Champi onBr i e f s De c e mbe r2015 Publ i cFor um Br i e f
Re s ol ve d: Onbal anc e , s t andar di ze dt e s t i ngi s be ne f i c i alt oK12e duc at i on i nt heUni t e dSt at e s .
Copyright 2015 by Champion Briefs, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher.
The Evidence Standard
December 2015
The Evidence Standard
Speech and Debate provides a meaningful and educational experience to all who are involved. We, as educators in the community, believe that it is our responsibility to provide resources that uphold the foundation of the Speech and Debate activity. Champion Briefs, its employees, managers, and associates take an oath to uphold the following Evidence Standard: 1. We will never falsify facts, opinions, dissents, or any other information. 2. We will never knowingly distribute information that has been proven to be inaccurate, even if the source of the information is legitimate. 3. We will actively fight the dissemination of false information and will provide the community with clarity if we learn that a third-party has attempted to commit deception. 4. We will never support or distribute studies, news articles, or other materials that use inaccurate methodologies to reach a conclusion or prove a point. 5. We will provide meaningful clarification to any who question the legitimacy of information distributed by ourselves or by any third-party. 6. We will actively contribute to students’ understanding of the world by using evidence from a multitude of perspectives and schools of thought. 7. We will, within our power, assist the community as a whole in its mission to achieve the goals and vision of this activity. These seven statements, while seemingly simple, represent the complex notion of what it means to advance students’ understanding of the world around them, as is the purpose of educators.
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Table of Contents
December 2015 Table of Contents
The Evidence Standard ............................................................................. 3 Topic Analyses ............................................................................................. 7 Topic Analysis by Christian Chessman ..................................................................................... 8 Topic Analysis by Belén Mella ................................................................................................... 16 Topic Analysis by Jakob Urda .................................................................................................... 23
Frameworks .............................................................................................. 31 General Information ............................................................................... 35 Pro Arguments with Con Responses ................................................. 47 Teacher Accountability ............................................................................................................... 48 A2 – Teacher Accountability ............................................................................................. 51 National Standards ....................................................................................................................... 54 A2 – National Standards ..................................................................................................... 58 International Standards .............................................................................................................. 61 A2 – International Standards ............................................................................................ 63 Parents .............................................................................................................................................. 65 A2 – Parents ............................................................................................................................ 67 Cheating ............................................................................................................................................ 69 A2 – Cheating .......................................................................................................................... 72 Effective Study Habits .................................................................................................................. 74 A2 – Effective Study Habits ................................................................................................ 76
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Table of Contents
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Testing Discrimination ................................................................................................................ 79 A2 – Testing Discrimination .............................................................................................. 82 Testing Saves Money .................................................................................................................... 86 A2 – Testing Saves Money .................................................................................................. 90 Higher Education ........................................................................................................................... 95 A2 – Higher Education ......................................................................................................... 97 Low Cost Testing .......................................................................................................................... 100 A2 – Low Cost Testing ........................................................................................................ 104 Measuring Achievement ........................................................................................................... 106 A2 – Measuring Achievement ......................................................................................... 110 Teaching to the Test ................................................................................................................... 113 A2 – Teaching to the Test ................................................................................................. 116 Part of the Picture ....................................................................................................................... 119 A2 – Part of the Picture ..................................................................................................... 124 Class Time ...................................................................................................................................... 128 A2 – Class Time .................................................................................................................... 131 School Quality ............................................................................................................................... 133 A2 – School Quality ............................................................................................................. 137
Con Arguments with Pro Responses ............................................... 139 Student Performance ................................................................................................................. 140 A2 – Student Performance ............................................................................................... 144 The Achievement Gap ................................................................................................................ 147 A2 – The Achievement Gap .............................................................................................. 151 Narrowed Curriculum ................................................................................................................ 154 A2 – Narrowed Curriculum .............................................................................................. 158 Teacher Quality ............................................................................................................................ 161 A2 – Teacher Quality .......................................................................................................... 165
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Table of Contents
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Preparation for the Real World .............................................................................................. 169 A2 – Preparation for the Real World ............................................................................ 172 ELL Students .................................................................................................................................. 176 A2 – ELL Students ................................................................................................................ 179 Low Performing Schools ........................................................................................................... 181 A2 – Low Performing Schools ......................................................................................... 186 Stress ............................................................................................................................................... 189 A2 – Stress ............................................................................................................................. 192 Educational Tradeoffs ............................................................................................................... 195 A2 – Educational Tradeoffs ............................................................................................. 198 Study Drugs ................................................................................................................................... 200 A2 – Study Drugs ................................................................................................................. 204 Creativity ........................................................................................................................................ 207 A2 – Creativity ...................................................................................................................... 211 Cheating .......................................................................................................................................... 214 A2 – Cheating ........................................................................................................................ 220 Corporations ................................................................................................................................. 224 A2 – Corporations ............................................................................................................... 229 Childhood ....................................................................................................................................... 232 A2 – Childhood ..................................................................................................................... 238 Racism ............................................................................................................................................. 241 A2 – Racism ........................................................................................................................... 248
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Champi onBr i e f s De c e mbe r2015 Publ i cFor um Br i e f
Topi cAnal ys e s
Topic Analysis by Christian Chessman
December 2015
Topic Analysis by Christian Chessman Resolved: On balance, standardized testing is beneficial to K-12 education in the United States. The 2015 National Speech and Debate Association topic for 2015 reads, Resolved: On balance, standardized testing is beneficial to K-12 education in the United States. The December topic usually presents an unusual opportunity for debaters, since there are comparatively fewer major tournaments and less travel than other months given December’s proximity to the winter holiday break. As a consequence, debaters have the opportunity to experiment with different arguments and different argument styles. This month’s December topic is especially suited to debater experimentation because it is profoundly vague. The topic’s major terms seem to have a plain meaning, but upon closer inspection the words do little to guide the actual evaluation of debates. This topic analysis will focus primarily on the ways in which the December topic can be interpreted to produce varied – and valuable – debates. There are four phrases in the resolution that form the crux of the content of debates. These are “on balance,” “standardized testing,” “beneficial,” and “K-12 education.” Each has a discrete effect on relationship between arguments and proof of the topic, and thus this analysis will discuss each in turn. First, the phrase “on balance” sets up a relative weighing mechanism. The term “on balance” expressly contemplates comparing one unit to another unit. However, the term leaves unspecified the method of balancing. For example, balancing could simply reduce to a quantitative measure: how many students are benefitted versus how many are harmed? This is not the only viable interpretation of “on balance,” though. Instead, “on balance” could
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Topic Analysis by Christian Chessman
December 2015
incorporate qualitative components as well. Does an especially severe harm to a minority of students outweigh a marginal or moderate benefit to the majority of students? For example, debaters could effectively cite the literature that suggests standardized tests disadvantage students who do not speak English as a first language, because the students are tested twice: both in their ability to translate the words, and then their ability to analyze them. The number of students who speak English as a second language is less than the number of students who are native speakers of English. Debaters might nonetheless argue that systematically and discriminatorily targeting minority students creates a disadvantage that “balances” more heavily than the advantages from testing. In other words, different students might be impacted differently in a way that has consequences for a purely numerical analysis. One student’s harm might not be equivalent to another student’s gain, thus the numerical comparison that “one person is benefitted and one is harmed” is simplistic to a fault. The best debaters on this topic will analyze the qualitative and quantitative components of balancing, rather than mindlessly – and unstrategically – defaulting to whose body-count is higher. This is especially true given the fact that the overwhelming majority of state standardized tests are not available in a language other than English, and a solid majority of English-only states do not even permit non-native speakers to bring in a dictionary or other translation aid during the test. The next phrase of import in the resolution is the “standardized testing” clause. The term “standardized testing” is importantly not modified by any adjective and thus is unrestricted for purposes of the topic. In other words, any standardized test is relevant – not simply those which are administered by schools for evaluating performance. For example, standardized admissions tests to especially elite schools are probably topical even though they seek to weed students out rather than to measure learning outcomes and teacher performance. Students reading an
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Topic Analysis by Christian Chessman
December 2015
admissions test affirmative could impact to the value of elite schools as laboratories of development for the next generation of leaders, intellectuals, and advocates. Similarly, standardized tests that have only incidental relationships to education are topical based on the text of the topic. For example, standardized evaluations are applied to sports teams to determine whether to add a student to a team, such as varsity, junior varsity, or no team at all. These evaluations may determine a level of skill and whether the student is likely to be an effective social fit for the team’s environment. Affirmatives might argue these tests facilitate the effective administration of sports, and then argue that extra-curricular sports improve grades. These affirmatives are unlikely to link to the majority of the offense generated by most negative teams because “standardized sports placement tests”1 likely are not administered in the same manner – or with the same consequences for failure – as learning evaluation standardized tests. The vast majority of affirmatives will not deal with creative standardized tests, though, and will focus on one of three main forms of testing: state, national, and international standardized tests.2 Pursuant to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (as well as its repeated renewals by Congress), every state administers standardized tests. The states also administer a federal standardized test: the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Advanced Placement tests are also nationally administered, but are not federally organized. Instead, they are written and offered by a private organization. 1
For those who balk at standardized sports tests as a topical affirmative, my suggestion is to complain to the topic committee. The text of the topic does not limit the type, nature, timing, application, administrator, or purpose of the standardized test. It merely asks whether the unrestricted category “standardized testing” has a positive impact on “education” in primary school. A faithful reading of the text of the topic supports these affirmatives as topical. 2
This is true in part because many teams simply will not think of these arguments, and in part because many of the teams that do will be too afraid to try them. My rejoinder is to be bold, and to take the December month as an opportunity to learn how to debate topicality. The community as a whole is horrible at topicality and theory debates generally. However, since Public Forum seems to be trending towards theory debates (mostly in context of topicality), the debates may as well not suck.
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Topic Analysis by Christian Chessman
December 2015
Students in the United States also take a series of international standardized tests as well. These include the TIMMS test (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) and the PISA test (Programme for International Student Assessment). These tests also include standardized International Baccalaureate tests, which are taken by high school students throughout the United States. Debaters may defend some or all standardized tests, debating on the strategic structure of their affirmative case. Debaters selectively defending standardized tests might also have to analyze their defense in context of the “on balance” clause of the resolution. For example, if the affirmative proves that the NAEP is beneficial, but the negative proves that state standardized testing is harmful, who should win? The same number of students take both tests because all students are required to take state and federal standardized tests, subject to a few limited and overlapping exceptions (in other words, students exempt from state tests are likely also exempt from federal tests, which keeps the testing populations homologous). Thus, in addition to balancing between students, debaters must balance between particular categories and types of standardized test. Smart debaters will select the scope of their affirmative with this consideration in mind. Several considerations to bear in mind when determining whether to defend a particular form of standardized testing include the difficulty of the test, the frequency of administration, the consequences for failure or success, the availability of assistance for non-English speakers, and the substantive content of the tests. For example, if state standardized tests largely fail to accurately test historical knowledge, for example, then their style and structure are largely irrelevant because the tests are ineffective regardless of administration form. This is especially important given the increasing conservative infiltration and manipulation of educational
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Topic Analysis by Christian Chessman
December 2015
standards and teaching.3 In history, one positively disgusting Texas history book discussed the tens of millions of chattel slaves forcibly removed from their homes and tortured in the transAtlantic slave trade as “workers who came from their homes” to the United States. I am serious.4 In a sense, it does not matter how accurately Texas’s standardized test measures whether the student learned that information, because the information is putrid, ahistorical garbage. Thus, the tests cannot advance or benefit educational outcomes, because they do not measure education of accurate information. The same is true of the infiltration of science curricula with religious pseudo-science – for example, one state applies the Bible to determine lessons in Plate Tectonics and evolution.5 There are an uncomfortably large number of conservative efforts to rewrite classroom curricula (and their corresponding standardized tests) to correspond to an especially white, especially Christian, especially Biblical approach to learning that distorts well-settled historical, scientific, economic, and sociological conclusions and knowledge. Debaters reading a curriculum negative might suggest that the tests need to measure useful knowledge before they can themselves be deemed useful, because the tests lack innate value in themselves. This type of negative case can avoid the large majority of affirmative offense (such as the putative “objectivity” of standardized tests) by arguing that the actual object of measurement is false. Even if students learn the information at objectively higher rates, learning false information is worthless at best and harmful at worst. Difficulty and consequences are also serious considerations for any affirmative case. If a student knows that failure on a test will subject the student to serious consequences, their nerves 3
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/10/23/450826208/why-calling-slaves-workers-is-more-than-an-editing-error See, e.g., http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/us/publisher-promises-revisions-after-textbook-refers-to-africanslaves-as-workers.html?_r=0 5 http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/06/idaho-republicans-want-bible-in-schools-for-astronomy-biology-geology/ 4
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Topic Analysis by Christian Chessman
December 2015
might impact their performance. Those nerves might be exacerbated by an especially difficult or complicated test. Each of these problems are exponentially also compounded when the test is administered to non-English-speaking students. Furthermore, several standardized tests that are commonly taken in high school may only have marginal topical ground. For example, the PSAT, the SAT, and the ACT do not measure specific high school learning on curriculum specific topics. Instead, they are designed to measure the general knowledge and proficiency of students. The tests are also expressly prospective: they focus in a forward looking manner on distinguishing students for college education. The tests expressly do not focus on tailoring themselves to high school education. At first blush, it seems like these tests and their consequences are all outside of the topical timeframe: K-12 education. Smart debaters will dig deeper into this relationship. Do these tests impact student educational performance? If so, what is the nature of the relationship between these tests and performance? Do they distract from high school learning? Do they supplant it? Do they reflect it? These questions are important because the SAT and ACT are heavily analyzed in the literature. Debaters than can fit either test into the scope of the topic likely have a powerful literature base from which to draw. The third clause in the resolution references the evaluative measure of the topic: “benefit.” The term obscures far more than it uncovers, however, because it does nothing to clarify the measure by which benefit ought to be measured. Debaters could measure benefit by any number of metrics. For example, debaters could measure benefit by student long term success: do students who perform well on tests make more money in the long term? Various studies examine the correlation between long-term wage earning and the SAT, for example, and might provide a fruitful measure to establish benefits.
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Topic Analysis by Christian Chessman
December 2015
Debaters could also measure benefit by looking at the relationship between standardized tests and particular educational values and goals, such as fostering critical thinking. Critical thinking skills arguably outweigh content-specific measures of knowledge because students are much likelier to use critical thinking in the long term than they are to use any given fact tested. As a law student, I can tell you that I can hardly spell “integration by parts,” and I certainly cannot do it (anymore – I got a 5 on AP Calculus AB). I can, however, tell you that my longterm critical thinking skills which were fostered by debate (and suppressed by standardized testing) have been instrumental to my educational success. Debaters could also measure educational benefits via other measures, such as long-term dropout rate. Debaters favoring this measure could suggest that standardized tests cause students to drop out (or assist in identifying struggling students, thus facilitating retention). Debaters can argue that dropout rate is the most important measure of educational benefit because it determines whether students get any education at all. Marginal differences in the quality of education are outweighed by the prospects of preventing some students from getting an education entirely. As noted above in various measures, debaters will have to identify specific reasons to prefer their particular interpretations of the topic. If a debater lacks a justification for choosing a particular measure of “benefit,” it is unlikely that they will convince a judge to adopt that measure – especially when their opponents also levy an interpretation of “benefit.” Debaters adopting a particular measure of “benefit” should structure their cases around the measure in two ways: first, they should justify why their measure of benefit is the best possible measure (or is otherwise relatively preferable to other plausible definitions). Second, each contention level argument should relate back to the specific measure of benefit. Thus, if a negative team argues
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Topic Analysis by Christian Chessman
December 2015
that educational benefit is best measured by the impact on critical thinking, each contention should independently warrant how standardized testing harms critical thinking. Champion debaters will take advantage of the unique nexus offered in the next month: the topic is extremely fluid and the month is highly conducive to experimentation. I strongly suggest that debaters consider the nature and scope of the terms in the resolution, because the terms control how debates will play out. Approaches that go beyond the simplistic thinking of “tests good/bad” are likely to see more success during this month. Good luck! Christian Chessman About Christian Chessman Christian Chessman is an Honors graduate of the University of Florida, receiving his degree in Political Science, Magna Cum Laude. As a debater for Suncoast High School, Christian won eleven bids to the Tournament of Champions, cleared at NFL Nationals, and took fifth place at the International Public Policy Forum two years running. At the University of Florida, Christian competed in Policy Debate and won seven individual speaker awards. He was the tournament champion at the Appalachian State Invitational (2010) and the Georgia State University Invitational (2011), the finalist at the Towson National Debate Tournament (2012), and the fifth place team at the American Debate Association National Tournament (2012). In collegiate Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Christian was the 2011 Florida Intercollegiate Forensics Association (FIFA) Champion. In parliamentary debate, Christian was the 2013 tournament champion at the international James Madison Cup. Christian has also won fourteen individual attorney awards at American Mock Trial Association tournaments, and was the captain of the first University of Florida Trial Team to attend the National Championship Tournament. Christian is currently a Juris Doctor candidate at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and a coach at Lake Highland Preparatory School.
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Topic Analysis by Belén Mella
December 2015
Topic Analysis by Belén Mella Resolved: On balance, standardized testing is beneficial to K-12 education in the United States. Introduction SAT, PSAT, ACT, AP, FCAT, NRT, GRE, ERB, ISEB — name a random combination of letters, and it probably refers to some standardized exam. The debate topic this month is one students are all too familiar with. The resolution reads, “On balance, standardized testing is beneficial to K-12 education in the United States.” This conversation has been ongoing for quite some time. Proponents claim that standardized tests provide useful metrics with which to improve education. Meanwhile, opponents decry that the system turns students into test scores. There is an overwhelming amount of literature on this topic. After all, the data compiled from standardized exams lends itself to empirical research, while the controversy that surrounds them has sparked hundreds of pieces of journalism. When you cite studies, be able to defend the methodology, as some arguments will come down to conflicting pieces of evidence. More importantly, understand the warrants. A back and forth about whether “student achievement went up or down” will quickly become frustrating to the judge if debaters do not have a grasp of why it might be the case. Successful teams will not only understand the warrants to their own arguments, but will also have to think critically to disprove the warrants offered by their opponents.
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Topic Analysis by Belén Mella
December 2015
Background TIME Magazine’s Dan Fletcher6 writes, “Standardized tests have been a scourge of student life in America for more than 50 years, but it's fair to say they're more pressure-packed and ubiquitous than ever before.” More specifically, after the passage of No Child Left Behind in 20027, “annual state spending on standardized tests rose from $423 million to almost $1.1 billion in 2008 (a 160% increase compared to a 19.22% increase in inflation over the same period), according to the Pew Center on the States.” Citing the Council of the Great City Schools, PBS8 reports that students take an average of 113 standardized tests between pre-K and 12th grade; juniors in high school spent up to 15 percent of the school year testing, not including college or career related exams. All of this data speaks to the sheer size of standardized testing, but it doesn't tell us much about its effects. Before we get in to specific arguments, remember to keep your audience in mind. Your judges are parents, teachers, and students, meaning they have plenty of exposure to the topic. This is beneficial in that they have basic background knowledge, but a drawback in that they might have preconceived opinions. While it is up to your judge to put these biases aside, if you come across an argument that “80% of teachers and 70% of students” disagree with, it may not be strategic to run in case.
6
Fletcher, Dan. ”Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews". TIME, 12-112009. Web. 11-9-2015. http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1947019,00.html 7 "Standardized Tests". Web. 11-9-2015. http://standardizedtests.procon.org/ 8 Kimberly Hefling,. "Do students take too many tests? Congress to weigh question". PBS NewsHour, 1-17-2015. Web. 11-9-2015. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/congress-decide-testing-schools/
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Topic Analysis by Belén Mella
December 2015
Breaking Down the Resolution The resolution begins with the phrase “on balance.” This means that debates will essentially come down to a cost/benefit analysis between the Negative and Affirmative arguments. You should always try to mitigate, disprove, and even turn your opponent’s arguments, but in a decent round, some of their points will still stand by final focus. The most important thing you can do is weigh. Tip the “balance” to your side by proving why your arguments matter more, whether it be that they affect more people (scope), affect them in a more significant way (magnitude), or some other weighing mechanism. The next important term in the resolution is “standardized testing”. The Education Glossary9 defines a standardized test as “any form of test that (1) requires all test takers to answer the same questions, or a selection of questions from common bank of questions, in the same way, and that (2) is scored in a ‘standard’ or consistent manner, which makes it possible to compare the relative performance of individual students or groups of students.” There are broader and narrower definitions of the term. While these can lead to interesting arguments, remember that judges almost always have a preconceived idea of what each term means, especially on a topic with which they have so much familiarity. When you are citing research studies, you should look into how its authors define standardized testing and which specific tests they evaluate. For instance, I have come across several sources that omit college preparatory exams (think AP, SAT, ACT) from their analysis. As you begin to research, you may have noticed a breadth of interesting arguments. On the Negative side, for instance, there are arguments about the anxiety produced by high stakes testing, the corrupt companies that surround these exams, and dangers of using standardized test 9
"Standardized Test Definition". Glossary of Education Reform, 8-21-2015. Web. 11-2-2015. http://edglossary.org/standardized-test/
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Topic Analysis by Belén Mella
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scores for teacher evaluations. However, keep in mind that the resolution asks about “standardized testing” in and of itself. Some of these arguments are about how the results of standardized testing are used, or the industry that administers them. Teams can respond that schools can still use standardized testing and avoid those harms, since they aren't intrinsic to the exams. Of course, debaters can certainly make the case for why they are fair ground, explaining that we can’t “look at these tests in a vacuum” and will derive better impacts from “analyzing their real world use.” Additionally, they can say that the resolution refers to the process of “testing”, not the “test” itself. Ultimately, always keep in mind topicality, even when it does not seem problematic at first glance. Education, according to the New Oxford American Dictionary, is defined as “the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university.” Again, there are broader and narrower definitions of the term. Teams can make the case that education refers to the experience of learning, widening the scope of the resolution, but risking the ballots of more traditionally minded judges. There is an important implication to the fact that the resolution reads “beneficial to… education.” Teams should impact to education at some point in their argument. For example, you may have read that testing causes anxiety, costs billions of dollars, or leads to better education reforms. However, until you link anxiety, budgets, and reforms to a better education, the argument is not complete. This is not terribly difficult to do, but it is crucial for adhering to the question at hand. Finally, the resolution specifies “K-12” and “in the United States.” These are both straightforward stipulations. Although debaters could get away with using warrants from
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evidence based in other countries or at other education levels, there is so much literature within the scope of the resolution, you are better off using that instead. Arguments Standardized testing has become a staple of American education. Richard Phelps 10 conducted a 100 year analysis and concluded that 93% of studies found a “positive effect” of testing on student achievement. Phelps’ own study is not without its flaws, and debaters should generally be wary of overlying on the meta-study, but it does provide a valuable starting point for teams. Of course, this information is incomplete without an understanding of the warrants. There are several reasons why standardized testing might improve student achievement. One is that test scores are a useful metric to track student achievement. With data at hand, teachers and educational reformers are better equipped to improve education. Another reason is that the tests themselves constitute a benefit to education, since they establish a universal curriculum of “important material” in an otherwise very decentralized educational landscape. There is a flip side to both of these warrants. With respect to providing a useful metric, the Brookings Institution
11
actually found that 50-80% of year-over-year test score
improvements were temporary and "caused by fluctuations that had nothing to do with long-term changes in learning.” With respect to defining useful curriculum, critics actually argue that standardized tests narrow the scope of what is taught in schools. Test preparation consisting of rote memorization and multiple choice drills consumes class time.
Moreover, these tests
undermine creativity, critical thinking, and preparedness for real world challenges. 10
Richard P. Phelps, "The Effect of Testing on Achievement: Meta-Analyses and Research Summary, 1910–2010,” Nonpartisan Education Review, Apr. 2011 11 Lynn Olson, "Study Questions Reliability of Single-Year Test-Score Gains,” Education Week, May 23, 2001
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Topic Analysis by Belén Mella
December 2015
Another very interesting line of argumentation addresses fairness and discrimination. Educational reformer Horace Mann famously stated that, "Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men, the balance-wheel of the social machinery.” If you have ever written a contention about education, you may know that it impacts to almost every other outcome, from income to health and beyond. As such, arguments about education having disparate effects on different segments of the population are particularly compelling. Affirmative and Negative teams both have ground here. Proponents argue that since these exams are by-definition standardized, they ensure fairness. Every student is being measured according to the same, objective scale, avoiding the discriminatory biases that stem from subjective human evaluation. Though this rationale is intuitive enough, many experts find that standardized testing actually exacerbates the discrimination it aims to solve. Harold Berlak of the Educational Policy Research Unit12 writes, “Standardized testing perpetuates institutionalized racism and contributes to the achievement gap between whites and minorities. For instance, the deeply embedded stereotype that African Americans perform poorly on standardized tests hinders many African Americans’ testing ability. Also, research has shown that minorities statistically have lower standardized test scores than whites because of existing, hidden biases in the development and administration of standardized tests and interpretation of their scores.” In this quote alone, Berlak points to stereotype threat as well as structural discrimination in standardized testing. The arguments about disparity go even further, as many of the companies
12
Harold Berlak, “Race and the Achievement Gap,” Rethinking Schools, vol. 15, no. 4, Summer 2001. www.rethinkingschools.org.
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Topic Analysis by Belén Mella
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that administer exams are the same ones that write the textbooks, putting lower income schools at a major disadvantage. As I mentioned earlier, there is plenty more to be said about the industry that surrounds standardized testing. Debaters taking this route must be mindful of linking their impacts back to education. Conclusion
This month presents an interesting opportunity to debate a topic where you are truly the expert, having experienced first hand the rise of standardized testing in American schools. Feel free to tap in to your personal experiences for brainstorming, and then reach into the literature for evidence. On a topic that with so much written about it, keep in mind that it wont come down to the highest quantity of evidence, but rather the highest quality and degree of understanding.
Good Luck! Belén Mella About Belén Mella Belén Mella competed in Public Forum for Miami Beach Senior High. As a senior, she championed the Emory Barkley Forum and the Florida State Championship. Additionally, Belén reached finals at the National Catholic Forensic League Tournament, semifinals at Florida Blue Key, and quarterfinals at Glenbrooks, Nova Titan, and the Tournament of Champions. She was ranked fourth in the country and reached late out rounds at the 2014 NSDA Nationals. Belen is currently a freshman at Harvard University where she is studying economics and government.
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Topic Analysis by Jakob Urda
December 2015
Topic Analysis by Jakob Urda Resolved: On balance, standardized testing is beneficial to K-12 education in the United States. Introduction For the past few years December topics have debated politically charged, if not hypertimely, domestic policy. This topic has no shortage of literature on either side, many diverse weighing mechanisms, and no clear cut answer. For certain, the issue of standardized testing has been a core education debate in America for much of recent history, with many of the same arguments made a decade ago still remaining relevant today, but also new data surfacing from research and testing every year. Every passing administration has a new approach to testing, and from No Child Left Behind to Common Core, almost every part of these programs from design to implementation has come under fire. Tournament Considerations December is a slower month for debate, with many tournaments being put off until January to accommodate winter recess. That being said, there are a few major tournaments that are worth covering and preparing for. The two that come to mind are the GMU patriot games and Princeton; which I am familiar with. GMU and Princeton occur on the same weekend, and are both quarters bid tournaments. Princeton has a reputation for combining technical judges with inexperienced judges, forcing debaters to cater their arguments to both extremes of the judging pool. GMU on the other hand is well known for its in house speech team, one of the best in the nation, judging its debate tournament. This means that adaptation is a must, and will be
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Topic Analysis by Jakob Urda
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rewarded. It is also worth noting that it is possible to double enter PF and a speech even at GMU, so feel free to bust out the O.O. you’ve been working on! Strategy Considerations There are two areas of analysis that warrant looking into closely with respect to almost every argument on the topic: who different standardized tests impact and the effects of the impacts on those people on K-12 education. The framework for evaluating benefits or harms to education is important for being able to assess impacts in this topic. What does it mean for something to be ‘beneficial’ for K-12 education? Broadly speaking, there are a few ways to analyze this, primarily increasing proficiency, increasing educational access. These two areas of impact analysis can be viewed similarly to “quality and quantity.” Increasing proficiency means that students understand course material better or changing the course material to better reflect the understanding of a certain subject. Increased access to education simply means that more people gain the ability to attend school or benefit from the K-12 infrastructure we have in place. These arguments feed into and weigh against each other, and it will be your job as a debater to determine why an impact to one matters more in the context of your case than an impact to the other. The phrase ‘On balance’, which appears to have become standard verbiage for the NSDA at this point, is also important to keep in mind. Students are subject to hundreds of tests across the nation at all grade levels. The fact that there are so many variable parts of the resolution makes understanding the different ways to weigh educational achievement against each other so much more important.
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Topic Analysis by Jakob Urda
December 2015
An important question when analyzing education is: what are the goals of education? This is critical because it determines how we weigh the competing educational obligations outlined above against each other and, more generally, how we measure the success of a given policy on the school system. There are a number of different ways to value education, and as a result, a team could adopt any one of a number of different normative frameworks for how and why education matters. Here are a few: -
Growth: It can be argued that education exists to build the most amount of human capital for the greatest amount of people, ergo, make society the most aggregately better off
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Distributive Justice: The idea that a government should prioritize the interests of the worst off first and attempt to alleviate their suffering. The impact of most policies is felt the strongest on the marginalized, and the role of the government is to make sure that the people at the bottom don’t stay that way
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Educational Fairness: Education ought to provide people with the same opportunity. It also ought to not hurt people arbitrarily and have a consistent framework for rewarding and punishing behavior Topicality The phrase ‘standardized testing’ refers to any test which: “(1) requires all test takers to
answer the same questions, or a selection of questions from common bank of questions, in the same way, and that (2) is scored in a ‘standard’ or consistent manner, which makes it possible to compare the relative performance of individual students or groups of students.”13 Many people
13
http://edglossary.org/standardized-test/
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Topic Analysis by Jakob Urda
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consider standardized tests to fall exclusively in the realm of examinations given to students in school, such as annual ELA and reading comprehension tests, or even the SAT. However, there are standardized tests, such as drivers’ tests, that fall outside of this model and still fall in line with the above definition. Similarly, although tests need to impact to education within the United States, the tests could be conducted internationally. It is important to note that the resolution does not specify standardized tests as examinations given to students, though this might seem intuitive. A broad interpretation of the topic allows for the inclusion of non K-12 tests, so long as the results or administration of those tests impact K-12 students. For example, an examination that would standardly evaluate teachers might have an impact on the quality of learning of their students. Affirmative Arguments This section will analyze some big ways advocates for standardized testing break down their arguments. The first argument has to do with the role of tests in shaping the educational process and how framing schooling behind tests alters the dynamics of the classroom. One such argument would be that tests incentivize classroom curriculums to align themselves more closely with state standards. First, it is important to establish that standards are valuable: they are agreed upon by education experts, allow us to benchmark our children’s progress, and theoretically hold teachers accountable to actually teaching material. Then, the question is how the status quo interacts with holding students to standards. An affirmative team could argue that it does not; subjective grading policies such as report cards provide very little incentive for teachers to forgo their own curriculum when it trades off with teaching standards.
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Topic Analysis by Jakob Urda
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By instituting high stakes testing, however, we change this incentive structure. Now, students and teachers are both evaluated by material that everyone knows is based off of standards, meaning that teachers have a very strong incentive to teach those standards.14 This is better than a world without testing because the children learn the material that everyone agrees that they should, there is an objective fair way of evaluating how that material has been absorbed, and teachers are all held to the same bar. The next idea that warrants exploration is distributive justice15, the idea that education is for those that need it the most and that impacts to marginalized groups should be valued the most. It is important to note that this impact analysis requires warranting, because it is different than standard weighing of all students as a monolith. Remember that certain people need the government’s help more than others, and that public education in many ways is meant to provide marginalized groups with a way to ascend the ladder of social mobility. So, how do standardized tests interact with the idea of distributive justice? Well, from the simplest level of analysis, the argument can be made that tests help to level the playing field by being, by definition, standard. A smart student is evaluated as the same criteria as another, regardless of other factors involved outside of the classroom. The message of distributive justice an also be symbolic.16 Standardized tests send the message to all students of the same grade level that they are being held to the same standard. While teachers can send mixed messages and impart personal biases, many groups believe that standardized test are empowering because they hold all students to the same crystal clear standard, and tell them that they are accountable for the exact same amount of knowledge as the student next to them. 14
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar01/vol58/num06/Teaching-to-theTest%C2%A2.aspx 15 http://www.iep.utm.edu/dist-jus/ 16 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/14/why-civil-rights-groups-support-standardized-tests/
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Topic Analysis by Jakob Urda
December 2015
The final affirmative argument that should be considered is how standardized tests shape national education policy. Having a standardized test means that students across America are held to the same educational standards, even if there are differing regional ones. This is very important, as historically, where a child was raised was a big predictor of the quality and quantity of information that they would learn in public school.17 This is problematic for a few reasons: first, that just by being born in a certain place you stood to lose out by not being educated enough or in the right fields. Regionalized curriculum make sense sometimes, but this is less and less true with a modern globalized labor force. Growing up somewhere is no longer a guarantee of stay there, and needing the skills associated with that part of the world, so trading off with more universal skills is less and less worth it.18 Second, it was incredibly hard to compare achievement across states, which all used independent standards and metrics to see how their students were doing. From a federal perspective, a national standard is needed to set things that are tied to achievement, like many grants. Standardized tests fix these problems, which is important for correcting the outlined gaps and understanding how to make classrooms better across America in the future. Negative Arguments This section will analyze some of the big ways many critics attack standardized testing’s impact on Education. Critics have a number of complaints regarding how standardized testing alters the curriculum that students are exposed to. A common concern is that standardized tests incentivize "teaching for the test,” the idea that classes become focused on test specific drills as opposed to a 17 18
http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2014/08/08/study-the-family-youre-born-into-often-determines-your-fate/ http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204603004577269231058863616
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more creative, holistic form of education.19 The idea is that although tests might ideally be ways to check that what students learn in class is in line with standards, the high stakes of such tests incentivize teachers to forgo the well-rounded curriculums that standards are meant to be modeled after. The idea holds that teachers do this in favor of drills that only mimic the knowledge children are supposed to learn, but really don’t impart the students with real skills. Here, debaters can weigh the harms of drills versus traditional classroom settings. Drills promote rote learning, not understanding concepts, just being able to regurgitate what was learned a minute ago. Arguably, drills also trade off with creativity, as traditional problem solving skills fade out for simple memorization. Creativity, it can be argued, is critical in the building and development of human capital, skills that are needed in a more creative service based economy. Another attack on testing is the idea that tests favor certain select demographic groups. Namely, urban, upper income groups benefit from test prep and advanced infrastructure, and can game the system to get higher scores. This happens because better funded school districts or individual families can practice the drills and memorization that are so conducive to doing well on tests. Tests leave out marginalized groups that are already at some type of an institutional disadvantages as well. For example, if a student has to work after school to support their family, it probably trades off with their ability to go to test prep, even if free options are available. Similarly, many tests are not optimized for the visually impaired, which puts the already disadvantaged in a very bad situation. This analysis feeds very well into the idea that one of the primary purposes for education is distributive justice, to help groups that have been disadvantaged. Thusly, even if tests are good for a lot of people, if they are bad for the core group they are trying to help, they shouldn’t be used. 19
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2013/04/11/why-excessive-standardized-testing-is-causing-americanschools-to-fail
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Topic Analysis by Jakob Urda
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A third argument against tests is the idea that they just a bad measure of evaluating performance and knowledge. Part of the reason this is true is the two points articulated above – children are taught explicitly for the test and don’t actually learn course material – and that tests are skewed against certain groups, but structurally test data is also bad a measure of performance. Test data doesn’t reward high performers or their teachers. If a student gets a perfect score on a test one year and then again the next year, the data records the improvement as zero, and there is no way to use that data to interpret whether or not the teacher has done a good job. Similarly, students that one year perform well below standards and then go on to preform just below standards the next year are still punished for not meeting state expectations, even though there was demonstrable effort and academic gains. The teacher who came close to bringing the failing student up to state standards is similarly punished because their record is reflective of students that did not pass the test, and that demonstrates a clear failure of the test to take into account the improvement that took place. This is problematic because it paints an inaccurate picture of what goes on in a classroom, and when tests are used for everything from teacher promotions to school funding this can be very destructive. Good luck! Jakob Urda About Jakob Urda Jakob attended and competed for Stuyvesant High School. As a senior, Jakob captained the Stuyvesant High School debate team. This year, Jakob has championed the NCFL Grandnational Championship, GMU, Blake, Columbia, Ridge, Malcolm A. Bump memorial, and Scarsdale tournaments. He has also co-championed the Crestian Round Robin, been awarded first speaker at the Crestian, Scarsdale, Golden Desert, and Columbia tournaments, as well as second speaker at Bronx. Jakob has been ranked 1st in the nation by debaterankings.com and debatehelper.com, and accrued 12 bids to the Tournament of Champions his senior year.
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Champi onBr i e f s De c e mbe r2015 Publ i cFor um Br i e f
Fr ame wor ks
Frameworks
December 2015 Frameworks
Resolved: On balance, standardized testing is beneficial to K-12 education in the United States. Neutral 1. Because the Resolution asks us to evaluate the United States as a whole, evidence that looks at multiple states or regions should be given weight over evidence that analyzes a single area. a. Explanation: This framework is straightforward, and can be used by either side. It sets up the debate so that the team that’s able to show evidence of overarching national benefits will be able to outweigh in late speeches. b. Answer: The most effective responses to this would be specific to the evidence that you choose to use. Otherwise, you can argue that trying to synthesize different studies from different states and regions makes it impossible to reach conclusions, because there are more variables. Each state and region has its own culture and educational system, norms and practice. By mixing all of those together, it’s impossible to tell what’s influencing what. By looking at a single state, you can control more effectively for variables. 2. In order to understand the benefits to the education system, we should look to student outcomes, because the main purpose of the education system is to benefit student knowledge. a. Explanation: This argument basically just gives a clearer way to evaluate what exactly the resolution is asking when it says that standardized testing is beneficial to education. This is a standard that both teams should be ready to debate, using a variety of ways to measure student knowledge. b. Answer: One way to answer this is to argue that other issues are just as important as student outcomes, and are more effective ways of measuring the effectiveness of the education system. This could be done through teacher effectiveness, or international competitiveness, or career outcomes as the value that education provides.
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Frameworks
December 2015 Affirmative
1. Because the resolution limits us to discussing the United States, all comparative measurements of education from outside the United States should be given no weight. a. Explanation: This is a strategic way to limit the debate, and prevent the negative from using the “best case scenario” examples in countries that have higher outcomes measured from testing, and criticizing the United States on that basis. It allows you to limit the debate more to how things changed as a result of standardized testing. b. Answer: A way to deal with this framework is to argue that effectiveness can’t be measured in a vacuum that it needs to be comparative. For example, if the United States is falling behind in STEM education to countries like Russia, that may have real consequences in industrial and military advantage. Thus, measuring outcomes in a comparative way in education is a reasonable way of measuring the effectiveness of standardized testing. 2. The purpose of education in the United States is to provide equal opportunity to all students; if standardized testing creates a more equitable education system, than please vote pro. a. Explanation: This framework allows the pro to be more flexible when making arguments, and allows you to win even if you’re behind on arguments regarding outcomes or effect on teachers. This argument is easier to prove than others for the pro, since standardized education by definition creates more equitable standards. Kids in Virginia and Texas, who used to be given different educations and tested on different issues, now are tested on similar issues and as a result, have a more equitable education. b. Answer: The con can argue that diversity in education in some subjects can be a good thing, and that it creates more viewpoints which are key to being innovative and dynamic. They can also question the idea of who is setting the standards; at the point where it’s often corporations and non-educational actors, it may be a bad thing to have standards if they’re bad standards.
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Frameworks
December 2015 Negative
1. Because the Resolution asks us to determine the effects of Standardized testing, all impacts that our opponents discuss must directly occur as a result of standardized testing. a. Explanation: Although this seems like a simple framework, it opens up 2 general arguments the negative can make. First, the negative can use this to generally attack the con case in an overview, arguing that the benefits from standardized testing come from other sources. Second, they can also use the argument that it is literally impossible to discern the effects of standardized testing one way or the other, and that as a result, we should assume the resolution is neither true nor false, which be con. b. Answer: The affirmative has 3 ways of responding. First, the affirmative, in general, should try and make sure all studies used state that they have a causal link. Second, in the (realistic) case that they don’t, the affirmative should try and estimate how much of the link is causal. Third, you can also hold your opponents to the same burden, and argue that none of their harms apply because they aren’t directly causal. 2. The purpose of education is to allow students to be informed to access to greater opportunities in whatever they are interested in; thus, if standardized testing prioritizes some subjects over others, you should vote con. a. Explanation: This argument an implicit hole in the resolution, in that it doesn’t ever specify what kind of education, or what purpose of education is the goal for the system. This framework allows you to win the debate even if you lose the more empirical, results oriented debate. This allows you to turn a fundamental aspect of the pro; that by having standardized exams for some subjects and not others, they place significant emphasis and resources allocated to those subjects, and limit a student’s horizons. b. Answer: The affirmative has 2 major responses. First, they can argue that there is a different purpose or value to education, such as economic prosperity or job opportunities, which the pro may fulfill better than the con. Second, they can try and debate on this standard, and argue that the subjects being tested on are done so because they are more fundamental in a student’s decision making process or in terms of gaining access to opportunities.
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Champi onBr i e f s De c e mbe r2015 Publ i cFor um Br i e f
Ge ne r al I nf or mat i on
General Information
December 2015 General Information
Resolved: On balance, standardized testing is beneficial to K-12 education in the United States. Education Financing “Education is primarily a State and local responsibility in the United States. It is States and communities, as well as public and private organizations of all kinds, that establish schools and colleges, develop curricula, and determine requirements for enrollment and graduation. The structure of education finance in America reflects this predominant State and local role. Of an estimated $1.15 trillion being spent nationwide on education at all levels for school year 20112012, a substantial majority will come from State, local, and private sources. This is especially true at the elementary and secondary level, where about 87.7 percent of the funds will come from non-Federal sources. That means the Federal contribution to elementary and secondary education is about 10.8 percent, which includes funds not only from the Department of Education (ED) but also from other Federal agencies, such as the Department of Health and Human Services' Head Start program and the Department of Agriculture's School Lunch program.” (Department of Education, 2012) “Per pupil spending for the nation was $10,700 during fiscal year 2013, a 0.9 percent increase from 2012, but varied heavily among states with a high of $19,818 in New York and a low of $6,555 in Utah. Today’s findings come from Public Education Finances: 2013, which provides figures on revenues, expenditures, debt and assets (cash and security holdings) for the nation’s elementary and secondary public school systems. The report and tables, released annually, include detailed statistics on spending — such as instruction, student transportation, salaries and employee benefits — at the national, state and school district levels. “These statistics provide researchers, policymakers and the public with a picture of the nation’s public school system education revenue and spending,” said Stephen Wheeler, an analyst with the Census Bureau’s Educational Finance Branch. “These data are used in a variety of important economic measures such as the Department of Education’s Title I Grants and the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ gross domestic product measure.” States and state-equivalents spending the most per pupil in 2013 were New York ($19,818), Alaska ($18,175), the District of Columbia ($17,953), New
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General Information
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Jersey ($17,572) and Connecticut ($16,631). States spending the least per pupil included Utah ($6,555), Idaho ($6,791), Arizona ($7,208), Oklahoma ($7,672) and Mississippi ($8,130). Of the 100 largest school systems by enrollment, Maryland had four of the top 10 public school districts with the highest current spending per pupil. The top-five school districts for per pupil spending were Boston City Schools ($20,502), New York City School District ($20,331), Anchorage School District in Alaska ($15,419), Montgomery County Schools in Maryland ($15,080) and Baltimore City Schools ($15,050).” (Census, 2015) Corporate and Private Involvement in Standardized Testing “When Congress increased this year's budget for the Department of Education by $11 billion, it set aside $400 million to help states develop and administer the tests that the No Child Left Behind Act mandated for children in grades 3 through 8. Among the likely benefactors of the extra funds were the four companies that dominate the testing market -- three test publishers and one scoring firm. Those four companies are Harcourt Educational Measurement, CTB McGrawHill, Riverside Publishing (a Houghton Mifflin company), and NCS Pearson. According to an October 2001 report in the industry newsletter Educational Marketer, Harcourt, CTB McGrawHill, and Riverside Publishing write 96 percent of the exams administered at the state level. NCS Pearson, meanwhile, is the leading scorer of standardized tests. Even without the impetus of the No Child Left Behind Act, testing is a burgeoning industry. The National Board on Educational Testing and Public Policy at Boston College compiled data from The Bowker Annual, a compendium of the dollar-volume in test sales each year, and reported that while test sales in 1955 were $7 million (adjusted to 1998 dollars), that figure was $263 million in 1997, an increase of more than 3,000 percent. Today, press reports put the value of the testing market anywhere from $400 million to $700 million. It's likely that other companies will enter the testing market. Educational Testing Service (ETS), which until recently had little to do with high-stakes testing and was best known for its administration of the SAT college-entrance exam, won a three-year, $50 million contract in October 2001 to develop and score California's highschool exit exam, beating out other bidders such as Harcourt and NCS Pearson.” (PBS, 2002)
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General Information
December 2015
“The four corporations that dominate the U.S. standardized testing market spend millions of dollars lobbying state and federal officials — as well as sometimes hiring them — to persuade them to favor policies that include mandated student assessments, helping to fuel a nearly $2 billion annual testing business, a new analysis shows. The analysis, done by the Center for Media and Democracy, a nonprofit liberal watchdog and advocacy agency based in Wisconsin that tracks corporate influence on public policy, says that four companies — Pearson Education, ETS (Educational Testing Service), Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and McGraw-Hill— collectively spent more than $20 million lobbying in states and on Capitol Hill from 2009 to 2014.” (Strauss, 2015) Federal-State Relationship in Education “Virtually every study of the federal role in American education begins with the qualifying statement: education in the United States is chiefly a matter of state and local responsibility. This statement is certainly true . . . as far as it goes. Education is a state and local responsibility, both legally (every state constitution guarantees its citizens’ right to education, while the U.S. Constitution does not explicitly mention education at all) and financially (state and local expenditures cover approximately 92 percent of school costs on average, while the federal budget covers only 8 percent—though, in some large urban districts, federal aid covers as much as 30 or 40 percent of local school costs). Yet, even if public education is chiefly a matter of state and local responsibility, the federal role in American schools has grown exponentially in the period since the mid-twentieth century, and state-federal interactions in the realm of education policy have become increasingly complex as a result.” (New York State Department of Education, 2006) Laws and Policies Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) “This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965. Enacted to offer equitable educational opportunities to the nation’s disadvantaged, this legislation provides financial resources to schools to enhance the learning experiences of underprivileged children. Since its inception, ESEA has consistently remained the single largest
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General Information
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fiscal source of federal support for educationally vulnerable schoolchildren. Although the mission of this legislation has remained the same, it has evolved over time to include the needs of more specialized at-risk groups, including English-language learners (the Bilingual Act; Title VII), female students (the Women’s Educational Equity Act; Title IX), and Native American students (the Improvement of Educational Opportunities for Indian Students Act; Title X) (Lagemann, 2005). Provisions have also been added to ensure not only that schools receiving ESEA funds provide supplemental services but that children show improvement and are able to reach appropriate grade-level proficiencies.” (Thomas and Brady, 2005) No Child Left Behind (NCLB) “This emphasis on equity continues in the 2001 reauthorization. In January, President George W. Bush declared that too many children in the United States are being left behind and segregated by “low expectations, illiteracy, and self-doubt,” that all children should be expected to achieve high academic standards, and that schools should be held accountable for enabling children to achieve these standards (2001, p. 1). Attention to equity in federal legislation comes on the heels of reports that the narrowing of the gap in achievement test scores that took place during the 1970s and 1980s has stalled. The gap between whites and blacks and between whites and Hispanics, as measured by scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in reading and mathematics, remained unchanged between 1992 and 2000 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2001). The reauthorized ESEA's emphasis on reducing the achievement gap implies that the appropriate standard for measuring whether educational equity has been achieved is not the provision of equal funding for all students, but the production of equal outcomes. Specifically, equity is measured by equal outcomes on standardized achievement tests in core subject areas. This definition of equity, coupled with statements that it is the responsibility of the federal government to achieve equity, raises some important questions:” (Voke, 2001) “The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or ESEA, was designed to earmark extra funding for poor students—a program that would give the federal government a much greater role in classrooms. Giving disadvantaged schools an extra boost was certainly a worthy goal; it still is. Unfortunately, “the widespread challenges faced by children from low-income families in
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General Information
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America remain extraordinarily difficult to tackle as they continue to struggle with vastly inadequate educational opportunities,” wrote Julian Zelizer, a Princeton history professor, for The Atlantic. The gap in test scores between students from lower- and higher-income families has grown by 40 percent since the 1960s. Despite its bipartisan roots, No Child Left Behind, Zelizer argued, has done little to reverse those trends. Testing became the centerpiece of education reform, and schools faced harsh sanctions if they didn’t fulfill expectations. Teachers invested more time in test prep and less time in valuable instruction. Schools were shut down were in poor communities. Achievement levels are still greatly uneven.” (Wong, 2015) Race to the Top “On February 17, 2009, President Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), historic legislation designed to stimulate the economy, support job creation, and invest in critical sectors, including education. The ARRA lays the foundation for education reform by supporting investments in innovative strategies that are most likely to lead to improved results for students, long-term gains in school and school system capacity, and increased productivity and effectiveness. The ARRA provides $4.35 billion for the Race to the Top Fund, a competitive grant program designed to encourage and reward States that are creating the conditions for education innovation and reform; achieving significant improvement in student outcomes, including making substantial gains in student achievement, closing achievement gaps, improving high school graduation rates, and ensuring student preparation for success in college and careers; and implementing ambitious plans in four core education reform areas: • Adopting standards and assessments that prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace and to compete in the global economy; • Building data systems that measure student growth and success, and inform teachers and principals about how they can improve instruction; • Recruiting, developing, rewarding, and retaining effective teachers and principals, especially where they are needed most; and • Turning around our lowest-achieving schools. Race to the Top will reward States that have demonstrated success in raising student achievement and have the best plans to accelerate their reforms in the future. These States will offer models for others to follow and will spread the best reform ideas across their States, and across the country.” (Department of Education, 2009)
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General Information
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“The United States Department of Education’s signature Race to the Top initiative focuses extra resources on some of the country’s most disadvantaged districts and schools. Even so, at its core, Race to the Top mirrors many of the components of—and suffers from many of the same flaws as—No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have criticized. Race to the Top relies heavily on test scores to evaluate teachers, principals, and entire schools, and it draws on only a narrow set of policy strategies to achieve ambitious goals of raising student achievement and closing gaps. And while Duncan rightly notes that universal student proficiency is not an attainable goal in the short term, states that won Race to the Top grants were rewarded for setting just such goals, and for promising to attain them in a short period.” (Weiss, 2013) Common Core “The Common Core is a set of high-quality academic standards in mathematics and English language arts/literacy (ELA). These learning goals outline what a student should know and be able to do at the end of each grade. The standards were created to ensure that all students graduate from high school with the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in college, career, and life, regardless of where they live. Forty-two states, the District of Columbia, four territories, and the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) have voluntarily adopted and are moving forward with the Common Core.” (Common Core) “The testing systems will align with the new Common Core Standards in math and English language arts that nearly 40 states have already agreed to adopt. When the new tests are rolled out in 2014-15, the states in each coalition will be able to compare results with, and learn from, one another. The coalitions – representing 44 states and the District of Columbia -- say it will be an improvement over the current system of individual state standards and testing in several key ways: • Beyond multiple choice: Students’ skills in digital media, classroom speaking, and ability to apply reading and math knowledge to real-world problems would be measured in a variety of ways. Students might be asked, for instance, to design a park on a plot of land, using geometry to fit in the playing fields and financial literacy to create a budget. • Computer-based: Much of the testing will take place via computer, allowing teachers to get results more quickly.
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General Information
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One coalition would use computer adaptive technology so that students at certain skill levels would skip to appropriate questions to more efficiently pinpoint their strengths and weaknesses. • Evaluation throughout the year: Students, rather than simply take a state test near the end of the year, will be assessed at intervals, allowing them to show what they’ve learned in recent weeks and allowing teachers to adjust instruction. In holding their schools and teachers accountable, one coalition would incorporate test results from throughout the year, while the other would look only at the year-end test. • Buy-in from colleges: Higher-education leaders will help develop the high school level tests, and thousands of colleges have agreed use them as one indicator that students are ready for entry-level courses. The hope is that the new system will cut down on the giant need for remedial education on college campuses.” (Khadaroo, 2010) Other: SAT/ACT “In fact, the ACT has pulled ahead for the first time: 1,666,017 students took the ACT last year; 1,664,479 took the SAT. It’s not that the SAT is losing customers. On the contrary, the number of test takers has grown. It’s that the ACT is growing much faster, in part because 12 states now require, and pay for, all public high school juniors to take the test. But that’s not the only reason for the ACT’s rising popularity. There is also a real shift in the behavior of top high school students, with many more choosing to work toward impressive scores on both tests.” (Lewin, 2013) Nebraska – Exception to Standardized Testing “With criticism mounting over implementation of the federal accountability law and states scrambling to overhaul their testing systems to comply, Nebraska alone has succeeded in saying no to mandatory statewide tests. The state has persuaded federal education officials to approve the nation's most unorthodox assessment system, which allows school districts to use portfolios to measure student progress. For this, Nebraska education Commissioner Douglas Christensen has been hailed as a visionary and derided as an obstructionist. "I don't give a damn what No Child Left Behind says," Christensen said. "I think education is far too complex to be reduced to a single score. We decided we were going to take No Child Left Behind and integrate it into our plan, not the other way around. If it's bad for kids, we're not going to do it." Nebraska's system is far from perfect--it is expensive, time consuming for teachers and makes comparisons among
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districts difficult. The system works here in part because of the state's small school districts and homogeneous population. Few imagine it would be possible in Illinois, especially in a huge urban district such as Chicago. But critics of No Child Left Behind--and the high-stakes testing mania it has spawned--say Nebraska's example proves that educators can create a different kind of accountability system that meaningfully measures student learning. Districts have own methods Nebraska's 517 school districts design their own assessment systems: a portfolio of teachers' classroom assessments, district tests that measure how well children are meeting locally developed learning standards, a state writing test and at least one nationally standardized test included as a reality check. These are submitted to state education officials and a team of outside testing experts for review, and the districts are rated not just on the proficiency of their students but on the quality and reliability of their testing portfolio. Federal education officials said Nebraska's system passed muster because the state's constitution guarantees local control over school accountability and the state was able to demonstrate that the assessments were valid and reliable. However, Eugene Hickok, U.S. undersecretary of education, said he still favors statewide testing systems to ensure that standards are comparable in every school.” (Dell'Angela, 2004) Standardized Testing and Teacher Examinations “The rapidly changing debate on how to account for student achievement in teacher evaluations is putting teacher-district relationships to the test across the country. More than half the states now require districts to take student achievement into account when evaluating a teacher's performance. In most cases, that's calculated through a so-called value-added model that attempts to account for a teacher's role in a student's growth over the course of a year, via test scores and other performance measures. Most of the push for value-added evaluation systems has come only in the past few years, driven in part by the federal Race to the Top grants, which gave extra weight to states that included achievement-based teacher evaluations in their applications, and by the federal Teacher Incentive Fund grants, which so far have supported experiments in 175 districts in 33 states using student achievement in teacher performance-pay plans.” (Sparks, 2011)
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“Value-added models, or VAMs, attempt to measure a teacher's impact on student achievement—that is, the value he or she adds—apart from other factors that affect achievement, such as individual ability, family environment, past schooling, and the influence of peers. VAMs attempt to estimate a teacher's contribution to students' progress over time. The goal of VAMs is to allow educators and policymakers to make apples-to-apples comparisons among teachers in terms of how much content their students learn each year, regardless of the students' characteristics. This means focusing not on how students test at a single point in time but rather on how much improvement they make from one testing period to the next. VAMs use statistical methods to account for students' prior characteristics. There is no single VAM that all researchers use, but all of the models account in some way for the prior test scores of a teacher's students. One common VAM method works like this: Mr. Johnson teaches 6th grade math. To estimate his added value, statisticians obtain the 4th and 5th grade test scores of all his students, as well as information about their backgrounds (such as whether they were in a gifted program or a special education program). Those data are used to predict what the students' 6th grade math scores will be. Caryn and Darren are students in Mr. Johnson's class. Caryn's actual score on the 6th grade test is seven points higher than predicted; Darren's is two points lower. Mr. Johnson's value-added estimate is the average of the differences between the actual and predicted scores of Caryn, Darren, and the rest of the class.” (Rand)
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December 2015 References
“About the Standards.” Common Core. Web. 4 Nov 2015. . Dell'Angela, Tracy. “Nebraska shuns state tests.” Chicago Tribune. 5 April 2014. Web. 6 Nov 2015. . “Federal Education Policy and the States, 1945-2009: A Brief Synopsis.” New York State Department of Education. Jan 2006. Web. 7 Nov 2015. . Khadaroo, Stacy Teicher. “Race to the Top promises new era of standardized testing.” CSM. 2 Sept 2010. Web. 7 Nov 2015. . Lewin, Tamar. “Testing, Testing.” New York Times. 2 Aug 2013. Web. 6 Nov 2015. . “Per Pupil Spending Varies Heavily Across the United States.” US Census. 2 June 2015. Web. 7 Nov 2015. . “Race to the Top Program Executive Summary.” US Department of Education. Nov 2009. Web. 6 Nov 2015. . Sparks, Sarah D. “'Value-Added' Formulas Strain Collaboration.” Education Week. 15 Nov 2011. Web. 7 Nov 2015. . Strauss, Valerie. “Report: Big education firms spend millions lobbying for pro-testing policies.” Washington Post. 30 March 2015. Web. 7 Nov 2015. . “The Federal Role in Education.” Department of Education. 13 Feb 2012. Web. 7 Nov 2015. . “The Testing Industry’s Big Four.” PBS. 2002. Web. 7 Nov 2015. ..
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Thomas, Janet Y and Brady, Kevin P. “Chapter 3: The Elementary and Secondary Education Act at 40: Equity, Accountability, and the Evolving Federal Role in Public Education.” American Educational Research Association. 2005. Web. 3 Nov 2015. . “Value-Added Modeling 101: Using Student Test Scores to Help Measure Teaching Effectiveness.” Rand. Web. 7 Nov 2015. . Voke, Heather. “Reflections for Implementation.” ASCD. Oct 2001. Web. 6 Nov 2015. . Weiss, Elaine. “Mismatches in Race to the Top Limit Educational Improvement.” Economic Policy Institute. 12 Sept 2013. Web. 7 Nov 2015. . Wong, Alia. “Life After No Child Left Behind.” The Atlantic. 8 July 2015. Web. 6 Nov 2015. .
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Champi onBr i e f s De c e mbe r2015 Publ i cFor um Br i e f
Pr oAr gume nt swi t h ConRe s pons e s
Pro Arguments with Con Responses
December 2015
PRO – Teacher Accountability Argument: Tests create an objective measurement of teacher success and effectiveness in the classroom Warrant: The Non Testing method of teacher’s evaluating students is counterproductive because children who do not know material still advance to the next grade. Phelps, Richard. "Estimating the Costs and Benefits of Educational Testing Programs." Estimating the Costs and Benefits of Educational Testing Programs. Education Consumers, 1995. Web. 08 Nov. 2015. . "The economist John Bishop, for example, argues that it is illogical and counterproductive to insist that a teacher be both a "coach" and a "judge." The teacher is a coach when she helps a student to succeed; a judge when she grades a student's test and decides that the student should not be promoted to the next grade or level of education. By Bishop's theory, this dual role puts the teacher in a moral dilemma that is often resolved through social promotion. Most teachers would rather be coaches than judges and, so, promote students to the next level even though they are not ready. After a few years of social promotion, of course, students may be so far behind that they cannot possibly succeed by any objective standard. They may become disillusioned, give up trying, and drop out.
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Pro Arguments with Con Responses
December 2015
Warrant: Other measures of evaluation are untrustworthy and unreliable Phelps, Richard. "Estimating the Costs and Benefits of Educational Testing Programs." Estimating the Costs and Benefits of Educational Testing Programs. Education Consumers, 1995. Web. 08 Nov. 2015. . “We may have reached the point in the United States where standardized tests provide the only pure measure of subject-matter mastery. For some time now, education schools have encouraged teachers to grade students using a cornucopia of criteria that include perceived persistence or effort; perceived level of handicap due to background, participation or enthusiasm, and perceived need. Subject matter mastery is just one, and usually not the most important factor, considered in calculating a student's course grade. In addition to the missionary directive of the education schools, Bishop's theory of the irreconcilability of the coach and judge roles may also explain the degradation of grades. But, regardless of the reason, if standardized tests are, indeed, the only trustworthy measure of academic achievement, can our society afford to not use them? External standardized tests may be the only reliable source of information on education performance not controlled by groups with an incentive to corrupt or suppress it.” Warrant: Tests are an effective form of evaluation because they provide accurate benchmarking. Kane, Thomas. "Should Student Test Scores Be Used to Evaluate Teachers?" WSJ. Wall Street Journal, 24 June 2012. Web. 05 Nov. 2015. . “Harvard University economist Raj Chetty and colleagues studied what happened when teachers with strong or weak records of student-achievement growth either left or joined a school. When the teachers with strong track records left, student achievement in that grade level fell. When they joined a school, achievement rose.
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December 2015
(cont.) Kane, Thomas. "Should Student Test Scores Be Used to Evaluate Teachers?" WSJ. Wall Street Journal, 24 June 2012. Web. 05 Nov. 2015. . (Moreover, achievement remained stable in grades and subjects other than the one where the teacher entered or left.) If the student-achievement gain measures simply reflected the unmeasured traits of students, achievement gains or losses would not have followed the teacher.” Warrant: Tests empirically corroborate the strength of teachers better than other methods. Kane, Thomas. "Should Student Test Scores Be Used to Evaluate Teachers?" WSJ. Wall Street Journal, 24 June 2012. Web. 05 Nov. 2015. . “Second, despite some fluctuation from year to year, we have found that a teacher's record of promoting achievement remains the strongest single predictor of the achievement gains of their future students. In such a ratings system, a teacher's average may vary from year to year, but so do the batting averages of professional baseball players. In each case, the measure provides a glimpse (albeit imperfect) of future performance.”
Analysis: This argument is simple; tests offer a comparative benefit over other subjective forms of evaluation like report cards because they are inherently less subjective. This means that test bypass the myriad of incentives and oversights teachers have which result in skewed evaluations. Tests are comparatively reflective of teaching quality, which means that the pro world is comparatively better than the con one
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Pro Arguments with Con Responses
December 2015
A2 – Teacher Accountability Answer: Tests harmfully alter the teaching process Warrant: Because tests are given such weight in the teaching process they distort what students learn. Batt, Don. "Standardized Tests Are Killing Our Students' Creativity, Desire to Learn." The Denver Post. Denver Post, 3 Oct. 2013. Web. 01 Nov. 2015. . “Every day in class, the children are asked which answer is right, although the smarter children realize that sometimes there are parts of several answers that could be right. And they sit. And they write. Not to express their understanding of the world. Or to even form their own opinions about ideas they have read. Instead, they must dance the steps that they have been told are important: First, build your writing with a certain number of words, sentences, paragraphs; second, make sure your writing contains the words in the question; third, begin each part with "first, second," and "third." Analysis: Tests may hold teachers accountable, but the accountability is to a standard teachers neither benefit from nor desire. Make your opponents show you that these new standards are qualitatively better than the creative ones they replace
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Pro Arguments with Con Responses
December 2015
Answer: Testing is a bad metric for evaluation Warrant: Test based evaluations have a huge margin of error Hammon, Linda. "Should Student Test Scores Be Used to Evaluate Teachers?" WSJ. Wall Street Journal, 24 June 2012. Web. 05 Nov. 2015. . “The system used to rate the teachers purported to compare teachers' performance against one another. But the scores featured huge margins of error—exceeding 50 percentile points in English language arts and 30 points in math. Thus, if a teacher's rating in English was pegged at the 90th percentile, it might actually have been as low as the 40th, or vice versa.” Warrant: The many complexities in the educational system make the over simplistic nature of testing badly for evaluation. Hammon, Linda. "Should Student Test Scores Be Used to Evaluate Teachers?" WSJ. Wall Street Journal, 24 June 2012. Web. 05 Nov. 2015. . “The ratings were based on students' test scores, analyzed using "value-added" statistical techniques. As in other states, researchers who looked at the data found the ratings were enormously unstable: Teachers who scored low in one year or class were often rated high in another, and vice versa. Teachers working with a large contingent of new English learners or special-education students scored lower than when they taught moreadvantaged classes of students. Even teachers of gifted classes were penalized, because their students had already maxed out on the tests.”
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Pro Arguments with Con Responses
December 2015
Analysis: Tests as a metric for evaluation are riddled with flaws. They neither test knowledge nor reward growth, and thus cannot be an accurate measure of student achievement. Answer: Evaluating all teachers via testing leaves out many teachers Warrant: Evaluations leave out teachers that are not in tested fields Strauss, Valarie. "How Students with Top Test Scores Actually Hurt a Teacher’s Evaluation." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 1 Apr. 2015. Web. 05 Nov. 2015. . “Other teachers are being assessed on how well students they don’t teach do on exams, as well as on test scores from subjects they don’t teach. For example, an art teacher in New York City explained how he was evaluated on math standardized test scores, and saw his evaluation rating drop from “effective” to “developing.” Highstakes tests are only given in math and English language arts, so reformers have decided that all teachers (and sometimes principals) in a school should be evaluated by reading and math scores.” Analysis: How can art teachers be held accountable for math results? This responses is straightforward: evaluations can only apply to the teachers that teach the subjects being evaluated. Insofar as most teachers don’t just teach English and Math, it can be argued that these evaluations do more harm than good.
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Pro Arguments with Con Responses
December 2015
PRO – National Standards Argument: Tests create a national standard which can compare the achievement of students uniformly across states Warrant: National Review measures allow educators to compare results across the country. NCES. Mapping State Proficiency Standards Onto the NAEP Scales: Variation and Change in State Standards for Reading and Mathematics, 2005–2009 (n.d.): n. pag. Aug. 2011. Web. 5 Nov. 2015. . " “Since 2003, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has supported research that compares the proficiency standards of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) with those of individual states. State assessments are placed onto a common scale defined by NAEP scores, which allows states’ proficiency standards to be compared not only to NAEP, but also to each other. NCES has released three earlier reports using state data for reading and mathematics at grades 4 and 8 from 2003, 2005, and 2007. This report highlights the findings of the study from 2009, reporting results using state data from the 2008–09 academic year and the 2009 NAEP grades 4 and 8 reading and mathematics assessments. It also examines the consistency of mapping results over time by comparing the last three NAEP administrations: 2005, 2007, and 2009.."
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December 2015
Warrant: Tests allow educators to compare their students’ achievements to others in their demographic groups and/or by percentile to see how they preform relatively as well as absolutely "A Guide to Standardized Testing: The Nature of Assessment." A Guide to Standardized Testing: The Nature of Assessment. Center for Public Education, 15 Feb. 2006. Web. 05 Nov. 2015. . “These tests are designed to compare individual students’ achievement to that of a “norm group,” a representative sample of his or her peers. The design is governed by the normal or bell-shaped curve in the sense that all elements of the test are directed towards spreading out the results on the curve (Monetti, 2003; NASBE, 2001; Zucker, 2003; Popham, 1999). The curve-governed design of norm-referenced tests means that they do not compare the students’ achievement to standards for what they should know and be able to do—they only compare students to other students who are assumed to be in the same norm group. The Educators’ Handbook on Effective Testing (2002) lists the norms frequently used by major testing publishers. For example, the available norms for the Iowa Test of Basic Skills are: districts of similar sizes, regions of the country, socio-economic status, ethnicity, and type of school (e.g., public, Catholic, private non-Catholic) in addition to a representation of students nationally.”
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Pro Arguments with Con Responses
December 2015
Warrant: These standards let educators meaningfully reflect on their programs. NCES. Mapping State Proficiency Standards Onto the NAEP Scales: Variation and Change in State Standards for Reading and Mathematics, 2005–2009 (n.d.): n. pag. Aug. 2011. Web. 5 Nov. 2015. . “State-level National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results are an important resource for policymakers and other stakeholders responsible for making sense of and acting on state assessment results. Since 2003, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has supported research that focuses on comparing NAEP and state proficiency standards. By showing where states’ standards lie on the NAEP scale, the mapping analyses offer several important contributions. First, they allow each state to compare the stringency of its criteria for proficiency with that of other states. Second, mapping analyses inform a state whether the rigor of its standards, as represented by the NAEP scale equivalent of the state’s standard, changed over time.” Warrant: Standards are critical for educational reform "Education Standards." Education Standards. U of I Champlain, 28 Oct. 2015. Web. 05 Nov. 2015. . “Educational standards define the knowledge and skills students should possess at critical points in their educational career. "Standards serve as a basis of educational reform across the nation as educators and policy makers respond to the call for a clear definition of desired outcomes of schooling and a way to measure student success in terms of these outcomes" (National Research Council 2001). National, state and local educators play an important role in improving student learning through development and implementation of standards throughout the country.”
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December 2015
Analysis: Educational achievement is important, and this argument makes the case that the prerequisite to national education is standards. Without standards we don’t know how our students are doing and don’t know how to best help students in the future. These two impacts interact well with a lot of neg points by giving you a big picture long term solution to many of their issues.
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Pro Arguments with Con Responses
December 2015
A2 – National Standards Answer: Standardized Tests are not standard across the country Warrant: Different kids in different areas take different tests Strauss, Valarie. "Confirmed: Standardized Testing Has Taken over Our Schools. But Who’s to Blame?" Washington Post. The Washington Post, 24 Oct. 2015. Web. 05 Nov. 2015. . “In 66 school systems studied by the Council of the Great City Schools, a nonprofit organization that represents the largest urban public school systems in the country, students in the 2014-15 school year sat over 6,500 times for tests, taking tests with 401 different titles. (See all the major findings below.) High-stakes standardized testing has become a hallmark of modern school reform for well over a dozen years, starting with the use of these exams in the 2002 No Child Left Behind law to hold schools “accountable.” The stakes for these exams were increased with President Obama’s $4.3 billion Race to the Top funding competition, in which states could win federal education funding by promising to undertake specific reforms — including evaluating teachers by test scores and adopting “common standards.” Analysis: If different states take different standardized tests then comparing results across states has limited utility. How can you extrapolate comparative statistics when the test you take is different? This response should be made in conjunction with responses about how standards themselves are not uniform.
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Pro Arguments with Con Responses
December 2015
Answer: Standards across states vary widely Warrant: Different states hold different academic standards "State Education Standards Vary Widely." American Institutes for Research RSS. AIR, 29 Oct. 2009. Web. 05 Nov. 2015. . “State education standards vary widely throughout the United States, which means that students with similar academic skills are being evaluated differently depending upon the states where they live, according to a study conducted by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) for the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES). The study, released by NCES on October 29, 2009, found that a large gap persists between the level of student achievement required by states with the highest standards and those with the lowest standards. Most of the variation among states on how many of their students perform at the “proficient” level is due to the difficulty of the state standards.” Analysis: Different states hold different standards. This means that even if cross state evaluation is possible, because the data will have a disparate impact where children are held to different bars, it doesn’t actually help anyone. This mitigates the impact of any national standardized testing because children are only held to regional standards.
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Pro Arguments with Con Responses
December 2015
Answer: The different state standards make cross state analysis hard. Warrant: While children pass state standards, the standards are not the same everywhere. "State Education Standards Vary Widely." American Institutes for Research RSS. AIR, 29 Oct. 2009. Web. 05 Nov. 2015. . “States regularly report the percentage of their students who have scored proficient or above on state tests. But the study found that most of the variation between states, about 70 percent, reflects differences in the difficulty of state standards. States with higher standards had fewer students achieving proficiency, while those with lower standards had more students reaching that level. States sometimes change their assessments, and the AIR study took those changes into account. Eight states showed significant differences between 2005 and 2007, the years studied, on grade 4 reading assessments, with half of those lowering their standards compared to the NAEP scale. All seven states that had significant changes in their grade 8 standards lowered them.” Analysis: This argument is simple and straightforward. There is huge variance in material students are help to on the state and national level. Insofar as this is true, it is very hard to draw meaningful conclusions on national data.
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December 2015
PRO – International Standards Argument: Standardized testing allows the United States compare its educational progress with other countries. Warrant: Standardized tests reveal a weakness for the US that we wouldn’t have known without comparing our educational system to other countries "U.S. Scores Stagnant, Other Nations Pass Us by in Latest International Test." EdSource. N.p., 3 Dec. 2013. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “America's white students also lag behind the average student from countries such as Estonia, Poland, Canada, Netherlands, and Vietnam in math. In Vietnam, 79 percent of students live in poverty, according to the OECD. So the real educational challenge in America is not just about poor kids in poor neighborhoods. It's about many kids in many neighborhoods. The PISA results underscore that educational shortcomings in the U.S. are not just the problems of other people's children.” Warrant: Educational standards are important indicators of global power "The Threat of Educational Stagnation and Complacency." The Threat of Educational Stagnation and Complacency. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “What those skeptics fail to recognize is that education plays a much bigger role today in propelling economic growth than in the 1960s or the 1980s. In a knowledge-based, globally competitive economy, the importance of education has increased enormously. Education is the new currency, and this currency is recognized internationally.”
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December 2015
Warrant: International standards allow the United States to diagnose its educational problems "The Threat of Educational Stagnation and Complacency." The Threat of Educational Stagnation and Complacency. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “Now, sometimes when I talk about the urgent need to strengthen the applied skills of our nation's teenagers, skeptics dismiss the significance of the PISA results. They acknowledge the performance of America's 15-year olds is mediocre, but say that's only because our average scores are dragged down by the large number of poor, minority students in the U.S. It's absolutely true that we have large and deeply troubling achievement gaps in America, and these achievement gaps are painfully evident on the PISA assessment.” Warrant: Policymakers use international tests to modify education systems "Examining the Role of International Achievement Tests in Education Policy Reform: National Education Reform and Student Learning in Five Countries." USAID, n.d. Web. 6 Nov. 2015. . “However, policymakers are increasingly looking to assessment results to measure system performance. Recently, a number of efforts have been made to identify how data and information from assessments contributed to system reforms that contributed to improved learning over time.” Analysis: This points outs the reasons why international standards are important. Even if citizens don’t like international standards, at the end of the day, policymakers use them and shape education reform around them so they are critical for education reform.
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December 2015
A2 – International Standards Answer: Comparing international scores is not accurate and not beneficial Warrant: Demographics of students are not the same "Economic Policy Institute." Economic Policy Institute. N.p., 1 Dec. 2013. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “Countries’ average scores are affected by the relative numbers of advantaged and disadvantaged students in their schools. The United States has relatively more disadvantaged students than the usual comparison countries. If average scores were adjusted so that each country had a similar social class composition, U.S. scores would appear to be higher than conventionally reported and the gap with topscoring countries, while still present, would be smaller. Adjusting for differences in countries’ social class composition can also change their relative rankings.” Warrant: China’s scores are not accurate "PISA's China Problem." The Brookings Institution. N.p., 09 Oct. 2013. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “So to be in the PISA sample, a child must be attending school. The question raised by China’s rural PISA scores is: what population was the sample representative of? According to the Rural Education Action Program (REAP) at Stanford University, high school attendance rates are as low as 40 percent in poor, rural areas of China. The dropout rate runs as high as 25 percent in middle schools. The schools are often run down and poorly staffed. Classrooms packed with 130 students have been reported. Children must often work to help provide for their families, and secondary school
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December 2015
fees (high schools charge tuition) are too high for many parents. It is clear that the student sample sitting for PISA is not representative of rural Chinese youth as a whole, but hails only from families strongly committed to formal education and able to afford the tuitions and fees of high school.” Warrant: Test preparation is not the same in every country "How Shanghai Schools Beat Them All." The Diplomat. N.p., 1 Aug. 2011. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “Shanghai parents will annually spend on average of 6,000 yuan on English and math tutors and 9,600 yuan on weekend activities, such as tennis and piano. During the high school years, annual tutoring costs shoot up to 30,000 yuan and the cost of activities doubles to 19,200 yuan. The typical Chinese worker cannot afford such vast sums. Consider this: at the high school level, the total expenses for tutoring and weekend activities in Shanghai exceed what the average Chinese worker makes in a year (about 42,000 yuan or $6,861).” Warrant: Scores should not be used in policy reforms "What Do International Tests Really Show about U.S. Student Performance?" Economic Policy Institute. N.p., 28 Jan. 2013. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “In general, we find that test data are too complex and oversimplified to permit meaningful policy conclusions regarding U.S. educational performance without deeper study of test results and methodology.” Analysis: The answer to the international studies argument is that the comparisons between countries aren’t the same, so they can’t provide accurate pictures of where the United States stands next to other countries. If they can’t provide accurate information, then they can’t be used in education policy reform.
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December 2015
PRO – Parents Argument: Parents like standardized tests, which means tests won’t be going away any time soon. Warrant: Parents agree with standardized testing "AP-NORC Poll: Parents Back High-stakes Testing." AP-NORC Poll: Parents Back High-stakes Testing. N.p., 17 Aug. 2013. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “Parents think their own children are given about the right number of standardized tests. Sixty-one percent of parents think their children take an appropriate number of standardized tests and 26 percent think their children take too many tests.”
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December 2015
Warrant: Parents think standardized testing works Surgenor, Everette. "Creating Educational Access, Equity, and Opportunity for All." Google Books. , 2014. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “They do not measure the student’s ability to apply, analyze, synthesize, or evaluate. In the present economy and society these are very important skills. But these skills are not tought or measured by state, federal, or international assessments. Despite that disconnect, Seventy-five percent of parents say standardized tests are a solid measure of their children's abilities.” Warrant: Students and Parents and Teachers all agree that Standardized testing is a necessary evil. "Is Support for Standards and Testing Fading." (n.d.): n. pag. Public Agenda, 2006. Web. 5 Nov. 2015. . “In multiple findings, parents, teachers, and students say standards and testing are necessary. Parents and teachers give local districts high marks for pursuing standards-based reform carefully and reasonably.” Analysis: While many people do not like standardized testing, they all agree that it is necessary for a good education system.
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December 2015
A2 – Parents Answer: Americans are out of touch with the truth Warrant: Good test scores don’t necessarily lead to future success French, Dan “A New Vision of Authentic Assessment to Overcome the Flaws in High Stakes Testing” in Middle School Journal; National Middle School Association; Vol 35, No. 1; Sept 2003 Through grade retention, dropping out, or being excluded from taking the test because of having special education or bilingual status – create the appearance of an improving school when in fact the opposite may very well be true (Test scores unreliable means of assessing school quality, 2001). Most importantly, standardized test scores are far from an accurate predictor of how students will do in later life.
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December 2015
Warrant: standardized tests actually lead to worse intelligence Harris, Phillip, Joan Harris, and Bruce M. Smith. "Standardized Tests Do Not Effectively Measure Student Achievement." Standardized Testing. Ed. Dedria Bryfonski. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2012. At Issue. Rpt. from "Chapter 3: The Tests Don't Measure Achievement Adequately." The Myths of Standardized Tests: Why They Don't Tell You What You Think They Do. 2011. 33-45. Web. 4 Nov. 2015. “Studies of students of different ages have found a statistical association between students with high scores on standardized tests and relatively shallow thinking.” One of these studies classified elementary school students as "actively engaged if they went back over things they didn't understand, asked questions of themselves as they read, and tried to connect what they were doing to what they had already learned; and as 'superficially' engaged if they just copied down answers, guessed a lot, and skipped the hard parts. Analysis: These are the bare bones to a general argument. Just because Americans think that standardized tests are necessary, doesn’t mean they are necessary.
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December 2015
PRO – Cheating Argument: Standardized tests are the best tests to minimize cheating. Warrant: Cheating numbers are grossly over exaggerated "Report: Cheating on Standardized Tests in Majority of States." Southern California Public Radio. N.p., 28 Mar. 2013. Web. 9 Nov. 2015. . “The National Center for Fair & Open Testing issued a report Thursday that tallies cases of cheating on standardized tests in 37 states across the country, including notable cases in Southern California. The manipulation hurts the most needy students, said he center’s president, Bob Shaeffer: ‘Most of the most significant cases of cheating have occurred in low income communities where students have historically had the lowest test scores.’” Warrant: Cheating on standardized tests is insignificant Cohen, Steve. The Daily Beast. Newsweek/Daily Beast, 28 Sept. 2011. Web. 9 Nov. 2015. . “It is estimated that every year, the College Board flags 2,500 cases of scores that look suspect. After further investigation, approximately 1,000 of those cases result in the students’ test scores being “withheld.” (As policy, the Board doesn’t accuse kids of cheating; it just refuses to send the suspect scores to colleges—at least not without a giant scarlet asterisk.) Tom Ewing, a spokesperson for ETS, the company that designs, administers, and ensures test security of the SAT, could only recall two other
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December 2015
situations involving impersonation over the last 20 years. Both resulted in criminal convictions, including one count of perjury when the impersonator testified. But 2,500 suspected cheats out of 2.25 million kids who take the test annually is a pretty insignificant percentage: one-tenth of 1 percent.” Warrant: International schools cheat more than schools in the United States "An Account of Exactly How Students Cheated on SAT in Asia." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 30 Oct. 2014. Web. 10 Nov. 2015. . “On Wednesday, the Educational Testing Service said it had withheld the scores from the test for students in Korea and China because of allegations of cheating. In its statement, it strongly denounced organizations that work to get copies of the test in advance and then pass them on to students for a profit — a problem that has existed with the administration of the SAT in Asia for years. Just last year, there were two episodes of suspected cheating, one in October involving allegations in Korea that questions from earlier tests were obtained by “cram schools” and given to students before they took the exam. And in May 2013, the College Board canceled the May 2013 administration of the SAT and SAT Subject Tests throughout South Korea because of a leak of test questions — the first time the test had been canceled in an entire country.”
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Warrant: Students in Asia cheat more on the SAT than American students "Widespread SAT Cheating Continues in Asia." Widespread SAT Cheating Continues in Asia. N.p., 22 Jan. 2015. Web. 9 Nov. 2015. . “For the fourth SAT administration in a row, widespread cheating threatens the security of this Saturday’s college admissions exam in Asia. According to Robert Schaeffer, Public Education Director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest), “Recycling test forms that were previously administered in the U.S. is the root cause of this ongoing scandal.” Schaeffer explained, “Last fall, widespread reports of SAT cheating forced the test-makers to delay reporting many scores. Some are still being withheld, including those from honest students who did not cheat. Earlier this week, a source sent FairTest a website link to what purports to be the test scheduled for use in Asia on Saturday, January 24. It appears to be an exam form administered in the U.S. in June 2014. Multiple other sources report that test coaching companies in China and South Korea are selling access to this document.” Analysis: The first card only states that there is cheating in 37 states, not how widespread within the states the card is. The second card gives specific numbers about the lack of cards. And then finish up the argument by showing how small the cheating is compared to other countries.
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A2 – Cheating Answer: Standardized tests create more cheating than non-standardized tests Warrant: Teachers are incentivized to cheat for their students on standardized tests Strauss, Valerie. "How and Why Convicted Atlanta Teachers Cheated on Standardized Tests." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 1 Apr. 2015. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “How did it happen? No Child Left Behind, President George W. Bush’s chief education initiative, and then Race to the Top, President Obama’s central education program, placed increasingly high stakes on standardized test scores. They had to go up, or else there would be negative consequences not just for students but schools and teachers and principals. Such testing mandates were coupled with a “ no excuse” management push by school reformers who said teachers had, well, no excuse not to raise their students’ test scores. Not sick or hungry students, not a lack of materials, not overcrowded classrooms. Obama’s Race to the Top initiative— which pit states against each other in competing for federal funds in exchange for implementing specific school reforms —linked student test scores to teacher evaluations and pay performance and rankings criteria, at the expense of mission and innovation.”
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Warrant: Most cheating is not found. "When Teachers, Not Students, Do The Cheating." NPR. NPR, 17 Aug. 2014. Web. 10 Nov. 2015. . “But, the experimenters cautioned, their methods captured only the most egregious kinds of cheating: those that came from teachers or administrators actually altering test papers. It's this type of outlandish behavior that's alleged to have occurred in Atlanta, where some schools allegedly held "erasing parties" to change answer sheets behind closed doors. Jacob and Levitt note that there are other, more subtle ways teachers can cheat, such as giving students more time, or prepping students beforehand with answers to actual test questions.” Warrant: Ease of information sharing creates conducive environments for cheating. Kolker, Robert. "Cheating Upwards." NYMag.com. New York Magazine, 16 Sept. 2012. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “The culture of sharing appears to also create fertile ground for cheating. It’s not just that e-mailing, texting, and the web make exchanging answers and plagiarizing far more practical. We live in a Wikipedia world, where file-sharing and blurry notions of personal privacy have, for some young people, made the idea of proprietary knowledge seem like a foreign, almost ridiculous, concept. If in the seventies, some students argued that pocket calculators made it senseless to do arithmetic by hand, now the very value of sole authorship is called into question. Today’s plagiarists may not even think they’re doing much of anything wrong, according to Kristal Brent Zook.” Analysis: There are many avenues that you can take to impact to more cheating. The second card acts as an extra impact and tool you can use to argue if your opponent brings up statistics.
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PRO – Effective Study Habits Argument: Studying for standardized tests helps students develop better study habits, which translates into an overall improvement in their educational achievements. Warrant: Taking standardized tests is correlated with good study habits Herbert, Walberg. "Stop the War Against Standardized Tests." Hoover Institution. N.p., 20 May 2011. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “U.S. students who anticipated having to pass a standardized test for high school graduation learned more science and math, were more likely to complete homework and talk with their parents about schoolwork, and watched less television than their peers who were not required to pass such exams. These constructive activities encourage students to concentrate on meeting standards and monitoring their own time and progress—skills important for not only increased achievement but also increased success in life.” Warrant: Study habits correlate to academic achievement Atsiaya Siahi, Evans, and Julius Maiyo. "Study of the Relationship between Study Habits and Academic Achievement of Students: A Case of Spicer Higher Secondary School, India." 10 Aug. 2015. Web. 4 Nov. 2015. . “Quantitative method was used to analyze field data collected. Interpretation and recommendations of the findings was made accordingly as per computed Pearson’s product moment coefficient of correlation. Results of this study revealed a positive relationship of 0.66 between study habits and academic achievement. The results implied that the study habits need a significant attention if we are to improve performance.”
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Warrant: Specific study habits that are formed from studying for tests Carey, Benedict. "Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits." The New York Times. The New York Times, 06 Sept. 2010. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “In one of his own experiments, Dr. Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke, who is now at Purdue University, had college students study science passages from a reading comprehension test, in short study periods. When students studied the same material twice, in back-to-back sessions, they did very well on a test given immediately afterward, then began to forget the material. But if they studied the passage just once and did a practice test in the second session, they did very well on one test two days later, and another given a week later. “Testing has such bad connotation; people think of standardized testing or teaching to the test,” Dr. Roediger said. “Maybe we need to call it something else, but this is one of the most powerful learning tools we have.” Of course, one reason the thought of testing tightens people’s stomachs is that tests are so often hard. Paradoxically, it is just this difficulty that makes them such effective study tools, research suggests. The harder it is to remember something, the harder it is to later forget. This effect, which researchers call “desirable difficulty,” is evident in daily life. The name of the actor who played Linc in “The Mod Squad”? Francie’s brother in “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”? The name of the co-discoverer, with Newton, of calculus? The more mental sweat it takes to dig it out, the more securely it will be subsequently anchored.” Analysis: This is a pretty straightforward argument. In the long run, standardized tests lead to better academic achievement.
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A2 – Effective Study Habits Answer: Standardized tests don’t form good study habits for anything other than standardized tests Warrant: Skills learned through studying for tests doesn’t apply to other academic settings French, Dan “A New Vision of Authentic Assessment to Overcome the Flaws in High Stakes Testing” in Middle School Journal; National Middle School Association; Vol 35, No. 1; Sept 2003 “Standardized tests are poor predictors of how well students can apply the knowledge that they do demonstrate on these tests… ‘Analyses of these data reveal that if the intended goal of high stakes testing policy is to increase student learning, then that policy is not working. While a state’s high stakes test may show increased scores, there is little support in these data that such increases are anything but the result of test preparation and/or the exclusion of students from the testing process’.”
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Warrant: Takes learning time away from non-tested areas "Choices, Changes, and Challenges: Curriculum and Instruction in the NCLB Era." Center on Education Policy, Dec. 2007. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “71% of districts had reduced instructional time in elementary schools in at least one subject to make more time for English language arts or math (CEP, 2006). In an effort to more precisely explain this reported decrease, we asked a more detailed question in the year 5 survey. This year, 44% of districts reported that since 2001-02, they have decreased the time in elementary schools devoted to subjects and activities other than ELA and math (social studies, science, art and music, physical education, lunch, and recess). The decreases reported by these districts this year were relatively large, totaling an average of 145 fewer minutes per week across all of these subjects, or nearly 30 minutes per day on average. The average decrease represented nearly a third (32%) of the total instructional time devoted to these subjects before NCLB took effect.” Warrant: Non-tested subjects are important. "Creative Subjects in Schools Improve PISA Results." - Nordic Cooperation. N.p., 21 Dec. 2008. Web. 4 Nov. 2015. . “The pupils took on much more responsibility for their own learning and were better presenting their subject-matter when creative skills were brought into school. And a spin-off is that the pupils also improve in mother tongue teaching and maths, which can be read directly in the PISA context.”
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Warrant: Non-tested subjects help students take standardized tests. President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, Reinvesting in Arts Education: Winning America’s Future Through Creative Schools, Washington, DC, May 2011 “Persistently high dropout rates (reaching 50% or more in some areas) are evidence that many schools are no longer able to engage and motivate their students. Students who do graduate from high school are increasingly the products of narrowed curricula, lacking the creative and critical thinking skills needed for success in post-secondary education and the workforce. In such a climate, the outcomes associated with arts education –– which include increased academic achievement, school engagement, and creative thinking –– have become increasingly important. Decades of research show strong and consistent links between high-quality arts education and a wide range of impressive educational outcomes.” Analysis: This pretty much says that the skills learned form studying aren’t useful and studying for tests takes away leaning non-tested skills. This lowers a student’s repertoire and limits their knowledge.
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PRO – Testing Discrimination Argument: Standardized tests are inclusive of minorities and disabled students. Warrant: Tests send the right message to the disabled Rhee, Michelle. "Accommodate Don't Discriminate." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 14 May 2011. Web. 04 Nov. 2015. . “Some people say it's cruel to make students with disabilities take challenging tests. We think it's cruel to leave them out. Sure, it can be difficult as adults to see kids struggle with a tough task. But think about the smile on that kid's face, or the confidence in his eyes, after he gives it his best shot. We have to teach children to deal with frustrating moments, not shelter them from ever having them. Among the biggest proponents of the testing brought about by the federal law were advocates for people with disabilities. They don't want to be held to low standards. Telling them they don't have to bother taking the tests is akin to telling them they can't measure up or aren't worth the effort. We can't think of a more harmful message to send to any child."
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Warrant: Civil Rights Groups are also pro-test Ehrenfraud, Max. "Why Civil Rights Groups Support Standardized Tests." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 14 Apr. 2015. Web. 04 Nov. 2015. . “As my colleague Lyndsey Layton reports, most of the major civil rights organizations support the law's requirement for yearly standardized tests for all students in Grades 3 to 8. The annual tests are easily the most visible and controversial aspect of the law. These groups see testing as a civil rights issue, a way to guarantee fairness. Meanwhile, some activists and educators of color feel the tests are a distraction from helping students improve or, worse, an indirect form of punishment for shortcomings beyond their control.” Warrant: Status Quo non-test options can be bad for minorities such as recently in Atlanta. Blau, Max. "Charges of 'institutional Racism,' Possible Grade Changing Fuels North Atlanta High School Drama (Update) | Atlanta News & Opinion Blog | Fresh Loaf | Creative Loafing Atlanta." Creative Loafing Atlanta. Ctal, 31 Oct. 2012. Web. 04 Nov. 2015. . “The Buckhead Reporter recently obtained an anonymous letter suggesting that the high school's rigorous International Baccalaureate program "promoted institutional racism." Specifically: that black students received lower grades than white counterparts for equal work and that some of the teachers in the high school's college prep office — called the "College Zone" — were racists. The letter's newsworthy because Mark Mygrant, the former NAHS interim principal, publicly suggested he was fired because of allegations that he hired two racist employees. However, when asked if those rumors played into the firing of Mygrant and other school officials, an APS spokesman told CBS Atlanta that Davis made the moves so that "the new principal, Dr. Howard Taylor, [could] choose his own team."
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Warrant: Even concerning issues with discrimination, federal statutes exist to protect many groups Phelps, Richard. "The Effect of Testing on Achievement: Meta-Analyses and Research Summary, 1910 “2010. Source List, Effect Sizes, and References for Quantitative Studies." The Effect of Testing on Achievement: Meta-Analyses and Research Summary, 1910 “2010. Source List, Effect Sizes, and References for Quantitative Studies. International Journal of Testing, 2010. Web. 04 Nov. 2015. “Federal civil rights statutes protect students with learning disabilities in the educational context.3 The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq. (“IDEA”), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (“Section 504”), and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (“ADA”) all prohibit schools from discriminating against students on the basis of their disabilities. These laws, and the regulations under them contain specific prohibitions relevant to the high-stakes standardized testing and its impact on students with learning disabilities.” Analysis: This argument deals with a moral question of who the government has a large responsibility to help; specifically disadvantaged groups. If the policy hurts the most vulnerable group, it probably ought not be enacted.
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A2 – Testing Discrimination Answer: Testing means minorities learn less Warrant: Testing skews the curriculum at primarily minority schools away from real world skills Chira, Susan. "Study Finds Standardized Tests May Hurt Education Efforts." The New York Times. The New York Times, 15 Oct. 1992. Web. 04 Nov. 2015. .
“The study found that tests profoundly shape what teachers teach because of the enormous pressure to improve students' test scores. Teachers in urban schools with many minority students feel this pressure most keenly, the study found, and are more likely to base their curriculums on the tests and to drill students for them, so that minority students are failing to learn the very reasoning skills that math and science educators want to emphasize. Most math and science experts now agree that rather than memorizing mathematical formulas or scientific terms, students must learn how to think like mathematicians and scientists by being able to solve problems, design their own experiments to test hypotheses and explain the reasoning behind an answer. The kinds of tests that some experts envision might ask students to design a water conservation policy for a restaurant, or to decide whether it made more sense to buy or lease a car.”
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Warrant: Wealthy communities can insulate themselves from the disparate impact of teaching for tests "The Dangerous Consequences of High-Stakes Standardized Testing." The Dangerous Consequences of High-Stakes Standardized Testing. Center for Fair and Open Testing, 17 Dec. 2007. Web. 05 Nov. 2015. .
“Instruction starts to look like the tests. For example, reading is reduced to short passages followed by multiple-choice questions, a kind of "reading" that does not exist in the real world. Writing becomes the "five-paragraph essay" that is useless except on standardized tests. Narrowing of curriculum and instruction happens most to low-income students. In schools serving wealthier areas, teachers and parents make sure most students gain the skills and knowledge they need to succeed in college and life. Too often, poor kids in under-funded schools get little more than test coaching that does not adequately prepare them for further learning. In some schools, the library budget is spent on test prep materials, and professional development is reduced to training teachers to be better test coaches. All this further limits educational opportunities for low-income children.” Analysis: Not all learning is important, and tests divert resources away from the type of education that really makes a difference, useful skills with real world applicability as opposed to rote memorization geared to just one test. Make the analysis that the most comprehensive study done shows a very disparate impact on poor and minority children and that these are people that often can afford to be hurt the least
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Answer: Tests discriminate against many vulnerable groups. Warrant: Groups such as low-income students are hurt. "The Dangerous Consequences of High-Stakes Standardized Testing." The Dangerous Consequences of High-Stakes Standardized Testing. Center for Fair and Open Testing, 17 Dec. 2007. Web. 05 Nov. 2015. . “Some students simply do not test well. Many students are affected by test anxiety or do not show their learning well on a standardized test, resulting in inaccurately lower scores. Many students do not have a fair opportunity to learn the material on the test because they attend poorly-funded schools with large class sizes, too many teachers without subject area certification, and inadequate books, libraries, laboratories, computers and other facilities. These students are usually from low-income families, and many also suffer problems with housing, nutrition or health care. High-stakes tests punish them for things they cannot control.” Warrant: Language minorities are also hurt "The Dangerous Consequences of High-Stakes Standardized Testing." The Dangerous Consequences of High-Stakes Standardized Testing. Center for Fair and Open Testing, 17 Dec. 2007. Web. 05 Nov. 2015. . “Students with learning disabilities, whose first language is not English, or who attend vocational schools fail high-stakes tests far more frequently than do mainstream students. Some people say that it is unfair to students to graduate them if they have not been adequately educated. But if students do not have access to an adequate and equitable education, they end up being held accountable while the system is not. States must take responsibility and be held accountable for providing a strong educational opportunity for all.”
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Analysis: Many students lack the resources with which to prepare for tests. This means that even if the test is ostensibly fair, in reality it has a very disparate impact on the students. Again go back to the question ‘who does the government need to help the most’, and press the judge to answer the question with ‘the neediest’.
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PRO – Testing Saves Money Argument: By getting a head start on college classes, standardized advanced placement tests allow students to save money. Warrant: AP courses provide plenty of opportunity to get ahead on college credit. Reitano, Victoria. “Want to save thousands on tuition? Take AP classes in high school.” USA Today, November 20, 2011. < http://college.usatoday.com/2011/11/20/want-to-save-thousands-on-tuition-takeap-classes-in-high-school/> “AP courses allow students to earn credit for classes they take in high school through a test offered by the College Board (the makers of the SAT) at the end of the year. There are 34 courses offered by the College Board and most high schools offer at least one or two. There are usually prerequisites for the courses; for example, at my high school you had to have taken the “honors” courses from sophomore year in order to be eligible to take the AP courses in your junior and senior year. AP courses can get you two or three college classes, depending on your score. The exams are graded from 1-5 and then the universities have their own scale for determining the equivalent of each score. At most schools, it is usually free to take AP classes. The only spending involved may be on textbooks, study materials and the fee to take the AP exam. These costs don’t even compare to a full semester’s tuition. According to the CollegeBoard, research shows that students can save as much as $19,000 by taking these courses. Students can also use their AP scores towards academic scholarships at institutions and they can use the credits they receive to cover the basic courses every freshman has to take. In addition to allowing you to explore engaging courses before it’s time to declare a major, you also have the opportunity to study abroad or take less courses when it comes time to taking advantage of internships.”
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Warrant: Using those credits to graduate early saves money for college students. Snider, Susannah. “Earn College Credit in High School to Cut Undergrad Costs.” US News, May 12, 2015. < http://www.usnews.com/education/best-highschools/articles/2015/05/12/how-earning-college-credit-in-high-school-can-slashundergrad-costs> “The most straightforward way to monetize credits earned in high school is to use them to graduate early. Earning a diploma in four years or less helps students save money by avoiding an extra year of tuition, getting into the workforce faster and absorbing fewer tuition increases. But racing through college isn't best for every kind of student, say experts. "You’re not thinking about the real purpose of college," says Denise Pope, senior lecturer at Stanford University and co-founder of Challenge Success, a nonprofit organization that works to improve student well-being and engagement with learning. She suggests that students take college credit-earning courses in subjects that interest them and with teachers they enjoy studying with, not just to pad their college applications or save money. Some savings may be more incremental. Students who've earned two AP qualifying scores can save $2,000 by not paying for those credits, course books or supplies at a public college. And they could save $6,000 at a highercost private university, says Trevor Packer, senior vice president of AP and Instruction at College Board.” Warrant: By strategizing what AP classes a student takes, they can save tens of thousands of dollars. Ben Kaplan. “What We Talk About When We Talk About Reparations.” City of College Dreams. May 29 2014. “I took my first Advanced Placement (AP) course, a class in U.S. history, during my sophomore year of high school. Although my guidance counselor said the material would be challenging, she also said that if I worked hard and did well on the end-ofthe-year exam, I could impress college admissions officers and parley my score into
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future college credit. What my guidance counselor didn't tell me, however, was that maximizing the total tuition savings from such exams was easier said than done. The problem, I later discovered, was that each college had a different AP credit policy. While some accepted most AP tests, others accepted very few. Some awarded generous amounts of college credit; others were quite stingy. Because of these differences, it was possible to invest a lot of time taking AP exams and not save any money at all. Fortunately, there was another way: At the suggestion of an older student who had already been through the process, I researched the AP credit policies at prospective colleges while I was still a sophomore and junior. By doing this, I was able to strategically choose my subsequent AP courses and prepare for those exams that were likely to have the greatest financial return. The result: By the end of my senior year, I had earned enough AP credits to enter Harvard as a sophomore and save $30,000 in future college costs.” Warrant: Florida families save tens of millions of dollars each year. Matus, Ron. “AP classes save families money, but for taxpayers the jury is out.” Tampa Bay Times, October 30 2010.
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Warrant: More and more students pass these tests and earn college credit each year. Matus, Ron. “AP classes save families money, but for taxpayers the jury is out.” Tampa Bay Times, October 30 2010.
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A2 – Testing Saves Money Response: Students who fail the AP test lose money and gain no benefit. Warrant: Failure rates are on the rise. Simon, Stephanie. “AP classes failing students.” Politico, August 21 2013. “Taxpayers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years to nudge more students into Advanced Placement classes — but a close look at test scores suggests much of the investment has been wasted. Expanding participation in AP classes has been a bipartisan goal, promoted by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and by Republican governors including Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and John Kasich of Ohio. In the last five years, the federal government has spent $275 million to promote the classes and subsidize exam fees for low-income students; states have spent many millions more. Enrollment in AP classes has soared. But data analyzed by POLITICO shows that the number of kids who bomb the AP exams is growing even more rapidly. The class of 2012, for instance, failed nearly 1.3 million AP exams during their high school careers. That’s a lot of time and money down the drain; research shows that students don’t reap any measurable benefit from AP classes unless they do well enough to pass the $89 end-of-course exam. In its annual reports, the nonprofit College Board, which runs the Advanced Placement program, emphasizes the positive: The percentage of students who pass at least one AP exam during high school has been rising steadily. Because so many students now take more than one AP class, however, the overall pass rate dropped from 61 percent for the class of 2002 to 57 percent for the class of 2012. Even more striking: The share of exams that earned the lowest possible score jumped from 14 percent to 22 percent, according to College Board data.”
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Warrant: Those who fail are often more likely racial minorities, causing disproportionate economic harm to these groups. Simon, Stephanie. “AP classes failing students.” Politico, August 21 2013. “At least a dozen states now give schools incentives to offer AP classes and fill them up with students. One popular tactic: Awarding bonus points for high AP participation in the formulas that determine a school’s state rating. Some states give schools extra funds for textbooks or teacher training if they offer AP. Additional incentives come from popular media rankings of “best high schools,” which often give heavy weight to the percentage of students enrolled in AP classes. State and federal policy-makers have put special emphasis on enrolling more minority and low-income students, spending heavily to subsidize the exam fees for students who meet income guidelines. But many of those students lack the academic background they need to excel in a college-level course, Klopfenstein said. African-American students in the class of 2012 passed just 27 percent of the AP exams they took; Hispanic students passed 41 percent.” Warrant: There are no benefits to AP tests unless students pass them. Simon, Stephanie. “AP classes failing students.” Politico, August 21 2013. http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/education-advanced-placement-classestests-095723 “Advocates often argue that students benefit from being exposed to the high expectations of an AP class, even if they don’t pass the test. Yet there’s no proof that’s true. In fact, taking an AP class does not lead to better grades in college, higher college graduation rates, or any other tangible benefit — unless the student does well enough to pass the AP test, said Trevor Packer, a senior vice president at the College Board. In the past, the College Board has pointed to studies that found a correlation between taking an AP class, whatever the outcome, and succeeding in
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college. Yet that research was flawed because it didn’t control for other predictors of college success, such as family income or high-school grades, Packer said. More rigorous studies find benefits only for students who earn at least a 3 on the AP test. That means, Packer said, that hundreds of thousands of students enrolled in AP may be better served by lower-level classes that focus on building foundational skills. “We have no interest in collecting exam fees ,” he said, “if the kids are not going to benefit.” Those exam fees, however, continue to roll in. The nonprofit College Board, which also runs the SAT, reported net assets of $609 million at the end of fiscal year 2012, up from $491 million two years earlier.” Analysis: Since the only way to benefit financially from AP classes is if students pass the test, evidence showing that students are very likely to fail renders them useless. Not only are they financially harmful and a waste of time, but that harm is disproportionately inflicted upon those who need the most help within the education system. Response: Alternatives to standardized tests allow high school students to get ahead. Warrant: Online college courses can provide credit to high school students without standardized tests. Devon Haynie. “Consider Online College Courses in High School.” US News, July 16 2013. “In some cases, high school students can use online college courses to lower their overall higher education spending. Harvey, for example, was able to take online college courses for free through a dual credit program – an option that allows students to simultaneously earn high school and college credit. Many politicians and school officials have embraced the programs as a way to help students pay for college. "We know that participation in dual enrollment is increasing," says Melinda Karp, a senior research associate at the Community College Research Center at Columbia University's Teachers College. "All but four states have policies addressing it." Even students who don't have a dual credit program at their high
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(cont.) Devon Haynie. “Consider Online College Courses in High School.” US News, July 16 2013. school can use online college courses to their economic advantage, experts say. For example, students who plan on attending four-year institutions after high school can save money by taking online courses from community colleges, which typically charge lower tuition. Students can then transfer their community college credits to their four-year school.” Warrant: Federal financial aid can allow high school students to take college courses. Jonathan Lai. “New financial aid for high schoolers taking college credits.” Philly, November 4 2015. “A pilot program to expand federal financial aid to high school students taking college courses will make college more affordable and accessible for low-income students, local community college officials said. The U.S. Department of Education announced Friday that it would put up to $20 million in the Pell Grant program for up to 10,000 high school "dual enrollment" students in the 2016-17 school year. High school enrollment in specialized programs has fallen at some local colleges as costs have gone up. Pell grants would essentially subsidize those credits for lowincome students, potentially boosting the number of high school students who take the college courses and then pursue college degrees. "It's an absolutely terrific initiative," Paul Drayton, president of Rowan College at Burlington County, said Monday. "This is just another way for students and parents to address the affordability challenge," he said. "It's a shorter period of time, obviously, that they need to stay in college, therefore they're paying less. And they'll also be better prepared to take the college courses once they arrive on the campuses of the colleges of their choice." The Burlington County college will "absolutely" apply to join the Pell Grant pilot program,
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(cont.) Jonathan Lai. “New financial aid for high schoolers taking college credits.” Philly, November 4 2015. Drayton said. The school enrolls about 80 students a year in a dual enrollment program, under which high school students attend courses on its college campuses. An additional 2,000 or so students receive college credit through higher-level classes taught by teachers at the high schools. Drayton said the Pell Grant program could especially help firstgeneration students, who may not have an expectation of attending college. By taking college courses while still in high school, he said, those students get a taste of the college experience. David E. Thomas, dean of access and community engagement at Community College of Philadelphia, agreed. "It increases college access," he said. "There is mounting evidence that taking college courses during high school increases college readiness of students who would otherwise not be college-bound. "Many of those students who academically could do it have never had a model of doing it." By taking the college courses while still in high school, Thomas said, students can turn to either school for academic or social support. A student who may not know where to turn to for help in college can still talk to a high school guidance counselor, a teacher, or the principal. "It provides a dual layer of support for the student," Thomas said.Thomas said the cost of college had had a clear effect on enrollment. CCP had 541 students in its traditional dual enrollment program last year, taking 792 courses at a discounted rate of just under $100 a credit, or about $300 a course.” Analysis: Not only do AP tests actually not benefit most of those who take them, but there are less risky ways to get college credit: even if there is some risk of benefits from the Pro, there is a clearer link to those benefits on the Con.
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PRO – Higher Education Argument: Because students will be taking standardized tests in college, they will be more prepared if they grow up in an environment surrounding standardized tests. Warrant: Most high school students go to college. Klein, Rebecca. "This Is Why 12 Percent Of High School Graduates Don't Go To College." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 29 Sept. 2014. Web. 04 Nov. 2015. . “By the age of 26, just 12 percent of high school graduates have failed to enroll in a two or four-year college. Of this 12 percent, many are male, from the South and tend to come from the lower end of the socioeconomic scale, according to a new analysis from the National School Boards Association's (NSBA) Center for Public Education.” Warrant: Many professions require employees to take tests; standardized tests in k-12 education ensures students have the skills necessary to take those tests. Herbert, Walberg. "Stop the War Against Standardized Tests." Hoover Institution. N.p., 20 May 2011. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “K–12 students who practice demonstrating their knowledge and skills on standardized tests throughout their school career become better prepared to meet future educational, occupational, and professional goals. They will be ready for the standardized tests assessing complex achievement that are used for admission to selective colleges and graduate and professional schools. In addition, K–12 students will be prepared for tests required for occupational licensing for trades as well as for intellectually demanding professions such as law and medicine. The American Board of Internal Medicine, for example, uses multiple-choice, standardized tests to assess a physician’s judgment before he can be certified in an advanced medical specialty.”
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Warrant: Even students who don’t intend to attend college can use the skills learned from standardized testing in their respective job fields ACT. "Crisis at the Core." (n.d.): n. pag. 2004. Web. 4 Nov. 2015. . “ACT research shows that far too few graduates are ready for college-level work in English, math, or science—or for the workplace, where the same skills are now being expected of those who do not attend college. This assessment system can provide assistance to school districts in identifying the effectiveness of instructional programming and coursework at the high school level in preparing their students for college or the workplace.” Warrant: The more prepared students are for standardized tests, the better they will do in college and graduate school. Kuncel, Nathan, and Sarah Hezlett. Standardized Tests Predict Graduate Students’ Success (n.d.): n. pag. 8 May 2008. Web. 4 Nov. 2015. . “Standardized tests are effective predictors of performance in graduate school. Both tests and undergraduate grades predict important academic outcomes beyond grades earned in graduate school. Standardized admissions tests predict most measures of student success better than prior college academic records do. The combination of tests and grades yields the most accurate predictions of success.” Analysis: This is pretty straightforward. Specify that this argument is about tests when a student is IN college or a job, not the admissions process and it will be more unique.
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A2 – Higher Education Answer: Standardized tests do not prepare students for college Warrant: There is no correlation between test scores and success in college Strauss, Valerie. "What One College Discovered When It Stopped Accepting SAT/ACT Scores." Chicagotribune.com. N.p., 27 Sept. 2015. Web. 4 Nov. 2015. . “How can U.S. News rankings reliably measure college quality when their data-points focus primarily on the high school performance of the incoming class in such terms as GPA, SAT/ACT, class rank, and selectivity? These measures have nothing to do with the college's results, except perhaps in the college's aptitude for marketing and recruiting. Tests and rankings incentivize schools to conform to test performance and rankings criteria, at the expense of mission and innovation.” Warrant: Standardized tests only test basic knowledge, not college level thinking Sparks, Sarah. "Today's Tests Seen as Bar to Better Assessment." Education Week. N.p., 13 Nov. 2012. Web. 4 Nov. 2015. . “State tests do not measure the higher-order thinking, problem solving, and creativity needed for students to succeed in the 21st century. These tests, with only a few exceptions, systematically overrepresent basic skills and knowledge and omit the complex knowledge and reasoning we are seeking for college and career readiness.”
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Warrant: Colleges are moving away from standardized tests "Colleges and Universities That Do Not Use SAT/ACT Scores for Admitting Substantial Numbers of Students Into Bachelor Degree Programs." Colleges and Universities That Do Not Use SAT/ACT Scores for Admitting Substantial Numbers of Students Into Bachelor Degree Programs. Sept. 2015. Web. 4 Nov. 2015. . “This list includes institutions that are "test optional," "test flexible" or otherwise de-emphasize the use of standardized tests by making admissions decisions about substantial numbers of applicants who recently graduated from U.S. high schools without using the SAT or ACT. As the notes indicate, some schools exempt students who meet grade-point average or class rank criteria while others require SAT or ACT scores but use them only for placement purposes or to conduct research studies. Please check with the school's admissions office to learn more about specific admissions requirements, particularly for international or non-traditional students.”
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Warrant: A growing number of universities do not require standardized test scores Schworm, Peter. "SAT Losing Favor as More Mass. Colleges End Requirement - The Boston Globe." BostonGlobe.com. N.p., 6 Nov. 2015. Web. 4 Nov. 2015. . “With a backlash against high-stakes standardized tests growing, more colleges and universities are discarding the SAT as a requirement, as they question its ability to accurately predict college success. Hundreds of schools have eliminated the test requirement, including some two dozen this year alone. Most are small, private colleges, but this fall, two area public universities — the University of Massachusetts Lowell and Salem State University — joined the trend. Administrators for both schools say they expect to draw a more demographically diverse pool of applicants, including some who may have been discouraged from applying because of the SAT requirement.” Analysis: Tests don’t actually prepare for college tests because entry tests are not near as difficult and don’t correlate to success.
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PRO – Low Cost Testing Argument: Schools are not doing all they can to lower the costs of standardized testing. Standardized testing could be a lot cheaper. Warrant: Schools could reduce costs Topol, Barry. “Costs of new high quality assessments.” Scope | “Education Week.” 2010. Web. 5 Nov. 2015. . “One of the most important findings from the study is that the development costs of a new HQA are relatively inexpensive relative to the total cost of the assessment. A key factor in the sustainability of new improved assessments and whether or not states can adopt and use them will be the ongoing administration costs that need to be carefully managed. Among the results from the extensive collection of detailed cost analyses done for this study, it was found that total costs could be almost three times higher for the HQA than for the traditional assessment.”
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Warrant: Standardized testing is low cost already. Evers, and Walberg. "School Accountability." Google Books. N.p., 2002. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. .
“Table 10, the final table in this chapter, puts accountability costs into perspective using per-pupil spending. The table shows the actual share of per-pupil spending that is devoted to various states’ accountability systems. It also shows the actual share for the United States as a whole. The nation spends 0.06 percent (six-hundredths of 1 percent) of funds for elementary and secondary public schools on assessment. Although the states on the table include those with elaborate accountability programs, no state spends even 1 percent of its elementary and secondary school budget on accountability. The top spenders’ actual spending is about one-third of 1 percent of their public school budgets. In short, assessment accounts for a tiny, almost negligible portion of American school costs at present.”
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Warrant: Some states costs are higher than others because the fixed cost of standardized testing is spread around a smaller group of people Hoxby, Caroline. "The Cost of Accountability." (2002): n. pag. 2002. Web. 6 Nov. 2015. . “Less-populated states share the fixed costs of a system (especially an idiosyncratic system) over fewer pupils than large states do. At the low cost end, there are states like South Carolina ($1.79 per pupil) and Georgia ($4.74 per pupil). At the upper cost end, there are states like Delaware ($34.02 per pupil) and Maryland ($24.26 per pupil). Even acknowledging that it is likely that states like South Carolina understate the costs and that states overstate them, we have a good sense of the range. Just to keep things in perspective, note that even if every state had the per-pupil accountability costs that Delaware reports, their systems would still account for only 0.4 percent (less than one half of 1 percent) of per pupil expenditure on American public schools.” Warrant: Numbers of standardized testing revenues are skewed "Are We Getting a True Picture of an Industry in Transition?" Book Business. N.p., 1 Oct. 2007. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “There are numerous loose ends in the various reporting systems that make different organizations’ figures difficult to compare. For example, AAP data absorbs standardized test data in the college and elementary-high school (el-hi) markets in the overall sales reporting of educational publishers.”
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Warrant: State spending on standardized tests should be higher. "Strength in Numbers." Brookings Institution, Nov. 2012. Web. 6 Nov. 2015. . “We estimate that states nationwide spend upwards of roughly $1.7 billion on assessments each year, after adjusting the $669 million figure to (1) account for the fact that six percent of students are located in states for which we were unable to obtain data, (2) reflect spending on assessments not included in states’ primary assessment contracts, and (3) include state-level spending on assessment-related activities that are not contracted out. This seemingly large number amounts to only one-quarter of one percent of annual K-12 education spending. Were all statewide assessment activities to cease and the funding used to hire new teachers, the pupil-teacher ratio would only fall by 0.1 students. If instead the costs were devoted to an across-the-board pay increase for teachers, the average teacher would see her salary increase by one percent, or about $550. This relatively low level of spending on assessment, combined with concerns that the quality of tests in many states is not high enough to use them for high stakes purposes such as teacher evaluation, strongly suggests that states should seek efficiencies in order to absorb budgets cuts without compromising test quality or to free up resources that could be reinvested in upgrades to assessment systems.”
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A2 – Low Cost Testing Answer: Changing a testing process takes time, money, and resources Warrant: changing procedures requires intricate thought from policy makers and school administrators Stanford Center For Opportunity Policy In Education. "The Cost of New Higher Quality Assessments: A Comprehensive Analysis of the Potential Costs for Future State Assessment." Scope (n.d.): n. pag. 2012. Web. 5 Nov. 2015. . “However, states must be careful to design an efficient assessment system and understand its ongoing administration costs, as well as future state-budget allocations prior to committing to an innovative HQA and implementing it in their state. States also will need to think through the various management issues when forming and working with a state consortia as well as using teachers to score performance items. Professional help in all these areas is highly recommended.”
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Warrant: Case study example of a change in the school system not working "Reforming No Child Left Behind." The White House. The White House, n.d. Web. 05 Nov. 2015. . “An annual federal report released Thursday that found that 81 percent of Iowa schools are failing to make adequate yearly progress in reading and math is "fundamentally flawed," Iowa's education department director says. State Education Director Ryan Wise said the federal No Child Left Behind law has "unrealistic requirements that punish dedicated educators when their school falls short." The law requires 100 percent of students to perform at grade level. Instead, the most recent results show that 1,090 of Iowa's 1,336 schools fell short of their No Child Left Behind academic benchmarks. "I assure you, a majority of our schools are not failing," Wise said during a press call. "As an education system, we're focused on the right work."
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PRO – Measuring Achievement Argument: Test are an efficient and effective way to measure achievement Warrant: Tests diagnose a student’s level of learning Phelps, Richard. "Estimating the Costs and Benefits of Educational Testing Programs." Estimating the Costs and Benefits of Educational Testing Programs. Education Consumers, 2006. Web. 03 Nov. 2015. . "Perhaps the simplest, and least disputed, benefit of standardized tests is in diagnosis. Test results can pinpoint a student's academic strengths and weaknesses, areas that need work, and areas where help is needed. Test scores provide a measurement tool that can be used to judge the effectiveness of preexisting or proposed school programs Test results can inform teachers, schools, and school systems about their curricular and instructional strengths and weaknesses. That may lead to a better alignment of curriculum with instruction, a benefit often enumerated by teachers and administrators in evaluations of testing programs. Teachers have also reported that they learn more about their students, their own teaching, and other teachers' methods from high-stakes external tests."
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Warrant: Diagnostic Information leads to better education in the future. Phelps, Richard. "Estimating the Costs and Benefits of Educational Testing Programs." Estimating the Costs and Benefits of Educational Testing Programs. Education Consumers, 2006. Web. 03 Nov. 2015. . “Test results can inform teachers, schools, and school systems about their curricular and instructional strengths and weaknesses. That may lead to a better alignment of curriculum with instruction, a benefit often enumerated by teachers and administrators in evaluations of testing programs. Teachers have also reported that they learn more about their students, their own teaching, and other teachers' methods from high-stakes external tests.” Warrant: Tests by measuring benefits reward smart students. Wahlberg, Herbert. "Standardized Tests Effectively Measure Student Achievement." Galegroup, 2012. Web. 3 Nov. 2015. . “Standardized tests fairly and comprehensively measure student performance, thus directly benefiting students while holding teachers accountable. Students who study for a standardized test are more likely to complete their homework and watch less television than their peers. Thus, standardized test-taking develops habits that help students not only with the test but throughout life. While some teachers oppose standardized tests, most of their objections can be overcome through better test design and professional development programs.”
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Warrant: Many academic areas benefit from testing diagnostics Wahlberg, Herbert. "Standardized Tests Effectively Measure Student Achievement." Galegroup, 2012. Web. 3 Nov. 2015. . “Students benefit directly when they take tests that offer information on how well they have mastered the material intended for learning. School reading and mathematics skills, for example, can be precisely specified and as students learn the skills, they benefit from ongoing information tailored to their specific individual progress. Computers streamline this process by providing immediate feedback about correct and incorrect responses far more quickly and with much greater patience than teachers and tutors can provide. Other general skills can also be both taught and measured. Writing, for example, can be subdivided into rules of spelling and grammar as well as skills of organization and style. As students improve their writing, they benefit from quick, objective feedback that helps them assess their specific progress on each skill and sub-skill.”
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Warrant: The measurements tests conduct are fair and accurate Wahlberg, Herbert. "Standardized Tests Effectively Measure Student Achievement." Galegroup, 2012. Web. 3 Nov. 2015. . “Research and experience show that standardized tests are generally good at measuring students' knowledge, skills, and understanding because they are objective, fair, efficient, and comprehensive. For these reasons, they are used for decisions about admission to colleges, graduate programs, and professional schools as well as qualification and licensing for many skilled occupations and demanding professions such as law and medicine. Given the misleading information and expressed views of some politicians and union leaders, it is worthwhile to review here the more specific reasons for using standardized tests.” Analysis: This argument is one of the clearest links on the topic. Tests are the same for everyone, and by definition test knowledge. This is useful because it’s the only objective benchmark out there. Press your opponents for an alternative.
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A2 – Measuring Achievement Answer: Tests don’t measure the information students learn Warrant: Tests cover a small sample of learned information. Wahlberg, Herbert. "Standardized Tests Do Not Effectively Measure Student Achievement." Galegroup, 2012. Web. 3 Nov. 2015. http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/ViewpointsDetailsWindo w?query=&prodId=OVIC&contentModules=&dviSelectedPage=&displayGroup Name=Viewpoints&limiter=&disableHighlighting=&displayGroups=&sortBy=& search_within_results=&zid=&p=OVIC&action=2&catId=&activityType=&docu mentId=GALE%7CEJ3010478218&source=Bookmark&u=mlin_m_highrock&jsi d=49ea537c93a441192572947cf3e64898 “The second reason Koretz cites for the incompleteness of test scores as a measure of achievement [is as follows]: "Even in assessing the goals that can be measured well, tests are generally very small samples of behavior that we use to make estimates of students' mastery of very large domains of knowledge and skill." So apart from not doing a very good job of measuring achievement in such areas as creativity or persistence, standardized tests have another serious limitation: whenever a small part of a domain is made to stand in for the larger whole, we must be very careful about the inferences we draw from the data we obtain.”
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Warrant: Tests do not measure creative information. Wahlberg, Herbert. "Standardized Tests Do Not Effectively Measure Student Achievement." Galegroup, 2012. Web. 3 Nov. 2015. http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/ViewpointsDetailsWindo w?query=&prodId=OVIC&contentModules=&dviSelectedPage=&displayGroup Name=Viewpoints&limiter=&disableHighlighting=&displayGroups=&sortBy=& search_within_results=&zid=&p=OVIC&action=2&catId=&activityType=&docu mentId=GALE%7CEJ3010478218&source=Bookmark&u=mlin_m_highrock&jsi d=49ea537c93a441192572947cf3e64898
“Contrary to popular assumptions about standardized testing, the tests do a poor job of measuring student achievement. They fail to measure such important attributes as creativity and critical thinking skills. Studies indicate that standardized tests reward superficial thinking and may discourage more analytical thinking. Additionally, because of the small sample of knowledge that is tested, standardized tests provide a very incomplete picture of student achievement.”
Analysis: If tests don’t measure knowledge on what people need to learn, they can’t evaluate the associated learning experience. This can turn many of the links into better educational experience that pro teams may run.
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Answer: Tests Reward the Wrong Type of Thinking Warrant: Tests encourage shallow test geared thinking Wahlberg, Herbert. "Standardized Tests Do Not Effectively Measure Student Achievement." Galegroup, 2012. Web. 3 Nov. 2015. http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/ViewpointsDetailsWindo w?query=&prodId=OVIC&contentModules=&dviSelectedPage=&displayGroup Name=Viewpoints&limiter=&disableHighlighting=&displayGroups=&sortBy=& search_within_results=&zid=&p=OVIC&action=2&catId=&activityType=&docu mentId=GALE%7CEJ3010478218&source=Bookmark&u=mlin_m_highrock&jsi d=49ea537c93a441192572947cf3e64898 “Studies of students of different ages have found a statistical association between students with high scores on standardized tests and relatively shallow thinking. One of these studies classified elementary school students as "actively engaged if they went back over things they didn't understand, asked questions of themselves as they read, and tried to connect what they were doing to what they had already learned; and as 'superficially' engaged if they just copied down answers, guessed a lot, and skipped the hard parts. It turned out that the superficial style was positively correlated with high scores on the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills (CTBS) and Metropolitan Achievement Test (MAT). Similar findings have emerged from studies of middle school and high school students" Analysis: Standardized tests promote a mindset where students don’t learn material, but how to take tests more efficiently. This severs the link to increased learning because the new material just isn’t valuable
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PRO – Teaching to the Test Argument: By forcing children to study for tests, teachers are forced to cover important educational materials. Warrant: Tests cover whatever is in the given state standard, and should be taught for: ‘Teaching for the test’ is code for teaching for agreed upon standards "Testing: Frequently Asked Questions." Testing: Frequently Asked Questions. Department of Education, 17 Nov. 2004. Web. 01 Nov. 2015. http://www2.ed.gov/nclb/accountability/ayp/testing-faq.html "State assessments are expected to measure how well students meet the state's academic standards, which define what students should know and be able to do in different subject areas at different grade levels. Under the previous reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1994, states were required to develop or adopt standards in mathematics and in reading or language arts; No Child Left Behind requires states to do the same with science standards by 2006. Curriculum based on state standards should be taught in the classroom. If teachers cover subject matter required by the standards and teach it well, then students will master the material on which they will be tested--and probably much more. In that case, students will need no special test preparation in order to do well."
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Warrant: Teaching for a test can be a positive influence of the structure of education. "Standardized Tests and Their Impact on Schooling: Q&A." Standardized Tests and Their Impact on Schooling: Q&A. Center for Public Education, 16 Feb. 2006. Web. 01 Nov. 2015. http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/MainMenu/Instruction/High-stakes-testing-and-effects-on-instruction-At-aglance/Standardized-tests-and-their-impact-on-schooling-QA.html “Other observers find that teaching informed by the state test can have positive effects. Focusing the curriculum on essential content and skills. Eliminating activities that don’t produce learning gains. Motivating both teachers and students to exert more effort. Clearly some of the conflict between these statements is a difference of interpretation. What “narrowing the curriculum” is to some is “focusing” to others.” Warrant: A case study in Minnesota, educational professionals overwhelmingly supported the level of focus teaching for the test put on state standards Yeh, Stuart. "Limiting the Consequences for High Stakes Testing." E DUCATION P OLICY A NALYSIS A RCHIVES (n.d.): n. pag. University of Minnisota, 8 Oct. 2008. Web. 1 Nov. 2015. . “The results of this study suggest that teachers and administrators in the four Minnesota districts felt, by a two-to-one margin, that the overall impact of state-mandated testing in Minnesota is positive, consistent with survey results showing that 85 percent of teachers state-wide support the state’s exit exam (Draper, 2000). Within this majority group, teachers and administrators felt that the impact of the state tests on curriculum—focusing attention on basic skills at the 8th grade level and critical thinking skills at the elementary level—was appropriate.”
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Warrant: Institutional checks can help prevent ‘teaching for the test’ in the form of rote memorization. Yeh, Stuart. "Limiting the Consequences for High Stakes Testing." E DUCATION P OLICY A NALYSIS A RCHIVES (n.d.): n. pag. University of Minnisota, 8 Oct. 2008. Web. 1 Nov. 2015. . “All of the principals in this study asserted that they are opposed to teaching to the test— meaning isolated drills on the types of items expected on the test—and that their teachers understand this. The principals said that they would sanction any teacher caught teaching to the test. As a principal in an urban middle school put it: “We don’t look at the test and focus on what’s on there, and if I ever find a staff member who does, they’re in deep trouble.” This suggests that the principals in this study provided countervailing pressure against teaching to the test.” Analysis: This argument operates simply on the link level. Tests hold teachers to educational standards, and that teaching these agreed upon standards is the best way for kids to learn defiantly. Weighing wise, the case can be made that a state wide standard set upon by the democratic machine is always preferable to the individual arbitrary discretion of the instructor.
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A2 – Teaching to the Test Answer: Tests take away student creativity, which is critical to a well-rounded educational experience Warrant: The structure of tests rewards the absence of creativity Batt, Don. "Standardized Tests Are Killing Our Students' Creativity, Desire to Learn." The Denver Post. Denver Post, 3 Oct. 2013. Web. 01 Nov. 2015. . “Every day in class, the children are asked which answer is right, although the smarter children realize that sometimes there are parts of several answers that could be right. And they sit. And they write. Not to express their understanding of the world. Or to even form their own opinions about ideas they have read. Instead, they must dance the steps that they have been told are important: First, build your writing with a certain number of words, sentences, paragraphs; second, make sure your writing contains the words in the question; third, begin each part with "first, second," and "third." Warrant: The construction of these tests is also nonconductive to creativity Batt, Don. "Standardized Tests Are Killing Our Students' Creativity, Desire to Learn." The Denver Post. Denver Post, 3 Oct. 2013. Web. 01 Nov. 2015. . “There are those who are so immersed in the sea of testing that they do not see the figurative nature of language and naively think that the monster they have created is helping children. Or maybe they just think they are helping the test publishers (who also happen to write the textbooks, "aligned to the standards" that are sold to schools). Those test-creators live in an ocean of adult assumptions about how children use language — about how children reason. They breath in the water of their assumptions through the gills of their biases. But the children have no gills. They drown in the seas of preconceptions.”
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Analysis: Education is supposed to prepare people for the real world. What use is what we get in school if we trade off with the most important skill of all: creativity? Much book learning is useless unless it can be used creatively and applied to the modern economy. Answer: Teaching for the test sacrifices depth of knowledge Warrant: Tests incentivize cutting other curricula in favor of test material Berger, Brooke. "DONT TEACH THE TEST." US News. U.S.News & World Report, 11 Apr. 2013. Web. 01 Nov. 2015. . “From September until Christmas vacation, [Brookside] was like any school you would imagine. Then, once they got back from Christmas break, for the next nine weeks until testing began, it was a different animal. What they did was drop their curriculum, drop their texts, and instead study exclusively from a standardized-test prep book. Kids weren't getting a liberal arts education, but prepping to a very narrowly drawn standardized test in primarily language arts and math. Because they were interested in passing the test more than anything else, for that 22 percent of the school year, they taught primarily to the broad middle section of kids that were going to pass. Plus, the school went and reached out to those kids who they thought were on the cusp of possibly passing. So who gets left out? The kids at the bottom and the kids at the top.”
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Warrant: By using rigid benchmarks, tests don’t reward struggling students who work hard and improve a lot but still fail to meet test standards Berger, Brooke. "DONT TEACH THE TEST." US News. U.S.News & World Report, 11 Apr. 2013. Web. 01 Nov. 2015. . “Suppose you are a fifth grader and you walk into class at the beginning of the year reading at a high-second-grade level, and, sadly, that is not all that uncommon. Now that teacher carries you up to a mid-fourth-grade level. That's like a year-and-two-thirds jump in a year. Because [the Connecticut Mastery Test] tests fifth-grade levels, that kid got no credit for that advancement. Nor did the teacher, nor did the school. That school did a tremendous job, but they get nothing to show for it. On paper, idealistically, No Child Left Behind was a wonderful thought, but it wasn't put out there with any practical thought.” Analysis: This argument deals with the incentives tests put on teachers. First, tests coerce teachers into dropping broad parts of the course in favor of test material. On top of that, it becomes impossible to help struggling students because their needs are not taken into account. Use this to paint tests as closing educational doors for kids that need a well-rounded learning experience.
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PRO – Part of the Picture Argument: Lots of anti-standardized test advocates will claim relying on standardized tests is terrible for students and the education system as a whole. However, their claims ignore the fact that in almost all settings, standardized tests are just one piece of the puzzle in determining student success, achievement, and potential. Warrant: In a college setting, tests are used to predict the potential success of students in a post-baccalaureate degree program. Kuncel, Nathan M., and Sarah Hezlett. "Standardized Tests Predict Graduate Students’ Success." Standardized Tests Predict Graduate Students’ Success (n.d.): n. pag. The University of North Carolina. The University of Minnesota, 23 Feb. 2007. Web. 9 Nov. 2015. . “Accurately predicting which students are best suited for postbaccalaureate graduate school programs benefits the programs, the students, and society at large, because it allows education to be concentrated on those most likely to profit. Standardized tests are used to forecast which students will be the most successful and obtain the greatest benefit from graduate education in disciplines ranging from medicine to the humanities and from physics to law. However, controversy remains about whether such tests effectively predict performance in graduate school. Studies of standardized test scores and subsequent success in graduate school over the past 80 years have often suffered from limited sample size and present mixed conclusions of variable reliability.”
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Warrant: Although researchers have concluded that standardized test scores are better at reflecting student performance in graduate school than GPA and other factors, graduate schools also look at other parts of student achievement. Kuncel, Nathan M., and Sarah Hezlett. "Standardized Tests Predict Graduate Students’ Success." Standardized Tests Predict Graduate Students’ Success (n.d.): n. pag. The University of North Carolina. The University of Minnesota, 23 Feb. 2007. Web. 9 Nov. 2015. . “Standardized admission tests provide useful information for predicting subsequent student performance across many disciplines. However, student motivation and interest, which are critical for sustained effort though graduate education, must be inferred from various unstandardized measures including letters of recommendation, personal statements, and interviews. Additional research is needed to develop measures that provide more reliable information about these key characteristics. These efforts will be facilitated with more information about the actual nature of student performance. Researchers have examined a number of important outcomes but have not captured other aspects of student performance including networking, professionalism, leadership, and administrative performance. A fully specified taxonomy of student performance dimensions would be invaluable for developing and testing additional predictors of student performance. Results from a large body of literature indicate that standardized tests are useful predictors of subsequent performance in graduate school, predict more accurately than college GPA, do not demonstrate bias, and are not damaged by test coaching. Despite differences across disciplines in grading standards, content, and pedagogy, standardized admissions tests have positive and useful relationships with subsequent student accomplishments.”
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Warrant: While test scores are important for some institutions, over 900 colleges and universities in the US place little to no emphasis on standardized tests scores in the admission process; they care more about in-class performance. Test scores are just a “boost” to your application. Cohen, Kat. "The Truth About Standardized Tests: How They Affect Your College Application." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 13 Jan. 2013. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “While many students put most of their energy into acing standardized tests, in reality, grades and the rigor of a student's curriculum are the most important factors in a college application. Standardized test scores are often necessary, but not sufficient for determining admission on their own. Test scores need to be high enough to be in the "Let me think about it," pile instead of the "no" pile. As schools go from an admit rate of 20 percent to 10 percent, it becomes necessary to get an SAT/ACT score within the range of the averages at that school, or certain applications won't even be considered. That being said, how you perform day in and day out of the classroom over four years is much more important than how you performed for four hours on a Saturday morning, and admissions officers recognize this. While scores from every SAT test sitting are usually sent to the schools the student designates, students have the option of Score Choice. This means that students can choose which scores by test date they send to colleges (depending on the institution's score-use policy). So if a student does poorly on one sitting, he or she can either cancel the scores within a few days of taking the test (in this case scores will not be reported to the student or any institutions), or choose not to let a school see those scores later by using Score Choice. However, schools often prefer to look at all scores from all tests, not just the overall or composite score, and some may even calculate a "new" composite score made up of the highest scores from each section, even if they're from different testing dates. This is called "superscoring," and this often helps bump up the score. Different schools have different policies on superscoring and
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how scores are evaluated, so students should check with the admissions office prior to applying. Some students can hit a test-prep wall, and at IvyWise, we advise students not to take a test more than three times, as scores tend to plateau after the third attempt. So what should a student do when he or she has taken the test multiple times, but is still not within his or her goal-score? Today, there are more than 900 test-optional schools -- schools that place less, or no, emphasis on test scores when evaluating college applications. Those who are worried about bad scores but have good grades can go to FairTest.org for a list of test optional schools, including New York University, Colby College, Franklin and Marshall, University of Texas and Wake Forest University.” Warrant: Directors of admissions stress that scores don’t determine student worth, and point students who don’t excel at standardized tests towards universities that place less emphasis on them. "How Important Are Test Scores to College Applications?" US News. U.S.News & World Report, 14 Dec. 2011. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “Ralph Figueroa, director of college guidance, Albuquerque Academy There is no doubt that standardized tests are an important piece of the puzzle in helping colleges decide which applicants will do well if they are admitted. In fact, the importance placed on tests has grown in recent years. Still, the test scores are just one piece of the puzzle and do not define you as a student or person. Whether they are really good, not so good, or somewhere in the middle, don't let them be more important than they are. Remember the amazing colleges that are test optional (www.fairtest.org) and let your scores just be what they are.”
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Warrant: The amount of weigh a college places on test scores can range from 0-80 percent, but it’s college specific. "How Important Are Test Scores to College Applications?" US News. U.S.News & World Report, 14 Dec. 2011. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “Pamela Ellis, founder, Compass Education Strategies LLC The weight of standardized test scores relative to other pieces of the application can range from 0 percent to 80 percent. As part of the college research process, students should determine this weight based on where they're applying. It is very college specific. A number of colleges are test optional, which means that the scores carry no weight at all. For example, if a college uses test scores to determine merit aid, then that's important to know when deciding whether to retake. Even for colleges that use a computer rubric to determine admissions, scores are not all that matters when the high school courses take precedence.” Analysis: So this argument may not seem to make sense at first, but just bear with me. So most of the con arguments will be talking about how standardized tests are terrible and awful ways to determine student achievement and performance. This whole argument functions as a block with offense. Sure, tests are kind of important, but for the most part they’re one part of the whole picture. Use some cards from the “tests are objective” argument and then some of these cards to build the story that 1. The tests work and are good and accurate ways of measuring student performance and 2. Higher levels of education realize that’s just one part of the picture; students are given other options if they’re terrible at tests. But on the whole, standardized tests are a good indicator of student performance.
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A2 – Part of the Picture Answer: Standardized tests aren’t good indicators of intelligence Warrant: High test scores aren’t an indication of intelligence, but rather that kids are good at taking tests. Olson, Samantha. "Standardized Tests Don't Reveal How Smart You Are." Medical Daily. 02 Mar. 2015. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “Tests are harder, students’ scores are rising, and yet it doesn’t really mean we’re evolving into a more intelligent society. A new study published in the journal Intelligence, reveals compounding evidence that students are becoming better at standardized test taking, but not necessarily becoming any smarter. Researchers from King's College London studied 64 years of test scores from 48 countries and found a rise in IQ, but it isn’t what it seems. The average intelligence rose 20 IQ points since 1950, which would lead us to believe that means the students of today are smarter than their grandparents once were. Developing countries made far more strides in intellectual improvements, especially in China, India, and the United States, which is a reflection on an increase of classroom time and newer teaching methods. However, rising IQ scores and school performance are not equal. Instead, students have just become better at handling the pressure of tests and tactics to improve performance. The recent study is adding to an accumulation of proof that throughout the years IQ scores have been improving, which is evidence of the "Flynn Effect." Psychologist and philosopher James Flynn, from the University of Otago in New Zealand, found the trend over 30 years ago when analyzing old American IQ test manuals that changed every 25 years. "And I noticed in all the test manuals, in every instance, those who took the old test got a higher score than they did on the new test," Flynn said.
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It isn’t that we’re necessarily smarter than grandma and grandpa were in the early 1900s, according to Flynn, but more that we are being challenged in a different way. Problem solving and reasoning abilities have improved, but the brain’s general functionality is no more superior than our ancestors. However, this highlights a significant problem in test taking, where the tests are getting harder and students are getting better at taking them — but it doesn’t mean they’re any smarter.” Warrant: The education value and intelligence gained from research and thought-provoking questions is nearly impossible to measure. In order to understand and create any type of measurement of the education system in the US, standardized testing was born. It’s a way to circumvent the idea that true intelligence is nearly impossible to measure. Strauss, Valerie. "The Important Things Standardized Tests Don’t Measure." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 1 Mar. 2015. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “As my students were taking their seats, Myrna, sitting near my desk, said she’d just read a magazine article about secret societies in high school. What, she asked, did I know about them? I knew nothing—had never even heard of them—but the matter was interesting enough to quickly engage my eleventh-grade English class, so I let the conversation continue. Someone suggested making it a research project and I told them to have at it. The school library wasn’t much help, but somebody figured out how to contact the student editor of the school newspaper in a town mentioned in the article and wrote her a letter. She answered, other contacts were made, and kid-to-kid communication began. How did the societies get started? Who joined them? Why? How? Did they create problems? If so, what kind? Were the societies more than just temporary cliques? How were teachers and administrators reacting? Answers generated more questions. My students thought, wrote, took sides, argued, learned. I mostly watched. That happened in a class in a semi-rural high school in northeastern Ohio many decades ago. I’d be willing to bet that if any of the participants remember anything about the class, that research
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(cont.) Strauss, Valerie. "The Important Things Standardized Tests Don’t Measure." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 1 Mar. 2015. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . project would be it. I wasn’t smart enough to realize it at the time, but I was seeing a demonstration of something extremely important, that real learning is natural and inherently satisfying. Myrna’s question kicked off genuine learning—self-propelled and successful not because the work was rigorous and the kids had grit, but because it was driven by curiosity, because satisfaction was immediate, because it was realworld rather than theoretical, because it was concrete rather than abstract, because it required initiative and action, and because it was genuinely important, dealing as it did with complex social and psychological issues shaping human behavior. Even if it leads to dead ends, research—at least for the learner pursuing it—is intellectually productive. It’s also, obviously, non-standard. The skills it develops and the insights it yields aren’t predictable, even to those engaged in it. That’s one of the reasons standardized tests assembled in the office cubicles of Pearson, McGraw-Hill and other test manufacturers can’t do the job that most needs doing. They can’t measure and attach a meaningful number to the quality of original thought. Arthur Costa, emeritus professor at California State University, summed up the thrust of current test-based “reform” madness: “What was educationally significant and hard to measure has been replaced by what is educationally insignificant and easy to measure. So now we measure how well we taught what isn’t worth learning.” The truth of that isn’t acknowledged by Jeb Bush, Bill Gates, Lou Gerstner, Arne Duncan and other business leaders and politicians responsible for initiating and perpetuating the standardized, high-stakes testing craziness. They either can’t see or won’t admit the shallowness of their claim that “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Challenged, they dismiss those who disagree with them as defenders of the status quo. Using the scores on standardized tests to shape the life chances of kids, determine the pay and reputations of teachers, gauge the quality of school administrators, establish the worth of neighborhood schools, or as an excuse to hand public schools over to private, profit-taking corporations is, at the very least, irresponsible. If, as it appears, it’s a sneaky scheme to privatize America’s public schools without broad public dialogue, it’s unethical.”
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Analysis: This is another really long card, but it has several good warrants. The story Strauss starts off with is really interesting. She tells the story of this girl who asks a question that the teacher doesn’t know the answer for; this starts a whole class research project. The point of this true story is that Strauss points out the intelligence gained during that research and debate process isn’t easily quantifiable. (Think about the educational experience from debate – it’s really hard to quantify it.) To get around this, the government created standardized tests, which don’t really measure intelligence. They measure the ability of students to regurgitate information and pick the correct bubble answer. Our government quit trying to find a way to measure intelligence and took the easy way out with standardized tests.
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PRO – Class Time Argument: Standardized tests require less class time than other tests, making them more efficient. Warrant: Standardized tests consume less class time than other achievement tests Herbert, Walberg. "Stop the War Against Standardized Tests." Hoover Institution. N.p., 20 May 2011. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “A 50-item standardized test can be given in an hour or so and sample students’ knowledge, understanding, and skills far more comprehensively than an essay test with only a few questions that can be answered in the same amount of time. This is not to say that students need no practice in writing, but such practice is better as a classroom exercise, a homework activity, or a term paper rather than an objective assessment of the many aspects of learning.”
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Warrant: Standardized testing more efficient time consumers because they can all be scored by machine. Sloan, Kris. "Holding Schools Accountable." Google Books. N.p., 2007. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “Multiple-choice standardized tests, which can be recorded using computers and are far more time efficient and far less costly than tests that are more open ended or essay assessments that need to be scored individually by humans.” Warrant: More class time means that there is more time to prepare for standardized tests O'Connor, John. "Students Benefit From More Class Time, If Used Wisely." Florida RSS. N.p., 8 Aug. 2012. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “Students who spend more time in class will perform better in class and on standardized tests. But schools must focus on individual student needs, assessment and staff training. That’s the conclusion of a National Center on Time and Learning report looking at programs in 30 schools which add time to the school day or extend the calendar beyond the traditional 180 days.”
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Warrant: More class time could mean more time to spend on non-tested subjects. "Choices, Changes, and Challenges: Curriculum and Instruction in the NCLB Era." Center on Education Policy, Dec. 2007. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “71% of districts had reduced instructional time in elementary schools in at least one subject to make more time for English language arts or math (CEP, 2006). In an effort to more precisely explain this reported decrease, we asked a more detailed question in the year 5 survey. This year, 44% of districts reported that since 2001-02, they have decreased the time in elementary schools devoted to subjects and activities other than ELA and math (social studies, science, art and music, physical education, lunch, and recess). The decreases reported by these districts this year were relatively large, totaling an average of 145 fewer minutes per week across all of these subjects, or nearly 30 minutes per day on average. The average decrease represented nearly a third (32%) of the total instructional time devoted to these subjects before NCLB took effect.” Analysis: Opponents will complain about how much time standardized testing takes, but of all testing, it takes up the least amount of time. This leaves more time for learning and studying for standardized tests.
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A2 – Class Time Answer: Testing isn’t an important use of time. Warrant: Testing in the first place is unnecessary "Here's Why We Don't Need Standardized Tests." Education Week. N.p., 8 July 2014. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “Standardized tests are unnecessary because they rarely show what we don't already know. Ask any teacher and she can tell you which students can read and write. That telling usually comes in the form of letter grades or evaluations that break down progress on skills. So trust the teacher. Publish grade distributions. Locally publish a compilation of evaluation reports. Release a state or national report reviewed and verified by expert evaluators with legislative oversight.” Warrant: Studying for tests take up class time. "Students, Teachers Sweating Tests." NY Daily News. N.p., 3 May 2011. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “Many students took test prep packets home over the spring break. At Harlem Success Academy IV, students came to school during the vacation for test prep, teachers said. PS 151 in Woodside, Queens, has devoted three periods a day to test prep since March. Third-grade teacher Sam Coleman said his Brooklyn elementary school has been spending 2-1/2 hours a day prepping since March.”
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Warrant: Teachers think there is too much testing. "Students, Teachers Sweating Tests." NY Daily News. N.p., 3 May 2011. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “Jeffrey Cipriani teaches second grade at Orchard Gardens K-8 Pilot School in Boston. Even though his students are not in a grade that is required by federal law to be tested, the Boston Public Schools has him administer reading tests to his students three times a year. Because the tests are individual and can be as long as 90 minutes, it takes Cipriani about three weeks to test the whole class. “It’s a colossal amount of time,” he said. “I probably spend about 60 hours not teaching reading but just sort of giving those assessments. They’re valuable but not that valuable.” Analysis: The answer to this question would just be a numbers debate and will likely end up as a wash, I would use your best general block to lower the magnitude of the argument so you still win, instead of a wash.
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PRO – School Quality Argument: Standardized tests help schools improve themselves. Warrant: No Child Left Behind testing ensures effective schooling Dynarski, Mark. "Improving Accountability in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act." Brookings Institute. Feb 5 2015. Web. 6 Nov. 2015.
“Debates on reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) have focused on its requirement that districts give annual reading and math tests to students in third through eighth grades. On their own, tests just provide scores, but under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), a lack of growth in scores has consequences. Those consequences have fueled the debates about testing. The NCLB scheme of consequences was designed fifteen years ago. Schools (or whole districts) that were failing to improve test scores had to, first create an improvement plan, then offer parents the choice for their child to attend a betterperforming school, then offer tutoring after school for students who were not performing well (along with offering choice), and, lastly, restructure schools that failed to improve five years in a row (along with offering choice and supplemental services). Two aspects of this scheme stand out. One is that only the first (planning for improvement) and last (restructuring) are about the school. A school that offers parental choice and supplemental services can continue to do whatever it was doing in its classrooms: same teachers, same principal, same materials. Having parents move their children to other schools might induce schools to try to improve to be more competitive and attractive to parents, but a school could ignore these forces. And supplemental
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services are delivered during after-school hours, usually by third-party organizations, and schools could ignore those too. Research from the last fifteen years offers evidence about NCLB and the ways its consequences might be reconfigured to be more impactful. Hanushek and Raymond (2005) showed that having consequences improved test scores. Before NCLB, some states had accountability schemes with consequences and others had accountability schemes without consequences (the states only posted score results without tying them to penalties or rewards). Hanushek and Raymond showed that test scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) rose in states that had consequential accountability but not in states that had what they called ‘report card’ accountability. Dee and Jacob (2010) compared NAEP scores in states that changed their accountability schemes to meet the requirements of NCLB—which in practice meant making consequences stricter—and showed that test scores rose more in these states than in states that did not have to change their consequences (because they already fit with NCLB’s requirements).” Warrant: Teacher evaluation far less effective without testing Dynarski, Mark. "Improving Accountability in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act." Brookings Institute. Feb 5 2015. Web. 6 Nov. 2015. “The same line of research also found that it is hard to predict which teachers will be high performers. The best predictors of teacher effectiveness are how a teacher has already performed, and how long he has been teaching. Generally, high performers stay high performers. A massive study of teaching funded by the Gates Foundation had a related finding. On typical measures that schools use to observe teachers in classrooms, high performers had high ratings on all dimensions.
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Warrant: Teacher evaluation far less effective without testing (continued) Dynarski, Mark. "Improving Accountability in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act." Brookings Institute. Feb 5 2015. Web. 6 Nov. 2015. The fix, then, for schools performing poorly is straightforward but not practical: gauge effectiveness for all teachers in a district, and move high performers to lowperforming schools. The Institute of Education Sciences tested something like this approach on a small scale. As part of its study, high-performing teachers were offered financial incentives to move to low-performing schools. Only one or two teachers were moved to any one school. The study found that high performers resulted in an improvement of an entire grade level’s test scores. If the high performer were a fifth grade teacher, for example, the entire fifth grade improved its test scores from fourth to fifth grade. The high performer’s class generally improved the most, but that improvement was so large it was enough to move the whole grade level up. This fix is about as low-risk as one can get to improve performance of a whole school, like ensuring the U.S. wins an Olympic gold medal in basketball by putting ten NBA allstars on its team. It’s hard to imagine doing this fix on a large scale, however. A practical though possibly less effective approach would be for low-performing schools to increase skills of their teachers. Upskilling quickly means bringing in skilled teachers as overseers or mentors, possibly transferring weak teachers out of schools and bringing in high performers, as noted already, or providing materials or technologies that improve teacher skills directly or indirectly. This is not “teacher professional development” as it’s usually understood. But a school facing consequences right now has little time for its teachers to attend classes, in-service workshops, or summer institutes. A manufacturing company facing bankruptcy because it is producing defective products does not send its employees to the local community college to take courses. It locates the cause of the defects and fixes them as soon as it can.”
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December 2015
Argument: Testing levels the playing field. Warrant: Tests are universal, and therefore provide an equal evaluation of all students. Camara, Wayne. "Testing levels playing field: Front Burner." The Orlando Sentinel. Mar 7 2014. Web. 6 Nov. 2015. < http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2014-0307/news/os-ed-standardized-testing-front-burner-pro-20140306_1_students-andteachers-two-students-given-test>. “Scientific studies show the ACT, which is used by all four-year colleges as one component in admissions, predicts college success for all groups of students and provides a consistent means of measuring student skills in core academic areas. Certainly students who are exposed to more-rigorous curricula, enriched home environments, and better instruction perform better than students without those advantages. Tests simply reflect the realities that these students, on average, also succeed at far higher rates in college or the workplace. Standardized tests provide a level playing field. Contrast the value of a national test with the vast array of state-specific tests. For example, states near the bottom of the rankings for the National Assessment of Educational Progress report much higher rates of success on their own tests than with the national measure. In a similar vein, two students in different algebra classrooms may have each earned an A, but that doesn't mean they have mastered the same skills. The rigor of their course work and the rubrics of their teachers may have differed substantially — as these students may discover during their next math classes or first jobs.” Analysis: Rich schools will realistically monopolize the benefits of standardized testing, but this is true of almost all educational resources. With standardized testing, there is a simpler way to ensure that schools are meeting their benchmarks. Teachers and students are all on a similar path, providing an easy way to compare and contrast. This argument is most effective if debaters can demonstrate that schools will positively change in the aftermath of testing.
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A2 – School Quality Answer: Standardized tests are unfair to schools with less resources. Warrant: Standardized tests treat all schools equally, inevitably harming underperforming schools. Thompson, Van. "Do Standardized Test Scores Factor in to How Much Money a School Will Receive?" The Global Post. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Nov. 2015. < http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/standardized-test-scores-factor-much-moneyschool-receive-25534.html > ““While schools don't have to administer annual achievement tests, they'll lose funding if they don't. Local school districts determine test content, but with the recent push toward meeting Common Core standards, states' tests are becoming more standardized. A school that consistently fails to meet adequate yearly progress standards may not be able to access some grants and other forms of funding. After five years of failure to meet AYP standards, a school can be closed altogether.”
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December 2015
Answer: Testing can lose funding overall Warrant: Testing has many up-front costs. Schwartz, Katrina. "Can Schools Be Held Accountable Without Standardized Tests?" KQED News. N.p., 2 Apr. 2014. Web. 8 Nov. 2015. . “The focus on scoring well on standardized tests has wedged educators into a difficult spot. Teachers are concerned that a poor showing on the tests will jeopardize school funding, or even their jobs, and often feel they have to suspend everything else in order to focus on test prep. Putting so much energy into one assessment — one that doesn’t give teachers and students any granular, actionable information — takes resources, time, and energy away from other kinds of rich learning experiences.” Analysis: Realistically, schools aren’t bad because they fail standardized tests. The test merely is an indicator of quality, and shouldn’t be used as a metric that guides funding decisions. If bad schools truly are less likely to succeed on tests, they will inevitably be bankrupted by the loss of grants and funding.
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December 2015
CON – Student Performance Argument: Scores on standardized tests do not accurately reflect student’s intellectual ability or potential. Warrant: Higher test scores are caused by better test preparation, not by more knowledge that can be applied elsewhere. French, Dan “A New Vision of Authentic Assessment to Overcome the Flaws in High Stakes Testing” in Middle School Journal; National Middle School Association; Vol 35, No. 1; Sept 2003 “Standardized tests are also poor predictors of how well students can apply the knowledge that they do demonstrate on these tests. A recent study examined data from 18 states that have implemented high stakes testing programs to assess whether students gained any knowledge that they could apply elsewhere, other than learning the necessary facts for performing on a state’s high stakes test. (Amrein and Berliner, 2002). They concluded that, “Analyses of these data reveal that if the intended goal of high stakes testing policy is to increase student learning, then that policy is not working. While a state’s high stakes test may show increased scores, there is little support in these data that such increases are anything but the result of test preparation and/or the exclusion of students from the testing process” (Amrein and Berliner, p. 2).”
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Warrant: Standardized test scores are terrible at predicting student’s future success. French, Dan “A New Vision of Authentic Assessment to Overcome the Flaws in High Stakes Testing” in Middle School Journal; National Middle School Association; Vol 35, No. 1; Sept 2003 “Most importantly, standardized test scores are far from an accurate predictor of how students will do in later life, even as they take on the draconian role of determining a student’s future life opportunities in many of our states. As former Harvard and Princeton presidents Derek Bok and William Bowen attest in their book The Shape of the River: [They] researched what became of 700 African-American students who would have been bumped out of their chosen schools [based solely] on test scores. About 70 of the freshmen became doctors, about 60 became lawyers, about 125 became business executives, more than 225 earned professional degrees or doctorates, more than 300 are leaders of civic activities. The average [annual] earnings of the 700 are more than $71,000. “Taken together, grades and scores predict only 15 to 20 percent of the variance among all students in academic performance and a smaller percentage among black students.” (as cited in Jackson, 1999, p.A23)”
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Warrant: Standardized testing not only ignores important attributes that are important for success, but the tests also encourage and reward superficial thinking. Harris, Phillip, Joan Harris, and Bruce M. Smith. "Standardized Tests Do Not Effectively Measure Student Achievement." Standardized Testing. Ed. Dedria Bryfonski. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2012. At Issue. Rpt. from "Chapter 3: The Tests Don't Measure Achievement Adequately." The Myths of Standardized Tests: Why They Don't Tell You What You Think They Do. 2011. 33-45. Web. 4 Nov. 2015. “Studies of students of different ages have found a statistical association between students with high scores on standardized tests and relatively shallow thinking. One of these studies classified elementary school students as "actively engaged if they went back over things they didn't understand, asked questions of themselves as they read, and tried to connect what they were doing to what they had already learned; and as 'superficially' engaged if they just copied down answers, guessed a lot, and skipped the hard parts. It turned out that the superficial style was positively correlated with high scores on the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills (CTBS) and Metropolitan Achievement Test (MAT). Similar findings have emerged from studies of middle school and high school students."(Emphasis in original.) So by ignoring attributes that they can't properly assess, standardized tests inadvertently create incentives for students to become superficial thinkers—to seek the quick, easy, and obvious answer. That's hardly an "achievement" that most parents want for their children.”
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December 2015
Warrant: Each state develops its own NCLB standards and assessments, providing no basis for meaningful comparison. Rizga, Kristina. "What Standardized Tests Miss." Mother Jones. The Foundation for National Progress, 09 May 2011. Web. 04 Nov. 2015. . “Every spring since 2001, students in 3rd to 11th grades in the US sit down to take standardized tests, which are federally mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act. But how standard can standardized testing really be, when each state decides which basic "standards"—or lessons—to teach, and how to test students' knowledge of them? In California schools, standardized tests consist of multiple-choice questions only (except for a short written assignment in fourth and seventh grade). Ideally, standards and tests are rigorous. In reality, Mission High teachers believe the quality of the "multiple choice" tests in California is very low, and doesn't measure the achievement of its diverse student population.” Analysis: This argument does a good job of showing that standardized tests are generally unreliable and inconsistent, which the Con can use to respond to many Pro arguments and deconstruct their links. The Con can use this argument to make both short-term and long-term impacts. For example, the Con could argue that standardized tests are harmful in the short-term because they do not increase the knowledge of students. Over the long-term, the Con could argue the fact that standardized tests encourage superficial thinking will degrade the entire society’s ability to think critically and think of creative solutions to new problems.
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A2 – Student Performance Answer: Overtime, standardized tests have become better at accurately measuring student’s intellectual capability and predicting future success. Warrant: Standardized tests are efficient ways to assess learning and preparation for college, especially when paired with the other information on the application. Moses, Michele S., and Michael J. Nanna. "The Testing Culture and the Persistence of High Stakes Testing Reforms." Education and Culture 23.1 (2007): 55-72. The Journal of the John Dewey Society. Purdue University Press. Web. 4 Nov. 2015. . “In addition to being seen as an efficient way to assess learning and progress, standardized tests have tremendous administrative appeal and can be cost-effective when processing large amounts of information. For example, college and standardized graduate school admissions test scores are often used in tandem with other selection criteria to screen applicants for admission with the ultimate goal of selecting students who will most likely successfully complete a program of study.” Warrant: Standardized tests are reliable and objective measures of student achievement. "Pro and Cons of Standardized Testing." Columbia University Office of Work/Life School and Child Care Search Service, Spring 2013. Web. 03 Nov. 2015. . “Standardized tests are objective in nature. Classroom grades given by a teacher are at the very least minimally subjective in nature. Standardized tests are often scored by computers or at the very least scored by people who do not directly know the student. They are also developed by experts and each question undergoes an intense process to remove bias.”
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Warrant: 93% of studies on student testing found a "positive effect" on student achievement. Phelps, Richard P. "The Effect of Testing on Student Achievement, 1910–2010." International Journal of Testing 12.1 (2012): 21-43. Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 23 Jan. 2012. Web. 04 Nov. 2015. . “This article summarizes research on the effect of testing on student achievement as found in English-language sources, comprising several hundred studies conducted between 1910 and 2010. Among quantitative studies, mean effect sizes range from a moderate d ≈ 0.55 to a fairly large d ≈ 0.88, depending on the way effects are aggregated or effect sizes are adjusted for study artifacts. Testing with feedback produces the strongest positive effect on achievement. Adding stakes or frequency also strongly and positively affects achievement. Survey studies produce effect sizes above 1.0. Ninety-three percent of qualitative studies analyzed also reported positive effects.” Warrant: Standardized tests now encourage more critical thinking and are getting better at testing student’s knowledge. Mitchell, Ruth. "A Guide to Standardized Testing: The Nature of Assessment." A Guide to Standardized Testing: The Nature of Assessment. The Center for Public Education, 15 Feb. 2006. Web. 04 Nov. 2015. . “A few years ago it was justifiable to criticize multiple-choice testing because it seemed reductive (Mitchell, 1992). Critics charged that the questions focused on memorized facts and did not encourage thinking. However, test designers took up the challenge to make more sophisticated multiple-choice tests. In many cases multiplechoice tests now require considerable thought, even notes and calculations, before choosing a bubble.”
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December 2015
Warrant: Scores on standardized tests reflect skills that are important for achievement on the test as well as increased success in life. Walberg, Herbert J. "Standardized Tests Effectively Measure Student Achievement." Standardized Testing. Ed. Dedria Bryfonski. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2012. At Issue. Rpt. from "Stop the War Against Standardized Tests." Defining Ideas: A Hoover Institution Journal (20 May 2011). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 4 Nov. 2015. “Comparative studies by John Bishop of Cornell University provide evidence of the learning value of standardized tests. In one study, he found that countries requiring students to take nationally standardized tests showed higher test scores on international tests than those in countries not requiring such tests. In a second study, Bishop found that U.S. students who anticipated having to pass a standardized test for high school graduation learned more science and math, were more likely to complete homework and talk with their parents about schoolwork, and watched less television than their peers who were not required to pass such exams. These constructive activities encourage students to concentrate on meeting standards and monitoring their own time and progress—skills important for not only increased achievement but also increased success in life.” Analysis: Many of the Con’s problems with standardized tests are based on old methods of testing. As a result, Pro teams can use these answers to demonstrate that the Con’s harms are not inherent to standardized tests and changes can mitigate these problems. Pro teams can use this evidence to show that, already, test makers have changed the tests to more accurately measure a student’s knowledge, intellectual capability, and skills that are important for success later in life.
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CON – The Achievement Gap Argument: With the focus on standardized testing, low-income, minority, and disabled students are more likely to be denied further educational opportunities. As a result, these students fall further behind, thereby exacerbating the achievement gap. Warrant: Low-income and minority students are hurt the most by the emphasis on standardized test scores. "How Standardized Testing Damages Education (Updated July 2012)." FairTest. The National Center for Fair and Open Testing, 28 Aug. 2007. Web. 03 Nov. 2015. . “Students from low-income and minority-group backgrounds, English language learners, and students with disabilities, are more likely to be denied diplomas, retained in grade, placed in a lower track, or unnecessarily put in remedial education programs. They are more likely to receive a "dumbed-down" curriculum, based heavily on rote drill and test practice. This ensures they will fall further and further behind their peers. Many drop out, some ending up in the “school-to-prison pipeline.” On the other hand, children from white, middle and upper income backgrounds are more likely to be placed in "gifted and talented" or college preparatory programs where they are challenged to read, explore, investigate, think and progress rapidly.”
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Warrant: Tracking students via standardized testing only hurts low-scoring students. "How Standardized Testing Damages Education (Updated July 2012)." FairTest. The National Center for Fair and Open Testing, 28 Aug. 2007. Web. 03 Nov. 2015. . “Tracking generally hurts slower students but does not help more advanced students. Too often, the assumption is that low-scoring students need low-level remediation rather than enrichment, challenge and support. Retention in grade, flunking or holding a student back, is almost always academically and emotionally harmful. It generally does not lead to sustained academic improvement, lowers student self-esteem, and leads to dropping out.” Warrant: Racial stereotype threat negatively influences minorities’ performance on standardized tests. Steele, Claude M. "Stereotype Threat Versus Self-Fulfilling Prophecy." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, Aug. 1999. Web. 03 Nov. 2015. . “THIS finding, I believe, tells us two important things. The first is that the poorer college performance of black students may have another source in addition to the one -lack of good preparation and, perhaps, of identification with school achievement -that is commonly understood. This additional source -- the threat of being negatively stereotyped in the environment -- has not been well understood. The distinction has important policy implications: different kinds of students may require different pedagogies of improvement.”
Champion Briefs
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Warrant: Empirical evidence emphasizing standardized tests widens the achievement gap. French, Dan “A New Vision of Authentic Assessment to Overcome the Flaws in High Stakes Testing” in Middle School Journal; National Middle School Association; Vol 35, No. 1; Sept 2003 “The numbers are more disturbing when disaggregated by race. Less than half of all Black and Latino students who were in eighth grade in 1998 and are members of the graduating class of 2003 have passed the MCAS as of spring 2002. Latino students are four times as likely, and Black students are three times as likely to fail the MCAS as are White students. Low-income students are three times as likely to fail the MCAS as are their more affluent peers (Wheelock and Haney, 2002). Disturbingly, a study has found that the MCAS reflects an increased disparity in achievement by race when compared to student’s performance in classrooms. The achievement gap between White students and African-American and Latino students has been found to be significantly larger on the MCAS than it is for students’ classroom math grades (Brennan, Kim, Wenz-Gross, and Siperstein, 2001).”
Champion Briefs
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Warrant: Empirically, the achievement gap has been increasing over the last fifty years. Reardon, Sean F. "The Widening Academic Achievement Gap between the Rich and the Poor: New Evidence and Possible Explanations." Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis. Ed. In R. Murnane and G. Duncan. Russell Sage Foundation Press, 2011. Web. 03 Nov. 2015. “I investigate the extent to which the rising income inequality of the last four decades has been paralleled by a similar increase in the income achievement gradient. As the income gap between high- and low-income families has widened, has the achievement gap between children in high- and low-income families also widened? The answer, in brief, is yes. The achievement gap between children from high- and low-income families is roughly 30 to 40 percent larger among children born in 2001 than among those born twenty-five years earlier. In fact, it appears that the income achievement gap has been growing for at least fifty years, though the data are less certain for cohorts of children born before 1970.” Analysis: The whole reason that the United States began focusing on standardized testing was because it was supposed to be a way to level the playing field and equalize the measures of student’s academic achievement across the nation. Therefore, this Con argument discredits the Pro’s claims that standardized tests benefit the K-12 education system insofar as, in practice, they are counterproductive and undermine the very reason for their creation.
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
A2 – The Achievement Gap Answer: Standardized testing helps to close the achievement gap. Warrant: High-stakes testing motivates students to perform better. Moses, Michele S., and Michael J. Nanna. "The Testing Culture and the Persistence of High Stakes Testing Reforms." Education and Culture 23.1 (2007): 55-72. The Journal of the John Dewey Society. Purdue University Press. Web. 4 Nov. 2015. . “Despite concerns, high stakes testing reforms have been proliferating in the name of providing a better education for, and fostering the academic achievement of, students who have been “left behind” in education. The idea is that high stakes motivate students and educators alike to raise academic achievement (as measured by test scores) and consequently help to close educational gaps of race, ethnicity, and class. As Nichols, Glass, & Berliner (2005) suggested, “When faced with large incentives and threatening punishments, administrators, teachers, and students, it is believed, will take schooling more seriously and work harder to obtain rewards and avoid humiliating punishments” (p. 1).”
Champion Briefs
151
Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Warrant: Standardized tests are necessary to assess and address deep-seated problems in schools. Robb, Robert C. "Standardized Tests Can Help Combat Inequity." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 28 Aug. 2015. Web. 05 Nov. 2015. . “Developed with heavy input from educators, the standards emphasize critical thinking, reading and math skills. They also measure students’ readiness for success in education and the workplace beyond high school. Many civil rights organizations — the NAACP, the National Urban League, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the National Council of La Raza, for example — are right to be concerned about how the absence of uniform standards and a rigorous assessment regimen could affect the most vulnerable populations, including those they serve. “We cannot fix what we cannot measure. And abolishing the tests or sabotaging the validity of their results only makes it harder to identify and fix the deep-seated problems in our schools,” those and other groups said in a recent statement.” Warrant: Standardized tests allow school administrators to compare subgroups and better develop programs to fit the needs of their students. "Pro and Cons of Standardized Testing." Columbia University Office of Work/Life School and Child Care Search Service, Spring 2013. Web. 03 Nov. 2015. . “Standardized tests provide accurate comparisons between sub-groups. These subgroups can include data on ethnicity, socioeconomic status, special needs, etc. This provides schools with data to develop programs and services directed at improving scores in these sub-groups.”
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Warrant: Some schools have already started to make improvements to eliminate the achievement gap based on results from standardized tests. Zaveri, Paayal. "Tougher Standardized Testing in Schools Highlights Poor Results in District." Richmond Confidential. N.p., 16 Sept. 2015. Web. 05 Nov. 2015. . “The results, made public on Sept. 9, from California’s Common Core based standardized test show that only about a third of West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD) students were proficient for their grade level in English and language arts. Only about a quarter of the students met the new standard in mathematics. District officials said they anticipated this kind of result, explaining that the new standards are more rigorous than those formerly used by state education officials with the intention of holding districts accountable. The new method also requires a different teaching method, local educators said, which will take a few years to put in place. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson issued a news release saying the divide is a concern across the state. “Clearly, we must continue working to eliminate these gaps,” Torlakson said. “Much work needs to be done, but we are moving in the right direction.” Torlakson said the state is providing “extra resources and services for students and schools with the greatest needs.”” Analysis: There’s a lot of evidence out there that suggests that standardized tests are bad at measuring student’s abilities and that low-income and minority students are particularly disadvantaged in this area. As a result, it is likely that your judges will be predisposed to agree with the Con. Therefore, it is especially important for Pro teams to respond to this argument. Pro teams can use this response to challenge the underlying assumption in the Con argument by arguing that, while there is a clear gap in performance on standardized tests, this gap is not a problem with the test itself. Rather, this disparity reflects wider problems in the education system. Therefore, Pro teams can argue that standardized tests have the additional benefit of prompting reform that will, in the long run, help to close the achievement gap. Pro teams can use this long-term impact to outweigh short-term harms that the Con tries to advance.
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
CON – Narrowed Curriculum Argument: The emphasis on standardized testing has consequences for schools; schools whose students don’t perform well on standardized tests are at risk of having their funding slashed or having the school shut down entirely. This creates incentives for schools to spend less time on subjects like science and the arts that aren’t on the test. It also creates incentives for students to spend less time on actual learning, and more time on test prep that focuses on how to take the test. Warrant: School districts that utilize standardized testing to measure elementary students’ achievement have significantly cut time devoted to subjects that are not on the test. "Choices, Changes, and Challenges: Curriculum and Instruction in the NCLB Era." Center on Education Policy, Dec. 2007. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “In our study of NCLB implementation last year, we reported that 71% of districts had reduced instructional time in elementary schools in at least one subject to make more time for English language arts or math (CEP, 2006). In an effort to more precisely explain this reported decrease, we asked a more detailed question in the year 5 survey. This year, 44% of districts reported that since 2001-02, they have decreased the time in elementary schools devoted to subjects and activities other than ELA and math (social studies, science, art and music, physical education, lunch, and recess). The decreases reported by these districts this year were relatively large, totaling an average of 145 fewer minutes per week across all of these subjects, or nearly 30 minutes per day on average. The average decrease represented nearly a third (32%) of the total instructional time devoted to these subjects before NCLB took effect.”
Champion Briefs
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Warrant: At every level of education, school districts are making extensive changes to their curriculums to increase emphasis on tested subjects. "Choices, Changes, and Challenges: Curriculum and Instruction in the NCLB Era." Center on Education Policy, Dec. 2007. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “Since 2001-02, about 50% of districts reported that they have changed the elementary school English language arts curriculum “to a great extent” to place more emphasis on the content and skills covered on the state tests used for NCLB. As shown in table 8, 41% of districts reported doing the same in math. At the middle school level, about 43% of districts reported that they have changed the English language arts curriculum to a great extent, and 42% said they have changed the math curriculum to a great extent to put greater emphasis on tested content and skills. (Science and social studies were included in our survey questions because they are core academic subjects.) The responses were very similar in these subjects at the high school level.”
Champion Briefs
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Warrant: Some schools that are at risk of shutting down have cut down on learning and instruction to focus on test prep techniques. Kolodner, Meredith. "Students, Teachers Sweating Tests." NY Daily News. N.p., 3 May 2011. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “Schools that don't show improvement on the tests could be shut, and teacher tenure decisions are now directly linked to student performance on the exams. Last year, pass rates on the reading exam dropped to 42% from 69% the previous year and to 54% from 82% in math. The city has already decided to close a record 27 schools this year because of poor performance. It may also soon release teacher ratings based on student test performance to the public. Many students took test prep packets home over the spring break. At Harlem Success Academy IV, students came to school during the vacation for test prep, teachers said. PS 151 in Woodside, Queens, has devoted three periods a day to test prep since March. Third-grade teacher Sam Coleman said his Brooklyn elementary school has been spending 2-1/2 hours a day prepping since March.”
Champion Briefs
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Warrant: Cutting down on the arts in order to emphasis test subjects and test prep has significant adverse consequences for brain development that leads to a lack of creative and critical thinking skills. President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, Reinvesting in Arts Education: Winning America’s Future Through Creative Schools, Washington, DC, May 2011 “Persistently high dropout rates (reaching 50% or more in some areas) are evidence that many schools are no longer able to engage and motivate their students. Students who do graduate from high school are increasingly the products of narrowed curricula, lacking the creative and critical thinking skills needed for success in post-secondary education and the workforce. In such a climate, the outcomes associated with arts education –– which include increased academic achievement, school engagement, and creative thinking –– have become increasingly important. Decades of research show strong and consistent links between high-quality arts education and a wide range of impressive educational outcomes. This is true even though, as in most areas where learning is complex, the research base does not yet establish causal proof. Arts integration models, the practice of teaching across classroom subjects in tandem with the arts, have been yielding some particularly promising results in school reform and closing the achievement gap. Most recently, cutting-edge studies in neuroscience have been further developing our understanding of how arts strategies support crucial brain development in learning. At the same time, due to budget constraints and emphasis on the subjects of high stakes testing, arts instruction in schools is on a downward trend.” Analysis: This argument is advantageous for the Con because it shows how emphasizing scores on standardized tests has consequences both for students and for schools and teachers. Indeed, by focusing on improving scores, schools cut down on important subjects that are as, if not more, important for helping students achieve future success. The last card does a good job of explaining and showing the impact of cutting down on the arts. Since the impacts are concrete and can be quantified, this argument will provide the Con with a lot of strategic advantage and good rhetoric for weighing.
Champion Briefs
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
A2 – Narrowed Curriculum Argument: In many cases, schools do not have to narrow the curriculum to improve student’s test scores. In the instances that schools do narrow their curriculum, this narrowing can actually be beneficial insofar as it focuses on essential skills and knowledge and eliminates useless activities. Warrant: Narrowing the school curriculum not an inherent harm of standardized testing and can be avoided as demonstrated by schools in Minnesota. Yeh, Stuart S. "Limiting the Unintended Consequences of High-Stakes Testing." Education Policy Analysis Archives 13.43 (2005): n. pag. Datacenter. Colleges of Education at Arizona State University and the University of South Florida, 28 Oct. 2005. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “Interviews with 61 teachers and administrators in 4 Minnesota school districts suggest that, in their judgment, Minnesota’s state-mandated tests were well-aligned with curricular priorities and teachers’ instructional goals, emphasizing critical thinking as well as competencies needed to pass the Basic Standards exit exam, and avoiding the type of recall item that would require drill and memorization. This result, in combination with a survey showing that 85 percent of Minnesota teachers support the exit exam, suggests that Minnesota has been unusually successful in designing a high stakes testing system that has garnered teacher support. The success of Minnesota’s model suggests that unintended narrowing of the curriculum due to high stakes testing may be avoided if pressure on teachers to narrow the curriculum is reduced through well-designed, well-aligned exams.”
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Warrant: Even if standardized tests have narrowed the curriculum, the narrowing that has occurred has been beneficial and improved the quality of curriculum. Yeh, Stuart S. "Limiting the Unintended Consequences of High-Stakes Testing." Education Policy Analysis Archives 13.43 (2005): n. pag. Datacenter. Colleges of Education at Arizona State University and the University of South Florida, 28 Oct. 2005. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “Second, interviewees in this group felt that testing has made them more accountable and improved the quality of instruction. Teachers believed they were more focused, goal-oriented and reflective about what they needed to teach. Teachers reported more dialogue and communication among themselves. Professional development and staffing are said to be more focused on improving student achievement. Teachers report that after-school intervention programs have been initiated and focus on the needs of low-achieving children.” Warrant: Standardized tests narrow school curricula in beneficial ways that focus on the essential skills and knowledge students should have. Rose, Danielle. "State Administered Standardized Test 4/12." PHIL 330 Foundations of Education, 09 Apr. 2012. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “Teaching to the test” can be a good thing: it simply means focusing on essential content and skills, eliminating time-wasting activities that don’t produce learning gains, and motivating students to excel. [18] The US Department of Education stated in Nov. 2004 that “if teachers cover subject matter required by the standards and teach it well, then students will master the material on which they will be tested–and probably much more.””
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Warrant: The skills that students learn to perform well on standardized tests are also applicable to other tasks. Yeh, Stuart S. "Limiting the Unintended Consequences of High-Stakes Testing." Education Policy Analysis Archives 13.43 (2005): n. pag. Datacenter. Colleges of Education at Arizona State University and the University of South Florida, 28 Oct. 2005. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “Although teachers focused on basic skills, they did not feel overly constrained. Both English language arts and math teachers in the majority group viewed the state test as well-aligned with their instructional priorities and believed that they were teaching vital skills that were applicable beyond the test. An 8th grade English teacher in an urban secondary school explained: I teach them basic skills that I know will be helpful. . . For example, making sure that when you’re reading an article, that you look at some of the questions first so that you’re not just reading random information...They’re good skills to have…I don’t necessarily teach to the test so much as I teach some skills that I think will be beneficial for the test [as well as] in other areas.” Analysis: Pro teams can use these responses in two ways. First, the Pro can argue that if the judge believes that narrowing school curriculum is harmful to education, that it is not an inherent harm. Therefore, Pro teams can easily mitigate a lot of the strong Con impacts. Second, the Pro could turn the Con’s argument that standardized tests narrow school curricula by demonstrating that the kind of curriculum narrowing that is occurring is actually beneficial to K-12 education. Specifically, Pro teams should explain that standardized tests have improved the quality of instruction by focusing on essential skills.
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
CON – Teacher Quality Argument: Value-added measures of teacher effectiveness are at the heart of the national movement to evaluate teachers based on their students’ performance on standardized tests. However, this method is extremely unreliable and varies greatly. Warrant: The recent emphasis on high-stakes standardized tests has increased pressure for schools to demonstrate teacher effectiveness. Corcoran, Sean P. Can Teachers Be Evaluated by Their Students’ Test Scores? Should They Be? The Use of Value-Added Measures of Teacher Effectiveness in Policy and Practice. Rep. Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University, 2010. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “Over the past fifteen years, research on teacher quality has adopted a new paradigm: measuring effectiveness on the basis of student outcomes, as opposed to teacher inputs (e.g., Rivkin, Hanushek & Kain 2005; Rockoff 2004; Sanders & Horn 1994). While outcome-based measures of teaching effectiveness are not a new concept (Murnane & Cohen 1986; Odden & Kelley 2002), several forces have converged to reorient the definition of teacher quality around student achievement. First, recent policies of high-stakes accountability have increased pressure on schools to measure and demonstrate results. Given teachers’ close contact with students, the extension of high-stakes accountability to individual teachers was perhaps inevitable.”
Champion Briefs
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Warrant: Using student’s scores on standardized tests to measure teacher quality is unreliable and varies significantly based on which test was administered. Corcoran, Sean P. Can Teachers Be Evaluated by Their Students’ Test Scores? Should They Be? The Use of Value-Added Measures of Teacher Effectiveness in Policy and Practice. Rep. Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University, 2010. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “To the extent “teaching to the test” and “teaching to the format” behaviors differ across teachers – which they almost certainly do – true “value-added” comparisons will be compromised. The fact that test items are sampled from a broader domain is relevant for more than just “gaming” behavior. Teachers vary in the extent to which their time and efforts align with content specifically emphasized on the state test, for a variety of valid reasons. This variation may be due to the average ability level in their classroom, priorities of school leadership, parental demands, and so on. Given two teachers of equal effectiveness, the teacher whose classroom instruction happens to be most closely aligned with the test – for whatever reason – will outperform the other in terms of value-added.”
Champion Briefs
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Warrant: Despite the fact that standardized test results are bad measures of teacher quality, the scores are still used to punish teachers, which is causing teachers to quit. Stauss, Valerie. "11 Problems Created by the Standardized Testing Obsession." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 22 Apr. 2014. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “The Obama administration’s “Race to the Top” initiative coerces states to use student standardized test scores to evaluate teachers even though the exams were never intended for this purpose and the results are not reliable indicators a teacher’s effectiveness. This “test and punish” approach to teacher evaluation has caused some schools and districts to ignore other factors affecting student achievement such as poverty and socioeconomic status. 4. The obsession with standardized testing by reformers is driving good teachers to leave their profession. –Many teachers have become disillusioned with the time spent preparing students for, and administering, tests. Morale in the teaching profession is at a 20-year low.” Warrant: Because the stakes are so high for teachers, standardized tests have encouraged numerous cheating scandals. Toppo, Greg. “Memo Warns of Rampant Cheating in D.C. Public Schools.” USA Today. Gannett, 11 Apr. 2013. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “District of Columbia Public Schools officials have long maintained that a 2011 testcheating scandal that generated two government probes was limited to one elementary school. But a newly uncovered confidential memo warns as far back as January 2009 that educator cheating on 2008 standardized tests could have been widespread, with 191 teachers in 70 schools “implicated in possible testing infractions.””
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Analysis: This argument provides the Con with another level of impacts. Not only have standardized tests been used to measure student’s ability, but they are also used to test teacher’s ability. This is especially problematic because the scores that students receive from standardized tests have very little to do with teacher quality, yet the stakes are very high for teachers. There are two ways that Con teams can impact this argument. First, by showing that teachers are quitting their jobs, emphasizing standardized tests could create a teaching crisis in America. Second, by encouraging cheating scandals, students’ learning environment is significantly compromised.
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
A2 – Teacher Quality Answer: The harms of standardized testing have been overstated. Warrant: The cheating scandals have been significantly exaggerated. Rosenthal, Danny. "Don't Make Education Policy Based on Cheaters." Harvard Law and Policy Review. American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, 04 Apr. 2011. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “Finally, the evidence for widespread cheating is far less overwhelming than some have suggested. USA Today mentions but does not emphasize that two outside analyses recommended against concluding that cheating had occurred. The article focuses on one school, Noyes Education Campus, and presents two main types of evidence for cheating at that school. First, there were high rates of “Right-to-Wrong Erasures,” in which incorrect answers were changed to correct ones. This evidence is highly suggestive but not conclusive. Second, the article highlights suspicions from a Noyes parent and former teacher — both occurring before Rhee’s tenure. Outside of Noyes, USA Today’s evidence is much less clear. For example, the article notes that more than half of D.C. schools had an above-average erasure rate at least once in the last three years, a claim that Diane Ravitch repeated in slamming Rhee on The Daily Beast. But think about that for a second: If erasure rate were entirely random, and not a product of cheating, we would expect about half of schools to have an erasure rate above the district average each year. And over three years, we would expect this to happen to almost every school at least once. The article also notes that classrooms in many schools were “flagged” for investigation, but it’s not clear what this means.”
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Answer: High stakes standardized testing helps teachers improve their curriculum and teaching styles. Warrant: Teachers report that they like standardized tests and think that they improve the quality of their instruction. Yeh, Stuart S. "Limiting the Unintended Consequences of High-Stakes Testing." Education Policy Analysis Archives 13.43 (2005): n. pag. Datacenter. Colleges of Education at Arizona State University and the University of South Florida, 28 Oct. 2005. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “Second, interviewees in this group felt that testing has made them more accountable and improved the quality of instruction. Teachers believed they were more focused, goal-oriented and reflective about what they needed to teach. Teachers reported more dialogue and communication among themselves. Professional development and staffing are said to be more focused on improving student achievement. Teachers report that after-school intervention programs have been initiated and focus on the needs of low-achieving children.”
Champion Briefs
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Warrant: The test and punish approach motivates teachers to take schooling more seriously to gain rewards and avoid punishment. Moses, Michele S., and Michael J. Nanna. "The Testing Culture and the Persistence of High Stakes Testing Reforms." Education and Culture 23.1 (2007): 55-72. The Journal of the John Dewey Society. Purdue University Press. Web. 4 Nov. 2015. . “Despite concerns, high stakes testing reforms have been proliferating in the name of providing a better education for, and fostering the academic achievement of, students who have been “left behind” in education. The idea is that high stakes motivate students and educators alike to raise academic achievement (as measured by test scores) and consequently help to close educational gaps of race, ethnicity, and class. As Nichols, Glass, & Berliner (2005) suggested, “When faced with large incentives and threatening punishments, administrators, teachers, and students, it is believed, will take schooling more seriously and work harder to obtain rewards and avoid humiliating punishments” (p. 1).”
Champion Briefs
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Warrant: The high-stakes testing approach also motivates teachers to take more interest in each individual student. Phelps, Richard P. Defending Standardized Testing. Mahwah, NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates, 2005. 37. Google Books. 23 Mar. 2005. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “Much research in the area of high-stakes testing and students at risk has provided evidence of this positive consequence of mandated testing. One recent example comes from the Consortium on Chicago School Research, which has monitored effects of that large, urban school district's high stakes testing and accountability program. There researchers found that students (particularly those who had some history of failure) reported that the introduction of accountability testing had induced their teachers to begin focusing more attention on them (Roderick & Engel, 2001). Failure was no longer acceptable and there was a stake in helping all students succeed. In this case, necessity was the mother of intervention.” Analysis: Pro teams can use this answer to turn Con arguments about harms to teachers from standardized testing and show how standardized tests actually are quite helpful to teachers. As a result, Pro teams can use this answer to link in to numerous benefits to the K-12 education system.
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
CON – Preparation for the Real World Argument: By focusing on student’s performance on standardized tests, student’s are failing to learn the skills and knowledge they would need to be successful in the real world. Warrant: The emphasis on standardized testing has schools to reduce time devoted to the arts, which is contributing to the creativity crisis. Bronson, Po, and Ashley Merryman. "The Creativity Crisis." Newsweek. N.p., 7 Oct. 2010. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “Plucker recently toured a number of such schools in Shanghai and Beijing. He was amazed by a boy who, for a class science project, rigged a tracking device for his moped with parts from a cell phone. When faculty of a major Chinese university asked Plucker to identify trends in American education, he described our focus on standardized curriculum, rote memorization, and nationalized testing. “After my answer was translated, they just started laughing out loud,” Plucker says. “They said, ‘You’re racing toward our old model. But we’re racing toward your model, as fast as we can.’”
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Warrant: Standardized test scores do not predict how well students can apply their knowledge. French, Dan “A New Vision of Authentic Assessment to Overcome the Flaws in High Stakes Testing” in Middle School Journal; National Middle School Association; Vol 35, No. 1; Sept 2003 “Standardized tests are also poor predictors of how well students can apply the knowledge that they do demonstrate on these tests. A recent study examined data from 18 states that have implemented high stakes testing programs to assess whether students gained any knowledge that they could apply elsewhere, other than learning the necessary facts for performing on a state’s high stakes test. (Amrein and Berliner, 2002). They concluded that, “Analyses of these data reveal that if the intended goal of high stakes testing policy is to increase student learning, then that policy is not working. While a state’s high stakes test may show increased scores, there is little support in these data that such increases are anything but the result of test preparation and/or the exclusion of students from the testing process” (Amrein and Berliner, p. 2).” Warrant: Declining creativity has potentially disastrous consequences for the future. Bronson, Po, and Ashley Merryman. "The Creativity Crisis." Newsweek. N.p., 7 Oct. 2010. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “The potential consequences are sweeping. The necessity of human ingenuity is undisputed. A recent IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the No. 1 “leadership competency” of the future. Yet it’s not just about sustaining our nation’s economic growth. All around us are matters of national and international importance that are crying out for creative solutions, from saving the Gulf of Mexico to bringing peace to Afghanistan to delivering health care. Such solutions emerge from a healthy marketplace of ideas, sustained by a populace constantly contributing original ideas and receptive to the ideas of others.”
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Warrant: Despite high test scores, students in China are unable to apply their knowledge in the real world. Westerberg, C.J. "The Chinese Curse. Is America Next?" The Daily Riff, Dec. 2009. Web. 08 Nov. 2015. . “Talking points: more than one million Chinese students could not find a job after graduating and yet according to the McKinsey Quarterly, 44 percent of executives at Chinese companies cannot find home-grown talent to compete worldwide (Lane & Pollner, 2008). This doesn't seem to make a lot of sense in light of lessons learned from this top economic power in the world. Zhao warns, ‘The high test scores but low ability phenomenon in China suggests something that we (the U.S.) may be unwilling to admit - namely, that education that is oriented solely to preparing students to achieve high scores on tests can be harmful to both individuals and the nation it is supposed to serve.’ Zhao debunks the Chinese English and Science literacy, despite the positive statistics, and "the number of Chinese who can actually use English as a communications tool (is) much smaller". He also cites other signs of an educational system that "can hurt": suicide as the number one killer of youth aged 15 to 34 (with the last known record of suicides recorded in 2003, clocking in at 250,000 with 2 million attempts); growing issues of obesity, fraud and cheating, the latter increasingly reported within the U.S. education system.” Analysis: Con teams can use this argument to illustrate how the focus on standardized tests has contributed to a creativity crisis in America, which has devastating long-term impacts that can easily be weighed. The final card provides an interesting comparison between the US and Chinese education systems and explicitly demonstrates that despite exceptionally high test scores in China, students are unable to apply that knowledge in useful ways. Most judges have probably heard politicians discuss how we must improve our education system to catch up the China. Therefore, this comparison is likely to resonate with judges because it undermines the entire method of education reform that relies on standardized tests.
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
A2 – Preparation for the Real World Answer: Standardized tests have been changing to increasingly focus on skills that are important for future success, consequently improving student’s preparation for the real world. Warrant: College professors and employers agree that, since the introduction of NCLB, public schools have improved student’s readiness for the future. Johnson, Jean, and Ann Duffett. "Where's the Backlash? Students Say They Don't Fret Standardized Tests." Reality Check 2002. Public Agenda, 05 Mar. 2002. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “While unhappy with the quality of high school graduates in many areas, employers and, even more so, college professors, are seeing improvement with public schools. Since 1998, those who say public schools expect students to learn too little has dropped from 66 percent to 47 percent among professors, and from 55 percent to 48 percent among employers. Only 31 percent of both employers and professors in 1998 said schools were doing an excellent or good job; in 2002, the percentages grew to 42 percent of employers and 39 percent of professors.”
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Warrant: Scores on standardized tests reflect skills that are important for achievement on the test as well as increased success in life. Walberg, Herbert J. "Standardized Tests Effectively Measure Student Achievement." Standardized Testing. Ed. Dedria Bryfonski. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2012. At Issue. Rpt. from "Stop the War Against Standardized Tests." Defining Ideas: A Hoover Institution Journal (20 May 2011). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 4 Nov. 2015. “Comparative studies by John Bishop of Cornell University provide evidence of the learning value of standardized tests. In one study, he found that countries requiring students to take nationally standardized tests showed higher test scores on international tests than those in countries not requiring such tests. In a second study, Bishop found that U.S. students who anticipated having to pass a standardized test for high school graduation learned more science and math, were more likely to complete homework and talk with their parents about schoolwork, and watched less television than their peers who were not required to pass such exams. These constructive activities encourage students to concentrate on meeting standards and monitoring their own time and progress—skills important for not only increased achievement but also increased success in life.”
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December 2015
Warrant: Standardized tests allow students to demonstrate their college readiness regardless of their socioeconomic background or differences in school quality. "Do Standardized Tests Show an Accurate View of Students’ Abilities?" Concordia Portland Online. N.p., 21 June 2012. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “For many students, standardized testing provides them with a valuable outlet to set themselves apart from their high school. Tests like the SAT and the ACT give students the chance to show that, even if their high school didn’t offer a large number of Advanced Placement courses or extracurricular activities, they are still bright and motivated students with a lot of potential for colleges. On the other hand, students enrolled in highly competitive high schools get the chance to demonstrate that they are intelligent and qualified, even if being surrounded by a pool of similarly talented students prevents them from being in the top ten percent of their class.” Warrant: Increasingly, the standards that are being implemented to improve K-12 education have been specifically geared towards helping students develop the skills they need to succeed. Robb, Robert C. "Standardized Tests Can Help Combat Inequity." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 28 Aug. 2015. Web. 05 Nov. 2015. . “Four years ago, we were on the right track. That was when a bipartisan group of governors embraced a set of universal educational ideals that became known as the Common Core State Standards. They worked to focus on the bedrock skills and knowledge all students need to succeed in school and after regardless of their individual circumstance or the career path they chose to pursue. Developed with heavy input from educators, the standards emphasize critical thinking, reading and math skills. They also measure students’ readiness for success in education and the workplace beyond high school.”
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December 2015
Analysis: The Con’s problems that standardized tests don’t prepare students for the real world are based on old tests. As a result, Pro teams can use these answers to demonstrate that the Con’s harms are not inherent to standardized tests and changes can mitigate their impacts. Pro teams can use this evidence to show that, today, standardized tests have changed the tests to reflect a student’s knowledge, intellectual capability, and skills that are important for success later in life. Since, ultimately, the goal of K-12 education is to arm students with these skills, Pro teams can easily use this evidence to link into clear benefits to the K-12 education system.
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
CON – ELL Students Argument: English Language Learner students are disadvantaged in standardized testing because outside factors make it hard for them to understand the material. Warrant: Linguistic complexity inhibits ELL students from choosing the right answers on multiple choice standardized tests Stanford Center For Opportunity Policy In Education, Jamal Abedi. "Performance Assessments for English Language Learners." Scope (n.d.): n. pag. 2010. Web. 4 Nov. 2015. . “ELL students most often selected distractors with a high incidence of academic vocabulary. It appeared that these distractors with academic terms were more attractive, and ELL students tended to select those responses in spite of being distractors.” Warrant: This leads to a large performance gap between students. Stanford Center For Opportunity Policy In Education, Jamal Abedi. "Performance Assessments for English Language Learners." Scope (n.d.): n. pag. 2010. Web. 4 Nov. 2015. . “Results of their analyses suggest that the higher the level of language demand of the test items, the larger the performance gap between ELLs and non-ELLs.”
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December 2015
Warrant: There is no standardized measure for English Language Placement test success Abedi, Jamal. "Measuring Students' Level of English Proficiency: Educational Significance and Assessment Requirements." Educational Assessment 13.2-3 (2008): 193-214. 2008. Web. 4 Nov. 2015. . “Literature reports major inconsistencies between the achievement-level classifications produced by different standard-setting techniques (e.g., Impara & Plake, 1997; Jaeger, 1989; Kiplinger, 1996; Loomis, 2001; Musick, 2000; Texas Education Agency, 2002). For example, the use of the bookmark procedure (Lewis, Mitzel, & Green, 1996) may result in a different cut score for classifying students as “intermediate” in proficiency than would the results of the Angoff method (Angoff, 1971) for the same test; when tests differ in terms of specific standards to which they are aligned, test formats, and content, there can be no expectation that their results will yield consistent classifications.”
Warrant: ELP is the only measure of passing into English classes Strauss, Valerie. "Why Carlos Can’t Graduate: Setting up ESOL Students to Fail with a Too-easy Test." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 29 May 2015. Web. 04 Nov. 2015. . “All of Maryland’s ESOL students are now required to take a test called ACCESS (Assessing Comprehension and Communication in English State-to-State), and many ESOL teachers and administrators believe it is given far too much weight in determining how and when students exit ESOL programs.”
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Warrant: This means that students are not graded on the same standard Abedi, Jamal. "Measuring Students' Level of English Proficiency: Educational Significance and Assessment Requirements." Educational Assessment 13.2-3 (2008): 193-214. 2008. Web. 4 Nov. 2015. . The standards set by each method may be quite different, which may lead to different interpretations of the students’ level of ELP. Even when the same standardsetting technique is applied to the same test, the results may vary greatly depending on factors such as the educational background and training of judges involved in the standard-setting process
Warrant: The ELP is is too easy and sets ELL students up to fail in classes and on tests Strauss, Valerie. "Why Carlos Can’t Graduate: Setting up ESOL Students to Fail with a Too-easy Test." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 29 May 2015. Web. 04 Nov. 2015. . “About one third of those in our program — exit every June based on this single test score. Most go into mainstream, on-level English classes where they earn low or average grades at best. “Students who have passed this test and are then placed in my on-level English class are ill-equipped to meet the demands of the course,” Analysis: This argument could be a good set-up for discrimination in testing once ELL students test out of ELL tests and into SAT/ACT tests.
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December 2015
A2 – ELL Students Answer: There is no bias in testing Warrant: Tests accurately show a student’s achievement Phelps, Richard. "Estimating the Costs and Benefits of Educational Testing Programs." Estimating the Costs and Benefits of Educational Testing Programs. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Nov. 2015. . “Perhaps the simplest, and least disputed, benefit of standardized tests is in diagnosis. Test results can pinpoint a student's academic strengths and weaknesses, areas that need work, and areas where help is needed. Test scores provide a measurement tool that can be used to judge the effectiveness of preexisting or proposed school programs.”
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December 2015
Warrant: Standardized testing helps ELL students in other areas of academic life Herbert, Walberg. "Stop the War Against Standardized Tests." Hoover Institution. N.p., 20 May 2011. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “Students benefit directly when they take tests that offer information on how well they have mastered the material intended for learning. School reading and mathematics skills, for example, can be precisely specified and as students learn the skills, they benefit from ongoing information tailored to their specific individual progress. Computers streamline this process by providing immediate feedback about correct and incorrect responses far more quickly and with much greater patience than teachers and tutors can provide. Other general skills can also be both taught and measured. Writing, for example, can be subdivided into rules of spelling and grammar as well as skills of organization and style. As students improve their writing, they benefit from quick, objective feedback that helps them assess their specific progress on each skill.” Analysis: The answer to this argument is about showing overall fairness in grading. You could concede some discrimination but go further and say that of all the testing styles, standardized is the least biased.
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December 2015
CON – Low Performing Schools Argument: When standardized tests are utilized they not only measure student performance but the school that student goes to as well. This may sound useful, but in reality what this leads to includes large cuts in funding to schools that are “low-performing” in their scores as a punishment. This perpetuates the cycle of low performance and only serves to make problems worse for these struggling districts. On top of that, the tests often require certain materials and textbooks that greatly drain school resources. Warrant: Standards from these tests will cause a school to be shut down if it performs lowly. Thompson, Van. "Do Standardized Test Scores Factor in to How Much Money a School Will Receive?" The Global Post. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Nov. 2015. < http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/standardized-test-scores-factor-much-moneyschool-receive-25534.html > “While schools don't have to administer annual achievement tests, they'll lose funding if they don't. Local school districts determine test content, but with the recent push toward meeting Common Core standards, states' tests are becoming more standardized. A school that consistently fails to meet adequate yearly progress standards may not be able to access some grants and other forms of funding. After five years of failure to meet AYP standards, a school can be closed altogether.”
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December 2015
Warrant: Obama’s Race to the Top encourages this system Kastenbaum, Steve. "The High Stakes of Standardized Tests." Schools of Thought RSS. CNN, 17 May 2012. Web. 08 Nov. 2015. . “Standardized tests have long been used as one measure of a student’s progress in core subjects. But now, federal funding hinges on test results. It started with President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act, which requires states to rate schools based on test results in order to receive federal funds. President Obama’s administration then dangled an additional $4.3 billion dollars in front of school administrators in a competition called Race to the Top. In order to qualify for multimillion dollar grants, U.S. Department of Education spokesman Peter Cunningham said, states had to include test results in the process of identifying good and bad teachers.” Warrant: Standardized tests require certain textbooks that are very expensive. Broussard, Meredith. "Why Poor Schools Can’t Win at Standardized Testing." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 15 July 2014. Web. 08 Nov. 2015. . “It may be many years until Philadelphia’s education budget matches its curriculum requirements. In the meantime, there are a few things the district—and other flailing school districts in America—can do. Stop giving standardized tests that are inextricably tied to specific sets of books. At the very least, stop using test scores to evaluate teacher performance without providing the items each teacher needs to do his or her job. Most of all, avoid basing an entire education system on materials so costly that big, urban districts can’t afford to buy them. Until these things change, it will be impossible to raise standardized test scores—despite the best efforts of the teachers and students who will return to school this fall and find no new books waiting for them.”
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Warrant: These tests take up significant resources and standards can cause funding loss. Schwartz, Katrina. "Can Schools Be Held Accountable Without Standardized Tests?" KQED News. N.p., 2 Apr. 2014. Web. 8 Nov. 2015. . “The focus on scoring well on standardized tests has wedged educators into a difficult spot. Teachers are concerned that a poor showing on the tests will jeopardize school funding, or even their jobs, and often feel they have to suspend everything else in order to focus on test prep. Putting so much energy into one assessment — one that doesn’t give teachers and students any granular, actionable information — takes resources, time, and energy away from other kinds of rich learning experiences.” Warrant: The resources required to upkeep these tests are significant. Strauss, Valerie. "How Standardized Tests Are Affecting Public Schools." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 18 May 2012. Web. 08 Nov. 2015. . “Florida’s state assessment and accountability program expends disproportionate fiscal and human resources on the production of tests, testing materials, distribution, scoring, dissemination of results, school grading, prep materials, and supplementary test materials to support the retake process, and communication and enforcement of stringent testing protocols. Excluding the costs related to equipment, printing, and related school staff hours of prep, testing, scoring and reporting, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt approximates the annual cost of testing at $424,000 with Pearson approximating the annual cost of their tests at $59,000,000. Given the extensive requirements surrounding state assessment, these tests and their mandates would cost schools and districts in more than just the fiscal cost of the bare test themselves.”
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Warrant: Schools have to divert funds that would normally go to teachers or other programs. Strauss, Valerie. "How Standardized Tests Are Affecting Public Schools." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 18 May 2012. Web. 08 Nov. 2015. . “This section attempts to unveil and quantify the resources necessary to administer state assessments in the manner required by FDOE. Schools and districts must utilize personnel and financial resources to prepare, schedule, store, transport and administer state assessments. Additionally, the state requires that school districts identify and continuously utilize progress-monitoring and diagnostic assessments, purchase computers for testing, upgrade existing hardware and computer infrastructures, provide certificated test administrators and assign proctors in each testing environment. Schools and districts must purchase instructional materials to support the testing format, schedule and execute test administration training, identify available staff and facilities for test administration, reschedule classes and employee work schedules, and assign special couriers to deliver and retrieve tests. Florida’s extensive testing program and its highlycontrolled testing protocols force school and district leaders to tap resources created to support students and use them to comply with state testing directives. To begin with, the State of Florida does not fund high stakes testing or it’s accompanying testing requirements. As a result, schools and districts must divert funding once used for hiring teachers, providing academic support for ESE, ESOL, and struggling students, offering summer learning programs, maintaining school facilities, training teachers, establishing competitive salaries to attract and keep good teachers, etc. in order to meet excessively strict testing requirements. In addition, schools incur a tremendous loss of instructional time, which impacts those students already performing below grade level most severely, resulting in even greater deficits for these students compared to their peers.”
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December 2015
Analysis: This argument is designed to show harms from standardized tests that can outweigh most anything else provided by the Pro side. This can be proven to do so by demonstrating that in schools, capacity to teach students is largely dependent on resources, such as effective teachers, textbooks, or small classroom sizes. The potential to garner benefits from those resources though is largely negated when standardized tests detract from the funding a school may get, or refocuses money that could be going elsewhere. This is specifically important considering often times this disproportionately hurts disadvantaged students from lowperforming schools, which are the very communities that need the most from their educations.
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December 2015
A2 – Low Performing Schools Answer: Schools do not lose funding easily. Warrant: Lack of test attendance does not cause funding loss most of the time. Strauss, Valerie. "Will Schools Lose Federal Funds If Kids Don’t Take Mandated Tests? Fact vs. Threat." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 2 Apr. 2015. Web. 08 Nov. 2015. . “FairTest is not aware of a single school that lost federal Title I funds due to low test-taking rates, including many in New York that had large numbers of opt outs last year. However, officials in a number of states still aggressively attack the opt out movement claiming that refusing to take the test puts federal aid at risk. Recently, the U.S. Department of Education joined the battle by suggesting there is a danger of funding loss and threatening states, districts and schools. The Department of Education’s statements appear deliberately misleading. They confound the law’s requirement that states administer a testing system that covers all children with the non-existent requirement that all children take the test. They imply that a state that allows opting out is at risk of violating NCLB, even though seven states (Utah, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington and California) already have such provisions and none has lost a penny in federal funding due to these provisions.” Analysis: A large amount of the Con’s argument above comes from the idea that schools lose funding easily under the system of standardized tests, and one avenue under which it is claimed to occur is through punishment when students do not participate in the testing process. This evidence demonstrates that the claim may be true, but only to a very limited degree – in fact, in the real world it shows literally no funding has been lost due to these rules, even though they have been violated in the past.
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December 2015
Answer: Tests are not that expensive. Warrant: Compared to other costs, assessments are minimal. Hoxby, Caroline. "The Cost of Accountability." (2002): n. pag. National Bureau of Economic Research. Web. 8 Nov. 2015. . “The table shows the actual share of per-pupil spending that is devoted to various states’ accountability systems. It also shows the actual share for the United States as a whole. The nation spends 0.06 percent (six-hundredths of 1 percent) of funds for elementary and secondary public schools on assessment. Although the states on the table include those with elaborate accountability programs, no state spends even 1 percent of its elementary and secondary school budget on accountability. The top spenders’ actual spending is about one-third of 1 percent of their public school budgets. In short, assessment accounts for a tiny, almost negligible portion of American school costs at present. People who oppose accountability based on its great cost ought to examine publicly available budget statements.”
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December 2015
Warrant: The displacement of funds is negligible. Chingos, Matthew. "Testing Costs a Drop in the Bucket." The Brookings Institution. N.p., 02 Feb. 2015. Web. 08 Nov. 2015. . “Testing critics usually point to estimates of total spending on assessments; a commonly cited figure—$1.7 billion spent by states each year—comes from a report I wrote in 2012.[1] But what these claims always miss is that, however calculated, spending on testing is barely a drop in the bucket of a public education system that spends over $600 billion per year. If testing were eliminated entirely, what could schools do with the $1.7 billion saved? Very little, it turns out. Teacher salaries could be increased by one percent or pupil-teacher ratios could be reduced by 0.1 students. The $34 per student spent by states on federally and state-mandated tests simply isn’t very much in a system that spends about $10,000 per student. Put in the context of the NEA position, $34 per student would not buy very much early childhood education—only eight hours of preschool per student in Florida to be exact.[2]” Analysis: Funding being important is not a controversial opinion in this debate – what is though is how much these tests actually detracts from the funding available to schools. The evidence above essentially mitigates the impacts shown on the negative side. Even if their warrants are valid, the actual result of their claims are negligible, as the amount spent on the tests is next to nothing when compared to the rest of the educational budget.
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
CON – Stress Argument: Standardized tests carry a lot of weight, and put students under a lot of stress, undermining their health and education. Warrant: The pressures of testing are immense, and therefore can’t reflect a student’s true ability. Strauss, Valerie. "11 problems created by the standardized testing obsession" Washington Post. Apr 22 2014. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “The high-stakes standardized tests used in U.S. public schools do not accurately measure what students have learned. — The kinds of standardized tests that have been used in U.S. public schools cannot assess critical thinking well, if at all. It is also true that many students do poorly on standardized tests even though they may have achieved mastery over the material. The stress of “test anxiety” can be debilitating for many students.”
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December 2015
Warrant: Students are under an immense amount of stress early. Wilde, Marion. "Are we stressing out our kids?." Great Schools.org. n.d. Web. 6 Nov. 2015. . “From kindergarten through high school, the causes of childhood stress are numerous. One of the most commonly cited is standardized-test stress, which starts in first-grade in many states. High-stakes tests, such as the TAKS in Texas and the FCAT in Florida, are particularly stressful, for students and teachers alike. Students in certain grades must pass these tests to advance to the next grade. In Florida, children as young as 8 years old face the prospect of being held back if they fail the test. Whether you are for them or against them, high-stakes test create considerable stress. And while experts are debating whether homework loads are in fact heavier now than in the past, many agree that it is being assigned at an earlier age than before.”
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Warrant: High stress levels can worsen anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses. Wilde, Marion. "Are we stressing out our kids?." Great Schools.org. n.d. Web. 6 Nov. 2015. . “I have been really stressed because of the homework that is being assigned,” a middle-school student from Utah recently wrote in an email to GreatSchools. “In prealgebra, we get at least three pages of homework. In English, we get at least one page and a reading assignment, at least 30-50 pages in our books. Then there is science, five-six pages are assigned all days except Friday. In Utah studies, we get one page with the option of extra credit, which is another page. In French, we have to do two to three pages of verbs in the French dictionaries. In Spanish, 80 flashcards are assigned two days before the test. As you can see, I don’t take any extra activities because I don’t have time!” Stress on the rise “Everyone has their own way of measuring stress, depression being one measure,” says Denise Clark Pope, author of “Doing School” How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed-Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students. “But the consensus is that there are more stressed-out kids.” One recent study from the Stanford School of Medicine indicates that the number of children, ages 7-17, treated for depression more than doubled between 1995 and 2001. Analysis: Tests are an enormous burden on students, requiring them to regurgitate massive amounts of information in a very high stakes setting. Many students simply can’t learn in these environments because of the stress and anxiety involved with test taking. If debaters can demonstrate that standardized testing is a unique disservice to students that are most in need, then they probably do more harm than good.
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December 2015
A2 – Stress Answer: Standardized tests are not the underlying cause of stress. Warrant: Short-term stress from testing can boost student performance. Bronson, Po. "Why can some kids handle pressure while others fall apart?" New York Times. Feb 6 2013. Web. 06 Nov. 2015.
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December 2015
Answer: Stress can be overcome. Warrant: Stress is genetic, but genetics are only part of the picture. Bronson, Po. "Why can some kids handle pressure while others fall apart?" New York Times. Feb 6 2013. Web. 06 Nov. 2015.
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December 2015
Analysis: Stress can certainly be a bad outcome, but stress is an effective motivator. Under heavy pressure, the human psyche is more likely to perform. Some students are less likely to perform well on tests, but this isn’t because of the tests themselves, but rather a genetic disposition that can be overcome. Therefore, while stress is a problem, it is not a problem unique to tests, nor is it insurmountable.
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December 2015
CON – Educational Tradeoffs Argument: Standardized testing strains the already underfunded education budget Warrant: Standardized testing costs 1.7 billion per year. Ujifusa, Andrew. "Standardized Testing Costs States $1.7 Billion a Year, Study Says" Education Week. Jun 29 2012. Web. 06 Nov. 2015.
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December 2015
Warrant: The costs of testing are especially important due to budgetary crises Ujifusa, Andrew. "Standardized Testing Costs States $1.7 Billion a Year, Study Says" Education Week. Jun 29 2012. Web. 06 Nov. 2015.
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December 2015
Argument: Standardized testing takes away from learning time. Warrant: Standardized testing is a waste of class time. Strauss, Valerie. "How much time do school districts spend on standardized testing? This much.” Washington Post. Jul 25 2013. Web. 6 Nov. 2015.
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December 2015
A2 – Educational Tradeoffs Answer: Standardized testing only costs a small fraction of the educational budget, and isn’t detracting from anything important. Warrant: 1.7 billion dollars is only .25% of the education budget. Chingos, Matthew. "Testing Costs a Drop in the Bucket." Brookings Institute. Feb 2 2015. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. < http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/upfront/posts/2015/02/02-standardized-tests-chingos > “Testing critics usually point to estimates of total spending on assessments; a commonly cited figure—$1.7 billion spent by states each year—comes from a report I wrote in 2012. But what these claims always miss is that, however calculated, spending on testing is barely a drop in the bucket of a public education system that spends over $600 billion per year. If testing were eliminated entirely, what could schools do with the $1.7 billion saved? Very little, it turns out. Teacher salaries could be increased by one percent or pupil-teacher ratios could be reduced by 0.1 students. The $34 per student spent by states on federally and state-mandated tests simply isn’t very much in a system that spends about $10,000 per student. Put in the context of the NEA position, $34 per student would not buy very much early childhood education—only eight hours of preschool per student in Florida to be exact. A retreat from annual testing would be penny-wise and pound-foolish. Testing makes it possible to measure the performance of students, teachers, and schools, and enables research aimed at improving student learning. And annual tests help level the playing field between schools, enabling policymakers to judge schools based on how well they serve their students, rather than the type of students they serve.”
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December 2015
Answer: The cost of tests is rising, but still minimal. Warrant: Tests are somewhat expensive, but not much of an overall investment of money or time. Koumpilova, Mila. "Amid rising costs, school districts rethink their use of standardized testing" TwinCities.com. Mar 15 2014. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. < http://www.twincities.com/education/ci_25347498/rising-cost-exams-is-testingminnesota-schools-limits> “The rise in spending has been especially steep in Minnesota's urban districts. St. Paul reported $343,000 in standardized test costs in 2009 and about $805,000 last year. Such expenses make up a tiny fraction of metro districts' multimillion-dollar budgets. At the same time, vendor fees are a fraction of the overall price tag for testing. Other costs include paying staff to oversee them, technology to store and track the data and professional development to help teachers make the most of the results. Overall, say experts like Michael Rodriguez at the University of Minnesota, students in this state spend considerably less time taking tests compared with some other parts of the country, including New York state. But he said he still sees districts that make strategic use of the information to boost learning -- and some that do not.”
Analysis: Tradeoffs are only meaningful if there is a substantial opportunity being missed. If 1.7 billion dollars and 19 classroom hours are not proved to be meaningful, there’s no reason to believe the cost of testing is too restrictive. While there are plenty of specialized programs that could help in some areas, tests are a universal mechanism that works nationwide. The burden of providing an alternative requires proving feasibility as well, meaning that debaters can demonstrate either that the tradeoff won’t happen, or that the policy that would happen instead is unlikely or ineffective. Therefore, tradeoff arguments are very hard to win, but they can be very impactful when done correctly.
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December 2015
CON – Study Drugs Argument: Standardized tests incentivize and reward the usage of study drugs, which are unfair and bad for student health. Warrant: The pressures of testing encourage students to take study drugs in advance of a test. Price-Mitchell, Marilyn. "Study Drugs: The Next Teen Addiction?." Psychology Today. Jun 09 2012. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “The New York Times article, Risky Rise of the Good-Grade Pill(link is external), is yet another symptom of a culture captivated with mistaken notions of success. The drug, Adderall, prescribed for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, is being taken by kids without ADHD to give them the edge on good grades and standardized tests scores. Known as study drugs, is this any different from athletes taking steroids to increase performance? A 20-year-old student from Dallas said it best, “The most messed-up thing of it all is that in many cases it stemmed from the pressure from their parents. One could argue that they cared more about the end result rather than the process.” She and other teens talked candidly about the pressure to succeed in high school, well captured in the column, In Their Own Words: ‘Study Drugs.’(link is external) Yes, kids with ADHD are selling their prescriptions to classmates!”
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December 2015
Warrant: Study drugs create an unfair advantage for certain students, putting others at a disadvantage. Cadwalladr, Carole. "Students used to take drugs to get high. Now they take them to get higher grades." The Guardian. Feb 2015. Web. 6 Nov. 2015. . “But she’s worried about the increasing number of students who come up to her after she gives talks. “Some of them are quite angry – they don’t want to use the drug but they feel they’ll be at a disadvantage.” More than that though is the lack of proper research into the effects over time. ‘We just don’t have any long-term studies. That’s why it’s so inadvisable to use them until that’s done and that’s why I’ve been pushing the government to work with the pharmaceutical industry to do that. The other thing with young people is that their brains are still in development. If you have severe ADHD then you need a treatment like Ritalin to be able to function, but if you are a healthy young person… and you are putting these drugs into a developing brain. Well, we just don’t know enough about what this does.’”
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December 2015
Warrant: Study drugs are bad for student health. Cadwalladr, Carole. "Students used to take drugs to get high. Now they take them to get higher grades." The Guardian. Feb 2015. Web. 6 Nov. 2015. . Modafinil, which is prescribed in the UK and the US as Provigil, was created in a French laboratory in the late 70s and was licensed for use in the UK as a narcolepsy medication in 2002. In the US, that was extended to include excessive daytime sleepiness and shift work sleep disorder. It apes some of the effects of classic stimulants such as amphetamines but without the classic stimulant side-effects: jitters, anxiety and so on. It’s not considered addictive, but some studies have shown that it appears to increase dopamine in the brain’s reward centre, which has been correlated with addictive behaviours. And while the side effects of modafinil are considered relatively minor – a headache, most frequently, or stomach upset, or relatively rare, serious skin reactions have occurred in a handful of patients – perhaps the biggest issue is that there simply haven’t been any long-term studies into its effects.
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Argument: Study Drugs don’t help students learn. Warrant: Students that take drugs to cram are unlikely to truly learn the material. Guilford, Gwynn. "Study: Adderall doesn’t help kids get better grades." The Atlantic. Feb 14 2014. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. .
“More than one in 20 American children between the ages of 4 and 17 are medicated for attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)—up nearly 500 percent since 1990. Drugs like Adderall and Ritalin have a reputation as “good-grade pills” and “cognitive enhancers” that produce near-immediate improvements in the ability of children to pay attention in school. The thing is, studies tracing the impact of ADHD meds report no improvement in academic performance in the long term, as Nature reports in a new review of existing research, and kids taking the drugs are in some cases more likely to drop out of school. It’s not clear why this would be happening. The glib answer would be pharmaceutical marketing blitzes have duped us into believing the products’ brain-boosting properties. But a study from the 1970s, which predates big-budget ad campaigns for the stimulants, points the way to a more persuasive—and and potentially more worrying—explanation.” Analysis: Students are pressured by parents, peers, and teachers to get good grades on standardized tests, which lead them to seek help from study drugs. These drugs are unlikely to help students in the long term, and only cause health risks and unfair grading. Study drugs are so crucial because so many students use them, and their impact is still relatively unknown.
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A2 – Study Drugs Answer: Study drug usage is not because of standardized tests Warrant: Students use study drugs because of the general competitive atmosphere, not just standardized tests. Yates, Arianna. "Just say yes? The rise of ‘study drugs’ in college." CNN. April 18 2014. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. < http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/17/health/adderall-collegestudents/>. "When we look at upperclassmen, the number really begins to jump," says Alan DeSantis, professor of communications at the University of Kentucky who has conducted research on stimulant use in college. "The more time you stay on campus, the more likely you are to use." Of course, by and large the most common use is to concentrate while studying, with more than 90% of users doing it for this purpose. ADHD stimulants "strengthen the brain's brakes, its inhibitory capacities, so it can control its power more effectively," said Dr. Edward Hallowell, a psychiatrist and ADHD expert. "They do this by increasing the amount of certain neurotransmitters, like dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine." Students say they take these stimulants for the "right reasons," to be more productive in classes and to stay afloat in the sea of intense competition.”
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Warrant: Students take study drugs because they feel more confident studying. Yates, Arianna. "Just say yes? The rise of ‘study drugs’ in college." CNN. April 18 2014. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. < http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/17/health/adderall-collegestudents/>. "The fact that it's illegal really doesn't cross my mind," one student says. "It's not something that I get nervous about because it's so widespread and simple." The biggest barrier to changing attitudes is the effectiveness of stimulants on campuses where the ends justify the means, researchers believe. After those late library nights, many students praise the little pill that got them through their hefty textbooks and into the morning. After taking Adderall, says one university student, "I just feel very alive and awake and ready for challenges that come my way." "I'm on page 15 (of my paper) in just a few hours ... and I'm very confident in it."
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Argument: Study drugs carry few health risks Warrant: ADHD drugs are safe for the adult user. Neale, Todd. “Study: ADHD drugs are safe for the Adult Heart.” MedPageToday. Dec 12 2011. . “After multivariate adjustment for cardiovascular risk and other potential confounders, there was no increase in cardiovascular risk associated with current use of ADHD medications, which was consistent for specific medications and across endpoints. The findings were similar when the analysis was restricted to new users. Although the study did not show evidence of an elevated cardiovascular risk, the authors noted several limitations of the study, including the use of electronic pharmacy records to determine medication use, the lack of dose data, the exclusion of adults 65 and older, possible misclassification of some of the endpoints, and the limited ability to adjust for some factors, including psychiatric conditions and medications. There was also only moderate statistical power for several comparisons, they wrote. "A modestly elevated risk cannot be ruled out, given limited power and a lack of complete information on some potentially important risk factors and other factors related to use of these medications," Habel and colleagues wrote. Analysis: Study drugs are probably somewhat dangerous, but the extent to which they are seriously harmful is unclear. More scientific evidence is likely needed before anybody can conclusively demonstrate the problems of study drugs. Additionally, if study drugs will be used regardless of standardized testing (because school is ALWAYS stressful, not just right before the SAT), there’s no reason to believe the tests make the problem worse.
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CON – Creativity Argument: Standardized tests kill creativity Warrant: The system of standardized tests requires students learn and utilize a uniformed thinking process instead of leaving room for creativity in solving problems. Batt, Don. "Standardized Tests Are Killing Our Students' Creativity, Desire to Learn." The Denver Post. N.p., 10 Mar. 2013. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “There is a monster waiting for your children in the spring. Its creators have fashioned it so that however children may prepare for it, they will be undone by its clever industry. The children know it's coming. They have encountered it every year since third grade, and every year it has taken parts of their souls. And not just in the spring. Every day in class, the children are asked which answer is right, although the smarter children realize that sometimes there are parts of several answers that could be right. And they sit. And they write. Not to express their understanding of the world. Or to even form their own opinions about ideas they have read. Instead, they must dance the steps that they have been told are important: First, build your writing with a certain number of words, sentences, paragraphs; second, make sure your writing contains the words in the question; third, begin each part with "first, second," and "third.’”
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Warrant: Uniformity has sucked the life out of teaching, draining teacher creativity. Greene, David. "The Long Death of Creative Teaching." US News. N.p., 17 Mar. 2014. Web. 6 Nov. 2015. . “Understandably, proponents of the Common Core say they want greater depth of instruction and lessons that engage students. They say that the standards are only a guide. But reformers betray their cause by over-emphasizing tests and grading teachers with formulas and test scores demanded by both No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. To try to live up to the new demands and ensure better test scores, states, districts and schools have purchased resources, materials and scripted curricular modules solely developed for test success. Being lost is the practical wisdom and planned spontaneity necessary to work with 20 to 35 individuals in a classroom. Academic creativity has been drained from degraded and overworked experienced teachers. Uniformity has sucked the life out of teaching and learning.” Warrant: Standardized testing does not measure what students are capable of doing, they only look for the ability of students to conform; this is toxic and draining student creativity. Baer, Drake. "The Most-Viewed TED Talk Ever Reveals How American Schools Kill Creativity." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 25 Aug. 2014. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “If you look at public education systems in their general shape, they are manufacturing processes. And a lot of it happens — we separate people by age, it's a very linear process, very focused on certain types of outcome. And standardized testing is, in a way, the grand example of the industrial method of education. It's not there to identify what individuals can do. It's there to look at things to which they conform. This is toxic for students. Like Robinson says, there isn't a kid in America who "gets out of bed in the morning wondering what they can do to raise their
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state's reading standards." So what schools — and the people that run them — need to do is organize around helping students find the disciplines that most motivate them. This requires a shift from standardization to personalization. Reforming education is "about customizing to your circumstances and personalizing education to the people you're actually teaching," Robinson said in a follow-up talk. "And doing that, I think, is the answer to the future because it's not about scaling a new solution; it's about creating a movement in education in which people develop their own solutions, but with external support based on a personalized curriculum."” Warrant: Standardized tests create a hierarchy of subjects, placing creative intense areas of study at the bottom; this stifles student creativity Baer, Drake. "The Most-Viewed TED Talk Ever Reveals How American Schools Kill Creativity." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 25 Aug. 2014. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “Robinson says that we privilege some subjects — like math— over others — like dance — and doing so stifles creativity. "At the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and the bottom are the arts," he says. "Everywhere on Earth." And there's even a hierarchy within the arts, with fine art and music above drama and dance. "There isn't an education system on the planet that teaches dance every day to children the way we teach them mathematics," Robinson says. "Why? Why not? I think this is rather important. I think math is very important, but so is dance. Children dance all the time if they're allowed to, we all do. We all have bodies, don't we? Did I miss a meeting? Truthfully, what happens is, as children grow up, we start to educate them progressively from the waist up."”
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Warrant: If a student tries to be creative on a standardized test, they are punished, thereby discouraging creativity Sternberg, Robert J. "The Assessment of Creativity: An Investment-Based Approach." Creativity Research Journal 24.1 (2012): 3-12. Oklahoma State University. Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, Jan. 2013. Web. 6 Nov. 2015. . “Schools sometimes treat creativity as a bad habit rather than as a good one. And the world of conventional standardized tests we have invented does just that (Sternberg, 1997a, 1997b). If students try being creative on standardized tests, they will get slapped down just as soon as they get their score. That will likely teach them not to try again.” Analysis: The argument is straightforward. Standardized tests require student to think and solve problems in a uniform and predetermined way. This prevents students from using creativity when it comes to problem solving. This vicious cycle discourages students, starting in kindergarten, from thinking creatively or even being creative. There is also a card about how standardized tests kill teacher creativity.
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A2 – Creativity Answer: Refugees add to local economic output Warrant: Just because we don’t like standardized tests doesn’t mean there’s widespread loss of student creativity Luzer, Daniel. "What Kills Creativity?" The Pacific Standard. N.p., 4 Nov. 2013. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “But show me the evidence, right? Sure, we test students a lot, but is all of this testing really taking away parts of their souls? The fact that creative people don’t like widespread bubble testing doesn't necessarily mean that such testing hurts creativity. Certainly it’s hard to see a dramatic decline in creativity among Americans as a whole. Recently in New York Neal Medlyn produced a performance art project, “King,” as a homage to Michael Jackson.”
Warrant: There’s no causal link between standardized tests and a loss in creativity. Luzer, Daniel. "What Kills Creativity?" The Pacific Standard. N.p., 4 Nov. 2013. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “This study demonstrated that, since the 1960s, children have become less creative, as least as determined by the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, which measure creativity by asking students, among other things, “to think of all possible things which might have happened when the cow jumped over the moon” and to try and come up with “the cleverest, most interesting and most unusual uses of a given toy, other than as a plaything.” But the problem with these studies is that, while they do show children are a little less creative, and there is more standardized testing, it’s hard to
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demonstrate that one thing actually causes the other. As even Kim later explained: I speculate that there are other significant contributing factors to the fall in creativity in America. Contemporary parenting styles may create overly programmed lives for children, by over-protecting them and over-scheduling them, which has the effect of denying children opportunities to discover for themselves as much as in previous eras.”
Warrant: Researchers are pointing to a lack of parental encouragement at home as a reason for declining student creativity as well as a general lack of cultural appreciation for creativity. Luzer, Daniel. "What Kills Creativity?" The Pacific Standard. N.p., 4 Nov. 2013. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “The real cause for a decline in American creativity is more complicated, and doesn’t have much to do with school at all. The real cause, she argues, is simply that American parents are not encouraging creativity. They, like Gradgrind, are now intensely focused on efficiency, and propelling their children to material success. Kim: Creativity scores are also declining because our society is less and less receptive and encouraging of creativity, creative people, and creative ideas. Americans are less motivated to be creative because creativity is continually less valued by home, school, and society overall in the U.S. It stands to reason that this problem will compound, as we keep producing citizens who tend to be even less tolerant of creative people and of creative expression. We talk a good talk, but in fact, research and development grants and programs are declining, creative children are labeled as classroom behavior problems, and society in general has less a sense of humor about mischief and diminishing tolerance for unusual behavior. For example, teachers claim to value creativity in children, but in fact it is proven that they generally dislike creative behaviors and characteristics in the classroom because they are inconvenient and hard to control.”
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Warrant: Teachers can still encourage creativity in their classrooms, despite standardized tests. Luzer, Daniel. "What Kills Creativity?" The Pacific Standard. N.p., 4 Nov. 2013. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “The best way to promote creativity in the classroom is unclear, but according to one piece published by the Collaboration for Nondestructive Testing: Teachers that want to encourage creativity in the classroom should make sure they are giving their students a lot of choice and different options when it comes to assignments and projects. Denise de Sonza Fleith (2000) found in her research that teachers encourage creativity by, "not imposing too many assignments and rules on students, giving students choices, providing students opportunities to become aware of their creativity, and accepting students as they are." All students can be creative in some way, and it is the teachers difficult task to provide opportunities for students to develop their own creative thinking.”
Analysis: This argument includes a lot of defensive cards that basically all claim there’s no causal link between tests and a decline in creativity. There’s a card that offers suggestions as to why creativity has been declining and the last card says we can still encourage student creativity in the classroom, but it’s up to the teachers. Use these cards to create doubt in the judges’ mind and talk about how teachers can still encourage creativity and also there’s lots of research that suggests we’re trying to move away from standardized tests. Good luck!
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CON – Cheating Argument: Multiple pressures surrounding standardized testing have created an environment where cheating is incentivized, and empirically widespread. Warrant: Pressures on students create strong temptations to cheat Kolker, Robert. "Cheating Upwards." NYMag.com. New York Magazine, 16 Sept. 2012. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “It’s impossible to determine whether the recent incidents reflect an uptick in the overall incidence of cheating (“It has been high, it continues to be high, and it’s extremely high now,” says Anderman). But the much-publicized scandals have shined a light on the problem, and social psychologists say today’s high-school students live in a culture that, perhaps more than ever, fosters cheating, or at least the temptation to cheat. The prime offender, they say, is the increased emphasis on testing. Success in school today depends not just on the SAT, but on a raft of federal and state standardized -exams, often starting as early as fourth grade and continuing throughout high school. More than ever, those tests determine where kids go to college—and most kids believe that in an increasingly globalized, competitive world, college, more than ever, determines success. (A weak economy only intensifies the effect.) Carol Dweck is a Stanford psychology professor. Her research shows that when people focus on a score rather than on improvement, they develop a fixed idea of their intellectual abilities. They come to see school not as a place to grow and learn, but as a place to demonstrate their intelligence by means of a number. To a student with that mind-set, the importance of doing well, and the temptation to cheat, increases. In 2010, Eric Anderman found that even the most impulsive cheaters cheated less often when they believed the point of the test was to help them master the material, not just get a score. “If everything is always high-stakes,” Anderman says, “you’re going to create an environment conducive to cheating.””
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Jarc, Rich. "The Ethics of American Youth: 2010." Charactercounts.org. Josephson Institute, 10 Feb. 2011. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “Rampant cheating in school continues. A majority of students (59 percent) admitted cheating on a test during the last year, with 34 percent doing it more than two times. One in three admitted they used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment.” Warrant: Ease of information sharing creates conducive environments for cheating Kolker, Robert. "Cheating Upwards." NYMag.com. New York Magazine, 16 Sept. 2012. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “The culture of sharing appears to also create fertile ground for cheating. It’s not just that e-mailing, texting, and the web make exchanging answers and plagiarizing far more practical. We live in a Wikipedia world, where file-sharing and blurry notions of personal privacy have, for some young people, made the idea of proprietary knowledge seem like a foreign, almost ridiculous, concept. If in the seventies, some students argued that pocket calculators made it senseless to do arithmetic by hand, now the very value of sole authorship is called into question. Today’s plagiarists may not even think they’re doing much of anything wrong, according to Kristal Brent Zook, the director of the M.A. journalism program at Hofstra University on Long Island, who recently wrote in the Columbia Journalism -Review about students who lift passages, apologize, and then do it again and again. “I mean, the word plagiarism, to me, is a hurtful word,” she said one Hofstra student told her when accused.”
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Warrant: Teachers are incentivized to cheat for their students on standardized tests Strauss, Valerie. "How and Why Convicted Atlanta Teachers Cheated on Standardized Tests." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 1 Apr. 2015. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “How did it happen? No Child Left Behind, President George W. Bush’s chief education initiative, and then Race to the Top, President Obama’s central education program, placed increasingly high stakes on standardized test scores. They had to go up, or else there would be negative consequences not just for students but schools and teachers and principals. Such testing mandates were coupled with a “no excuse” management push by school reformers who said teachers had, well, no excuse not to raise their students’ test scores. Not sick or hungry students, not a lack of materials, not overcrowded classrooms. Obama’s Race to the Top initiative — which pit states against each other in competing for federal funds in exchange for implementing specific school reforms — linked student test scores to teacher evaluations and pay. Jacob, Brian, and Steven Levitt. ROTTEN APPLES: AN INVESTIGATION OF THE PREVALENCE AND PREDICTORS OF TEACHER CHEATING (n.d.): 42. Nber.org. National Bureau of Economic Research, Dec. 2002. Web. 6 Nov. 2015. . “This paper develops an algorithm for determining the prevalence of teacher cheating on standardized tests and applies the results to data from the Chicago Public Schools. Our methods reveal over 1,000 separate instances of classroom cheating, representing 4-5 percent of the classrooms. Moreover, we find that teacher cheating appears quite responsive to relatively minor changes in incentives.”
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Upton, Jodi. "For Teachers, Many Ways and Reasons to Cheat on Tests." USATODAY.COM. USA Today, 10 Mar. 2011. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “In an Arizona State University survey published last year, more than 50% of teachers and other educators admitted to some kind of cheating on Arizona's state tests. The authors of the online survey of more than 3,000 educators defined cheating broadly — from accidentally leaving multiplication tables on classroom walls to changing answers.” Warrant: Numerous mechanisms exist for teachers to cheat on behalf of their students Behn, Robert D. Behn’s Performance Leadership Report 9 (2011): n. pag. Harvard.edu. Harvard University, Aug. 2011. Web. 6 Nov. 2015. . “The tactics for teacher cheating are numerous. Teachers can simply tell the students the answers. They can give students identical or very similar problems the week or day before. Or, after the tests are collected, teachers can erase a wrong answer and replace it with the correct one. Thus, the ma- chines that grade these tests now also check to see if the number of erasures are statistically above the norm. A tactic that is less easy to detect is for the teacher, when answering a student’s query about a particular question, to carefully put a hand on the desk. If the teacher’s hand has only one figure on the desk, the correct answer is number one. If there are two fingers, the correct answer is number two.”
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Warrant: High pressure exists within states to improve standardized test scores Levin, Jamie. "Using Student Performance to Evaluate Teachers." (2013): 4-5. Luc.edu. Loyola University Chicago, 2013. Web. 6 Nov. 2015. . “Nevertheless, Obama’s Race to the Top program, not only continues to misuse standardized tests, but now exacerbates the problem by tying test scores directly to teacher evaluations. In 2009, President Obama signed into law the Race to the Top program, making current standardized tests of basic skills more important than ever. In order to win a share of the $4.3 billion dollars of American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (“ARRA”) funds, states are asked to develop teacher evaluation systems that take into account student test scores. Thus, the RTT program continues to misuse standardized test scores to assess teachers and further intensifies the problem by linking test scores to high-stakes purposes.” Warrant: Loss of innovation caused by standardized testing leads to underperformance and cheating Emdin, Christopher. "The 5 Causes of Test Cheating Scandals: From Atlanta to Washington D.C." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 25 Apr. 2013. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . In the current race to make education measurable on a set of single assessments, and the consequent effort for every school to "make it to the top" as quickly as possible, the opportunity for educators to develop innovative practices that can truly impact education are lost. When everyone is scrambling to increase test scores and teachers are being given strict scripts to follow in order to be on the path towards "progress", students are drilled on test questions daily and there is no opportunity for educators to be creative. This creation of non-innovative spaces makes students and teachers overwhelmed, causes students to underperform, and creates a context that supports cheating.
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Warrant: Increasing computerization of standardized testing creates environment ripe for cheating West, Darrell. "Education Technology Success Stories." Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings (n.d.): 10. Brookings.edu. Brookings Institution, Mar. 2013. Web. 7 Nov. 2015. . “PBTs have numerous weaknesses. The ability to complete a PBT may require skills not valid to an inference about subject proficiency. For example a student with dyslexia may have very strong math skills but struggle to read test items. A student with poor fine motor control may have difficulty filling in test bubbles but may have mastered the subject. The process of grading PBTs is prone to error and expensive. The printing, storing, delivery and pickup of millions of paper tests contribute to the cost of standardized testing. Grading handwritten essays requires a huge logistical effort. Furthermore, the PBT format creates many opportunities for cheating. The true extent of cheating on standardized tests is an understudied phenomenon. But, it is reasonable to assume that as more education stakeholders find their personal fortunes tied to test scores more will cheat. Securing tests requires a huge commitment of school resources. These issues are inherent to the PBT format and difficult to solve.” Analysis: You can use multiple links in this argument to show that cheating is incentivized through pressures on states, teachers, and/or individual students. Showing that cheating is a likely problem can have large impacts in the round. First, when students opt to cheat, they aren’t really learning the material, and so education is stalled. Second, teachers aren’t being accurately assessed, and so it is hard to track and manage instructional standards and improvement. Third, honest students and teachers are being harmed, by being disadvantaged for college admittance, promotions, salary increases, etc.
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A2 – Cheating Answer: Cheating on standardized tests is quite rare Warrant: In even the worst cases, cheating is not widespread. Duncan, Arne. "Despite Cheating Scandals, Testing and Teaching Are Not at Odds." Washingtonpost.com. The Washington Post, 19 July 2011. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “It is also an approach rejected by the vast majority of educators, who would never participate in or excuse cheating. The Atlanta cheating scandal has been described as the worst known incident of systemic cheating, so it is worth noting that even there investigators found cheating in 44 out of 2,232 schools in Georgia.” Warrant: Cheating on standardized testing grows increasingly difficult as security measures improve. Edwards, Haley. "Think You Can Cheat on the SAT? The College Board Says Think Again." Time.com. Time Magazine, 31 Oct. 2014. Web. 08 Nov. 2015. “The SAT is never uploaded to the Internet. Test questions are never emailed. And even the computers that test creators use to write and edit the questions are never, ever connected to the web. “The idea is that you can’t hack something that isn’t there,” said Ray Nicosia, the director of the Office of Testing Integrity at the Educational Testing Service (ETS), which oversees the security of the College Board’s SAT and SAT II subject area tests. Every year, those tests are administered at 25,000 test centers in 192 countries around the world.””
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Edwards, Haley. "Think You Can Cheat on the SAT? The College Board Says Think Again." Time.com. Time Magazine, 31 Oct. 2014. Web. 08 Nov. 2015. “Still, Nicosia said, his oversight process doesn’t cut any corners. It begins in the College Board’s secure offices, which are patrolled by security guards who monitor suspicious vehicles in the area. Employees dealing directly with the test questions are required to use computers that are not, and never have been, connected to the Internet, and no part of the test, perhaps needless to say, is ever stored on the cloud. Test writers themselves are subject to background and criminal checks, and can have their briefcases and bags searched upon exiting the building to ensure that they are not transporting a thumb drive or other device containing information about the test’s content. Once the test is written, it is moved in “a secure carrier,” Nicosia said, declining to elaborate, to a print shop that uses security protocols similar to companies that print casino vouchers, which can be exchanged for cash. “All our printers have alarm doors and security cameras and whole list of other things we mandate,” Nicosia said. “You don’t have a print shop employee just walking outside for a cigarette break.” At the end of the printing process, the SAT test booklets are “packaged in a certain way” so that tampering with the booklets themselves is either impossible or immediately obvious, he said. From there, the test booklets are delivered to pre-vetted test administrators and school principals, who have gone thorough an ETS training and who must, in turn, provide ETS with assurance that the tests will be kept in a locked and secured location. In some instances, ETS has arranged to have the test booklets hand-delivered by a ETS employee on the day of the test. On test day, a host of precautions are also in place. For example, ETS requires test takers to upload a photo of themselves when they register for the exam and then provide on test day a photo ID that matches both their registration photograph and their appearance. Test takers are also required to provide a handwriting sample that can be used should any subsequent investigation be necessary.
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(cont.) Edwards, Haley. "Think You Can Cheat on the SAT? The College Board Says Think Again." Time.com. Time Magazine, 31 Oct. 2014. Web. 08 Nov. 2015. In most locations, ETS does not search students for cell phones or other digital devices, but if a proctor sees or hears a digital device, the student is immediately dismissed from the test, his scores are canceled, and a review is launched. In areas where cheating is suspected, ETS also sometimes deploys undercover investigators—employees in their late teens or early twenties who pretend to be test-takers—in order to “get the birds’ eye view of what’s going on without raising any eyebrows,” Nicosia said. At the end of tests, students are required to leave all testing materials behind. All told, while the extent of cheating efforts is probably “extremely overblown in people’s imaginations,” Nicosia said his team takes every tip, allegation or rumor “very, very seriously.” “Whatever challenge is next, we’re looking for it,” he said.”
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Warrant: New technologies make it easy to prevent cheating by teachers and students West, Darrell. "How Technology Can Stop Cheating."TheHuffingtonPost.com. The Huffington Post, 20 Oct. 2013. Web. 08 Nov. 2015. . “Innovative testing technologies like Computerized Adaptive Testing (CAT) represent a way to improve the accuracy of assessment and address cheating concerns. A core advantage of CAT is its potential to refocus learning on instruction. The adaptive nature of CAT can help minimize Campbell's corruptive pressures and reduce teaching to the test. CAT uses an algorithm to choose test items based on the students strengths and weaknesses. Every student takes a different test when using CAT. This covers a larger domain of knowledge and decreases the number of items tests have in common. Currently educators can look at past fixed form tests to predict which questions are likely to reappear. Teachers may then narrow their teaching to those subjects. Adaptive testing disrupts teaching to the test because tests have fewer items in common. CAT makes cheating more difficult without costly security measures. Students take the test online making it impossible for teachers to erase incorrect answers. CAT also eliminates inappropriately administered testing accommodations. CAT can provide testing accommodations like text to speech, speech to text, and text magnification. Currently educators provide these services, which creates an avenue for cheating. CAT can also limit cheating from students sharing items. CAT tests have fewer items in common the fixed form tests making it difficult to share questions. The main virtue of CAT is the removal of cheating opportunities without costly security measures or unnecessary surveillance of teachers.”
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CON – Corporations Argument: Standardized testing was developed, implemented, and lobbied for my educational companies. Warrant: Four companies dominate standardized testing and spend billion to ensure schools continue using their tests. Strauss, Valerie. "Report: Big Education Firms Spend Millions Lobbying for Pro-testing Policies." Washington Post. The Washington Post, n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “The four corporations that dominate the U.S. standardized testing market spend millions of dollars lobbying state and federal officials — as well as sometimes hiring them — to persuade them to favor policies that include mandated student assessments, helping to fuel a nearly $2 billion annual testing business, a new analysis shows. The analysis, done by the Center for Media and Democracy, a nonprofit liberal watchdog and advocacy agency based in Wisconsin that tracks corporate influence on public policy, says that four companies — Pearson Education, ETS (Educational Testing Service), Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and McGraw-Hill— collectively spent more than $20 million lobbying in states and on Capitol Hill from 2009 to 2014. The analysis notes that of the four, only one, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, has signed the Student Privacy Pledge, an initiative by the Future of Privacy Forum and the Software & Information Industry Association to get K-12 school service providers to pledge to safeguard student privacy built around a dozen commitments regarding the collection, maintenance, and use of student personal information. Currently 127 providers have signed it.”
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Warrant: Pearson education spent $8 million between 2009 and 2014. Strauss, Valerie. "Report: Big Education Firms Spend Millions Lobbying for Pro-testing Policies." Washington Post. The Washington Post, n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “Pearson Education: Apart from $8 million spent lobbying from 2009 to 2014, Pearson also underwrote untold sums on luxury trips for school officials. A crackdown by the New York attorney general led to a $7.7 million settlement in 2013, and the shuttering of the “charitable” organization used for the scheme. The company is currently embroiled in a lawsuit in New Mexico for alleged bid rigging when landing an “unprecedented” $1 billion contract for K-12 testing with no other bidders, an allegation the company denied but which warrants greater scrutiny by policymakers.” Warrant: Educational Testing Service pays its directors for-profit salaries; last year’s president’s was was $1.3 million. Strauss, Valerie. "Report: Big Education Firms Spend Millions Lobbying for Pro-testing Policies." Washington Post. The Washington Post, n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “ETS (Educational Testing Service): The $1 billion-a-year nonprofit pays its directors for-profit salaries. Outgoing president Kurt Landgraf received $1.3 million in total compensation in 2013. ETS has lobbied against legislation to require agencies to “immediately initiate an investigation” after complaints on “inadequate” testing conditions. It also lobbied against a bill designed to safeguard pupil data in subcontracting. ETS has also developed guidelines for tests which explicitly ban any mention of evolution and global warming.”
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Warrant: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, posted revenues of $1.37 billion; they have a substantial investment in common core standards. Strauss, Valerie. "Report: Big Education Firms Spend Millions Lobbying for Pro-testing Policies." Washington Post. The Washington Post, n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt posted revenues of $1.37 billion in fiscal year 2014 with a market share of 44 percent that includes some Common Core instructional materials, and a $13 million increase in higher assessment net sales. CEO Linda K. Zecher received $5.2 million in FY 2013.” Warrant: McGraw-Hill, one of the big four companies, refuses to sign the student privacy pledge; their tests also have multiple technical glitches. Strauss, Valerie. "Report: Big Education Firms Spend Millions Lobbying for Pro-testing Policies." Washington Post. The Washington Post, n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “McGraw-Hill: With rapid expansion of its testing business, McGraw-Hill’s state tests have been disrupted by “glitches” in multiple states, affecting tens of thousands of students taking the high-stakes exams. The company has not signed the Student Privacy Pledge. [McGraw-Hill spokesman Brian Belardi said that the company plans to sign it.]”
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Warrant: All four of the testing companies (Pearson, ETS, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and McGraw-Hill) donated substantial amounts to a Foundation that set up personal meetings with representatives and companies lesions. Strauss, Valerie. "Report: Big Education Firms Spend Millions Lobbying for Pro-testing Policies." Washington Post. The Washington Post, n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “The analysis also says that all four testing companies have donated to the Foundation for Excellence in Education, founded by former Florida governor Jeb Bush, with Pearson writing three checks totaling at least $125,000 between 2012 and 2014.1 The foundation is a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council, better known as ALEC. The analysis says that “open records requests from the watchdog group In the Public Interest reveal how FEE has acted both as a bill mill, and as a broker, setting up meetings between corporate donors and state education commissioners.” Warrant: The testing industry is worth more than $700 million. "The Testing Industry's Big Four." PBS. PBS, 2002. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “Even without the impetus of the No Child Left Behind Act, testing is a burgeoning industry. The National Board on Educational Testing and Public Policy at Boston College compiled data from The Bowker Annual, a compendium of the dollar-volume in test sales each year, and reported that while test sales in 1955 were $7 million (adjusted to 1998 dollars), that figure was $263 million in 1997, an increase of more than 3,000 percent. Today, press reports put the value of the testing market anywhere from $400 million to $700 million.”
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December 2015
Warrant: There’s overlap between companies that create standardized tests like the SAT’s and companies that produce standardized/ state-mandated tests for k-12. "The Testing Industry's Big Four." PBS. PBS, 2002. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “It's likely that other companies will enter the testing market. Educational Testing Service (ETS), which until recently had little to do with high-stakes testing and was best known for its administration of the SAT college-entrance exam, won a threeyear, $50 million contract in October 2001 to develop and score California's highschool exit exam, beating out other bidders such as Harcourt and NCS Pearson.” Analysis: This argument is straightforward. Currently, there are 4 big players in the education system that create all the standardized tests k-12 (this includes the ACT’s and SAT’s.) These companies have lobbied legislators to ensure schools keep using standardize tests, thereby benefitting their company. The evidence in this section details the involvement of the four biggest companies, as well as their direct connection to lawmakers.
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December 2015
A2 – Corporations Answer: Standardized tests don’t solely benefit educational corporations Warrant: States are moving away from tests strictly created by the big four. "The Testing Industry's Big Four." PBS. PBS, 2002. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “Alternatively, the states themselves could become major actors in the test-making industry. Though some states now use commercial "off-the-shelf" tests, states are increasingly developing their own tests or are customizing the commercial tests to better "align" them with their curricula standards. Georgia, for instance, uses Harcourt's Stanford Achievement Test for grades 3, 5, and 8, yet it uses its own statedeveloped tests in grades 4, 6, 8, 11, and 12. Many states now use such hybrid assessment systems. (See In Your State for more.) Media coverage of the testing movement tends to focus on testing flaws and mishaps, and none of these companies has emerged unscathed from the intense scrutiny. A May 2001 investigation conducted by The New York Times documented each of the test flaws reported by the states since the 1997-1998 school year. In all, states reported more than two dozen incidents in which the testing companies or their products disrupted the states' testing systems or incorrectly scored or analyzed students' results. (For the complete breakdown, see the chart titled "Four Giants in Testing" in The New York Times' special report "None of the Above: The Test Industry's Failures.")”
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December 2015
Warrant: the US Department of Education wants to move away from using standardized tests as the metric for student performance. LEDERMAN, Josh, and Jennifer KERR. "Obama Encouraging Limits on Standardized Tests, Less 'obsessing' about Testing." US News. The Associated Press, 24 Oct. 2015. Web. 7 Nov. 2015. . “Obama cannot force states or districts to limit testing, which has drawn consternation from parents and teachers. But Obama directed the Education Department to make it easier for states to satisfy federal testing mandates and he urged states and districts to use factors beyond testing to assess student performance. The Obama administration said it still supports standardized tests as a necessary assessment tool, and there are no signs they are going away soon. Both the House and Senate versions of an update to No Child Left Behind would preserve annual reading and math exams, although the House version would diminish their significance in determining whether schools are up to par. The legislation is in limbo while House and Senate negotiators figure out how to reconcile the competing versions.”
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December 2015
Warrant: The federal government is pressuring the education system to move away from a system so heavily focused on standardized tests. Zernike, Kate. "Obama Administration Calls for Limits on Testing in Schools." The New York Times. The New York Times, 24 Oct. 2015. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “Faced with mounting and bipartisan opposition to increased and often high-stakes testing in the nation’s public schools, the Obama administration declared Saturday that the push had gone too far, acknowledged its own role in the proliferation of tests, and urged schools to step back and make exams less onerous and more purposeful. Specifically, the administration called for a cap on assessment so that no child would spend more than 2 percent of classroom instruction time taking tests. It called on Congress to “reduce over-testing” as it reauthorizes the federal legislation governing the nation’s public elementary and secondary schools. “I still have no question that we need to check at least once a year to make sure our kids are on track or identify areas where they need support,” said Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, who has announced that he will leave office in December. “But I can’t tell you how many conversations I’m in with educators who are understandably stressed and concerned about an overemphasis on testing in some places and how much time testing and test prep are taking from instruction.” “It’s important that we’re all honest with ourselves,” he continued. “At the federal, state and local level, we have all supported policies that have contributed to the problem in implementation. We can and will work with states, districts and educators to help solve it.” Analysis: There are a couple ways you can answer the argument that corporations benefit. First off, corporations are involved in every part of the government, whether we like it or not. So the argument that corporations benefit is non-unique. Moreover, both the federal and state government have recently come out stating they want to move away from a system that’s so heavily dependent on these tests, so corporations are beginning to lose influence now. In fact, the first card in this block talks about how some specific states have started making their own tests, free from intervention from the big 4.
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CON – Childhood Argument: Standardized tests create an educational system only focused on outcomes from bubble tests and robs children of their childhood and the experiences of elementary school. Warrant: Standardized tests radically change the cultural of the school for the duration of testing, which contributes to student and administrator stress. Farber, Katie. "Why Great Teachers Quit and How We Might Stop the Exodus." Science and Children (2015): 5-18. Sage Publications. Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., 17 Feb. 2015. Web. 9 Nov. 2015. . “In the example above, the stressful testing scenario had a negative effect on the climate of the school. Lisa described distrust from her principal and a climate of tension and stress that permeated the whole building. Many times, teachers are the “administrators” of these highstakes standardized tests, usually without training or any time to review the materials and responsibilities. In addition to the regular teaching responsibilities, teachers must read and understand a 100-page booklet about the test, its administration and procedures. In many cases, they’ve picked up the booklet five minutes before the test, after they’ve sharpened 50 pencils, set up the room, put the “do not disturb” sign on the door, and turned the phone ringer off. That was after arranging for Joey to take the test in a separate space and finding breakfast for Sam, an adult to scribe for Carrie, and staff to read the questions to Steve. And now the teacher is panicked, fervently scanning the booklet for the key information. When the state monitors come to visit, those folks who know the procedures inside and out because it is their primary responsibility, they will undoubtedly find problems. This climate of tension and stress permeates the school, not just among teachers but also among students, who were already worried about the test and now see their teacher scurrying around the room with a pinched expression.”
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December 2015
Warrant: The normal routines of school children are interrupted and changed for the duration of the tests Farber, Katie. "Why Great Teachers Quit and How We Might Stop the Exodus." Science and Children (2015): 5-18. Sage Publications. Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., 17 Feb. 2015. Web. 9 Nov. 2015. . “Many teachers commented on how standardized testing impacts their regular schedules and curriculum. They have been working for months to develop daily practices among their students, which benefit children academically and socially, and those are essentially thrown out for a few weeks. Losing these routines can set a class back in productivity for a great while. The testing preparation, the actual testing, and the recovery into a normal schedule can take a month or more in total. When you are only dealing with 9 or 10 months of school, this is a considerable block of time.”
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December 2015
Warrant: Teachers report student stress levels significantly increasing during the tests, with some reporting students having accidents, throwing up, or becoming ill because of the stress. Farber, Katie. "Why Great Teachers Quit and How We Might Stop the Exodus." Science and Children (2015): 5-18. Sage Publications. Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., 17 Feb. 2015. Web. 9 Nov. 2015. . “You may have heard about the sixth grader who was not allowed to leave his classroom during the standardized tests to use the bathroom. Then, in the classroom filled with his peers, the 12-year-old boy had an accident. Imagine the humiliation and the damage done to this boy’s self image in the sixth grade, when students are in preadolescence and are very insecure. This incident, written about by Dan Brown (2007) in the Huffington Post, illustrates the troubling high-stakes climate in which children are facing these tests. Many teachers I interviewed talked about the stress the daily hours of testing places on their students. One nine-year veteran teacher talked about how developmentally inappropriate it was to ask third- and fourth-grade students to sit still and be quiet (and to masterfully take a test) for several Standardized Testing 11 days in a row, for two hours a day. The educator watched them read a passage again and again, trying to find the right answer, squirming, stewing, visibly quaking with energy, effort, and frustration. Their third-grade bodies just couldn’t handle this type of testing, and the teacher wondered how exactly this could measure their ability, if they are not developmentally ready to show what they know on the test. Teachers have told me of students vomiting or feeling nauseated before, during, and after the test. Others have seen repeated headaches develop in their most bright and astute students.”
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December 2015
Warrant: Students in urban area schools which have historically scored lower on assessments, feel additional pressure to understand, memorize, and produce the correct answer. This turns the classroom instruction into a militaristic drill environment. Farber, Katie. "Why Great Teachers Quit and How We Might Stop the Exodus." Science and Children (2015): 5-18. Sage Publications. Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., 17 Feb. 2015. Web. 9 Nov. 2015. . 2015. “Many teachers discussed the troubling departure from a more rich and diverse instructional program to basic test-prep work. Students who might exceed the standard and need more in-depth learning may not get it during this time. And students who are seriously struggling might be left behind in all the flurry of test preparation. This effect is especially pernicious for students at low-performing schools, most of them from poor urban families, who are being subjected to lowerlevel drill for skill-type teaching, day in and day out. These children may indeed learn how to improve their test scores, by memorizing a discreet set of facts or ideas, and not understand or comprehend them for long-term retention and the development of critical-thinking skills. Alfie Kohn (2000) writes in Education Week: Again, there’s no denying that many schools serving low income children of color were second-rate to begin with. Now, however, some of these schools, in Chicago, Houston, Baltimore, and elsewhere, are arguably becoming third-rate as testing pressures lead to a more systematic use of low-level, drill-and-skill teaching, often in the context of packaged programs purchased by school districts. Thus, when someone emphasizes the importance of “higher expectations” for minority children, we might reply, “Higher expectations to do what? Bubble-in more ovals correctly on a bad test—or pursue engaging projects that promote sophisticated thinking?” The movement driven by “tougher standards,” “accountability,” and similar slogans arguably lowers meaningful expectations insofar asitrelies on standardized testing as the primary measure of achievement. The more that poor children fill in 12 WHY GREATTEACHERS QUIT worksheets on command (in an effort to raise their test scores), the further they fall behind affluent kids who are more likely to get lessons that help them understand ideas. If the drilling does result in higher scores, the proper response is not celebration, but outrage: The test results may well have improved at the expense of real learning. (pp. 60, 46–47)”
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December 2015
Warrant: Children are treated as passive receptacles of knowledge, with few opportunities to investigate topics and pose questions that they find intriguing. Strauss, Valerie. "A Very Scary Headline about Kindergartners." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 6 Feb. 2014. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “Writer Alfie Kohn wrote in this post about concerns he has about the new calls for universal early childhood education. Why? Because when people talk about “highquality programs,” they often mean academic programs, meaning the academic focus is being pushed down to younger and younger kids. Very few people are talking about the kind of education that would be offered — other than declaring it should be “high quality.” And that phrase is often interpreted to mean “high intensity”: an accelerated version of skills-based teaching that most early-childhood experts regard as terrible. Poor children, as usual, tend to get the worst of this…. … The top-down, test-driven regimen of Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” and Obama’s “Race to the Top” initiatives in K-12 education is now in the process of being nationalized with those Common Core standards championed by the Times — an enterprise largely funded, and relentlessly promoted, by corporate groups. That same version of school reform, driven by an emphasis on global competitiveness and a determination to teach future workers as much as possible as soon as possible, would now be expanded to children who are barely out of diapers. That doesn’t leave much time for play. But even to the extent we want to promote meaningful learning in young children, the methods are likely to be counterproductive, featuring an emphasis on the direct instruction of skills and rote rehearsal of facts. This is the legacy of behaviorism: Children are treated as passive receptacles of knowledge, with few opportunities to investigate topics and pose questions that they find intriguing. In place of discovery and exploration, tots are trained to sit still and listen, to memorize lists of letters, numbers, and colors. Their success or failure is relentlessly monitored and quantified, and they’re “reinforced” with stickers or
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December 2015
(cont.) Strauss, Valerie. "A Very Scary Headline about Kindergartners." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 6 Feb. 2014. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . praise for producing right answers and being compliant. This dreary version of early-childhood education isn’t just disrespectful of children; decades of research show it simply doesn’t work well — and may even be damaging. Bassok, one of the authors of the research paper mentioned above, noted that while there are fun and engaging ways to teach young kids academic material, she worries that so much emphasis will be put on learning to read that other things, like play and social interactions, will be lost. It’s already been happening for years, and it appears to be getting worse. The end result will be kids who hate school even earlier than they do now.” Analysis: This last card is a little long, so bear with me. The first few cards in this argument discuss how standardized testing changes the climate and culture of a school. The cards also discuss how this increase both student and teacher stress. That in and of itself can be an argument, with the impact being stress is bad. This last card talks about how when we push for a “high quality” education, that means we start making school more difficult and introduce standardized tests at a younger age. The card specifically says, “Children are treated as passive receptacles of knowledge, with few opportunities to investigate topics and pose questions that they find intriguing.” This means we’re discouraging students from truly thinking about the problem they’re trying to solve, and the last line of the last card says this will probably make kids hate school even more.
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December 2015
A2 – Childhood Answer: The government is pushing for fewer tests. Warrant: Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, admits that tests change the culture of the school and risk robbing children of the joy of learning; this is why he explains the government is looking for ways to reduce the number of tests students take. Duncan, Arne. "A Back-to-School Conversation with Teachers and School Leaders." US Department of Education. N.p., 21 Aug. 2014. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “And we also need to recognize that in many places, the sheer quantity of testing – and test prep – has become an issue. In some schools and districts, over time tests have simply been layered on top of one another, without a clear sense of strategy or direction. Where tests are redundant, or not sufficiently helpful for instruction, they cost precious time that teachers and kids can’t afford. Too much testing can rob school buildings of joy, and cause unnecessary stress. This issue is a priority for us, and we’ll continue to work throughout the fall on efforts to cut back on over-testing. There’s plenty of responsibility to share on these challenges, and a fair chunk of that sits with me and my department. We encouraged states to move a whole lot of changes simultaneously, because of the enormous urgency to raise standards and improve systems of teacher support – not for another generation of students, but for today’s students.” Analysis: This card is pretty important because it basically points out that the status quo is solving the problems of over testing and rising stress levels because of standardized tests for students.
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December 2015
Answer: Some students just don’t perform well under stress Warrant: There are biological and chemical reasons that students are unable to handle stress. Bronson, Po, and Ashley Merryman. "Why Can Some Kids Handle Pressure While Others Fall Apart?" The New York Times. The New York Times, 09 Feb. 2013. Web. 09 Nov. 2015. . “The people who perform best in normal conditions may not be the same people who perform best under stress,” Diamond says. People born with the fast-acting enzymes “actually need the stress to perform their best.” To them, the everyday is underwhelming; it doesn’t excite them enough to stimulate the sharpness of mind of which they are capable. They benefit from that surge in dopamine — it raises the level up to optimal. They are like Superman emerging from the phone booth in times of crisis; their abilities to concentrate and solve problems go up.
Analysis: This card can basically help prove there are alternative factors outside tests that can increase student stress. All student stress can’t be pinned on standardized tests.
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Warrant: Healthy amounts of stress and student competitiveness can actually help improve student performance and is good for the overall mental health of students. Bronson, Po, and Ashley Merryman. "Why Can Some Kids Handle Pressure While Others Fall Apart?" The New York Times, 09 Feb. 2013. Web. . “High-stakes academic testing isn’t going away. Nor should competition among students. In fact several scholars have concluded that what students need is more academic competition, but modeled on the kinds children enjoy. David and Christi Bergin, professors of educational and developmental psychology at the University of Missouri, have begun a pilot study of junior high school students participating in math competitions. They have observed that, within a few weeks, students were tackling more complex problems than they would even at the end of a yearlong class. Some were even doing college-level math. That was true even for students who didn’t like math before joining the team and were forced into it by their parents. Knowing they were going up against other teams in front of an audience, the children took ownership over the material. They became excited about discovering ever more advanced concepts, having realized each new fact was another weapon in their intellectual arsenal. In-class spelling bees. Science fairs. Chess teams. “The performance is highly motivating,” David Bergin says. Even if a child knows her science project won’t win the science fair, she still gets that moment to perform. That moment can be stressful and invigorating and scary, but if the child handles it well, it feels like a victory. “Children benefit from competition they have prepared for intensely, especially when viewed as an opportunity to gain recognition for their efforts and improve for the next time,” says Rena Subotnik, a psychologist at the American Psychological Association. Subotnik notes that scholastic competitions can raise the social status of academic work as well as that of the contestants. Competitions like these are certainly not without stress, but the pressure comes in predictable ebbs and flows, broken up by moments of fun and excitement.” Analysis: This card is pretty clear that stress in any competitive atmosphere is normal and it comes in both “ebbs and flows, broken up by moments of fun and excitement.” However, it’s important to note there are 2 solid examples/expert testimonies in this card that both say student competitiveness in an academic setting actually boosts student achievement.
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December 2015
CON – Racism Argument: Standardized tests are inherently racist and should not be used in education. Warrant: A recently filed complained with the US Department of Education points out that minority students in New York are scoring consistently lower than white students, even though they make up the majority of students in the system. Brooks, Noliwe. "Why It's Time to Get Rid of Standardized Tests." Time Magazine. N.p., 11 Oct. 2012. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “Do standardized achievement tests unfairly advantage white and Asian students and disadvantage the rest? According to a group of educational organizations and civil rights groups the answer is yes. The recently filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education pointing out that black and Latino students in New York score below whites and Asians on standardized tests so consistently that although they are almost 70% of the overall student body, they are only 11% of students enrolled at elite public schools. As a result, the complaint argues that New York City is in violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act because schools rely on a test that advantages one racial group over another.”
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December 2015
Warrant: Because of consistent discrepancies in tests scores between demographics of students, some school districts are setting different benchmarks for minority students, who historically score lower on standardized tests. Brooks, Noliwe. "Why It's Time to Get Rid of Standardized Tests." Time Magazine. N.p., 11 Oct. 2012. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. .
“This is not the only instance where race has become an important factor for how standardized tests are used in public education. Just last month public schools in both Virginia and Washington D.C. announced targets for how many students in each racial group must pass for schools to remain in good standing. For example, in Virginia only 45% of black students in each school must pass standardized math tests while 68% of whites, and 82% of Asians must do the same. Officials say that these plans are not discriminatory because students who are the farthest behind must progress the most, but critics reason that if one expects less from some students, those lower educational expectations will become a self-fulfilling prophecy for school districts and those students will fall even farther behind. What these recent developments make clear is that instead of setting different educational benchmarks for groups based on race or income, it may simply be time for us to stop relying so heavily on standardized tests to begin with. Though opinions differ as to why, on k-12 achievement tests and college entrance exams, lower income students, as well as black and Latino students, consistently score below privileged white and Asian students. These gaps persist despite decades of research and numerous studies attempting to explain and then close them. One theory suggests that students with grandparents who have graduated from college always score higher, suggesting that the tests unfairly penalize students who are the first in their family to attend college. Whatever the explanation, it is difficult to reconcile why we rely on such tests when we know that they so heavily advantage some and disadvantage others.”
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December 2015
Warrant: Tests scores are highly correlated with parental income and education. Berlak, Harold. "Academic Achievement, Race, and Reform: Six Essays on Understanding Assessment Policy, Standardized Achievement Tests, and AntiRacist Alternatives." US Department of Education (2011): n. pag. Nov. 2011. Web. 7 Nov. 2015. . “Numerous researchers have carefully documented the highly disproportionate adverse impact on students of color of standardized achievement testing.18 An argument might be made that these differences in test scores, while small, nevertheless represent real differences in performance, and that tests, though imperfect, eliminate those most likely to perform poorly at school or on the job. Steele's study suggests the opposite - that the more talented students are at greater risk of failure. There is no evidence to support the claim that standardized tests are valid and credible measures of academic achievement or intellectual capacity. Further, there is no demonstrable connection between observed academic performance and standardized test scores. Test scores do not predict future success in school, the university, or in the workplace. Some standardized tests, the SAT for example, do correlate statistically to future grades. But this correlation is short lived. What standardized achievement tests appear to predict best are parents' wealth and scores on other similarly constructed tests. As reported by Peter Sacks, socio-economic class accounts for approximately 50% of the variance in SAT test scores. He estimates that for every additional $10,000 in family income, a person on average gains 30 points on the SAT.”
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Warrant: Standardized tests create a disparity of test scores between demographics of students; groups including the NAACP are pressuring districts to stop using standardized tests because of their inherent unfairness. Brooks, Noliwe. "Why It's Time to Get Rid of Standardized Tests." Time Magazine. N.p., 11 Oct. 2012. Web. 06 Nov. 2015. . “Today, as an acknowledgment of the inherent racial and economic inequity of standardized achievement tests, hundreds of colleges have already stopped requiring the SAT for college admission decisions. However, the same cannot be said for k-12, where scores on achievement tests are in part used for everything from admitting students to prestigious public schools to placing students in gifted or remedial programs, allocating federal funding, and even evaluating teachers. A growing number of parents, school boards, teachers and civil rights organizations are beginning to question the fairness of our overreliance on standardized tests and recently over 300 groups, including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund signed a petition to ask congress to ban the use of such tests. Given the recent developments in Washington D.C. and Virginia, it would seem that it’s about time.”
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Warrant: Deeply engrained stereotypes and institutionalized racism create a Pygmalion effect for students of color. "Social and Economic Impact of Large Refugee Populations on Host Developing Countries." UNHCR News. UN Refugee Committee, 6 Jan. 1997. Web. 02 Oct. 2015. “Standardized testing perpetuates institutionalized racism and contributes to the achievement gap between whites and minorities. For instance, the deeply embedded stereotype that African Americans perform poorly on standardized tests hinders many African Americans' testing ability. Also, research has shown that minorities statistically have lower standardized test scores than whites because of existing, hidden biases in the development and administration of standardized tests and interpretation of their scores. Therefore, the achievement gap will not begin to close until current standards and assessment tests are significantly reformed.”
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Warrant: Standardized tests have inherent racial and cultural biases; many school districts are petitioning school board leaders to do away with these tests because of their inherent discrimination towards minority students. Reese, Ronnie. "Minority Testing Bias Persists." The Huffington Post. N.p., 21 Feb. 2013. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “In "The IQ Test" episode of seminal 1970s sitcom Good Times, young Michael Evans earned one of the lowest scores in his school on an intelligence test. As usual, hopes were high in the Evans household -- this time, it was in anticipation of Michael's eighth grade graduation -- but a letter from his school stated that Michael, normally a straight-A student, would be better suited for trade school instead of a career in academia. But Michael didn't score low because of a lack of ability. He scored low because he chose not to finish the test. "I didn't like the questions, so I walked out," he told his parents. His rationale was that the exam was a "nothing but a white racist test... given by the white people, made up by white people and even graded by white people." One question, for example, asked which of the following words best matched the word "cup" -- "wall," "saucer," "table" or "window"? Michael's friend Eddie, presumably an African-American, chose "table," because in his house, Michael said, there are no saucers to put under the cups. This is sadly where many minority students still find themselves today -- with no saucers to put under their cups. A boycott of the Northwest Evaluation Association's (NWEA) Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test by teachers and students at Garfield High School in Seattle has reignited a movement against standardized testing in U.S. schools and debate over tests' inherent cultural bias. In an appeal of the Seattle Public School Board's 2010 decision to renew its contract with the NWEA, members of a parent group alleged "that the MAP test disadvantages non-English speaking students, special education students, minority and low-income children." Fair education reform advocates have long cited a litany of concerns about standardized testing, many of which address racial bias and discrimination, as author and researcher Harold Berlak explains in the journal Rethinking Education.”
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Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Warrant: Standardized tests continue to deny minorities access to equal education. Berlak, Harold. "Academic Achievement, Race, and Reform: Six Essays on Understanding Assessment Policy, Standardized Achievement Tests, and AntiRacist Alternatives." US Department of Education (2011): n. pag. Nov. 2011. Web. 7 Nov. 2015. . “Standardized tests are a particularly invidious form of institutionalized racism because they lend the cloak of science to policies that have denied, and are continuing to deny, persons of color equal access to educational and job opportunities. An educational accountability system based on standardized testing though predicated on 'standardized' measurements which are purportedly neutral, objective, and color-blind, perpetuates and strengthens institutionalized racism.” Analysis: This whole argument is premised off the idea what the education system knows minority students statistically score lower on standardized tests. This is for a couple reasons 1) the makers of the tests are creating questions that are geared towards students of higher socioeconomic classes (ie – the background information necessary to understand the questions are grounded in a white/socio-economic culture.) 2) Continuing to test minority students who are scoring lower on standardized tests creates a perpetual cycle in which minority students are trapped into the idea they can’t score as high as their predominately white or Asian peers. (ie – the Pygmalion effect.)
Champion Briefs
247
Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
A2 – Racism Answer: Standardized test questions don’t contain racial bias Warrant: Standardized tests include questions regarding student’s out-of-class knowledge, but there’s nothing inherently racist about these questions. Gawthrop, Jeremiah. "MEASURING STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT: A STUDY OF STANDARDIZED TESTING & ITS EFFECT ON STUDENT LEARNING." Measuring Student Achievement: A Study of Standardized Testing & Its Effect on Student Learning (n.d.): n. pag. 29 Apr. 2014. Web. 7 Nov. 2015. . “Although standardized tests may have advantages for one group over another, it does not mean racial discrimination is an intentional goal of test makers. Achievement tests are meant to evaluate knowledge base; how much a student knows. College achievement tests, like the SAT, are slightly different because they evaluate the aptitude and proficiency of a student, but still follow the same idea that what is being evaluated is the student’s academic knowledge. There is nothing inherently racist with testing a student’s out-of-class knowledge, nor is it inherently discriminatory to ask questions that are based off of cultural norms. The SAT and other achievement tests are fair. They do a good job at pointing out which groups of students have less out-of-class knowledge. It is difficult to argue that the College Board and Pearson and others, are intentionally discriminatory in asking these questions. Nonetheless, the presence of these questions is based off of a bias that does affect student test takers on a socioeconomic level.”
Champion Briefs
248
Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Warrant: Standardized tests give us an accurate reflection of where the achievement gaps are located; but it’s important to note, that no test can close those gaps. Strauss, Valerie. "Five Things People Say about Standardized Tests and the Opt-out Movement That Aren’t True." Washington Post. The Washington Post, n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “At first read, it sounds like standardized testing was designed to close the achievement gap. This is simply not true. No test can close a gap. Testing can only show you where the gaps are. We know we have an achievement gap in this country and that after 10 years of No Child Left Behind and nearly eight years of Race to the Top, the gap has not closed. Do we need more standardized testing to show us that African-American and Latino students do not score as high as their white and Asian counterparts? We know that if you plug in student zip codes on a map, you could easily determine which areas would have high test scores and which areas would have low test scores, because testing reveals more about economic inequality than academic achievement.” Analysis: These two cards discuss how there isn’t an inherent racial bias that exists within standardized tests. The first card says that asking students questions which require out-ofclassroom knowledge isn’t racist. The second card talks about how standardized tests aren’t inherently racist; they only reveal the socio economic differences that exist within test scores. These cards are both defensive, but they point towards a general trend – it’s not accurate or fair to claim standardized tests are racist. They only show the disparity of results that exist.
Champion Briefs
249
Con Arguments with Pro Responses
December 2015
Answer: The argument that standardized tests are racist is non-unique. Warrant: The same tests result disparities would exist if we tests a random sample of students throughout k-12. Standardized tests only provide insight into the achievement gap that exists in American Education. Strauss, Valerie. "Five Things People Say about Standardized Tests and the Opt-out Movement That Aren’t True." Washington Post. The Washington Post, n.d. Web. 07 Nov. 2015. . “So how do we respond to standardized test results that show a racial or class achievement gap? Well, under NCLB, we would label the school as failing to meet “adequate yearly progress”. We would sanction the school and possibly close it and turn it into a charter school. Is that how we close the achievement gap? The charter school experiment has been under way in the United States for over 20 years and we still have an achievement gap. Although some charter schools are able to produce amazing results (especially when they self-select good students and remove those who threaten to lower test scores) but overall charters do not outperform public schools and have not closed the achievement gap. The problem with this myth is that it leads people to believe that testing students more can somehow make the achievement gap shrink and eventually disappear. We do need to know how students are doing in school and if there are disparities based on race and class, but we can collect this information by testing a random sample of students once in elementary school, once in middle school, and once in high school. We do not need annual testing in grades 3 through 8 to show that academic achievement is tied to social class and race.” Analysis: You would get the same test results if you sampled a random group of students throughout k-12 education. This means that even if you hand-select a group of students, the results would be similar. There’s no direct link that standardized tests are racist.
Champion Briefs
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