Education Debate Guide

From PhiloWiki

1 Justification
2 Funding
3 Vouchers
4 Religion in schools
5 Desegregation
6 No Child Left Behind
7 School uniforms
8 Salaries
9 Global competitiveness
10 Home schooling
11 Unions
12 Lotteries
13 Standardized testing

Justification

Is the existence of public schools justified ?

PRO : Most statists and syndicalists argue that education is necessary for the maintenance of a progressive and productive society, and that thus some level of education must be provided by the state. They also argue that a public system is fair for the least fortunate amongst us. Finally, they contend that we have a duty to support public education, because we all depend on its social benefits.

CON : Libertarians and market anarchists argue that education, like any other service, can only be efficiently and fairly produced by free markets, and that public education is merely another tool of state indoctrination and exploitation. They also point to third-world countries (such as India and China) where private education outperforms public education and supports fair progress.

Should all children continue to be forced by law to attend school until their state's legal dropout age ?

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Funding

Does the US public school system need more money?

School officials complain that they need more money; however, most of the countries that outperform us spend less per student than we do. American schools spend about $10,000 per student, totaling $250,000 plus for a class of 25. Still, American students pale in international comparisons, placing 18th in reading, 22nd in science and 28th in math.

PRO

Budget cuts often slash funding for items such as after-school programs and vocational education. This means that thousands of children will be denied participation in programs that provide critical supervision and instruction as well as those that provide young people vocational skills to find good jobs.
More money could be spent on having computers in every classroom and lowering classroom size by hiring more teachers.

CON

In the debate over education finance reform, saving money deserves as much attention as collecting money. If public schools were more careful about what they spend for support services, they would have more resources available for actual education.
One principal of a charter school saves money by having students help clean the grounds and set up for lunch. Since this system was implemented over four years ago, this school has gone from being among the worst middle schools in Oakland to the one where the kids get the best test scores.
One obvious solution to high costs for school support services is for schools to contract these services out to competitive private firms, a form of "privatization."

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Vouchers

Should school voucher programs be widely implemented?

PRO

Competition is healthy; vouchers bring competition to public education.
School choice gives people the option of selecting the school their child will attend. Money that is currently spent on a child's public education would be given to his/her parents in the form of a voucher which could be used at the private or charter school of their choice.
In Cleveland's Trial Voucher Program, minorities from single parent households who used their vouchers at Catholic schools had higher test scores and graduation rates than white children in the public school system.
In the following cities, as of 1998, the percentage of public school teachers who send their children to private school are:
- Los Angeles - 18.9%
- New York - 21.4%
- Boston - 24.4%
- Miami - 35.4%

CON

Vouchers expand the power of government to control school policies into the private sector.
Private schools are allowed to discriminate on a variety of grounds. These institutions regularly reject applicants because of low achievement and discipline problems.
Under a system of vouchers, it may be difficult to prevent schools run by extremist groups from receiving public funds to subsidize their agendas.
A $2,500 voucher supplement may make the difference for some families, but with some schools charging over $10,000 per year, the voucher programs offer nothing of value to families who cannot come up with the rest of the money to cover tuition costs.
School voucher programs undermine two great American traditions: universal public education and the separation of church and state. Do private schools really want big government telling them what they can or can't do?
Vouchers usually end up subsidizing private/religious school education, not "saving" kids from failing public schools. In Milwaukee, 4,550 of the 6,000 students receiving vouchers have never been in enrolled in a public school.
Highly competitive college prep schools are already turning down applicants; a voucher can’t secure a spot in a school that is already full. Currently only 6% of American students attend private school, mostly parochial schools. Secular private schools – Andover, Exeter, Ravenscroft, Cary Academy, etc. – educate less than 1% of the school-age population.

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Religion in schools

Should religion have a place in schools?

PRO

Our government was based on religious principles from the beginning. The first American school system, which began in Massachusetts, in 1647, was established to ensure that children would grow up with the ability to read the Bible.
Public schools had prayer for nearly 200 years before the Supreme Court ruled that state-mandated class prayers were unconstitutional (Engle, 1962). The fact that prayer was practiced for nearly 200 years establishes it by precedent as a valid and beneficial practice in our schools.
Since the court outlawed prayer, the nation has been in steady moral decline. Former Secretary of Education William Bennett revealed in his cultural indexes that between 1960 and 1990 there was a steady moral decline. During this period divorce double, teenage pregnancy went up 200%, teen suicide increased 300%, child abuse reached an all-time high, violent crime went up 500% and abortion increased 1000%. There is a strong correlation between the expulsion of prayer from our schools and the decline in morality.
To forbid the majority the right to pray because the minority object, is to impose the irreligion of the minority on the religious majority. Forbidding prayer in schools, which a three-quarters majority of Americans favors is the tyranny of the minority. It is minority rule, not democracy.

CON

Religion has no place as in educational institutions, apart from the obvious (history classes and mythology classes). Religious epistemology is anti-scientific and culturally divisive. Religious doctrines tend to be morally suspect.
The controversy over officially sponsored prayer in public schools did not begin in 1962. In the 1830s, when waves of Italian and Irish Catholic immigrants came to this country and objected to compulsory readings of the Protestant King James Bible and the recitation of Protestant prayers in most public schools. A bitter conflict erupted, including riots, the expulsion of Catholic children from public schools, the burning of convents and even some deaths. The framers of the Constitution knew the evils of state sponsored religion.
It’s against the law to forbid people to pray on their own. But it’s also against the law to force people to listen to you pray. Nothing in the Constitution now prohibits children from engaging in truly voluntary prayer. They may pray at the beginning of the day, over lunch, before tests, or at any time they have a free moment.
Notice what JESUS says about public and repetitive Prayers: (Matthew 6:5-8):
- 5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
- 6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
- 7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
- 8 Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.

Intelligent Design Background
- Tammy Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District, et al., was the first direct challenge brought in United States federal courts against a public school district that required the presentation of "Intelligent Design" as an alternative to evolution as an "explanation of the origin of life". The plaintiffs successfully argued that intelligent design is a form of creationism, and that the school board policy thus violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Intelligent design (ID) is the concept that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." Its leading proponents, all of whom are affiliated with the Discovery Institute, say that intelligent design is a scientific theory that stands on equal footing with, or is superior to, current scientific theories regarding the origin of life.

- The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution states that: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" Together with the Free Exercise Clause, (" or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"), these two clauses make up what is commonly known as the religion clauses.

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Desegregation

Does desegregation busing allow students equal or educational opportunities, or does it rather compromise their education?

In the early 1970s, a series of state laws and court decisions mandated the racial integration of school districts within individual cities, often requiring the racial composition of each individual school in the district to reflect the composition of the district as a whole. Forced busing was used mainly in large, ethnically segregated school systems.

PRO

Proponents of the plans argued that with the schools integrated, minority students have equal access to equipment, facilities and resources that the cities' white students have, thus giving all students in the city equal educational opportunities.
Children growing up in ethnically diverse schools will be less prejudiced.

CON

Opponents claim busing compromises the quality of the students' education. Declining property values due to white flight further decreased the quality of the educational systems and ultimately tended to defeat the purpose of the program.
Most forced busing programs met with persistent complaints from parents of all races due to the long rides, hardships with transportation for extra-curricular activities, and separation of siblings when elementary schools at opposite sides of the city were "paired," (i.e. splitting lower and upper elementary grades into separate schools).

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No Child Left Behind

Should the ‘No Child Left Behind Act’ be Left Behind?

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (PL 107-110) is the reauthorization of a number of federal programs that aim to improve the performance of America's primary and secondary schools by increasing the standards of accountability for states, school districts, and schools, as well as providing parents more flexibility in choosing which schools their children will attend. The effectiveness and desirability of the Act's measures continue to be a matter of vigorous debate. On May 3, 2005, Utah governor Jon Huntsman signed a measure into state law that allows that state's districts to ignore provisions of the law which conflict with that state's program, making it the first state to pass such a law. The Department of Education has threatened to withhold federal education funding as a result. Major provisions include:

Adequate Yearly Progress: Schools have to make adequate yearly progress (AYP), as determined by the state, by raising the achievement levels of subgroups of students such as African Americans, Latinos, low-income students, and special education students to a state-determined level of proficiency by the 2013-2014 school year.

Teacher Quality: By the end of the 2005-2006 school year all teachers will be "highly qualified" as defined in the law. A highly qualified teacher is one who has fulfilled the state's certification and licensure requirements. Student Testing: The progress of all students will be measured annually in reading/language arts and math in grades 3 through 8 and at least once during high school. By the end of the 2007-2008 school year, testing will also be conducted in science once during grades 3-5, 6-9, and 10-12.

Parent Involvement: In order to better inform parents, states are required to issue detailed report cards on the status of schools and districts. Under the law, parents must also be informed when their child is being taught by a teacher who does not meet "highly qualified" status.

Scientifically Based Research: The phrase "scientifically based research" is found 111 times in the text of the No Child Left Behind Act. Schools are required to use "scientifically based research" strategies in the classroom and for professional development of staff. Public School Choice: Schools identified as needing improvement are required to provide students with the opportunity to take advantage of public school choice no later than the beginning of the school year following their identification for school improvement.

PRO

Introduces an element of accountability into public school education and the expenditure of public funds for education.
Requires schools and districts to focus their attention on the academic achievement of traditionally under-served groups of children, such as low-income students, students with disabilities, and minorities. Many previous state-created systems of accountability only measured average school performance, allowing schools to be highly rated even if they had large achievement gaps between affluent and disadvantaged students.
Measures student performance: a student's progress in reading and math must be measured annually in grades 3 through 8 and at least once during high school via standardized tests.
Provides information for parents by requiring states and school districts to give parents detailed report cards on schools and districts explaining the school's AYP performance. Schools must also inform parents when their child is being taught by a teacher or para-professional who does not meet "highly qualified" requirements.
Gives options to students enrolled in schools failing to meet AYP. If a school fails to meet AYP targets two or more years running, the school must offer eligible children the chance to transfer to higher-performing local schools, receive free tutoring, or attend after-school programs.

CON

Testing is not coupled with plans and funding to remedy problems that might be detected by the testing. Instead, a system of increasing punishments is provided to take away resources from schools (i.e. from the students and employees of schools) which exhibit failing threashold scores.
Although "local freedom" is advertised as a benefit of NCLB, school districts are free to choose one curriculum package from a federally developed list of about 6 products, and cannot use the funding for any other purpose. Thus, the main immediate effect of NCLB is to reinforce an oligopoly of large curriculum publishers. There is some public accusation of political cronyism in this result.
NCLB focuses on basic educational classes and removes funding from music programs, art programs, etc. This results in schools being forced to remove elective and after school programs.
NCLB places a focus on the standardized testing mandatory for each student, therefore forcing the educators to focus on points covered in testing rather than what they think is important for children to learn. Standardized tests can be irrelevant to students' developmental learning.
NCLB gives future teachers no creativity in the teaching process.
Standardized testing, the measure by which the Act evaluates competency, has been historically accused of cultural bias.

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School uniforms

Should school uniforms be required?

PRO

School uniforms would save parents time and money.
Kids, whose parents would not or could not buy them the newest fad, would not be embarrassed or harassed because of their clothes.
Kids social standing would be based more on individual character and less on their economic status.
Many gangs use clothes to identify themselves, and still others use baggy clothes to hide weapons and drugs.
School is in the 'business' of learning. School is the place where the next lawyers, bankers, CPA's and Doctors are given the fundamentals of working in this economy. One of the basics of our culture in the working world is conservative dressing, dress code, or even uniforms. What is wrong with sending our kids the message that they are in 'the business of learning' by enforcing dress codes, or even ascribing a uniform?
Uniforms make it easy to identify kids who belong in the school and those that don't.

CON

School Uniforms are expensive and have no use out side of school.
School uniforms will do nothing but cut down on a student’s individuality.
School is also the place where the next actors, writers, artists, politicians, inventors, designers and musicians are trained. School uniforms send a clear early-life message to students that conformity is important and creativity is not, that authority is allowed to abuse its power and constrain our constitutional right to free speech and expression. Students learn from uniforms that their individuality, political opinions and religious rights are unimportant, as is their education: students are regularly suspended for non compliance to the uniform code even if their school work is excellent. If uniform-requiring schools were actually in 'the business of learning' this would not occur.

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