Table of Contents s265

West Coast Publishing 2009 Sept-Oct LD Part 3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEMOCRATIC PEDAGOGY AFFIRMATIVE...... 3

AFFIRMATIVE VALUE: DEWEY: HIGH STAKES TESTING UNDERMINES DEMOCRACY...... 5 AFFIRMATIVE VALUE: DEWEY: DEMOCRACY REQUIRES EDUCATIONAL DIVERSITY...... 6 AFFIRMATIVE CRITERIA: FREIRE: HIGH STAKES TESTING ENTRENCHES HIERARCHY AND OPPRESSION...... 7 AFFIRMATIVE CRITERIA: FREIRE: PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED IS NECESSARY...... 8 AFFIRMATIVE CRITERIA: FREIRE: PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED IS GOOD FOR EDUCATION...... 9 AFFIRMATIVE: RACISM DECISION CALCULUS...... 10 AFFIRMATIVE: SEXISM DECISION CALCULUS...... 11 AFFIRMATIVE: TESTING IS UNFAIR...... 12 AFFIRMATIVE: TESTING DOESN'T INCREASE COLLEGIATE OR EMPLOYMENT OUTLOOK...... 13 AFFIRMATIVE: TESTING IS RACIALLY BIASED...... 15 AFFIRMATIVE: EXIT EXAMS DON'T INCREASE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OR INSTITUTIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY...... 16 AFFIRMATIVE: STEREOTYPE EFFECT HURTS WOMEN AND MINORITIES...... 17

PRAGMATIC INCREMENTALISM NEGATIVE...... 18

NEGATIVE: PRAGMATISM IS A DESIRABLE VALUE...... 20 NEGATIVE: INCREMENTALISM IS DESIRABLE...... 21 NEGATIVE: INCREMENTALISM IS DESIRABLE...... 22 NEGATIVE: WE CAN FIX TESTING INCREMENTALLY...... 23 NEGATIVE: TESTING DOESN'T INCREASE SOCIAL STRATIFICATION...... 24 NEGATIVE: HIGH STAKES TESTING CAN BE APPROPRIATELY USED...... 25 NEGATIVE: GENDER GAP ISN'T SIGNIFICANT...... 26 NEGATIVE: NO DECREASED GRADUATION RATES...... 27 NEGATIVE: TESTS ARE GENERALLY GOOD...... 28 NEGATIVE: TESTING GENERALLY GOOD...... 29 NEGATIVE: RACIAL/ETHNIC GAP NOT SIGNIFICANT...... 30 NEGATIVE: ATTACKING TESTS MASKS THE PROBLEM...... 31 NEGATIVE: TESTING INCREASES ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT...... 32

www.wcdebate.com 1 West Coast Publishing 2009 Sept-Oct LD Part 3

DEMOCRATIC PEDAGOGY AFFIRMATIVE

Democracy maintains that leaders and policies receive the consent of the people. Consent is not only informed; it is also thoughtful. The foundational role of education in the process of developing self-consciously democratic citizens is a key theme of two prominent 20th century philosophers of education. The American John Dewey believed that a democratic citizenry could not survive on an education "Acquir[ing] the content for its own sake, and reproduc[ing] it on command.” The Brazilian Paolo Freire opposed the "banking model" of education where students were considered repositories of elite knowledge rather than autonomous agents. It is because standardized testing dehumanizes the student subject, thereby undermining democratic equality, that I stand resolved that:

Public high school students in the United States ought not be required to pass standardized exit exams to graduate.

Beginning with some resolutional analysis: The resolution is a straightforward question: Are standardized exit examinations justified? This is not a question reducible to either impact calculability or competing stacks of examples. It's a question that appeals to the core purposes of education. If I prove that my representation of those core purposes is desirable, and that exit examinations undermine those purposes, I should win the debate. The negative speaker has reciprocal burdens: to prove that the core purposes are undesirable or that exit examinations help fulfill those core goals.

We begin with the value of democracy. Democracy is a worthwhile value to guide discussion about education policy because the entire purpose of free, universal education in the American experiment was for the perpetuation of a deliberative citizenry. John Dewey believed genuine democracy consisted in citizens forming mutual interests in their infinite diversity of combinations, fully conscious and in control of the cognitive requirements of such democracy. That is, democracy consists of citizens coming together willingly, both individually and socially, to better society. It should be obvious that this requires the development of critical thinking skills, an appreciation of both freedom and responsibility, and the ability to work cooperatively to attain common goals.

The criteria for evaluating whether a given educational practice is compatible with or detrimental to democracy consists in Paolo Freire's important work on education, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Freire believed educators had the responsibility to make the educational system as non-hierarchical as reasonably possible, in an effort to help the student feel they had a stake in education, and that they were not merely being taught to be means to someone else's end. As Ronald David Glass writes, "Freire argued that the struggle to be free, to be human and make history and culture from the given situation, is an inherent possibility in the human condition. The struggle is necessary because the situation contains not only this possibility for humanization, but also for dehumanization. [...] Freire argues that overcoming the limits of situations is ultimately an educational enterprise that he calls a practice of freedom, a permanent form of cultural re-creation that enables the fullest possible expression of human existence."

Standardized exit examinations are detrimental to both the individual democratic identity of the student, and to democracy as a whole. This is because they encourage a dehumanizing, wasteful philosophy of education, robbing students of their agency and consequently of the creative development necessary to periodically revitalize the democratic experiment.

Contention One: The use of exit examinations undermine all creative, student-centered aspects of education.

Testing holds both student and teacher hostage: The student is held hostage to rote memorization of dead ideology rather than participating in the co-creation of living ideas. Teachers are not free to empower and co-create meaning with students. Testing also favors economically advantaged and socially stable students, marginalizing those who are struggling with poverty or other life issues, as well as students with alternative styles of learning.

Michigan State University professor Yong Zhao, in his book, Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization, cites not only the repeated statistical failures of the educational system, but the role of standardized testing in destroying the focus on individual talent, undermining diversity, discouraging imagination and reducing teachers' self-confidence.

Knowing what we now know about an examination-centered approach to education, it should be no surprise to learn that testing doesn't increase college or employment outlooks; graduation exams don't make it more likely that a student will get a job or succeed at it. The measurements have nothing to do with the things the student will encounter out in the real world, just as they bear no resemblance to the students' world of personal experience. The tests don't even increase academic achievement for the students who need it, since districts and policymakers invariably respond to the failure rate by lowering the bar rather than encouraging students to think foundationally about the test questions. Standardized testing traps both teachers and students in a system of memorization, regurgitation, and "strategies" to game the test and "beat" it. Since those in power, as Freire pointed out, want to keep that power, there is little incentive to change the way that testing operates on the educational system.

Contention Two: The testing model destroys democracy.

First, high stakes testing re-entrenches hierarchy and oppressive models of education. Standardized testing replaces common interests with systems of hierarchically-imposed "interests" that confer legitimacy on ruling-class ideas and destroy the diversity of thought. As Professor Kevin D. Vinson of Loyola College in Maryland describes it: "Our potentially real, shared interests become artificial, determined by powerful and peripheral forces [...] What counts as shared and mutual extends no farther than that which is consistent with, or deemed proper with the context of, the normalized and dominant content. [...] dynamism and difference are destroyed as teachers are forced to follow scripts and teach to the test, and as students acquire the notion that learning means nothing more than achieving 'desirable' scores."

One of the most telling effects of the decaying force of testing on democracy is the phenomenon of "stereotype threat," in which marginalized groups--women, ethnic minorities--respond to others' stereotypes of them by performing down to the level of the stereotype. This is what caused Stanford University researcher Sean Reardon to urge that the state of California stop using its exit examination altogether.

The result? Differences in test scores prove the exit examinations favor white students in wealthier districts. So on top of the sapping of creativity and innovation, cornerstones of democratic survival, exit examinations increase social stratification. All of these effects: homogenization, standardization, stratification, chip away at the survival of true government by consent, genuine democracy. In an age of poverty, powerlessness, illiteracy, and racial and ethnic marginalization, it is essential to reject these unjust outcomes and affirm the responsibility of educators to make their craftwork participatory and empowering, we must conclude today that public high school students in the United States ought not be required to pass standardized exit exams to graduate.

AFFIRMATIVE VALUE: DEWEY: HIGH STAKES TESTING UNDERMINES DEMOCRACY

1. Testing fails educationally because it abstracts experience from the students, converts education into learning for the sake of the material rather than the life of the student, and threatens to destroy democracy by killing its educational foundations. Kevin D. Vinson, Assistant Professor of Education and Coordinator of Graduate Programs in Curriculum and Instruction at Loyola College in Maryland; Rich Gibson, associate professor at San Diego State University; and E. Wayne Ross, Associate Professor in the School of Education and Human Development at the State University of New York at Binghamton. "High-Stakes Testing and Standardization: The Threat to Authenticity," 2001, Progressive Perspectives, College of Education and Social Services, University of Vermont, Winter, Accessed 9/20/09, http://www.uvm.edu/~dewey/monographs/ProPer3n2.html But in terms of high-stakes standardized testing, what does all this mean? Of what relevance is a concept such as psychologization? Dewey’s assertion was that educators first must realize that subject matter itself be abstracted fundamentally from the experiences of the child. It must, moreover, be re-internalized and not left hanging lifelessly before the learner as a disconnected and externally created intelligence. It must not be forced on students as something inherently worthwhile, regardless of its meaning. In the case of standardized testing, though, the opposite condition occurs. Content is selected with indifference to the multitude of learner experiences. It is, further, produced externally, in an identical way for everyone (dismissing, therefore, the potential importance of diversity of experiences). Meaning indeed is irrelevant, and understanding unimportant. “Acquire the content for its own sake, and reproduce it on command,” that is the “secret” message of mandated testing. Induce “achievement” by deceiving students (and parents and teachers?) into accepting the essential gravity and false attractiveness of the subject matter. Or, better yet, convince the public that meaning and motivation don't matter. An alternative, yet critical perspective, rests on a mode of interpretation constructed directly out of and upon Dewey’s (1916/1966) famed delineation of democracy and of democratic education. From this viewpoint, high-stakes standardized testing represents not only an inadequate method of pedagogy per se, but also a threat to democratic society—that is, a contradiction, an un- or antidemocratic means of preparing children for an engaged democratic social and political life.

2. Standardized testing replaces common interests with systems of hierarchically-imposed "interests" that confer legitimacy on ruling-class ideas and destroy the diversity of thought. Kevin D. Vinson, Assistant Professor of Education and Coordinator of Graduate Programs in Curriculum and Instruction at Loyola College in Maryland; Rich Gibson, associate professor at San Diego State University; and E. Wayne Ross, Associate Professor in the School of Education and Human Development at the State University of New York at Binghamton. "High-Stakes Testing and Standardization: The Threat to Authenticity," 2001, Progressive Perspectives, College of Education and Social Services, University of Vermont, Winter, Accessed 9/20/09, http://www.uvm.edu/~dewey/monographs/ProPer3n2.html Whereas Dewey’s democracy called for “more numerous and more varied points of shared common interest,” mandated standardized testing in fact reduces and limits them, creating a system of “interests” organized around exclusion and not inclusion. Our potentially real, shared interests become artificial, determined by powerful and peripheral forces, with "their" interests established as “our” interests. What counts as shared and mutual extends no farther than that which is consistent with, or deemed proper with the context of, the normalized and dominant content. Further, standardized testing (and educational standardization period) contradicts the democratic ideals of “freer interaction” and “varied intercourse.” Standardized testing confines legitimate “interaction” to test-driven teaching and learning. It reduces meaningful “intercourse” to that which is officially and formally sanctioned. Lastly, standardization directly challenges the principles of “greater diversity of stimuli” and “variation in action.” Such dynamism and difference are destroyed as teachers are forced to follow scripts and teach to the test, and as students acquire the notion that learning means nothing more than achieving “desirable” scores. In effect, the stimuli are identical, and the actions strikingly the same. For in effect, the conditions and characteristics of standardized testing contradict those of democracy, leaving instead—in democracy's wake—an institutionalized externally produced mechanism of authoritarian social and intellectual conformity, a regime of “top-down” pedagogical control. They ignore or dismiss, the imperatives of such critical and limiting factors as time, money, and class size, promoting in the end a privileged individualism over a commitment to collectivity, community, and care.

AFFIRMATIVE VALUE: DEWEY: DEMOCRACY REQUIRES EDUCATIONAL DIVERSITY

1. Democracy requires the formation of mutual interests and the liberation from social control. Education is a key node for these values. Kevin D. Vinson, Assistant Professor of Education and Coordinator of Graduate Programs in Curriculum and Instruction at Loyola College in Maryland; Rich Gibson, associate professor at San Diego State University; and E. Wayne Ross, Associate Professor in the School of Education and Human Development at the State University of New York at Binghamton. "High-Stakes Testing and Standardization: The Threat to Authenticity," 2001, Progressive Perspectives, College of Education and Social Services, University of Vermont, Winter, Accessed 9/20/09, http://www.uvm.edu/~dewey/monographs/ProPer3n2.html In his monumental work Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education, Dewey (1916/1966), in some of the best known words in the entire history of Western educational philosophy, presented his construction of democracy. In pursuing “the democratic ideal,” he wrote that: The two elements in our criterion both point to democracy. The first signifies not only more numerous and more varied points of shared common interest, but greater reliance upon the recognition of mutual interests as a factor in social control. The second means not only freer interaction between social groups (once isolated so far as intention could keep up a separation) but change in social habit—its continuous readjustment through meeting the new situations produced by varied intercourse. And these two traits are precisely what characterize the democratically constituted society. (pp. 86-87)

2. The formation of a democratic social life is based on truly educated and ideologically diverse citizens. Kevin D. Vinson, Assistant Professor of Education and Coordinator of Graduate Programs in Curriculum and Instruction at Loyola College in Maryland; Rich Gibson, associate professor at San Diego State University; and E. Wayne Ross, Associate Professor in the School of Education and Human Development at the State University of New York at Binghamton. "High-Stakes Testing and Standardization: The Threat to Authenticity," 2001, Progressive Perspectives, College of Education and Social Services, University of Vermont, Winter, Accessed 9/20/09, http://www.uvm.edu/~dewey/monographs/ProPer3n2.html John Dewey: Upon the educational side, we note first that the realization of a form of social life in which interests are mutually interpenetrating, and where progress, or readjustment, is an important consideration, makes a democratic community more interested than other communities have cause to be in deliberate and systematic education. The devotion of democracy to education is a familiar fact. The superficial explanation is that a government resting upon popular suffrage cannot be successful unless those who elect and who obey their governors are educated. Since a democratic society repudiates the principle of external authority, it must find a substitute in voluntary disposition and interest; these can be created only by education. But there is a deeper explanation. A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience [italics added]. The extension in space of the number of individuals who participate in an interest so that each has to refer his [or her] own action to that of others, and to consider the action of others to give point and direction to his [or her] own, is equivalent to the breaking down of those barriers of class, race, and national territory which kept men [sic] from perceiving the full import of their activity. These more numerous and more varied points of contact denote a greater diversity of stimuli to which an individual has to respond; they consequently put a premium on variation in his [or her] action [italics added]. They secure a liberation of powers which remain suppressed as long as incitations to action are partial, as they must be in a group which in its exclusiveness shuts out many interests.

AFFIRMATIVE CRITERIA: FREIRE: HIGH STAKES TESTING ENTRENCHES HIERARCHY AND OPPRESSION

1. Testing imposes a banking model of education, treating students as depositories at the bottom of an ideological hierarchy. Kevin D. Vinson, Assistant Professor of Education and Coordinator of Graduate Programs in Curriculum and Instruction at Loyola College in Maryland; Rich Gibson, associate professor at San Diego State University; and E. Wayne Ross, Associate Professor in the School of Education and Human Development at the State University of New York at Binghamton. "High-Stakes Testing and Standardization: The Threat to Authenticity," 2001, Progressive Perspectives, College of Education and Social Services, University of Vermont, Winter, Accessed 9/20/09, http://www.uvm.edu/~dewey/monographs/ProPer3n2.html A second concern—in addition to the potential threat posed to democratic and authentic pedagogy—emanates from the extent to which high-stakes standardized testing promotes a set of conditions that are at once unjust, unequal, and conforming. By insisting that legitimate learning necessarily presents itself in and on the basis of test scores, such testing refuses to admit and accept differences (individual as well as cultural) in knowledges, values, experiences, learning styles, economic resources, and access to those dominant academic artifacts that ultimately contribute to both the appearance of achievement and the status of cultural hegemony upon which standards-based reforms depend. In effect, standardized testing encourages a singular and homogeneous public schooling—one antithetical to such contemporary ideals as diversity, multiculturalism, difference, and liberation—vis-à-vis an underlying and insidious mechanism or technology of oppression, one in which the interests of society’s most powerful (the minority) are privileged at the expense of those of the less powerful (the majority). In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, radical Brazilian educator and activist Paulo Freire (1970) referred memorably to such standardization schemes as “banking” education, in which schooling turns [students] into “containers,” into “receptacles” to be “filled” by the teacher…. The more completely [the teacher] fills the receptacles, the better a teacher she [or he] is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are …. Education [thus] becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor… the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits (p. 53). Moreover, Freire (1970) identified such banking approaches with the fundamental conditions of oppression. As he wrote: "One of the basic elements of the relationship between oppressor and oppressed is prescription. Every prescription represents the imposition of one individual's choice upon another, transforming the consciousness of the person prescribed to into one that conforms with the prescriber’s consciousness. Thus, the behavior of the oppressed is a prescribed behavior, following as it does the guidelines of the oppressor" (pp. 28-29).

2. Testing imposes a model of education where the consciousness of the student merges with the consciousness of the oppressors, prescribing rather than inviting. Kevin D. Vinson, Assistant Professor of Education and Coordinator of Graduate Programs in Curriculum and Instruction at Loyola College in Maryland; Rich Gibson, associate professor at San Diego State University; and E. Wayne Ross, Associate Professor in the School of Education and Human Development at the State University of New York at Binghamton. "High-Stakes Testing and Standardization: The Threat to Authenticity," 2001, Progressive Perspectives, College of Education and Social Services, University of Vermont, Winter, Accessed 9/20/09, http://www.uvm.edu/~dewey/monographs/ProPer3n2.html Freire’s (1970) critique applies neatly to the climate and functionality of current standardization-based pedagogies. With respect to banking, under such programs students and teachers are held “accountable” only to the extent that they conform to the dictates of high-stakes mandated tests, which, in turn, work to drive (if not outright determine) classroom behavior relative to aim or purpose, content, and teaching method (e.g., Hartocollis, 1999; Libit, 1999a; Steinberg, 1999). Even more clearly, perhaps, is the degree to which standards and standards-based reforms represent a case of prescription. In fact, such systems mirror Freire’s (1970) insights almost to the letter. Within any complex of educational standards (including standardized tests), some individual or group's decisions are imposed externally on the actual classroom lives of teachers and students. Over time, the “consciousness of the person prescribed to” merges or “conforms with the prescriber’s consciousness” such that “the behavior of the oppressed is a prescribed behavior” indeed. The prescriber(s) choose/s for others, convinces them that the decision is consistent with the totality of all their interests, and then works to ensure (here, via testing) the strict compliance of the prescribed to’s behavior with the initial, test-regulated decision.

AFFIRMATIVE CRITERIA: FREIRE: PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED IS NECESSARY

1. Educators concerned with liberation must swim against the tide and reject dehumanizing influences on their students. Wayne Cavalier, Congar Institute for Ministry Development, 2002, "The Three Voices of Freire: An Exploration of His Thought over Time," Religious Education, Summer, Accessed 9/20/09, http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.uwlib.uwyo.edu/ehost/pdf?vid=5&hid=107&sid=1c8ef24e-bfc2-4f95-8bb3- 1c595c54b9ea%40replicon103 Recognizing that liberating educators are swimming against the stream of dominant ideology, Freire affirms that they must therefore have certain virtues in order to accomplish their dream. His emphasis here goes hand-inhand with his pronounced recognition of the limitations of liberating education, limitations which he points out are present due to the very power of that education. Because of its power, the dominating forces attempt to limit the space in which liberating education can be practiced. Under these circumstances, Freire talks about necessary and unnecessary fear. He recognizes the need for fear, but calls the educator to test the limits of fear and to push to those limits the space occupied by liberating education. The emphasis here is not so much on the limitations of the role of the teacher as intervener, but on the recognition of the limitations that are going to be in place anyway, and a call to act responsibly in the face of those limitations. This confirms Freire’s conviction that intervent on in the learners’ reality is necessary to the role of the educator (1987, 177). Perhaps it is in his dialogue with Tennessee critical educator Myles Horton (1905–1990) that Freire comes closest to identifying the best criterion for judging the ethical quality of intervention by the liberating educator. In response to Horton’s question about what Freire considers to be legitimate authority, Freire states the following: “ . . . this is the road in which we walk, something that comes from outside into autonomy, something that comes from inside. That is the result” (1990, 187). Unfortunately, Freire does not pursue this thought here. Still the criterion is clear: if the intervention of the educator does not lead to the autonomy of the learner, then it is not liberating education.

2. We need to promote Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed to push back against poverty, powerlessness, illiteracy, and racial and ethnic marginalization. Ronald David Glass, Assistant Professor at Arizona State University West, College of Education, 2001, "On Paulo Freire’s Philosophy of Praxis and the Foundations of Liberation Education," Educational Researcher, Vol. 30, No. 2, March, Accessed 9/20/09, http://aera.net/uploadedFiles/Journals_and_Publications/Journals/Educational_Researcher/3002/AERA3002_Glass.p df A pedagogy of the oppressed is as needed today as when Freire first articulated it. Global economic forces and domestic politics press U.S. public education toward ever more narrow and conservative agendas, thus reinscribing and justifying poverty and powerlessness through their association with particular (il)literacies and failure on standardized tests (Shannon, 1998). Low-income Americans face an increasing education gap as the testing stakes get raised and as public school resources are more broadly privatized. Vouchers and school choice plans reinforce and extend educational, economic, and social inequality (Carnoy, 2000). At the same time, voter initiative campaigns marginalize the voices of non-English speakers in schools and reinvigorate an exclusionary linguistic colonialism (Macedo, 2000). All these effects, coupled with the growing income gap between the rich and poor (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2000), promise predictable negative consequences for historically disadvantaged population , and even more so when there is a downturn in the overall economy. The dominant (neo)conservative discourse blames the victims of these policies for their own suffering, suggesting that a moral poverty prefigures their social and economic predicaments (Bennett, 1996), and the ideological attack on public schools and teachers threatens deeply grounded democratic possibilities in the culture (Berliner & Biddle, 1995). Meanwhile, the reformism of the (neo)liberals produces little change in either urban schools or their larger context (Anyon, 1997), and thus little change in the daily lives of the poor who are concentrated there. Most multicultural education approaches fail to address injustice and the challenges of transforming inequitable power relations (McCarthy, 1990; Nieto, 2000), and even antiracist pedagogies can succumb to accommodation to the status quo (Flecha, 1999). Without a clear focus on the politics of schooling and the need for community organizing to build and sustain meaningful reform, little has been accomplished even in urban districts where people of color occupy educational and civic leadership positions (Henig, Hula, Orr, & Pedescleaux, 1999).

AFFIRMATIVE CRITERIA: FREIRE: PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED IS GOOD FOR EDUCATION

1. We must reject every instance of hierarchical pedagogy whenever we have the opportunity. Wayne Cavalier, Congar Institute for Ministry Development, 2002, "The Three Voices of Freire: An Exploration of His Thought over Time," Religious Education, Summer, Accessed 9/20/09, http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.uwlib.uwyo.edu/ehost/pdf?vid=5&hid=107&sid=1c8ef24e-bfc2-4f95-8bb3- 1c595c54b9ea%40replicon103 It must be remembered that Freire is writing as an intellectual and as a member of the middle class, despite his childhood experience of poverty. As such, he is convinced of the role that he and others like him can and must play in the transformation of society. Therefore, the concept of intervention as a responsibility of educators is central to his theory. Without this concept, his theory is groundless. As he points out in this regard: “The pedagogy of the oppressed, which is the pedagogy of people engaged in the fight for their own liberation, has its roots here” (1970, 38; c.f. 1973, 16–20). Still, the requirement of consistency moves him to qualify this point. Since there is no room in his theory for paternalism and since responsible participation is the goal of his practice, the educator must aim to include those who gain consciousness of their subjectivity in the development of the educational process: “No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by treating them as unfortunates and by presenting for their emulation models from among the oppressors” (1970, 39).

2. Freedom is inherently possible in the human condition; dehumanization destroys freedom. Overcoming such limiting forces begins in the educational context. Ronald David Glass, Assistant Professor at Arizona State University West, College of Education, 2001, "On Paulo Freire’s Philosophy of Praxis and the Foundations of Liberation Education," Educational Researcher, Vol. 30, No. 2, March, Accessed 9/20/09, http://aera.net/uploadedFiles/Journals_and_Publications/Journals/Educational_Researcher/3002/AERA3002_Glass.p df Freire argued that the struggle to be free, to be human and make history and culture from the given situation, is an inherent possibility in the human condition. The struggle is necessary because the situation contains not only this possibility for humanization, but also for dehumanization. Dehumanization makes people objects of history and culture, and denies their capacity to also be self-defining subjects creating history and culture. These dehumanizing forces reside in both the material and psychic conditions of persons and situations, so freedom requires people to engage in a kind of historico-cultural political psychoanalysis. Freire argues that overcoming the limits of situations is ultimately an educational enterprise that he calls a practice of freedom, a permanent form of cultural re-creation that enables the fullest possible expression of human existence.

3. The Pedagogy of the Oppressed Checks Political Extremism. Ronald David Glass, Assistant Professor at Arizona State University West, College of Education, 2001, "On Paulo Freire’s Philosophy of Praxis and the Foundations of Liberation Education," Educational Researcher, Vol. 30, No. 2, March, Accessed 9/20/09, http://aera.net/uploadedFiles/Journals_and_Publications/Journals/Educational_Researcher/3002/AERA3002_Glass.p df Freire’s critical “pedagogy of possibility” offers theoretical and practical alternatives to both the (neo)conservative and (neo)liberal discourses and practices (McLaren, 1999). At the classroom level, curricula aimed at empowering young children and developing their capacities to resist interpersonal bias and promote equality have been finding wider audiences (Derman-Sparks, 1989; Schniedewind & Davidson, 1998), and more teacher educators are encouraging critical pedagogical practices among their students, generating even wider effects (Wink, 2000).1 The organic literacies of the working class are being harnessed to contest the deforming messages of the dominant school culture (Cushman, 1998; Finn, 1999), and workers are finding critical literacy skills useful in workplace struggles (Hull, 1997). Social movements and activists have translated Freire’s ideas into organizing programs with broad applicability (Arnold, Burke, James, Martin, & Thomas, 1991; Findlay, 1994).2 Although systemic school reform efforts based on Freire’s theory have been limited largely to the Brazilian context (Freire, 1993; O’Cadiz, Wong, & Torres, 1998), at least one major project is underway in the U.S.3 Beyond all this, Freire continues to be mustered to service in a wide range of theoretical battles, from the politics of difference, to cultural studies, to feminism and race matters (Steiner, Krank, McLaren, & Bahruth, 2000).

AFFIRMATIVE: RACISM DECISION CALCULUS

1. Solutions to racism must be collective. Julie Quiroz-Martinez, co-principal of Mosaic Consulting, Oakland California, 2006, "Youth Organizing Tackles the 'Racism You Can't Name,'" Poverty & Race, November/December, Reposted at Poverty and Race Research Action Council, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.prrac.org/full_text.php? text_id=1097&item_id=10190&newsletter_id=90&header=Symposium:%20Structural%20Racism Because racism affects people as a group and not just individually, anti-racist approaches must also operate at the collective level. For example, Reggie Moore of Milwaukee’s Urban Underground describes how racism informs the way young people in UU’s after-school leadership development program shape their community action projects: The selection of civic participation projects is based on the personal connection or experience youth have with an issue based on their race. We have focused on Black voter turn- out, police-involved shootings, police in schools, and teen homeless, all looking through a racial lens. Invariably, this collective action involves a highly developed participatory process of issue identification that acknowledges young people’s collective experience of racism. Our report found that not only do groups develop campaigns with a racial justice lens, but perhaps most importantly, they do so through a participatory process in which youth research, respond to and ultimately reframe issues that affect their lives.

2. Rejecting racism unconditionally is both ethically and pragmatically required. Albert Memmi, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Paris, 1997, Racism, p. 165. Of course, this is debatable. There are those who think that if one is strong enough, the assault on and oppression of others is permissible. But no one is ever sure of remaining the strongest. One day, perhaps, the roles will be reversed. All unjust society contains within itself the seeds of its own death. It is probably smarter to treat others with respect so that they treat you with respect. "Recall," says the Bible, "that you were once a stranger in Egypt," which means both that you ought to respect the stranger because you were a stranger yourself and that you risk becoming once again someday. It is an ethical and a practical appeal -- indeed, it is a contract, however implicit it might be. In short, the refusal of racism is the condition for all theoretical and practical morality.

3. We should struggle against racism even if we're not sure of the outcome. Albert Memmi, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Paris, 1997, Racism, p. 165. Because, in the end, the ethical choice commands the political choice, a just society must be a society accepted by all. If this contractual principle is not accepted, then only conflict, violence, and destruction will be our lot. If it is accepted, we can hope someday to live in peace. True, it is a wager, but the stakes are irresistible.

3. We must all challenge racism at every available opportunity: Each struggle is key Joseph Barndt, minister, 1991, Dismantling Racism, p. 155. To study racism is to study walls. We have looked at barriers and fences, restraints and limitations, ghettos and prisons. The prison of racism confines us all, people of color and white people alike. It shackles the victimizer as well as the victim. The walls forcibly keep people of color and white people seperate from each other in our seperate prisons. We are all prevented from achieving human potential that God intends for us. The limitations imposed on people of color by poverty, subservience, and powerlessness are cruel, inhumane and unjust; the effects of uncontrolled power, privelage, and greed, which are the marks of our white prison, will inevitably destroy us as well. But we have also seen that the walls of racism can be dismantled. We are not condemned to an inexorable fate, but are offered the vision and possibility of freedom. Brick by brick, stone by stone, the prison of individual, institutional, and cultural racism can be destroyed. You and I are urgently called to join the efforts of those who know it is time to dear down once and for all, the walls of racism.

AFFIRMATIVE: SEXISM DECISION CALCULUS

1. Dismantling patriarchy should be prioritized over conflicting political goals because no other social justice can be achieved in a patriarchal framework. Niraja Gopal Jayal, Professor of Law and Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2007, "Left Behind? Women, Politics, and Development in India," Brown Journal of World Affairs, Spring/Summer, Accessed 9/19/09, http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.uwlib.uwyo.edu/ehost/pdf?vid=8&hid=2&sid=1bc30811-3e5c-4265-bca7- a8fd863c826b%40sessionmgr4 We know that the political capacities of states depend, at least partially, on the support and cooperation of societal forces. Scholarship on state-society relations in the field of industrial development, for instance, has shown that state interventions are more likely to work when there is a synergy between political and economic power. The ineffectual nature of some state interventions that we have surveyed here points to structural inequalities in society —supported by the entrenchment and resilience of patriarchal ideology—which resist the project of gender equality.

2.Sexism is based on institutions and policies, not merely beliefs. Sarah M. Stitzlein, Department of Education, University of New Hampshire, 2008, "Private Interests, Public Necessity: Responding to Sexism in Christian Schools. Educational Studies, Accessed 9/19/09, http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.uwlib.uwyo.edu/ehost/pdf?vid=18&hid=2&sid=1bc30811-3e5c-4265-bca7- a8fd863c826b%40sessionmgr4 Sexism is composed of beliefs and values that assert, either explicitly or implicitly, that one gender is inferior to another by virtue of biology, social position, historical role, intelligence, or, in this case, religious doctrine. Typically, females are viewed as inferior, resulting in dehumanization and domination of the members of this group, as well as the group as a whole. This ethos is expressed formally through institutional bodies and their codes, or informally through tradition and patriarchal relations. More than simply the beliefs of individuals, sexism is a systemic system of oppression based on social and political privilege.

3. Governments have a positive obligation to prevent sexism. Sarah M. Stitzlein, Department of Education, University of New Hampshire, 2008, "Private Interests, Public Necessity: Responding to Sexism in Christian Schools. Educational Studies, Accessed 9/19/09, http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.uwlib.uwyo.edu/ehost/pdf?vid=18&hid=2&sid=1bc30811-3e5c-4265-bca7- a8fd863c826b%40sessionmgr4 In the following, I contend that the state should, at minimum, prohibit sexist teachings in all schools and should, desirably, encourage (but not require) religious schools to take a stand against sexism. Sexism should be prohibited because it results in the dissatisfaction or violation of girls’ temporal interests. These include secular pursuits, career aspirations, worldly desires, freedom from coercion, health, intellectual liberty, and the like. Often these are closely related to a girl’s self-esteem, happiness, social respect, autonomy, and sense of well-being. Because the state may not dictate the religious interests of a child, the state is concerned with these secular interests, interests that often overlap with constitutional protections.

4. We all have a responsibility to fight to overcome patriarchy. Niraja Gopal Jayal, Professor of Law and Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2007, "Left Behind? Women, Politics, and Development in India," Brown Journal of World Affairs, Spring/Summer, Accessed 9/19/09, http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.uwlib.uwyo.edu/ehost/pdf?vid=8&hid=2&sid=1bc30811-3e5c-4265-bca7- a8fd863c826b%40sessionmgr4 It is clear that neither legal nor institutional reform by itself can accomplish greater gender justice or equality. The undermining of patriarchal values would appear to be a necessary condition for this, which is a project that can only emanate from society rather than the state. This is a task for the women's movement—to unify women's interests qua women, rather than as members of this or that identity-group.

AFFIRMATIVE: TESTING IS UNFAIR

1. Testing hurts students who are struggling with poverty or other life issues, as well as students with alternative styles of learning. Grace Chen, editorial staff, 2008, "The Pros and Cons of Public School Exit Exams," Public School Review, October 21, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.publicschoolreview.com/articles/53 As Pytel asserts, the standardized tests often punish students who are dealing with personal and/or cognitive struggles, as they are designed to only assess students of “average” academic ability; however, regardless of one’s circumstance or natural ability, all students are required to take state-mandated tests. Adding to this, Terri Sessoms, from the International Center for Leadership in Education, argues that students all have unique learning styles; as a result, “Teachers take these learning styles into account when teaching new concepts. Students may watch a presentation (visual), take notes as teacher instructs (auditory) and complete a project based on the same information (kinesthetic).”

2. Testing favors left-brained students. Grace Chen, editorial staff, 2008, "The Pros and Cons of Public School Exit Exams," Public School Review, October 21, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.publicschoolreview.com/articles/53 Despite these learning differences, however, “The standardized exit exams that many states are adopting favor the left-brained students. These students tend to learn by lecture, memorize easier, and don’t become confused with the answer choices. Right-brained students don't do as well on these tests in spite of knowing the topic. They see every answer as a possibility under the right conditions. In spite of knowing the information, they are likely to select an incorrect answer.” Ultimately, the testing policies were initiated in order to ensure that schools and students were performing successfully. Ideally, these tests are supposed to help school and state leaders figure out new ways to provide students with more beneficial lessons and learning opportunities. Despite these goals, however, as Pytel argues, “While demanding exit exams may sound good initially, these exams do not truly reflect the knowledge students hold. The exams don’t prepare the students for the real world where they are allowed to use manuals (and) ask questions.”

3. ESL and Learning-disabled students will get lower scores; accommodations will only worsen the problem, producing unrealistically high scores. West Ed Policy Brief, 2003, "Making Sure Exit Exams Get a Passing Grade," May, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.wested.org/online_pubs/PO-03-01.pdf Other concerns focus on English language learners and students with disabilities (including special education students), traditionally allowed exemption from high-stakes assessments. Some states allow accommodations in the administration of exit exams6 or offer alternative assessments to ensure that these groups can participate in a meaningful way. Research shows that accommodations can produce unrealistically high scores for some special needs students, raising questions of fairness and validity.7 However, states that choose not to allow accommodations, alternative assessments, or exemptions risk making the test unfair to these students, many of whom would otherwise have earned a diploma.

AFFIRMATIVE: TESTING DOESN'T INCREASE COLLEGIATE OR EMPLOYMENT OUTLOOK

1. Graduation tests do not increase work or college skills. FAIRTEST.ORG, 2008, "Why Graduation Tests/Exit Exams Fail to Add Value to High School Diplomas, May 2, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.fairtest.org/gradtestfactmay08 Graduation tests do not promote the knowledge, skills and habits needed for success in college or skilled work. According to college professors and employers, high school graduates 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 (National Research Council, 2002). Also needed are attributes such as good study skills, time management, awareness of one’s performance and persistence. Since exit exams do not measure most of these important attributes, test scores have little value for colleges or employers. (Peter D. Hart, 2008).

2. Exit exams do not increase students' value in the labor market. FAIRTEST.ORG, 2008, "Why Graduation Tests/Exit Exams Fail to Add Value to High School Diplomas, May 2, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.fairtest.org/gradtestfactmay08 Graduation tests do not make high school diplomas more valuable to employers. There is no evidence that exit exams make diplomas more meaningful in the labor market. In fact, recent research found no positive impact on employment status or wages in states with high school exit exams. There was also no impact on numbers of high school graduates going to college (Warren et al., 2007). Most state standards-based high school tests are not aligned with college-level work or employment. Most tests just try to measure basic academic skills. They rely primarily on multiple-choice questions, some adding a few short written pieces. They rarely require students to apply their learning or engage in higher-level thinking. According to Stanford Professor Linda Darling-Hammond, “Most jobs in today's knowledge-based economy require that we find, assemble and analyze information, write and speak clearly and persuasively; and work with others to solve messy problems,” none of which are measured by multiple choice exams (Darling-Hammond, 2005). College requires similar skills.

3. Test preparation trades off with the development of college skills. FAIRTEST.ORG, 2008, "Why Graduation Tests/Exit Exams Fail to Add Value to High School Diplomas, May 2, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.fairtest.org/gradtestfactmay08 Test preparation overshadows the development of college-level skills. A focus on learning out-of-context facts to pass exit exams detracts from preparing students for the work required in college. A survey of professors and employers by Achieve (2005), which promotes standards and tests, found many high school graduates are weak in comprehending complex reading, oral communication, understanding complicated materials, doing research, and producing quality writing.

4. Exit exams don't solve college-level remediality. FAIRTEST.ORG, 2008, "Why Graduation Tests/Exit Exams Fail to Add Value to High School Diplomas, May 2, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.fairtest.org/gradtestfactmay08 The widespread adoption of exit exams has not resulted in more high school graduates prepared for college. Exit exam policies now influence the education of 65% of U.S. public high school students, yet colleges report increasing need for remedial education. Federal statistics indicate that 40% of college students take at least one remedial course, reducing their probability of graduating (National Center for Education Statistics, 2004). Texas colleges reported in-state high school graduates needed more, not less, remediation after high-stakes testing was introduced (Haney, 2000).

AFFIRMATIVE: TESTING DEHUMANIZES STUDENTS

1. Testing destroys focus on individual talent, undermines diversity, kills the imagination and undermines student self-confidence. Andy Henion, University staffwriter, 2009, "Standardized testing hurting U.S. education, new book contends," Michigan State University News, September 1, Accessed 9/20/09, http://news.msu.edu/story/6755/ America’s increasing reliance on standardized testing as a yardstick for educational success is a flawed policy that threatens to undermine the nation’s strengths of creativity and innovation, according to a provocative new book from a Michigan State University scholar. By grading student success on government-set standards in a limited number of subjects such as math, reading and science, Yong Zhao argues the United States is eager to “throw away” one of its global advantages – an education that respects individual talents and does not dictate what students learn or how teachers teach. Zhao’s book, due out in late September and published by ASCD, is called “Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization.” He acknowledges his thesis is “diametrically opposed to the more popular view of what American education should be like in the 21st century.” “Right now we seem to be stuck with the idea of standards as the panacea to fix all of America’s education problems,” said Zhao, University Distinguished Professor of education. “I don’t deny that the U.S. education system has problems, but I don’t feel the problems can be solved by standards and high-stakes testing. Rather, standards and high-stakes testing run the risk of ruining the advantages and great tradition of the system.” Ironically, Zhao set out to write a book about the “repeated failures” of testing and standardization in his native China. But while Chinese officials are trying to “undo the damages” of that system, the Obama administration seems inclined to continue the limited standards-focused policy established by George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act, Zhao said. “I realized that what China wants is what America is eager to throw away,” Zhao writes in the book’s preface. Zhao has secured millions of dollars in grant funding from U.S. and Chinese organizations to study and implement educational technology and reform. He travels frequently around the United States to speak to educational groups about the need for diverse, globally focused education. But while most educators agree with him about the need for change, Zhao said they often complain they’re stuck “teaching to the test” to meet state-mandated requirements in select subjects. Zhao has seen the effects of national standards first-hand. Five years ago he pulled his son out of the 10th grade at a mid-Michigan public school and sent him to a New Jersey boarding school after the youngster failed to post a top writing score on a standardized test and dwelled over how to do better. “My heart sank as he was explaining to me how he would improve,” Zhao writes of his son, who graduated from the boarding school and is now attending the University of Chicago. “The essence of his strategy was to stop being creative and imaginative.” Zhao believes the federal government should stop endorsing standardized testing and instead reward schools for offering a diverse set of opportunities – from art to auto shop. He said accountability should be “input-based” rather than “output-based,” with schools being graded on whether they provide safe and clean facilities and a learning environment that provides global learning opportunities. “I would measure what the schools offer rather than what the schools produce in terms of students, because students’ learning outcomes are affected by so many factors,” he said. “Most importantly, we need to instill confidence – restore confidence – in our teachers and in our schools, because right now the accountability rhetoric in essence is telling us we don’t trust our educators – that they are not good enough, they are lazy, and that’s not the case.”

2. High-stakes testing limits curricula, destroys creativity and the joy of learning, and increases illness in children. Julie Blair and Jeff Archer, staffwriters, 2001, "NEA Members Denounce High-Stakes Testing," Education Week, July 11, Accessed 9/20/09, http://www.edweek.org/login.html? source=http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2001/07/11/42neatest_web.h20.html&destination=http://www.edweek.or g/ew/articles/2001/07/11/42neatest_web.h20.html&levelId=2100 Members of the nation’s largest teachers’ union raised their voices in opposition to high-stakes standardized tests not once, not twice, but at least five times during their annual four-day meeting here last week, ultimately strengthening the National Education Association’s policy against such endeavors. Educators passionately denounced such exams during the July 4-7 forum, stating that high-stakes standardized tests limit curricula and snuff out both creative teaching and the joy of learning. Teachers from around the nation shared stories of children becoming so stressed that they became physically ill on test days or emotionally inaccessible for weeks after taking them.

AFFIRMATIVE: TESTING IS RACIALLY BIASED

1. California proves that exit examinations exacerbate structural racism. Julie Quiroz-Martinez, co-principal of Mosaic Consulting, Oakland California, 2006, "Youth Organizing Tackles the 'Racism You Can't Name,'" Poverty & Race, November/December, Reposted at Poverty and Race Research Action Council, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.prrac.org/full_text.php? text_id=1097&item_id=10190&newsletter_id=90&header=Symposium:%20Structural%20Racism The California High School Exit Exam provides a graphic illustration of structural racism and a compelling story of youth organizing to challenge it. California legislators passed the exit exam into law in 1999 with the stated goal of improving academic performance in public schools. This year, the exit exam’s real teeth were finally bared. Beginning in 2006, California schools are required to deny diplomas to high school seniors who don’t pass the exam. Not surprisingly, most students who fail are black and brown youth concentrated in the worst public schools. In fact, in what as known as the Williams lawsuit settlement (Williams v. State of California), the State of California acknowledged that these schools lack the books, qualified teachers and basic health and safety standards needed for a good education.

2. Differences in test scores prove the exit examinations favor white students in wealthier districts. Gary Delgado, scholar-in-residence at the Institute for Social Change at UC Berkeley and executive director of the Applied Research Center in Oakland, 1999, "High School Exit Exams Are Racist," Los Angeles Times, March 2, Accessed 9/19/09, http://articles.latimes.com/1999/mar/02/local/me-13110 Forget context. Forget the fact that 40 other states spend more per student than California. Ignore the reality that 20% of California students have a first language other than English, and that, in a nativist fit, we have all but outlawed bilingual education. Never mind that the schools, reflecting patterns of housing segregation, continue to be racially segregated, and that the least experienced teachers end up teaching the most disadvantaged students. And disregard the effects of the already questionable practice of "ability group" tracking, again based on tests, which tends to exclude black and Latino students from the intellectually challenging, college-bound classes. Given these inequities, the last thing we need is a test that only will prove the obvious: Most students of color get an education that doesn't measure up to that received by most white students. Exit exams take the irrational logic of personal responsibility and apply it to schools. Students can work hard, receive passing grades, meet their graduation requirements--and still be denied their diploma.

3. Florida, Texas and California prove racial bias exists in exit examinations. Gary Delgado, scholar-in-residence at the Institute for Social Change at UC Berkeley and executive director of the Applied Research Center in Oakland, 1999, "High School Exit Exams Are Racist," Los Angeles Times, March 2, Accessed 9/19/09, http://articles.latimes.com/1999/mar/02/local/me-13110 It's not as if we can't predict the effect these exams will have on students. Florida and Texas have already been sued for the racial bias of their exit exam system, and racial impact isn't the only issue. In Texas, for example, where 85% of students who fail to pass the final administration of the test are Mexican American and African American, teachers are now "teaching to the test" instead of fostering critical thinking skills or helping students to gain substantive knowledge. While politicians in Texas and Florida may claim that they were unaware of the potential negative racial impact of exit exams, California lawmakers have no excuse. We have the data and we know the potential negative consequences of the exit exam proposal. At this stage, advocating a policy that has been shown to enhance patterns of institutional racism is, in itself, a racist act.

AFFIRMATIVE: EXIT EXAMS DON'T INCREASE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OR INSTITUTIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY

1. Districts and policymakers will respond to the failure rate by lowering the bar. West Ed Policy Brief, 2003, "Making Sure Exit Exams Get a Passing Grade," May, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.wested.org/online_pubs/PO-03-01.pdf Often, however, exit exams are implemented without adequate commitment to ensuring student success or sufficient attention to the costs of student failure. In such cases, one unplanned outcome may be high failure rates, especially for poor and minority students. Another risk is increased dropout rates, fueled by the frustration of students who have failed or who simply expect to fail. Due to these risks, some states have postponed this graduation requirement to give students and teachers more time to prepare. Other states issue alternative diplomas to allow graduation when students have met all requirements other than passing the exit exam.

2. The cry of "accountability" doesn't solve the problem of testing being deeply flawed. Grace Chen, editorial staff, 2008, "The Pros and Cons of Public School Exit Exams," Public School Review, October 21, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.publicschoolreview.com/articles/53 With the rising trend of graduation and EOC exit exams, the Center of Education Policy predicts: “more students will be required to take more difficult end-of-course exams in order to graduate, signaling that state leaders are not entirely satisfied with exit exams, which are minimum competency tests.” While these exit exams were instated to ensure student accountability, many educators and school leaders are concerned about the potentially harmful impacts of such tests.

3. Talk of "accountability" ignores poverty and urban decay. Grace Chen, editorial staff, 2008, "The Pros and Cons of Public School Exit Exams," Public School Review, October 21, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.publicschoolreview.com/articles/53 Specifically, Barbara Pytel explains that students with specific learning disabilities or academic struggles are often overlooked when it comes to standardized testing: “Taking a tough stand while pounding on a podium in the presence of other legislators does not make learning disabilities and learning styles disappear. Mandating accountability does not find homeless children a home, does not make drive by shootings disappear, does not make dads appear in a single parent home and it doesn’t improve language skills for ESL students (English as a Second Language).”

3. Raising standards achieves nothing; systemic inequalities are still in place. FAIRTEST.ORG, 2008, "Why Graduation Tests/Exit Exams Fail to Add Value to High School Diplomas, May 2, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.fairtest.org/gradtestfactmay08 High school graduates would not be better prepared if schools were to “raise standards” by making exams harder. Tougher multiple-choice questions won't address the real gap between tests and college or employment requirements. Such strategies also ignore research on human motivation, assuming that simply “raising standards” and threatening punishment (withholding diplomas) will make students and teachers work harder. Most modern businesses no longer try to boost productivity by threatening employees with punishment (Oakes and Grubb, 2007).

AFFIRMATIVE: STEREOTYPE EFFECT HURTS WOMEN AND MINORITIES

1. Stereotypes, bias and anxiety mean tests hurt females and non-white students. Mitchell Landsberg, staffwriter, 2009, "High school exit exam hinders female and non-white students, study says," Los Angeles Times, April 22, Accessed 9/19/09, http://articles.latimes.com/2009/apr/22/local/me-exit-exam22 California's high school exit exam is keeping disproportionate numbers of girls and non-whites from graduating, even when they are just as capable as white boys, according to a study released Tuesday. It also found that the exam, which became a graduation requirement in 2007, has "had no positive effect on student achievement." The study by researchers at Stanford University and UC Davis concluded that girls and non-whites were probably failing the exit exam more often than expected because of what is known as "stereotype threat," a theory in social psychology that holds, essentially, that negative stereotypes can be self-fulfilling. In this case, researcher Sean Reardon said, girls and students of color may be tripped up by the expectation that they cannot do as well as white boys. Reardon said there was no other apparent reason why girls and non-whites fail the exam more often than white boys, who are their equals in other, lower-stress academic assessments. Reardon, an associate professor of education at Stanford, urged the state Department of Education to consider either scrapping the exit exam -- one of the reforms for which state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell has fought the hardest -- or looking at ways of intervening to help students perform optimally.

2. Indiana and other states prove disproportionate failure rate by minorities. West Ed Policy Brief, 2003, "Making Sure Exit Exams Get a Passing Grade," May, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.wested.org/online_pubs/PO-03-01.pdf Graduation and other high-stakes tests can focus attention on how a system is failing to serve all students. However, critics say that a high-stakes exit exam places the onus, wrongly, on students, whose schools may not have offered them sufficient opportunities to learn what is needed to pass the exam. The worry is that poor and minority students will be disproportionately denied regular high school diplomas,4 a concern that has been born out in some states. In Indiana, 65 percent of all students passed the mathematics portion of the exam, but only 31 percent of African Americans and 46 percent of Latino students passed.

3. Studies confirm the stereotyping effect. Claude M. Steele and Joshua Aronson, psychologists, 1995, "Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Accessed 9/22/09, http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/69/5/ Stereotype threat is being at risk of confirming, as self-characteristic, a negative stereotype about one's group. Studies 1 and 2 varied the stereotype vulnerability of Black participants taking a difficult verbal test by varying whether or not their performance was ostensibly diagnostic of ability, and thus, whether or not they were at risk of fulfilling the racial stereotype about their intellectual ability. Reflecting the pressure of this vulnerability, Blacks underperformed in relation to Whites in the ability-diagnostic condition but not in the nondiagnostic condition (with Scholastic Aptitude Tests controlled). Study 3 validated that ability-diagnosticity cognitively activated the racial stereotype in these participants and motivated them not to conform to it, or to be judged by it. Study 4 showed that mere salience of the stereotype could impair Blacks' performance even when the test was not ability diagnostic.

4. Stereotype threat is especially harmful because it's not due to any failing on the part of the victim. Carrie Conaway, psychologist, 2002, "A Psychological Effect of Stereotypes, Regional Review, Accessed 9/21/09, But according to social psychologists, it is those most invested in their achievement who are most likely to fall prey to a kind of unconscious behavior known as stereotype threat. This threat is pernicious because it is not due to active discrimination by employers, teachers, or other external evaluators; rather, it comes from within. It emerges in situations where people worry that their poor performance on some measure might be attributed not to their individual ability, but to a negative stereotype about a group they belong to—women, African-Americans, athletes, liberals, any group at all. Members of these stereotyped groups worry that their individual results will serve as a referendum on the abilities of everyone in their group, and the stress and self-doubt this brings on demonstrably reduces their performance—creating the very outcome they were striving to avoid. For example, knowing that women are perceived as indecisive, a successful woman leader may still act indecisively, not because she actually is

www.wcdebate.com 20 West Coast Publishing 2009 Sept-Oct LD Part 3 incapable of making a decision, but because the fear that others will perceive her that way slows down her decision- making process.

PRAGMATIC INCREMENTALISM NEGATIVE

You will hear affirmatives on this topic accuse testing of being biased, encouraging teachers to teach to the test, forcing bureaucrats to destroy education in order to massage test scores for taxpayer and elected official. What you will not hear is any reason why testing, in itself, is bad; you will not hear a reason why it is the unique culprit in the affirmative's scary story about the educational system. This is because the tests themselves are not the problem, and they can be easily fixed, rather than abandoned. For this reason, I stand opposed to the resolution: Public high school students in the United States ought not be required to pass standardized exit exams to graduate.

First, some resolutional analysis. The resolution issues an absolute statement: that students ought not be required to pass exit examinations to graduate. In essence, this calls for a ban on mandatory exit examinations. If the affirmative upholds that burden, that call for a ban, the affirmative wins. Conversely, if I can demonstrate, philosophically and/or pragmatically, that there are superior alternatives to banning exit exam requirements, I should win.

The value I'd like to advance in today's discussion is pragmatism. Pragmatism seeks ultimately to test political and philosophical principles in the real world, to preserve that which works and reject that which doesn't. As John Dewey once remarked, it's not a question of theory versus practice, but a question of intelligent practice versus stupid practice. Pragmatism is the most appropriate value for a discussion about education policy, since ultimately we should be interested in what works, rather than what ought in principle to work, and be concerned about fixing things rather than rejecting everything outright.

The criterion with which we should evaluate pragmatism in educational policy is called incrementalism. Incrementalism holds that small changes, done through deliberation and careful study, are more desirable than sweeping, across-the-board revolutionary changes. We live in a complex, pluralistic society. If you're concerned about democracy working in a nation with a lot of divisions, constant bickering and special interest manipulation, you should prefer the incremental approach to the absolutist one. Incrementalism upholds checks and balances, separation of powers, and federalism; in many ways, it's what American representative democracy is all about, and it helps ensure that we don't fight civil wars every time we disagree on something important.

Essentially, my position on exit exams is simple: Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater! There are problems surrounding testing, but those are not problems intrinsic to the concept of testing. We need to carefully assess the reasons why testing fails our students, when it does. But we also need to be aware of the numerous instances where testing succeeds.

Contention One: Exit exams frequently succeed and are a pragmatically desirable approach to education.

First, the claims made by the anti-testing side simply aren't true. Research disproves the whole assembly line of contrived arguments against testing: Studies --including a ten-year study-- prove exit exams don't decrease graduation rates. Instead, tests accurately determine proficiency, send a positive pro-educational message and identify the need for remedial training. They improve faculty morale and community support, and send a message of increased expectations, which historically correlates to improved learning.

Arguments concerning bias and stereotyping don't seem to hold water when compared to actual research. A study published two years ago in the journal Science "concluded that the most reliable way to admit students to graduate and professional school is a combination of using test scores and college grades. In addition, the study found that these tests predict just as well for minority and white students." While there is undoubtedly some stereotyping bias, the increasing success of women and minorities, including in areas where standardized testing is used, will gradually eliminate that bias. In contrast, eliminating testing will not eliminate that bias.

Next, the testing improves education, making it both more rigorous and more responsive. It's not testing that causes social stratification: it's socioeconomic inequality, whose grip can only be overcome by mastering basic academic skills. Mastering basic skills addresses socioeconomic inequality. Testing aids this skill development, because tests allow both students and teacher to locate and fix deficient learning areas. Studies such as those conducted by the

Public Policy Institute of California point out that students work harder to pass the exams rather than freaking out and dropping out to avoid taking the exit exam.

Contention Two: Problems surrounding exit exams are not intrinsic; they can and should be corrected without rejecting the entire concept of exit examination.

When confronted with a problem, the absolutist says "get rid of it," which is good rhetoric but bad politics. In contrast, the pragmatic incrementalist says "see how we can fix it," and more importantly, how can we keep the good things and get rid of the bas things?

The American Psychological Association, hardly a bastion of anti-democratic thought, also believes that high-stakes testing can be appropriately used. The APA concludes that "tests, when used appropriately, can be valid measures of student achievement." The core element of testing is assessment. As George Ashline of St. Michael's College says, assessment should not be abstracted from the rest of learning, but "should be integrated into instruction to provide regular feedback that can be used to guide further instruction as well as enhance student understanding. It should be used in multiple formats to measure not only procedural but deeper conceptual understanding." Bias is never intrinsic to an assessment method. Research into test improvement can solve problems and overcome biases. The APA points out that tests can be reformed at the point of development, increasing fairness. In fact, the pragmatic outcome of blaming tests for other failures in the educational system guarantees that policymakers continue to bark up the wrong tree concerning academic failure.

One of the best ways to assess the comparative effectiveness of testing versus non-testing (comparisons of empirical examples are always favored by pragmatism) is to compare the U.S. to nations with exit exams. The Canadian experience is particularly instructive. Their experience with mandatory exit examinations is that they not only help students focus, but also increase teacher qualifications. Students in Canada, of course, are outperforming U.S. students, as are students in every country with national-level exit testing rather than the patchwork that exists in the United States. In fact, the affirmative should have done comparative analysis between the U.S., which doesn't have a nationwide mandatory exam, and nations like Austria, Denmark, England, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland, Spain, and Sweden, to name only some nations who are ahead of us educationally, and who require exit exams.

As the APA says concerning testing, "Fairness in testing begins when tests are being developed." We are capable of building fair, objective, compassionate tests that allow students to focus on their goals, instructors to assess their students, and taxpayers and policymakers to incrementally assess education policy. We should not throw away that which can be fixed.

NEGATIVE: PRAGMATISM IS A DESIRABLE VALUE 1. Pragmatism infuses hope into politics. Colin Koopman, McMaster University, 2006, "Pragmatism as a Philosophy of Hope: Emerson, James, Dewey, Rorty," Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 20, No. 2, accessed 9/20/09, I understand pragmatism, and find it at its best, as a philosophical way of taking hope seriously. Pragmatism develops the philosophical resources of hope. One implication is that traditional philosophical categories look different when seen pragmatically, where they are inflected with, and interpreted through, hopefulness. It is thus that traditional philosophical concepts—such as truth—are widely understood to be severely reconstructed by pragmatism. Yet the motivations for, and philosophical significance of, these reconstructions remain obscure so long as the meliorism at the heart of pragmatism is left unexplained.

2. Pragmatism is the best way for humanity to move forward progressively. Colin Koopman, McMaster University, 2006, "Pragmatism as a Philosophy of Hope: Emerson, James, Dewey, Rorty," Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 20, No. 2, accessed 9/20/09, At the heart of pragmatism is thus a resolute hopefulness in the abilities of human effort to create better future realities. James fi nds this too in Emerson. It is not a cheap optimism, an “indiscriminate hurrahing for the Universe,” but rather a fi rm belief that “the point of any pen can be an epitome of reality.” James thought of this deeply democratic meliorism as “Emerson’s revelation” and he lauded it as “the headspring of all his outpourings” (1903, 455). And while it may seem an overstatement to say that Emerson is democratic, I take courage for this thought in the precedent set by pragmatism’s most-respected visionary of democracy. Dewey hoped, also in 1903, that “the coming century may well make evident what is just now dawning, that Emerson is not only a philosopher, but that he is the Philosopher of Democracy. . . . When democracy has articulated itself, it will have no diffi culty in finding itself already proposed in Emerson” (1903, 190, 191).

3. Pragmatism rejects sweeping decisions in favor of case-by-case scenarios. Richard Posner, judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, 2004, "Legal Pragmatism," METAPHILOSOPHY Vol. 35, Nos. 1/2, January, accessed 9/21/09, Only in exceptional circumstances, however, will the pragmatic judge give controlling weight to systemic consequences, as legal formalism does. That is, only rarely will legal formalism be a pragmatic strategy. Sometimes case-specific circumstances will completely dominate the decisional process. This is especially true when an individual case has momentous consequences, or when it turns on the resolution of a truly novel legal issue so that a decision either way will not disturb settled expectations concerning what the law is.

4. Pragmatism favors small compromises over attempts at radical change. Richard Rorty, philosopher at University of Virginia, 1992, "A PRAGMATIST VIEW OF RATIONALITY AND CULTURAL DIFFERENCE," Philosophy East and West, October, accessed 9/22/09, Such a preference for small concrete compromises over large theoretical syntheses would accord with Dewey's pragmatic view that theory is only to be encouraged when likely to facilitate practice. My own hunch is that attempts to erect large theoretical oppositions between, or effect large theoretical syntheses of, the "spirit" or the "essence" of distinct cultures1 are only stopgaps and makeshifts. The real work of building a multicultural global utopia, I suspect, will be done by people who, in the course of the next few centuries,(n26) unravel each culture, into a multiplicity of fine component threads, and then weave these threads together with equally fine threads drawn from other cultures,--thus promoting the sort of variety-in-unity characteristic of rationality3. The resulting tapestry will, with luck, be something we can now barely imagine: a culture, which will find the cultures, of contemporary America and contemporary India as suitable for benign neglect as we find those of Harapa or Carthage.

NEGATIVE: INCREMENTALISM IS DESIRABLE

1. Overhauling the system is always more risky than small reforms; this solves for unintended and unpredictable negative consequences. Wayne Hayes, Professor of Public Policy at Ramapo College, 2002, "Incrementalism," The Public Policy Web, October 18, Accessed 9/20/09, http://www.geocities.com/~profwork/pp/formulate/inc.html Overhaul, the opposite of incrementalism, introduces formidable risk and many decision makers prefer a risk- aversion strategy which prevent unanticipated and possible irreversible policy outcome. The criterion brought to bear is not goal maximizing, but administrative satisficing, slight improvement as compared with past performance. Incrementalism and inaction consume fewer resources than a more systemic solution, especially an unproven one. Large budget deficits, or merely the memory of such deficit spending, dampen enthusiasm for tackling problems on a grand scale.

2. Incrementalism upholds checks and balances, separation of powers, and federalism; it solves budgetary constraints and functions better organizationally. Wayne Hayes, Professor of Public Policy at Ramapo College, 2002, "Incrementalism," The Public Policy Web, October 18, Accessed 9/20/09, http://www.geocities.com/~profwork/pp/formulate/inc.html In addition to the limits of rationality, there are significant political and organizational forces which promote incremental decision making. Some are: Constitutional checks and balances, separation of powers, and federalism. Recall my earlier point that the Founders intended to secure liberty and prevent tyranny, not to design a streamlined method of policy determination and implementation. Interest groups and subgovernments promote incremental change in the status quo. They control the micro-agenda, limit the scope of alternatives, shut out unsympathetic voices, and skew the decision making in favor of vested interests and past practice. In such an environment, the built-in political process of negotiation, bargaining, and compromise among many legitimate participants in the policy arena is virtually the only way to get things done. Further, the very character of large-scale, complex organizations fosters incrementalism: fragmentation, inertia, bureaucracy, conflicting goals, and financial constraints.

3. Incrementalism is better when dealing with scarce resources. Wayne Hayes, Professor of Public Policy at Ramapo College, 2002, "Incrementalism," The Public Policy Web, October 18, Accessed 9/20/09, http://www.geocities.com/~profwork/pp/formulate/inc.html Government-induced change typically carries a price tag, but budgets are scarce and complex. Budgetary constraints prevent the initiation of new policies or the expansion of existing programs. The budget-making process is notoriously cumbersome and resistant to reform, as we shall see when we turn our attention to budgeting. Finally, the legal system operates around a set of established principles which also reinforce incrementalism: Precedent, especially evident in the holdings of the Supreme Court. Due process under the law, which provides legal standing to many interested parties and provides the opportunity to use litigation as a redress: New and bold policies get tied up in court.

3. Incrementalism allows better negotiating and conflict resolution. Heidi Burgess, Founder and Co-Director of the University of Colorado Conflict Research Consortium; Guy Burgess, Co-Director of the Conflict Resolution Information Source; and Michelle Maiese, research staff at the Conflict Research Consortium, 2004, "Incrementalism," Beyond Intractability, July, Accessed 9/20/09, http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/incrementalism/ For example, disputes about facts or procedures can present serious difficulties that prevent negotiations about more substantive issues from getting off the ground. While improved procedures or fact-finding efforts are unlikely to resolve the conflict completely, they are incremental steps that have benefits themselves (for instance, better understanding of the situation and/or a procedure that is more likely to be considered fair). If enough incremental improvements can be made, that eventually allows the conflict to become "ripe" for successful negotiation. Even if ripeness cannot be achieved, the character of the conflict can be changed substantially.

NEGATIVE: INCREMENTALISM IS DESIRABLE

1. Incrementalism allows conflict resolution when opposing sides can't reach genuine resolution. Heidi Burgess, Founder and Co-Director of the University of Colorado Conflict Research Consortium; Guy Burgess, Co-Director of the Conflict Resolution Information Source; and Michelle Maiese, research staff at the Conflict Research Consortium, 2004, "Incrementalism," Beyond Intractability, July, Accessed 9/20/09, http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/incrementalism/ The incremental approach often offers the best way to reduce the destructiveness of confrontations over intractable issues. This approach begins by identifying any conflict problems that increase the conflict's overall destructiveness or threaten the parties' ability to make wise decisions or advance their interests. Parties are then provided with information about options for dealing with each problem. While it is usually impossible to correct all problems, the goal is to help people fix as many of the problems as possible. This often serves to reduce the magnitude of problems that cannot be eliminated. Although many incremental "treatments" require the cooperative efforts of contending parties, others can be implemented unilaterally. Similarly, while some treatments are relatively easy to implement, others require that the parties develop new dispute-handling skills or secure the assistance of outside professionals. Unlike other forms of dispute resolution, the incremental approach can work in situations where resolution-based approaches are unworkable. It also makes sense in cases where it is unrealistic to expect major changes in dispute-handling process or decision-making institutions.

2. Incrementalism solves policy problems better than sweeping overhaul; if problems develop, incrementalism can stem their escalation. Heidi Burgess, Founder and Co-Director of the University of Colorado Conflict Research Consortium; Guy Burgess, Co-Director of the Conflict Resolution Information Source; and Michelle Maiese, research staff at the Conflict Research Consortium, 2004, "Incrementalism," Beyond Intractability, July, Accessed 9/20/09, http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/incrementalism/ The incremental approach also recognizes our limited ability to understand and solve complex problems. It also recognizes that certain kinds of long-term change are best sustained through gradual adjustments rather than complete overhaul. Small or incremental moves are often more effective than trying to resolve the whole conflict all at once. In part this is because solutions that address isolated aspects of the conflict are typically far less controversial than comprehensive peace agreements. But it is also because the incremental approach is inherently cautious, which may impart a sense of ease among the disputing parties. Because trust is often low, parties often need to take small steps to create initial trust and establish a positive atmosphere in which subsequent vital issues may be broached. In addition, attempting to deal with difficult issues in smaller pieces can help to make conflict more manageable and thereby stop it from escalating.

3. Incrementalism provides better policy options because problems can be broken down into smaller, more easily addressable components. Heidi Burgess, Founder and Co-Director of the University of Colorado Conflict Research Consortium; Guy Burgess, Co-Director of the Conflict Resolution Information Source; and Michelle Maiese, research staff at the Conflict Research Consortium, 2004, "Incrementalism," Beyond Intractability, July, Accessed 9/20/09, http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/incrementalism/ The incremental approach recommends that parties analyze the full scope of conflict, identify those conflict problems that are having the most severe adverse effects, and develop small-scale interventions designed to limit those specific problems. In some cases this will involve a negotiated resolution of some of the sub-issues before moving on to the more substantive issues in contention. In other cases, it will involve a unilateral change in behavior. In order to deal with complex conflicts, parties must think about the best way to order or sequence the issues in a particular dialogue or resolution process. The "gradualism method" is a strategy whereby the intermediary attempts to move the parties from simpler issues to more complex ones. The tactic of "fractionalization," or breaking down big issues into smaller components, is often employed. Issues can be fractioned by reducing the number of parties involved in the negotiations, limiting the immediate issues being considered, or limiting the issues of principle being considered. Once agreements are reached on more limited items, parties can attempt to deal with additional issues. As mediator Bernard Mayer explains, "The art of fractionalization is to divide a conflict into manageable chunks that are neither too small nor too large and that do not isolate any major issue in a way that makes creative problem-solving more difficult."

NEGATIVE: WE CAN FIX TESTING INCREMENTALLY

1. No Intrinsic Flaws in Testing: Problems with testing are the result of poor educational infrastructure: The tests themselves are not to blame. John Losak, Educational Researcher, Miami-Dade Community College, 1987, "Mandated Entry- and Exit-Level Testing in the State of Florida: A Brief History, Review of the Current Impact, and a Look to the Future," January, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/1e/7e/31.pdf It should also be said that the imposition of a standardized testing program on shaky infrastructure would probably do no more than reflect the weakness of the infrastructure. If the purpose of the examination is to provide guidance with regard to the strength or weakness of the curriculum, then that may be a useful purpose for the testing program. However, the testing program per se, will not improve the quality of a poor infrastructure but may provide some guidance with regard to reforms which are needed in order for the curriculum to improve and hence for student learning to improve.

2. Integrated assessment testing works; it helps students understand the big picture George Ashline, St. Michael’s College, 2005, "Integrating Exit Questions into Instruction," News Bulletin, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, October 2005, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.nctm.org/news/content.aspx? id=618 Assessment should be more than a summative quiz or test to measure students learning. Rather, assessment should be integrated into instruction to provide regular feedback that can be used to guide further instruction as well as enhance student understanding. It should be used in multiple formats to measure not only procedural but deeper conceptual understanding. One assessment strategy that we have successfully used in professional development courses and initiatives for in-service mathematics teachers in Vermont* is to present periodic exit questions. Such questions have helped us measure participants’ understanding of the mathematical concepts that we have covered during our sessions.

3. Formative questions during the creation process solve. George Ashline, St. Michael’s College, 2005, "Integrating Exit Questions into Instruction," News Bulletin, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, October 2005, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.nctm.org/news/content.aspx? id=618 These formative questions are presented and answered in a short period of time at a natural breaking point in instruction, and provide immediate feedback about participant understanding of the “big picture.” They also provide an opportunity to modify instruction and address any widespread confusion or difficulty. We have also used a variation of the exit question strategy in the form of entrance questions which enabled us to gauge participants’ prior understanding of course content.

NEGATIVE: TESTING DOESN'T INCREASE SOCIAL STRATIFICATION

1. Mastering basic skills addresses socioeconomic inequality: Testing does this best Andrew C. Zau and Julian R. Betts, Public Policy Institute of California, 2008, "Predicting Success, Preventing Failure: An Investigation of the California High School Exit Exam," PPIC Policy Briefs, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_608AZR.pdf Concern about inequality in educational outcomes seems well placed: Wage inequality in the United States has skyrocketed over the last 25 years, and by numerous measures those with “fewer” skills have performed particularly poorly in the labor market (Katz and Murphy, 1992). At the same time, American students in middle and high school tend to score at the middle of the pack or below when measured against students from other developed nations in international tests of math, reading, and science.2 Motivated by these issues, high school exit exams such as the CAHSEE set a minimum competency standard intended to ensure that every high school graduate has mastered at least basic skills.

2. Students will work harder to pass. Andrew C. Zau and Julian R. Betts, Public Policy Institute of California, 2008, "Predicting Success, Preventing Failure: An Investigation of the California High School Exit Exam," PPIC Policy Briefs, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_608AZR.pdf Economists have written extensively on the theory of pass/fail standards (see, for example, Costrell, 1994, and Betts, 1998). Figure 3.1, adapted from Betts and Costrell (2001), shows the theoretically predicted effects of raising a pass/fail standard. We can think of the CAHSEE as just such an increase in passing standards. The figure shows the proportion of students by each level of academic achievement. Before the standard is increased, students are distributed in a familiar bell-shaped curve. But after the passing standard increases, some students who would have graduated at the lower standard will now fail unless they study harder. The likely outcome is that many students newly at risk of failing will work harder and move up in the distribution of achievement.

3. Testing pulls at-risk students up; it doesn't pull them down. Andrew C. Zau and Julian R. Betts, Public Policy Institute of California, 2008, "Predicting Success, Preventing Failure: An Investigation of the California High School Exit Exam," PPIC Policy Briefs, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_608AZR.pdf Although the “upward bump” is very clear, there is no evidence from these figures of a group of students who gave up academically and thus moved down in the distribution. Notably, a statewide survey by Wise et al. (2006, p. 67) supports the hypothesis that the threat of failing the CAHSEE prompted struggling students to work harder. They found that among students who had failed the ELA or math portion in grade 10, 52 percent reported that they were working harder at this material as a result. Smaller numbers of students reported increasing effort in other ways as well.

NEGATIVE: HIGH STAKES TESTING CAN BE APPROPRIATELY USED

1. Research into test improvement can solve problems and overcome biases. American Psychological Association, 2001, "Appropriate Use of High-Stakes Testing in Our Nation's Schools," APA Online, May 2001, Accessed 9/20/09, http://www.apa.org/pubinfo/testing.html Calls to improve educational outcomes by measuring student and school performance are based on good intentions. And, as previously stated, tests, when used appropriately, can be valid measures of student achievement. However, test users must ensure that results are truly indicative of student achievement rather than a reflection of the quality of school resources or instruction. It is only fair to use test results in high-stakes decisions when students have had a real opportunity to master the materials upon which the test is based. Therefore, in conjunction with supporting the use of tests to evaluate performance, public policymakers should also support research on the consequences of such testing, and localities should work to provide the resources necessary for schools to provide quality educational opportunities and achieve real student growth and learning, not just "teaching to the test" skills acquisition. Test results should also be reported by sex, race/ethnicity, income level, disability status, and degree of English proficiency for evaluation purposes.

2. Tests can be reformed at the point of development, increasing fairness. American Psychological Association, 2001, "Appropriate Use of High-Stakes Testing in Our Nation's Schools," APA Online, May 2001, Accessed 9/20/09, http://www.apa.org/pubinfo/testing.html The measurement validity of a test is an extremely important concept. Measurement validity simply means whether a test provides useful information for a particular purpose. Said another way: Will the test accurately measure the test taker's knowledge in the content area being tested? When tests are developed and used appropriately, they are among the most sound and objective knowledge and performance measures available. But, appropriate development and use are critical. Fairness in testing begins when tests are being developed. Test developers should provide to those using their tests (school systems, for example) specific information about the potential limitations of the test, including situations in which the use of the test scores would be inappropriate.

3. Existing tests can be applied more appropriately. American Psychological Association, 2001, "Appropriate Use of High-Stakes Testing in Our Nation's Schools," APA Online, May 2001, Accessed 9/20/09, http://www.apa.org/pubinfo/testing.html For example, a test that has been validated only for diagnosing strengths and weaknesses of individual students should not be used to evaluate the educational quality of a school. Furthermore, those using a particular test should have an appreciation for how the test performance of some students--students with a disability or those with limited English-speaking ability, for example, should be interpreted.

4. Tests do not require extra teaching time: Canada proves exit exams can work without taking up more teaching time or resources. John Bishop, Department of Human Resource Studies at the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University, 2008, "Curriculum-Based External Exit Exam Systems," CPRE Policy Briefs, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.cpre.org/images/stories/cpre_pdfs/pb-08.pdf Curriculum-based provincial exit exams taken by twelfth grade students had some influence on achievement and the behavior of Canadian 13-year-old students, their parents, teachers, and school administrators. Schools in exit exam provinces scheduled more hours of math and science instruction, assigned more homework, had better science labs, were significantly more likely to use specialist teachers for math and science, and were more likely to hire math and science teachers who studied the subject in college. Eighth grade teachers in exit exam provinces gave tests and quizzes more frequently. Hours in the school year, class size, and teacher preparation time were not significantly affected.

NEGATIVE: GENDER GAP ISN'T SIGNIFICANT

1. The gender stereotype is dissipating; more women are taking math all over the nation. Alice Park, staffwriter, 2008, "The Myth of the Math Gap," Time, July 24, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1826399,00.html Janet Hyde, a psychologist at University of Wisconsin, and her (all-female) collaborators culled data from federally mandated annual math tests administered to 7.2 million second- through 11th-grade students in 10 states. They found little difference between boys' and girs' average math scores. Hyde also searched for a gender difference in the outlying scores — that is, whether more boys were among the top math scorers than girls — but again found negligible difference, although boys did still slightly outnumber girls in the 99th percentile. The equalizing of math scores may reflect the simple fact that more female students are now taking math courses, says Hyde, whose study, funded by the National Science Foundation, appears in the current issue of Science.

2. More girls in upper math classes will bust the stereotype. Alice Park, staffwriter, 2008, "The Myth of the Math Gap," Time, July 24, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1826399,00.html But Hyde notes that more and more girls are continuing to study math through high school and college, which points to the fact that female students are increasingly aware of the careers that are open to them. These students are making forward-looking decisions about what courses to take in high school, Hyde says, based in part on what they want to do next. The next step, she says, is attracting more women to the graduate and career levels in math. "Mathematics and science departments need to work on making graduate departments more women-friendly for not just the students but for the faculty as well," says Hyde, by encouraging more women into their ranks where they can serve as role models for future generations of female students. "What I am hoping is that as this cohort of girls, who are taking calculus in school, pass through the system, they will get more gender equity in the highest level research jobs in science and math," she says.

NEGATIVE: NO DECREASED GRADUATION RATES

1. Studies prove exit exams don't decrease graduation rates. Robert Holland, senior fellow at the Lexington Institute, 2004, "Exit Exams Don't Increase Dropouts, Study Finds," School Reform News, July, accessed 9/21/09, http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/15224/Exit_Exams_Dont_Increase_Dropouts_Study_Finds.html Critics of high-stakes testing have argued that public high school exit exams cause many students, particularly minority-group members, to drop out in frustration without gaining a diploma that would be valuable to them in the job market. However, a new study by Manhattan Institute scholars finds the exit exams administered by 24 states have had no net effect on graduation rates. "Our findings should provide optimism to those who wish to use exit exams to provide quality control for high school diplomas," concluded scholars Jay P. Greene and Marcus A. Winters. "The results of our analysis show that exit exams may allow states to distribute more meaningful diplomas to the same percentage of students as before."

2. Ten year study disproves the contention that exit exams decrease graduation. Robert Holland, senior fellow at the Lexington Institute, 2004, "Exit Exams Don't Increase Dropouts, Study Finds," School Reform News, July, accessed 9/21/09, http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/15224/Exit_Exams_Dont_Increase_Dropouts_Study_Finds.html Greene and Winters used two respected methods of calculating graduation rates for each state from 1991 to 2001. In addition to finding required graduation testing had no impact, their analysis indicated neither class-size reduction in secondary schools nor increased per-pupil spending result in higher graduation rates.

3. Tests aren't demanding enough to lower graduation rates. Robert Holland, senior fellow at the Lexington Institute, 2004, "Exit Exams Don't Increase Dropouts, Study Finds," School Reform News, July, accessed 9/21/09, http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/15224/Exit_Exams_Dont_Increase_Dropouts_Study_Finds.html The scholars acknowledged many news media stories about individual students who completed their class work but were denied a diploma because they couldn't pass a state test. However, they noted many factors contribute to the tests having essentially zero effect on graduation rates. One factor is that such tests typically require very low levels of proficiency. A 2004 Fordham Foundation study of 30 states' accountability systems rated as "poor" the rigor of state-required standardized tests. In addition, states give students extra instruction and multiple chances to clear this low hurdle before actually denying them diplomas. "Most students who are serious about graduating high school should be able to pass such an exam if given enough tries, even if only by chance," the researchers concluded. The relatively few students who do give up may well be cancelled out statistically by a like number of students who did graduate because the tests gave their schools an incentive to improve and to address the needs of at-risk students, they added.

4. Continuation schools help students who fall through the cracks to graduate. Kathleen Sutphen, principal of Chana Continuation High School, 2008, "In defense of California's continuation high schools," Association of California School Administrators, accessed 9/20/09, http://www.acsa.org/FunctionalMenuCategories/AboutACSA/Councils/EducationalOptions/IndefenseofCaliforniasc ontinuationhighschools.aspx It is easy to point a finger at continuation schools and other alternative school campuses, but a quick analysis of the attributes that commonly define a continuation high school student body must be examined to obtain a true picture of the way in which students are referred to these types of schools and the challenges that these students and their teachers face as they all work hard toward the goal of graduation. Continuation students most commonly enroll as an outcome of being referred from their comprehensive high school where they are failing their classes. As such, most of our students, and the majority of continuation high school students statewide, have significant academic challenges and a pattern of failure at their previous school of enrollment. These students are already defined as likely high school dropouts before they enroll at a continuation campus. It is for that exact reason, the likelihood of being a high school dropout, that these students are referred for enrollment. Continuation schools are stopgap educational institutions specifically designed to address the academic needs of California’s most at-risk students and those most

www.wcdebate.com 32 West Coast Publishing 2009 Sept-Oct LD Part 3 likely to drop out of high school. In addition to academic literacy issues, many continuation students have experienced a series of behavioral issues and/or poor attendance at their previous schools of attendance.

NEGATIVE: TESTS ARE GENERALLY GOOD

1. Tests accurately determine proficiency, send a positive pro-educational message and identify the need for remedial training. John Losak, Educational Researcher, Miami-Dade Community College, 1987, "Mandated Entry- and Exit-Level Testing in the State of Florida: A Brief History, Review of the Current Impact, and a Look to the Future," January, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/1e/7e/31.pdf In summary, standardized testing programs for entry-level placement and exit examinations can be effective societal vehicles for assurance that certain basic concepts have been learned before an associate degree is awareded and for further assuring that students who are in need of remedial efforts do in fact receive remedial courses. Further, there is evidence that the initiation of such a testing program conveys a message of positive educational value to many constituencies in higher education including students, faculty, and lay citizens.

2. Tests improve faculty morale and community support, and send a message of increased expectations, which historically correlates to improved learning. John Losak, Educational Researcher, Miami-Dade Community College, 1987, "Mandated Entry- and Exit-Level Testing in the State of Florida: A Brief History, Review of the Current Impact, and a Look to the Future," January, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/1e/7e/31.pdf I do believe, however, that there are important spinoff effects as we have found in the State of Florida which would encourage one to use common examinations of the sort being used in Florida. These spinoff effects that we have found at our institution, where I have conducted some research in this area, incude improved faculty morale, strong student support, and strong community support, all of which reflect a positive attitude toward higher education. Moreover, there is strong historical evidence that student learning is affected by the level of expectation that instructors and others have of the students. We have carried the message to our students, through a variety of practices, including standardized assessment, that we are expecting more of them and there is good evidence that the students are indeed performing up to the higher levels of expectation.

3. Testing fulfills the need for accountability to taxpayers and policymakers. Thomas Toch, co-director of Education Sector, 2007, "What Should Be Done about Standardized Tests?" Freakonomics Blog. The New York Times, December 20, Accessed 9/19/09, http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/what-should-be-done-about-standardized-tests-a-freakonomics- quorum/ This testing is valuable. Without it, parents, taxpayers, and policymakers would have a tough time knowing how well schools were performing. That was the case prior to the advent of the “standards movement” in public education in the 1990s, when states began setting standards, testing students, and publicizing the results. Students could fall through the cracks, and many did, but educators didn’t have strong incentives to help them because without tests that measured students’ performance against clear standards, there was no way of holding teachers and principals accountable for their students’ success.

4. Testing is on-balance better than promoting students without a test. Thomas Toch, co-director of Education Sector, 2007, "What Should Be Done about Standardized Tests?" Freakonomics Blog. The New York Times, December 20, Accessed 9/19/09, http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/what-should-be-done-about-standardized-tests-a-freakonomics- quorum/ Exit exams, which students must pass to graduate, make sense. “Social promotion,” or advancing unprepared students, has been commonplace in schools and colleges for a long time. But such tests pose tough questions. Two- thirds of the nation’s public high school students currently must pass exit exams in reading and math in order to graduate. But the majority of the tests measure ninth- or tenth-grade-level basic skills; passing them doesn’t mean students are ready for the workplace, much less prepared for college. Yet many state lawmakers have been wary of setting the bar higher for fear of large numbers of students failing. But is it fair to give students what amounts to a counterfeit passport to college or work? And do such tests spur high school teachers and principals to aim high with their students? To both questions, the answer is, “No.”

NEGATIVE: TESTING GENERALLY GOOD

1. Testing increases support networks and resources for students in need. Kerry Benfield, staffwriter, 2009, "Educators Blast Proposal to Drop Exit Exam," The Press Democrat, June 17, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20090617/articles/906179827?Title=Educators-blast- proposal-to-drop-exit-exam O’Connell, who did not return a call for comment Wednesday, thrashed the budget committee proposal in a statement released late Tuesday, calling the exit exam the greatest high school advance made in California in a generation. “The argument that our expectations should be lowered because of budget cuts to public education heaps insult on injury to students and teachers who are being impacted by the budget crisis,” he said. “This exam helps focus attention and resources on students who are struggling,” he said. “We will do a grave injustice to our students if we do not ensure that they have the minimal skills needed to survive in the increasingly competitive global economy.” In Santa Rosa City Schools, courses have been adopted to support students who have failed the exit exam, and summer school priority is given to students who are approaching graduation but have not passed the test.

2. California validates testing: More students pass the test each year. Theresa Harrington and Linh Tat, Staffwriters, 2009, "More California High School Students Passing Exit Exams," Oakland Tribune, September 2, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.insidebayarea.com/timesstar/localnews/ci_13256668? source=rss Each year, more California students pass the state's high school exit exam on their first try as sophomores, meeting the requirement needed graduate with diplomas, according to test results released Wednesday. "We are making progress, but our collective ability to make this upward trend continue will indeed be tested this year as our schools are forced and asked to do more with less," said Jack O'Connell, state superintendent of public instruction. "I'm concerned with lost learning opportunities." The test ensures that all students who earn diplomas have minimum English and math skills, O'Connell said. Statewide, 79.2 percent of 10th-graders passed the English portion of the test in one attempt, up more than 2 percentage points from the class of sophomores in 2008. Last year's sophomores did well on the math portion, with 79.8 percent acing the test in one sitting, up 4.3 percent from class of 2008 scores. In Alameda and Contra Costa counties, more than 80 percent of sophomores passed both exams.

3. Canada proves testing improves teacher expectations and qualifications. John Bishop, Department of Human Resource Studies at the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University, 2008, "Curriculum-Based External Exit Exam Systems," CPRE Policy Briefs, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.cpre.org/images/stories/cpre_pdfs/pb-08.pdf Apparently, even low-stakes curriculum-based external exit exam systems such as the New York States Regents exams had an effect. When student demography was held constant, New York State students performed significantly better than students from other states on the SAT test and the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Thirteen-year-old students from Canadian provinces with curriculum-based external exit exam systems knew more science and mathematics than students from other provinces. Canadian schools in provinces with external exit exams were more likely to employ specialist teachers of mathematics and science, to hire math and science teachers who studied the subject in college, to have high-quality science laboratories, to schedule more hours of math and science instruction, to assign more homework in math and science and other subjects, and to have students perform or watch experiments in science class. Canadian external exams have not lowered the quality of instruction; they appear to have enhanced it.

NEGATIVE: RACIAL/ETHNIC GAP NOT SIGNIFICANT

1. Research disproves bias and predictive value links to testing. Scott Jaschik, Editorial Staffwriter, 2007, "A Defense of Standardized Tests," Inside Higher Ed, February 23, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/02/23/tests Kuncel said that the review for his study found no evidence of bias in test questions, or any difference in predictive value for different racial or ethnic groups. The study says that while there is evidence that some tests underpredict the performance of women in college, there is no similar evidence for graduate and professional school. Those who want to know why black and Latino students don't score as well need to stop looking at the tests, Kuncel said. "These tests are acting as a thermometer for other societal issues," he said.

2. Tests predict just as well for minority students as white. Scott Jaschik, Editorial Staffwriter, 2007, "A Defense of Standardized Tests," Inside Higher Ed, February 23, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/02/23/tests The last year hasn't been a good one for the standardized testing industry, what with SAT scoring errors and more colleges dropping the test as a requirement. But on Thursday, the journal Science published a study backing the reliability of standardized testing in graduate and professional school admissions. The study, a "meta-analysis" examining thousands of data sets on a range of tests, found that test scores are a better way to predict graduate and professional school success than are college grades, which may be influenced by grade inflation or the relative competitiveness of different student bodies. The study concluded that the most reliable way to admit students to graduate and professional school is a combination of using test scores and college grades. In addition, the study found that these tests predict just as well for minority and white students.

3. California proves more minorities pass the test each year. Theresa Harrington and Linh Tat, Staffwriters, 2009, "More California High School Students Passing Exit Exams," Oakland Tribune, September 2, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.insidebayarea.com/timesstar/localnews/ci_13256668? source=rss As has been shown in recently released STAR and ACT test results, an achievement gap exists between ethnic groups in California. More than 95 percent of white and Asian students passed the exams by the end of their senior years, compared with about 86 percent of Hispanic teens and 81 percent of blacks. However, test results showed more black and Hispanic students are passing the tests on their first attempts than in the class of 2008, indicating a narrowing gap. About 65 percent of first-time Hispanic students passed the tests in 2008, compared to more than 70 percent in the class of 2011. Black students' scores rose from about 57 percent in math and 65 percent in English for first-time test-takers in the class of 2008 to 64 and 68 percent, respectively, in the class of 2011.

4. Empirical evidence disproves the attribution of black educational conditions to racism. Linda Chavez, president of Stop Union Political Abuse, 2009, "A Nation of Cowards," Human Events, February 20, Accessed 9/21/09, http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=30800&keywords=racism+education But does racial discrimination explain why black high school graduates, on average, read four grade levels lower than whites? Is employment discrimination wholly to blame for the differences in average earnings between whites and blacks? Is racism responsible for the fact that blacks are more likely than whites to be the victims of violent crimes? Then how do you explain that in 2005, according to Holder's own Department of Justice, black males between the ages of 14-24 represented only 1 percent of the population but committed almost 28 percent of homicides, and their victims were overwhelmingly other blacks? How about out-of-wedlock birth rates? Does racial discrimination explain why 70 percent of black children are born to single women, compared with 25 percent of white children? In fact, many of these problems are interrelated -- and they have virtually nothing to do with discrimination or racism. Sure, many inner-city black children attend lousy schools that do a poor job of teaching them to read and write. But those school districts are often run by black superintendents in cities governed by black elected officials, not some modern-day incarnation of the Ku Klux Klan. Nor is money the explanation. Boston, Chicago, and St. Louis, for example, spend more to educate their largely black and Latino students than the surrounding suburbs do on their largely white student populations.

NEGATIVE: ATTACKING TESTS MASKS THE PROBLEM

1. Policymakers and the public scapegoat testing when the real problem is the irrelevance and misapplication of the educational system. Linda Chavez, president of Stop Union Political Abuse, 2003, "Not Teaching to the Test -- Not Teaching, Period," Human Events, June 4, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=788&keywords=testing For many high school seniors around the country, there was no Graduation Day this year. Despite good attendance and, in some instances, decent grades, thousands of high school seniors failed to pass mandatory state graduation exams implemented over the last decade to improve standards in education. Nearly half of all states now require, or are in the process of implementing, graduation tests to ensure that students who have been passed from grade to grade actually learned basic skills during their 12 years of public education. Now, some policymakers and politicians -- not to mention the affected students and their parents -- are crying foul. In Florida, black activists have even called for a boycott of the state unless Gov. Jeb Bush reverses the requirement that students pass a state exam before they receive a diploma. So who's right -- those who claim the tests prevent worthy seniors from receiving a diploma to which they're entitled, or those who argue that without some objective measure of what students have actually learned, a high school diploma isn't worth the paper it's printed on? Rene Martinez, who will have to pass the California Exit Exam next year if he is to graduate from Roosevelt High School in East Los Angeles, says the test is not only unfair, "it makes me feel dumb," he told The Los Angeles Times last month. "It makes me feel like I should know all of this stuff, but I don't," he said, complaining of overcrowding at his school and poorly trained teachers. Only 22 percent of low-income California seniors passed the math test last year, the Times reported. Robyn Collins, a high school senior from Sparks, Nevada, has maintained a 3.0 ("B") average but can't pass the state's math test required for graduation, even though she has taken it five times. "I'm not a stupid kid," Collins told The Washington Post recently. "It is just that in my opinion, the stuff on the test doesn't equate to anything that I've learned in school." Students like Martinez and Collins are right to be angry -- but the tests aren't the problem. Most states require students to demonstrate only rudimentary knowledge of high school math, language arts, science and social studies in order to graduate. In some states, a student can "pass" the test by answering less than half the questions correctly, and virtually all states allow students multiple attempts to take the tests. Some teachers -- and especially, their unions -- complain that graduation exams force them to "teach the test," rather than helping their students learn "how to think." The high failure rate among high school seniors suggests that many teachers aren't doing a good job on either score.

2. Focusing on testing diverts our attention from larger structural and cultural impediments to education. Linda Chavez, president of Stop Union Political Abuse, 2003, "Not Teaching to the Test -- Not Teaching, Period," Human Events, June 4, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=788&keywords=testing At least when teachers instruct students on the specific facts and skills that will be covered by graduation tests, we can be reasonably assured the students will actually learn something. But modern theories of education favor "higher-order thinking" and "problem-solving" skills over rote memorization and drills, which may be why so few store clerks can make correct change today without the aid of fancy cash registers. Parents who are angry that their children won't get into college or earn enough to support themselves because of the exams ought to stage a revolt, but not the kind being sponsored by anti-testing groups around the nation. Several organizations now advocate abandoning so-called high-stakes testing; and in some states, groups have organized to boycott the test. The Los Angeles Unified School Board voted unanimously in April to oppose implementation of the statewide test for graduation next year, but this is like shooting the messenger instead of facing the problem. A far better solution would be for parents -- and other taxpayers -- to refuse to support schools that fail to teach. Funding for education has increased exponentially over the last 40 years, but the quality of education hasn't kept pace. Requiring students to pass graduation exams before receiving their diplomas was supposed to make schools more accountable. So far, the only ones being held responsible are the students. If we're willing to deny diplomas to seniors who can't demonstrate they've earned them, maybe we ought to deny paychecks to school administrators and teachers who aren't doing their jobs.

NEGATIVE: TESTING INCREASES ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

1. Testing allows the targeting of at-risk groups, increasing their academic achievement. Andrew C. Zau and Julian R. Betts, Public Policy Institute of California, 2008, "Predicting Success, Preventing Failure: An Investigation of the California High School Exit Exam," PPIC Policy Briefs, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_608AZR.pdf Although we can never forecast exactly who will pass the CAHSEE, the evidence we have gathered suggests that we can predict passage by grade 4 almost as well as we can by grade 9. So there is nothing stopping middle or even elementary school administrators from using some of the strongest predictors, such as test scores and grades, to begin providing additional assistance to students at risk. Indeed, we found that some information available in the earlier grades may be unusually good predictors of student outcomes. For example, math test scores in the elementary grades actually predict passage of the math portion of the exit exam better than do math scores in the later grades. (This is probably because the CAHSEE’s math section is pitched at only a grade 8 level.) In general, academic grade point average (GPA) is the strongest predictor of eventual success or failure on the CAHSEE. The wealth of student behavior information that teachers, at least in San Diego, provide on the report cards of elementary school students is also highly predictive of trouble down the road on the CAHSEE.

2. Exams allow greater accountability. The Fresno Bee, 2009, "Exit exam continues to offer new incentives for success," September 6, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/story/1626952.html But a blanket exemption, as Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell has said, is "an irresponsible and shortsighted shift in education policy that threatens to shortchange the quality of education for our students with disabilities." It "does nothing to help prepare them for success after high school." For all students, the exit exam requirement has been doing what it is supposed to -- providing new incentives for parents, teachers and students to pay attention and demand better results.

3. Nations with exit exams consistently have higher rates of academic achievement. John Bishop, Department of Human Resource Studies at the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University, 2008, "Curriculum-Based External Exit Exam Systems," CPRE Policy Briefs, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.cpre.org/images/stories/cpre_pdfs/pb-08.pdf The Third International Mathematics and Science Study provides 1994-95 data for seventh and eighth grade students from 40 countries. Twenty-two national school systems were classified as having curriculum-based external exit exams for both mathematics and science: Austria, Bulgaria, Columbia, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Korea, Lithuania, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Scotland, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and Thailand. The countries that do not have exit exams in either math or science were Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Philippines, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden. A multivariate analysis controlling for the nations’ wealth and location in East Asia found that 13-year-olds in nations with curriculum- based external exit exam systems had significantly higher achievement—1.3 U.S. grade level equivalents in science and .9 U.S. grade level equivalents in mathematics. A similar analysis of the 1991 IEA Reading study found that the reading literacy of 14-year-olds in nations with curriculum-based external exit exam systems were about one grade level equivalent ahead of students in nations without them.

4. High-stakes students consistently outperform low-stakes students, producing better schools and better teachers. John Bishop, Department of Human Resource Studies at the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University, 2008, "Curriculum-Based External Exit Exam Systems," CPRE Policy Briefs, Accessed 9/19/09, http://www.cpre.org/images/stories/cpre_pdfs/pb-08.pdf Review of the evidence suggests that claims that curriculum-based external exit examination systems significantly increase student achievement are probably correct. Students from countries with medium- and high-stakes systems outperformed students from other countries of a comparable level of economic development. In addition, qualifications for entry into secondary school teaching were higher in nations with a curriculum-based external exit exam system.

www.wcdebate.com 38