Education: The Brief!

1. Motions:

THW ban all private schools
THW ban all religious schools
THW ban homeschooling (require all youth to attend public school)

THW link individual school funding to standardized test scores
THS the school voucher system
THB that public high schools should become selective
THW aggressively stream students based on academic ability from an early age
TH prefers single-gender schools (THW ban single-gender schools)
THW establish a single, national curriculum

THW charge tuition based on the familial and personal wealth of the student
TH regrets the emphasis on college education
THW make all university lectures available online
TH supports/applauds/likes the proliferation of the online degree

2. Best practice models:

Bans:
Religious schools: all public* and private schools will be required to become secular in nature and practice. Any schools in violation of this will have their tax-free status revoked and their pupils will be considered truants. Extra-curricular religious education programs are permissible.  *in some countries, like the UK, religious schools are funded by the state as if they were public schools*

Private schools: all private schools which are not funded through tax-payers and instead by individual student tuition are banned. Charter schools and ‘magnet’ schools which are part of the public school system may remain in operation, however they may not become selective of their students – places to magnet and charter schools must be awarded by lottery (except in the case of  a child being grandfathered into a school where an older sibling already attends).

Homeschooling: all students aged 5-18 must attend an accredited K-12 school. Any youth in violation of this will be considered truants and their parents/guardians will be held liable.

K-12 School Changes:

School funding + test scores:  School-budget ‘bonuses’ will be given to those schools where at least 80% of pupils test at or above grade-level (excluding students with learning and other disabilities). Schools that have not yet met that standard will be given only the bare minimum of federal and state funding to remain operational.

Vouchers: Students whose local public school is deemed as ‘failing’ (significant numbers of students are not testing at or above grade-level benchmarks) are awarded the opportunity to attend the public or private school of their choice at no additional cost.

Selective high schools: Attendance at public high schools would no longer be determined by locality, but instead by students applying to various schools in the district. Schools will develop specializations which may include college preparation (full IB or AP curriculum), science and engineering, healthcare and medicine, visual and performing arts, vocational training, special-needs education or a combination of the above. Students will test in the 8th grade in various subjects and apply to the school(s) of their choice. Schools will select students based on their own (non-discriminatory) criteria. Schools will compete to attract the best students for their specialization.

Stream students from an early age: Aptitude and critical-thinking (such as ‘gifted and talented test’) assessments will be given to students from age 6 and they will be placed into classes with other students who score similarly. These tests and class-placement will become subject-specific (math, reading, science, foreign language, etc.) upon entering secondary school. These classes will not be labelled as “accelerate” or “remedial” but those peer-groups will be maintained for a single school-year then students will be reassessed at the end of the year and placed in their next peer-group accordingly.

**Single-gender schools: All secondary* schools will be single-gender – where necessary, boys schools and girls schools may have to share facilities but classes will be single-gender.  Transgender students will be treated as the gender they identify with (a female-bodied boy will attend a boys’ school, a male-bodied girl will attend a girls’ school).

*unless the motion specifies that it is creating single-gender primary schools, it is probably best to limit the model to secondary schools (Grade 6/7 onward)

** if the motion says “TH prefers” – no model is necessary as it’s only asking you to analyze that statement, not create a policy that enforces it. Always specify at the beginning of a PM speech the difference between a policy motion and an analysis motion – and what the proposition needs to prove to win the round.

Single national curriculum: Department/Ministry of Education would create and set a national curriculum that all schools, public and private, must meet. Advanced classes that fulfill the bare minimums of the national curriculum but provide additional material are permissible. *This motion is usually about divided societies and not about academic achievement, but surely it can also be that*

Sliding-scale college tuition: Set tuition payments by ability to pay only (tuition as 5% or 10% of annual family income).

Regrets emphasis on college education: no model necessary, analysis motion

Make all university lectures available online: All lectures at universities will be made into “podcast” audio or video recordings and made available, free of cost, online. “Discussion/Seminar” classes will not be recorded.

Online degrees: make more universities invest in ‘distance education’/online-based degrees. This is probably an analysis motion, not a policy.

3. Videos!

Debates:
Put lectures online debate
Aggressively test students from childhood
Unrealistic expectations of students
Single-gender schools
Subsidize women in universities

TedTalks:
The economic case for pre-school
Online education
Boys struggling in school
Child-driven education
The world needs all kinds of minds
Teach math and science together

Intelligence Squared Debates:
Too many people attend university

4. Background and basic facts

Education in the U.S.
Attendance:

• 88% of school-aged children attend public schools, 9% attend private schools and 3% are home-schooled.
• There are 81.5 million students in the US from kindergarten to graduate school.
• 85% of Americans obtain high-school diplomas, 30% have bachelor’s degrees and 10% have graduate degrees.

Achievement:

• 72% of students aged 12-17 (secondary level) are ‘on track’ – or enrolled in school at or above their grade-level.
• In 2008, the high-school graduation rate was 77%, lower than most other developed countries

Funding:

• In most school-districts, federal funding accounts for less than 10% of the budget, while state-funding is about 40-50% and local funding is 40-50%.

6. Articles and Further Reading:

School Vouchers in the U.S.

• Debate
• education