASTERN EVIDENCE HANDBOOK - http://debate.uvm.edu/ee.html DEFINITIONS OF POLICY TERMS DEFINITION OF BEACON SCHOOLS Kelly C. Rozmus, UCLA Law School, Spring, 1998; Brigham Young University Education and Law Journal, Article: Education Reform and Education Quality: Is Reconstitution the Answer? // acs-VT2000 n216. Beacon schools, a relatively new concept, are supported by both Superintendent Rojas and United Educators of San Francisco. Nanette Asimov, Big Man on Campus: Superintendent Rojas Talks About Violence, School Closures, Test Scores, The San Francisco Chronicle, Mar. 19, 1995, at 1/Z1; interview with Kent Mitchell, former Treasurer and current President of United Educators of San Francisco, in San Francisco, CA (Apr. 11, 1997). Superintendent Rojas describes beacon schools as ``a nearly 24-hour, one-stop shopping center where the kids go to school for more than just an 8:40 a.m. to 3 p.m. academic program. They use it for social and health services, mental health services, recreational activities and educational enhancement activities. We could run community centers there from late afternoon into the early evening.`` Asimov, Big Man on Campus, supra this note. See also the discussion of Los Angeles` LEARN schools, a comparable model, supra notes 66-68 and accompanying text DEFINITION OF CHARTER SCHOOLS Kelly C. Rozmus, UCLA Law School, Spring, 1998; Brigham Young University Education and Law Journal, Article: Education Reform and Education Quality: Is Reconstitution the Answer? // acs-VT2000 Charter schools also tend to focus on a unique, high quality curriculum. However, charter schools are more focused on school structure; charter schools are developed by individuals with a common philosophy and are often exempted from regulations affecting schools in general. For example, charter schools tend to embrace site-based management, shared governance, and community outreach. These structural differences increase the potential for community involvement in charter schools as compared to traditional schools. In addition, in many states charter schools are released from agreements with local teachers` unions. See, e.g., Grassroots, NEA Today, Feb. 1995, at 8 (highlighting a decision striking down Michigan`s school charter law). Charter schools have competitive enrollment procedures and public funding is directly tied to enrollment. James A. Peyser, Issues in Education Law and Policy: School Choice: When, Not If, 35 B.C. L. Rev. 619, 621 (1994). CHARTER SCHOOLS ARE WIDELY DIFFERENT FROM COMMUNITY TO COMMUNITY Sharon Keller, Professor of Law, University of Miami, 1998; Journal of Legislation ISSUES IN SCHOOL CHOICE: Something to Lose: The Black Community`s Hard Choices About Educational Choice // acs-VT2000 The trade-offs are similar in respect to charter school programs. The charter statutes vary from state to state. n140 Some charter statutes do no more than create an optional arrangement for existing public schools to enjoy a change in their method of governance, allowing them more site autonomy; other states have tried more far- reaching schemes, providing public funding for minimally regulated entrepreneurial schools. n141 FOUR TYPES OF SCHOOL CHOICE PROGRAMS - THEY ARE VERY DIFFERENT Christopher D. Pixley, Vanderbilt University School of Law, 1998; Journal of Legislation ISSUES IN SCHOOL CHOICE: The Next Frontier in Public School Finance Reform: A Policy and Constitutional Analysis of School Choice Legislation // acs-VT2000 States have enacted various school choice programs in an attempt to create a free market of educational alternatives. The four types of choice programs in use offer a range of alternatives to students attending a designated public school in their district. Intra-district Public Choice frees parents to choose among public schools in their district. Inter-district Public Choice expands this alternative by offering parents the option of transferring their children into school districts other than their own. Both of these systems condition the acceptance of students on the availability of space in the chosen school. The third approach adopted by a number of states is Market-Oriented Public Choice. This method of school choice focuses on the creation of self-managed public schools funded according to the level of enrollment but free of many of the state`s educational regulations. The final method applied today is Private Choice, a system which provides funds directly to parents in the form of vouchers or tax breaks POLICY DEBATE 2000 - EASTERN EVIDENCE HANDBOOK - http://debate.uvm.edu/ee.html which fund all or a portion of the cost of the public or private school chosen. The latter two methods of choice are the main focus of this article. SCHOOL CHOICE: THREE LEVELS - INTERDISTRICT CHOICE, VOUCHERS FOR PUBLIC & PRIVATE SCHOOLS, AND COMPLETE FREE MARKET Harvard Law Review January, 1999; NOTE: THE HAZARDS OF MAKING PUBLIC SCHOOLING A PRIVATE BUSINESS // acs-VT2000 Reform is a favored mantra in public education. n4 Some proposals, such as interdistrict vouchers that remove residential restrictions for children to attend particular public schools, work within the public system and retain primary responsibility for delivery in the government. n5 Other options, however, such as voucher programs that allow public funds to pay tuition at private schools for certain students, rely on private providers. n6 A market delivery approach, which displaces [*696] government control, has even extended an opportunity for profit- seeking enterprises to enter a realm traditionally occupied by public and nonprofit providers. CONSTRUCTIVISM IS PROBLEM CENTERED LEARNING Deborah Tippens, Department of Science Education, University of Georgia; and Kenneth Tobin, Science Education Program, Florida State University, 1993, TEE PRACTICE OF CONSTRUCTIVISM, ``Constructivism as a Referent for Teaching and Learning`` //GJL Wheatley (1991) described approaches to curriculum that have been carefully built with constructivism as a referent. Known as problem-centered learning, students work together in small groups making meaning of tasks and setting out to solve problems that are perplexing. The teacher in such classes has an important mediating role, ascertaining what students know and structuring tasks such that they can build knowledge structures that are commensurate with knowledge of the discipline. Wheatley described how students negotiate meaning in small group situations, and then negotiate consensus in whole class settings, The teacher`s role is to monitor student understandings and guide discussions so that all students have opportunities to put language to their understandings and to engage in activities such as clarifying, elaborating, justifying, and evaluating alternative points of view. Such visions of classroom learning environments are exciting and appeal as viable alternatives to those so often reported in studies of learning in traditional classrooms (e.g., Tobin and Gallagher 1987). However, as appealing as these alternative visions of classroom learning might be, to label them as constructivist tends to mask -an important application of constructivism. Then time for such cognitive activities as clarifying, elaborating, justifying, and considering the merits of alternatives. From a constructivist point of view the emphasis is on the teacher as a learner, a person who will experience teaching and learning situations and give personal meaning to those experiences through reflection, at which time extant knowledge is connected to new understandings as they are built from experience and social interaction with peers and teacher educators. EBONICS EXPLAINED HARPER, FREDRICK, D., HOWARD UNIVERSITY, 1998, THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO EDUCATION, ``EBONICS AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT: THE ROLE OF THE COUNSELOR``//EE2000 JMP PG.26 Ebonics is a dialect or language system with its own distinct rules. It differs systematically from White American English dialects, not in