Lincoln+Douglas+Tuesday

From nflonline.org:

. . A high school diploma acts as the most fundamental gateway to a person realizing her promise and securing her future in adult life. Without this diploma, gainful employment, financial stability, and property ownership become very difficult to obtain. In addition to these practical concerns, a diploma represents the knowledge and skills a person has gained to enable her participation in civic institutions and the actualization of her own life projects. Who earns and who fails to earn a diploma shapes the future socioeconomic makeup of American society by determining what landscape of opportunity is open to young people. High-stakes exit exams also reveal the failures of our society to address past and current discrimination given the achievement gaps they consistently have revealed along racial and class lines. (A test is considered “high stakes” when its score alone determines significant outcomes in a person’s life, such as grade promotion or graduation, rather than a compilation of factors.) Supporters say these exams have the power to hold schools accountable in terms of their failure to serve underprivileged populations and to promote equity in classrooms by ensuring all students are held to the same expectations. They also argue that exit exams maintain the integrity of diplomas by ensuring that students have a baseline level of knowledge when they leave the U. S. public school system to enter college or the job market. Critics say such highstakes tests will only re-entrench disadvantage by ignoring other aspects of achievement/intelligence and by denying future opportunities to those lost in a system these exams assess (at best) but do not fix. Some challenge that standardized exams actually make schools worse by driving out individualized attention to student needs and fostering remedial instruction (or teaching to the test) rather than a focus on higher order critical thinking abilities. All these issues make this a dynamic topic for debate and provide a variety of avenues for brainstorming arguments. Unlike many LD topics, this resolution does not explicitly direct debaters toward a focus on justice or morality. Still, a focal point is contextually provided. What constitutes a successful exit from any academic institution should reflect the fulfillment of the instructional goals set forth at the time of entry. In questioning a controversial graduation requirement, this resolution then pushes debaters to consider the very purpose of public education in a free society and the philosophy upon which a democracy should base the teaching of its children. How one views the role of public education in the United States should frame the position one advocates in that standardized exit exams can be evaluated in terms of fitting or not fitting this model. Are standardized exit exams appropriate for:
 * Resolved: Public high school students in the United States ought not be required to pass**
 * standardized exit exams to graduate.**

• Ensuring a prosperous work force? (a focus on social welfare) • Transmitting a core canon of knowledge? (a focus on social cohesion) • independence or freedom) Encouraging the examined life and self-reliance? (a focus on • Promoting respect for diversity? (a focus on tolerance) • Providing equal opportunity and social mobility? (a focus on justice)

• a focus on civic duty) http://www.eric.ed.gov/ ), which is a clearinghouse for educational research. However, Journal & Online Articles

Achieve, Inc. “Do Graduation Tests Measure Up?: A Closer Look at State High School Exit Exams.” The American Diploma Project. ERIC.

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/3 d/13/d5.pdf FinalReport.pdf organization of governors and business leaders” with the mission of helping “raise academic standards, improve assessments and strengthen accountability to prepare all young people for postsecondary education, work and citizenship.” Amrein, A.L., & Berliner, D.C. “High-Stakes Testing, Uncertainty, and Student Learning.” ; also available at: http://www.achieve.org/files/TestGraduation-. This organization describes itself as a “bipartisan, nonprofit // Education Policy Analysis Archives, Vol. 10, No. 18. (March 2002), // http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v10n18/ Bishop, John H. “The Effect of National Standards and Curriculum-Based Exams on Achievement.” 264. Catterall, James S. “Standards and School Dropouts: A National Study of Tests Required for High School Graduation.” (November 1989), pp. 1-34. Children’s Defense Fund. “High School Exit Exams: Quick Facts.” (September 2004), . // The American Economic Review, Vol. 87, No. 2. (May 1997), pp. 260- // American Journal of Education , Vol. 98, No. 1. http://www.childrensdefense.org/site/DocServer/exitexams.pdf?docID=457 this fact sheet provide several sources. Chudowsky, Naomi; Kober, Nancy; Gayler, Keith S.; & Hamilton, Madlene. “State High School Exit Exams: A Baseline Report.” ERIC. . Footnotes to // Center on Education Policy. (August 2002), // http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/1a /ad/d2.pdf ; also available at: http://www.hsee.umn.edu/hsee_documentation/allstates_cep.pdf Garcia, Paula. “The Use of High School Exit Examinations in Four Southwestern States.” . Bilingual Research Journal Greene, Jay P., & Winters, Marcus A. “Pushed Out or Pulled Up? Exit Exams and Dropout Rates in Public High Schools: Education Working Paper 5,” for Policy Research. , Vol. 27, Issue 3. (Fall 2003) pg. 431 (21 pages). // Manhattan Institute (May 2004), ERIC. // http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/1 b/9d/95.pdf Heubert, J. P. English-Language Learners, and Students with Disabilities.” Wakefield, MA: National Center on Accessing the General Curriculum. (2002), ; also available at: http://www.manhattan-institute.org/pdf/ewp_05.pdf. // “ High-Stakes Testing: Opportunities and Risks for Students of Color, // http://www.cast.org/publications/ncac/ncac_highstakes.html Hirsch, E. D. Core Knowledge Foundation. . http://coreknowledge.org/CK/about/articles/index.htm articles written by Hirsch, a controversial educator who has advocated all students need to have a foundation of core knowledge that provides them “cultural literacy.” Hirsch advocates that equity rests on students sharing a standard content base. Hong, W.-P., & Youngs, P. “Does High-Stakes Testing Increase Cultural Capital Among Low-Income and Racial Minority Students?” Archives . This website provides several // Education Policy Analysis, Vol. 16, No. 6. (March 2008), ERIC. // http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/3e /38/6f.pdf Jacob, Brian A. “Getting Tough? The Impact of High School Graduation Exams,” ; also available at: http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v16n6/. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis Jane, Krentz; Thurlow, Martha; Shyyan, Vitaliy; & Scott, Dorene, “Alternative Routes to the Standard Diploma: Synthesis Report 54,” Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, National Center on Educational Outcomes. (March 2005), ERIC. , Vol. 23, No. 2. (Summer 2001), pp. 99-121. http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/2 9/db/7a.pdf Johnson, Tammy; Boyden, Jennifer Emiko; & Pittz, William J. “Racial Profiling and Punishment in U. S. Public Schools: How Zero Tolerance Policies and High Stakes Testing Subvert Academic Excellence and Racial Equity,” Oakland, CA: Applied Research Center. (October 2001), ERIC. ; also available at: http://cehd.umn.edu/nceo/OnlinePubs/Synthesis54.html. http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/19/ce/4 d.pdf justice through research, advocacy and journalism.” Longstreet, Wilma S. “Profit and Loss in the Classroom: Will the Business Model Bankrupt Education?” Madaus, George F. “The Distortion of Teaching and Testing: High-Stakes Testing and Instruction.” Phelps, Richard P. “Why Testing Experts Hate Testing.” (Jan. 1999), Stevens, Christy. “Critical Pedagogy on the Web.” uiowa.edu/~stevens/critped/page1.htm introduction to the concepts and thinkers associated with critical pedagogy and provides resources for further study. . This organization describes itself as “a public policy institute advancing racial // Social Education, Vol 66. (November 2002) // Peabody Journal of Education, Vol. 65, No. 3. (Spring 1988), pp. 29-46. // Fordham Report, Vol. 3, No. 1. http://www.edexcellence.net/doc/phelps.pdf. http://mingo.infoscience. . This website provides a basic // Books specific to standardized testing:

Kornhaber, Mindy & Orfield, Gary (eds.). Raising Standards or Raising Barriers?: Inequality and High Stakes Testing in Public Education. New York: Century Foundation Press, 2001. Part of the Civil Rights in a New Era series. Sacks, Peter. Standardized Minds: The High Price of America’s Testing Culture and What We Can Do to Change It. Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus Publishing, 2000.

Books that explore race, class, and cultural issues in classrooms and/or that discuss the philosophy and politics of education:

Delpit, Lisa. Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom. New York: New Press, 1995. Dewey, John. Democracy and Education. New York: Macmillan, 1916. Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder, 1970. Giroux, Henry. Pedagogy and the Politics of Hope. Boulder, Co: Westview Press, 1997. Kincheloe, Joe L. Critical Pedagogy Primer. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2004. Kozol, Jonathan. Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools. New York: Crown, 1991. Lather, Patti. Getting Smart: Feminist Research and Pedagogy Within/In the Postmodern. New York/London: Routledge, 1991. Peterson, E. Paul, and West, Martin R (eds.). No Child Left Behind? The Politics and Practice of School Accountability. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press, 2003.

Education websites with internal search engines where articles can be found on highstakes testing:

Center on Education Policy (has a link specific to “high school exit examinations” that will take you to 24 reports on the subject published between 2002-2008), org Education Policy Analysis Archives, Arizona State University, http://www.cepdc. . http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/search.html Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), Education Week, FairTest: The National Center for Fair & Open Testing, National Center on Accessing the General Curriculum, . http://www.eric.ed.gov/. http://www.edweek.org/ew/index.html. http://www.fairtest.org/. http://www.cast.org/policy/ncac/index.html State High School Exit Exam website, University of Minnesota (has a reference link which will allow you to access multiple sources), Thomas B. Fordham Institute, . http://www.hsee.umn.edu/. http://www.edexcellence.net/template/index.cfm.