December's Topic

[PureAdrenalineX]

Hey everyone...What do you all think of December's topic:
RESOLVED: That Congress should repeal the No Child Left Behind Act.

[NCownsUS]

We were so sick of the November topic, we were very excited for the December one. NCLB is decent, but it seems the pro has an unfair advantage.

[goonies]

what is the nclb act exactly?

[BellaDC]

NCLB is the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Passed by a wide margin in congress the important parts of the act are:
1. Adequate Yearly Progress-schools must make AYP every years or there are servere consequences
2. Accountability-the act aims to make the educators and staff at schools more responsible for the students not doing well
3. Highly Qualified Teachers-educators must be Highly Qualified, defined as having a masters in the field they teach. Teachers who are not HQed are prohibited to teach in that subject area.
4.Assessments-schools must evaluate students in an assessment that is in accordance to national standards.
5. Minority Subgroups-each subgroup of students in a school (i.e. special ed, ethinic minorities, etc) must pass by a certain percentage as well, otherwise the whole school will be labed as "failed".
6. Vouchers-after 2 years of inadequate progress the school must provide students busing to other schools in the area. This is a thin veil for vouchers.

The act is about 400 pages long but those are the main points (and most controversial).

I debated this when it came out as the topic for December my senior year, and won on the negative a lot eventhough I agree with the positive. The Pro's main mistake is to base their whole argument on the fact that they say testing is bad. In fact, the act never mentions "testing" or "standardized tests" only assessments in accordance with national standards (of which there are none and the act is painfully vague in this sense). There are many other ways of assessing students other than a standardized test, like Individual Educational Profiles (IEP) which they already use for special-ed students.

[Meho]

thanks for answering that


...


three years is a bit long to keep someone waiting though.