April

4/12/17
 Discourse/Representations
Deconstructing discourse reveals hidden power structures in education policy
Brissett and Mitter 17 - (Dr. Nigel Brissett is an assistant professor in Clark University’s
department of International Development Community and Environment, Ms. Radhika Mitter is
a graduate student in Clark University’s International Development and Social Change program,
March 2017, "For function or transformation? A critical discourse analysis of education under
the Sustainable Development Goals", http://www.jceps.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/15-
1-9-i.pdf, DOA: 4-12-2017) //Snowball
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is “a type of discourse analytical research that primarily studies the
way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced and resisted by
text and talk in the social and political context” (Van Dijk, p. 352). The underlying philosophy of CDA is that
language is a form of social practice that establishes and reinforces societal power relations.
Based on this assumption, CDA denies the possibility of a neutral and rationalist view of the world, instead
viewing the use of language as highly political. If language is the medium through which
hidden power relations are constructed and reinforced, discourse refers to the specific way in
which language is used, in combination with thought and action. According to Gee (1990), discourse is “a socially
accepted association among ways of using language, of thinking, and of acting that can be
used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group or a social network” (p.1). By virtue of
belonging to a certain group, discourses are highly constructed, as expressed by Stuart Hall (1992) who maintains that a
discourse “is a group of statements which provide a language for talking about – i.e. a way of
representing – a particular kind of knowledge about a topic” (1992, p. 201). Hall (1992) further notes that the
construction of a particular discourse limits the other ways in which the topic can be
constructed” (p. 201). Hall’s perceptions of discourse are, of course, reflective of the Foucauldian
conception of discourse as being rooted in the belief that power constructs knowledge, which
in turn shapes discourse and social reality. Dominant ideas, concepts, and facts, therefore, are shaped and
disseminated by those in power, and reinforced by dominant structures. By legitimating and
normalizing these ideologies, dominant structures obscure the relationship between power
and ideology, and ultimately maintain power hierarchies. The notion of ‘critical’ in CDA is derived
from the Frankfurt School and Jürgen Habermas. Critical theory, from the perspective of the Frankfurt School, claims that social
theory should be oriented towards critiquing and changing society as a whole, in contrast to
traditional theory which is oriented solely towards understanding or explaining society. This understanding of critical theory is based on the
beliefs that critical theory “should be directed at the totality of society in its historical specificity,” and that it should improve the understanding
of society by taking an integrative approach to analysis (Wodak and Meyer, 2009, p.6). Consequently, critical
discourse analysis
of policy initiatives serves the broader social change goal. When applied to policy texts and
initiatives, CDA can be used as a tool to deconstruct and examine the dominant and marginalized
discourses produced from the policy making process. In practice, CDA includes a detailed textual analysis at
the level of the policy text while also situating the analysis within broader economic and political
contexts and institutions (Luke, 1997). By exploring “the relationship between a) discursive practices, events and texts, and b) the
wider social and cultural structures, relations and processes,” CDA exposes how policies arise out of and are shaped by
asymmetrical relations of power of competing discourses. (Fairclough, 1995, p.135). The purpose of a critical
discourse analysis is to understand “how discourses emerge, and how they become hegemonic and re-contextualized, and finally, how they
become operationalized” (Simons et al., 2009, p. 62). Rizvi and Lingard (2009) articulate that in
order to analyze policy, one
must understand policy as not merely a specific policy document or text, but as both a
process and a product; it “involves the production of the text, the text itself, ongoing
modifications to the text, and processes of implementation into practice.” (Rizvi and Lingard, 2009, p. 5).
As we use CDA, then, we aim to: a) contextualize production of the SDGs generally and thus how they privilege certain values; b) analyze how a
particular discourse gains power over (an)other discourses; and c) analyze what interests the dominant discourse(s) serve and decipher spaces
for contestation. In this way, we
can reveal the positions that the utilitarian or transformative
educational discourses occupy and the process by which this takes place, as well as the extent to which
SDG4 challenges or works within the dominant prevailing neoliberal social order.
4/13/17
 School Suspension Good
Their causal chain is backwards – socio-environmental conditions
engineer deviant behavior before schools could even respond to it –
at best, that’s a huge alternate cause.
Barron, S. (2017, April 12). Students should be removed from school if they hinder education. Retrieved April 12, 2017, from http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/students-
removed-school-hinder-education-article-1.3045191

Reformers have linked school suspension to “mass incarceration,” and claim that schools function as racist
institutions that funnel young, nonwhite males into jails and prisons. School suspension, according to this argument, inhibits educational development, pathologizes behavior that is considered

“students who are disciplined by

harmless when performed by white students, and leads inexorably to increased dropout rates. We often hear that

schools are also more likely to end up in the juvenile justice system,” or similar statements
implying a causative link between school suspension and future criminal justice involvement.
But critics are just confusing cause and effect here: It isn’t discipline that is causing deviance.
Rather, kids from pathogenic backgrounds exposed to early violence may develop antisocial tendencies that are
expressed throughout their lives. Moreover, a major 2014 study in the Journal of Criminal Justice concluded that teacher bias has no role in suspension rates by
race.

Also, school suspension is key to preserving a functional learning

environment – in the end, we must protect the collective good of the
classroom over individual student welfare.
Barron, S. (2017, April 12). Students should be removed from school if they hinder education. Retrieved April 12, 2017, from http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/students-
removed-school-hinder-education-article-1.3045191

Orderliness in the classroom is a prerequisite for learning. Even the most open, child-centered,
collaborative pedagogy requires schoolchildren to communicate calmly, respect their peers
and take direction from their teachers. Reformers have linked school suspension to “mass incarceration,” and claim that schools function as racist
institutions that funnel young, nonwhite males into jails and prisons. School suspension, according to this argument, inhibits educational development, pathologizes behavior that is considered
harmless when performed by white students, and leads inexorably to increased dropout rates. We often hear that “students who are disciplined by schools are also more likely to end up in the
juvenile justice system,” or similar statements implying a causative link between school suspension and future criminal justice involvement. But critics are just confusing cause and effect here: It
isn’t discipline that is causing deviance. Rather, kids from pathogenic backgrounds exposed to early violence may develop antisocial tendencies that are expressed throughout their lives.
Moreover, a major 2014 study in the Journal of Criminal Justice concluded that teacher bias has no role in suspension rates by race. Is suspending a 7-year-old for nine weeks an ideal policy? As a

when unruly kids are unable to

general rule, probably not, although in this current case the student was receiving alternate instruction while suspended. But

accommodate themselves to classroom structure, the resulting disruption means that 25 other
kids are denied their right to an education. And that is fundamentally more unjust than
temporarily separating one kid from the classroom environment.
4/14/17
 U.S. Scores Bad
U.S. elementary and secondary students are not competitive on international
tests
DeSilver 17 - (Drew DeSilver, Senior Writer at Pew, Feb. 15, 2017, "U.S. students’ academic
achievement still lags that of their peers in many other countries",
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/15/u-s-students-internationally-math-
science/, DOA: 4-13-2017) //Snowball
How do U.S. students compare with their peers around the world? Recently released data from
international math and science assessments indicate that U.S. students continue to rank around the
middle of the pack, and behind many other advanced industrial nations. One of the biggest cross-national
tests is the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which every three years measures reading ability,
math and science literacy and other key skills among 15-year-olds in dozens of developed and developing countries.
The most recent PISA results, from 2015, placed the U.S. an unimpressive 38th out of 71 countries in
math and 24th in science. Among the 35 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which sponsors
the PISA initiative, the U.S. ranked 30th in math and 19th in science . Younger American students fare somewhat
better on a similar cross-national assessment, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. That study, known as TIMSS, has
tested students in grades four and eight every four years since 1995. In the most recent tests, from 2015, 10
countries (out of 48 total) had statistically higher average fourth-grade math scores than the U.S.,
while seven countries had higher average science scores. In the eighth-grade tests, seven out of 37 countries had
statistically higher average math scores than the U.S., and seven had higher science scores. Another long-running testing
effort is the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a project of the federal Education Department. In the most recent NAEP
results, from 2015, average math scores for fourth- and eighth-graders fell for the first time since 1990. A team from
Rutgers University is analyzing the NAEP data to try to identify the reasons for the drop in math scores. The average fourth-grade NAEP math
score in 2015 was 240 (on a scale of 0 to 500), the same level as in 2009 and down from 242 in 2013. The average eighth-grade score was 282 in
2015, compared with 285 in 2013; that score was the lowest since 2007. (The NAEP has only tested 12th-graders in math four times since 2005;
their 2015 average score of 152 on a 0-to-300 scale was one point lower than in 2013 and 2009.) Looked at another way, the
2015 NAEP
rated 40% of fourth-graders, 33% of eighth-graders and 25% of 12th-graders as “proficient” or
“advanced” in math. While far fewer fourth- and eighth-graders now rate at “below basic,” the lowest performance level (18% and
29%, respectively, versus 50% and 48% in 1990), improvement in the top levels appears to have stalled out .
(Among 12th-graders, 38% scored at the lowest performance level in math, a point lower than in 2005.) NAEP also tests U.S. students on
science, though not as regularly, and the limited results available indicate some improvement. Between 2009 and 2015, the average scores of
both fourth- and eight-graders improved from 150 to 154 (on a 0-to-300 scale), although for 12th-graders the average score remained at 150. In
2015, 38% of fourth-graders, 34% of eighth-graders and 22% of 12th-graders were rated proficient or better in science; 24% of fourth-graders,
32% of eighth-graders and 40% of 12th-graders were rated “below basic.” These
results likely won’t surprise too many
people. In a 2015 Pew Research Center report, only 29% of Americans rated their country’s K-12 education in
science, technology, engineering and mathematics (known as STEM) as above average or the best in the world. Scientists
were even more critical: A companion survey of members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science found that
just 16% called U.S. K-12 STEM education the best or above average; 46%, in contrast, said K-12 STEM in
the U.S. was below average.
4/15/17
 Military Bases Bad
Overseas military bases are counter-productive – 7 reasons
Glaser 16 - (John Glaser is Associate Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, 10-
7-2016, "Why We Should Close America's Overseas Military Bases",
http://time.com/4511744/american-military-bases-overseas/, DOA: 4-15-2017) //Snowball
*1. Don’t protect homeland, 2. Deterrence doesn’t work, 3. Don’t solve prolif, 4. Make others
resent U.S., 5. Make U.S. support rights violations, 6. Risk war entanglements through security
guarantees, 7. Technology makes deployment obsolete
Despite our unorthodox presidential election, America’s overseas military bases are largely taken for granted in today’s
foreign policy debates. The U.S. maintains a veritable empire of military bases throughout the world—about 800 of
them in more than 70 countries. Many view our bases as a symbol of our status as the dominant world
power. But America’s forward-deployed military posture incurs substantial costs and
disadvantages, exposing the U.S. to vulnerabilities and unintended consequences . Our overseas
bases simply do not pay enough dividends when it comes to core national interests. Here are seven reasons why it’s time
to close them. 1. They don't protect the homeland from direct attack. U.S. leaders often argue
that bases are the centerpiece of a liberal, rules-based world order. They claim that bases in Europe protect
European allies from Russia, bases in the Middle East ensure the free flow of oil and contain Iranian influence, and bases in Asia defend our
Asian allies from a rising China and an unstable North Korea. But stationing
80,000 troops at 350 installations in
Europe is not directly related to securing Americans’ physical safety. The same goes for the more than
154,000 active-duty personnel based throughout Asia. And the argument that maintaining a forward-deployed
military posture in the Middle East protects the free flow of oil is supported by pitifully sparse
empirical evidence. If we brought our troops home, we wouldn’t be much more or less safe
than we are now. That’s mostly because we are already the strongest nation economically and militarily by far and
probably the most secure great power in history, isolated from other powerful states by two
great oceans and protected with an arsenal of thousands of nuclear weapons. On top of that, the
world is a safer place these days. Interstate conflict has declined dramatically in recent
decades and may even be on a path to obsolescence for reasons that have little to do with all
these military bases. 2. Their deterrence effect is overrated. The deterrence value of bases is frequently
exaggerated. Even during the Cold War, as Robert Johnson has argued, the Soviet threat was subject to “undue alarmism,” and “even
without American forces deployed in Western Europe, a Soviet attack was extremely unlikely.” According to international relations scholar
Robert Jervis, “The Soviet archives have yet to reveal any serious plans for unprovoked aggression against Western Europe, not to mention a
first strike on the United States.” Deterrence can also sometimes have the opposite of the intended effect. For
example, many see the U.S. military presence in Europe as deterring Russian military aggression, but
Russia’s interventions in places like Georgia and Ukraine derive more from Russian insecurities about the
expansion of U.S.-led Western economic and military institutions than from signs of American
weakness or insufficient military presence in Eastern Europe. Post-Cold War NATO expansion, in particular, is the source
of profound anxiety and lingering resentment in Moscow that arguably makes things less stable, not more. 3. They don't always
effectively prevent nuclear proliferation. Another core argument is that the U.S.’s forward
presence prevents arms races, particularly nuclear proliferation, by reassuring allies . The record on
that score is mixed. While U.S. security guarantees to countries like Japan and South Korea have likely dissuaded them from developing nuclear
weapons, thosesame guarantees can provoke nuclear proliferation in other regional actors, like
North Korea. Prior to the recent nuclear deal, Iran built up its nuclear program in large part as a deterrent
to threatening nearby U.S. bases. And allied countries, like Britain, France, and Israel, acquired nukes
despite the protection of in-country or nearby U.S. bases. 4. They can encourage resentment.
Local resentment over the presence of foreign military bases can linger for generations, as was the case
when in 1991 the Philippine Senate “assailed [the U.S. military presence] as a vestige of colonialism and an affront to Philippine sovereignty,”
and President Corazon C. Aquino ordered full withdrawal. And this past June in Japan, 65,000 Okinawans protested in the streets against the
U.S. presence there. Sometimes such resentment can be extreme. According to Chicago University’s Robert Pape, “the principal cause
of suicide terrorism is resistance to foreign occupation.” Indeed, the presence of U.S. military
bases in Saudi Arabia was one of the most prominent grievances cited by al-Qaeda pre-9/11
in order to rally Muslims against America. And since the surge in U.S. military presence in the region
post-9/11, terrorist attacks on troops and bases in the Middle East have dramatically increased.
5. They can cause the U.S. to support brutal dictatorships. In Uzbekistan , the recently deceased dictator
Islam Karimov was famous for massacres and widespread torture, yet nevertheless received U.S.
backing in exchange for basing rights. During the Arab Spring in Bahrain, where the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet is stationed, the
regime cracked down on peaceful dissent with gross human rights violations . But Washington
kept largely silent (and willing to continue sending money and arms to the regime) because
the base is considered so geopolitically important. 6. They risk entangling us in unnecessary
wars. U.S. bases often cause officials to urge American intervention wherever conflict might
break out. But this risks entangling us in foreign wars that are none of our business. If conflict
breaks out over maritime or territorial disputes in the East and South China Sea, the U.S. may be
obligated to intervene against China to fulfill its security guarantee to Taiwan, Japan, or the
Philippines. Getting into a war with China over some uninhabited rocks of no strategic importance to us is
not in our interests. Before the nuclear deal with Iran, there was apparently a real risk Israel would
preventively strike one of Iran’s nuclear facilities. Because of American promises to fight for
Israel, U.S. bases in Bahrain would have been a priority target in Iranian retaliatory
strikes.That would have brought us into another desperate quagmire in the Middle East,
which is frankly the last thing we need. 7. Technology has largely made them obsolete. Some
argue that bases allow rapid military response. That’s certainly true to some extent. But modern military
technology has significantly reduced the problems of travel times over long distances. According
to a recent RAND Corporation report, “lighter ground forces can deploy by air from the United States
almost as quickly as they can from within a region.” Long-range bombers can fly missions up to 9,000 miles, and after
that they can be refueled in the air, reducing the need to have in-place forces abroad. The bottom line is that troops can deploy to
virtually any region fast enough to be based right here in America.But even this misses the point. We
shouldn’t be intervening militarily all over the world unless there is a clear and present
danger to U.S. security. Despite the habitual threat inflation in our politics and punditry, the
world is increasingly peaceful, and the U.S. is exceptionally insulated from foreign dangers.
Our remarkable level of security simply doesn’t call for such an activist foreign policy .
4/16/17
 Military Bases Bad (Part 2)
Overseas bases are net negative – laundry list.
Vine 15 - (David Vine, assistant professor of anthropology at American University, in
Washington, DC, 9-14-2015, "The United States Probably Has More Foreign Military Bases Than
Any Other People, Nation, or Empire in History", https://www.thenation.com/article/the-
united-states-probably-has-more-foreign-military-bases-than-any-other-people-nation-or-
empire-in-history/, DOA: 4-15-2017) //Snowball
As Johnson showed us, there are many reasons to question the overseas base status quo. The most
obvious one is economic. Garrisons overseas are very expensive. According to the RAND Corporation, even when
host countries like Japan and Germany cover some of the costs, US taxpayers still pay an annual average of
$10,000 to $40,000 more per year to station a member of the military abroad than in the United
States. The expense of transportation, the higher cost of living in some host countries, and the need to
provide schools, hospitals, housing, and other support to family members of military personnel mean that
the dollars add up quickly—especially with more than half a million troops, family members, and civilian
employees on bases overseas at any time. By my very conservative calculations, maintaining installations and
troops overseas cost at least $85 billion in 2014—more than the discretionary budget of every
government agency except the Defense Department itself. If the US presence in Afghanistan and Iraq is included,
that bill reaches $156 billion or more. While bases may be costly for taxpayers, they are extremely profitable for the
country’s privateers of twenty-first-century war like DynCorp International and former Halliburton subsidiary KBR. As Chalmers
Johnson noted, “Our installations abroad bring profits to civilian industries,” which win billions in contracts annually to “build and maintain our
far-flung outposts.” Meanwhile, many of the communities hosting bases overseas never see the economic
windfalls that US and local leaders regularly promise. Some areas, especially in poor rural communities, have seen short-
term economic booms touched off by base construction. In the long-term, however, most bases rarely create sustainable,
healthy local economies. Compared with other forms of economic activity, they represent unproductive uses of
land, employ relatively few people for the expanses occupied, and contribute little to local economic
growth. Research has consistently shown that when bases finally close, the economic impact is generally
limited and in some cases actually positive—that is, local communities can end up better off when they trade
bases for housing, schools, shopping complexes, and other forms of economic development. Meanwhile for the United States,
investing taxpayer dollars in the construction and maintenance of overseas bases means
forgoing investments in areas like education, transportation, housing, and healthcare, despite
the fact that these industries are more of a boon to overall economic productivity and create
more jobs compared to equivalent military spending. Think about what $85 billion per year
would mean in terms of rebuilding the country’s crumbling civilian infrastructure. THE HUMAN TOLL Beyond the
financial costs are the human ones. The families of military personnel are among those who suffer from
the spread of overseas bases given the strain of distant deployments, family separations, and frequent moves.
Overseas bases also contribute to the shocking rates of sexual assault in the military: an estimated 30% of
servicewomen are victimized during their time in the military and a disproportionate number of these
crimes happen at bases abroad. Outside the base gates, in places like South Korea, one often finds
exploitative prostitution industries geared to US military personnel. Worldwide, bases have
caused widespread environmental damage because of toxic leaks, accidents, and in some cases
the deliberate dumping of hazardous materials. GI crime has long angered locals. In Okinawa and elsewhere, US
troops have repeatedly committed horrific acts of rape against local women. From Greenland to the
tropical island of Diego Garcia, the military has displaced local peoples from their lands to build its bases.
In contrast to frequently invoked rhetoric about spreading democracy, the military has shown a preference for
establishing bases in undemocratic and often despotic states like Qatar and Bahrain. In Iraq, Afghanistan, and
Saudi Arabia, US bases have created fertile breeding grounds for radicalism and anti-Americanism.
The presence of bases near Muslim holy sites in Saudi Arabia was a major recruiting tool for al-Qaeda and part of Osama bin Laden’s professed
motivation for the September 11, 2001, attacks. Although this kind of perpetual
turmoil is little noticed at home,
bases abroad have all too often generate grievances, protest, and antagonistic relationships.
Although few here recognize it, our bases are a major part of the image the United States presents to the
world—and they often show us in an extremely unflattering light .
4/17/17
 Education Complexity K Impact
Educational complexity solves global challenges.
Fadel, Bialik, and Trilling 15 - (Charles Fadel is a global education thought leader and
expert, Maya Bialik is a writer, editor, and research manager at CCR, Bernie Trilling is founder
and CEO of 21st Century Learning Advisors and the former Global Director of the Oracle
Education Foundation, 2015, "Four-Dimensional Education", DOA: 4-17-2017) //Snowball
//graph omitted
What can we as individuals, and collectively as a society, do to ensure that we have a positive effect on the
world? The goals for a better future can widely be agreed upon: more peaceful, sustainable societies,
comprised of more personally fulfilled people, making full use of their potential. These same goals
can be thought of in a number of ways—high levels of civic and social engagement, personal health and
wellbeing, employment in good quality jobs, economic productivity, ecological sustainability,
and so on. Educating our children, in theory, is meant to prepare them to fit in with the world of
the future, empowering them to actively work to improve it further. Yet there is growing evidence (as we will see later)
from scientific studies, from employer surveys, from widespread public opinion, and from
educators themselves, that our education systems, globally, are not delivering fully on this
promise— students are often not adequately prepared to succeed in today’s, let alone
tomorrow’s, world. One reason is that the world continues to transform dramatically, while
education is not adapting quickly enough to meet all the demands these transformations are bringing. The
challenges and opportunities of today are starkly different from those of the Industrial
Revolution, when the first blueprint for a then-modern education system was crafted. They are even different from the
challenges of just a couple of decades ago, before the Internet. The world’s new, electronic hyper-
connectedness poses an entirely new breed and scale of potential problems. We can see these new
problems in recent events such as the 2008 global economic recession. In the past, when a small number
of banks in one country may have had difficulties, each had to suffer the consequences alone;
now, when one part of a system fails, the negative consequences propagate throughout our
interwoven economic systems, causing major problems worldwide. Our social systems, now
connected into vast, global communication ecosystems, are more vulnerable to widespread
global disruptions; they have grown large and fragile. 1 On top of that, we are struggling to
reconcile our hopes and expectations of economic growth with overpopulation,
overconsumption, and their consequences on our climate and resources. The World Economic
Forum recently brought together experts in economics, geopolitics, sociology, technology, and environmental sciences,
and from business, academia, NGOs, and governments, to compile a list of the most pressing world trends and
challenges. They graphed the interconnections between these various trends, highlighting important connections, such as the links
between rising income disparity and dramatic increases in the risks from social instability, as shown in Figure 1.1.2 These trends and risks
are not ones we could have predicted 50 years ago, and they will continue to interact and
evolve in unexpected and unpredictable ways. Meanwhile students continue to study the
same curriculum, not prepared to face the challenges in our world.
4/18/17
 Music K2 Education
Music education is an important catalyst to general student
development – here’s a laundry list of benefits.
Recorder, C. (2017, April 16). Music education honored at Walton-Verona. Retrieved April 17, 2017, from http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/local/boone-
county/2017/04/16/music-education-honored-walton-verona/100554076/

The NAMM Foundation designated 527 of the nation’s 13,515 school districts this year as Best Communities for Music Education and 92 individual schools as SupportMusic Merit Award winners.

comprehensive music education. The designation takes on added

These districts and schools set the bar in offering students access to

significance this year with new research showing strong ties between K-12 school students
who actively participate in school music education programs and overall student success. A
recent study of students in the Chicago Public Schools by brain researchers at Northwestern University, detailed in Neuroscientist and Education Week, builds on
previous findings that participation in music education programs helps improves brain
function, discipline and language development. “The links between student success and music
education have now been demonstrated by brain researchers in multiple studies,” said Mary Luehrsen of
The NAMM Foundation. “The schools and districts our foundation recognizes are building on that connection between music and academics. These schools and districts are models for other

educators who see music as a key ingredient in a well-rounded curriculum that makes music available to all children, regardless of ZIP
code.”
4/19/17
 Education Solves Extinction
Current educational trends are leading to resource overconsumption and
human extinction.
Fadel, Bialik, and Trilling 15 - (Charles Fadel is a global education thought leader and
expert, Maya Bialik is a writer, editor, and research manager at CCR, Bernie Trilling is founder
and CEO of 21st Century Learning Advisors and the former Global Director of the Oracle
Education Foundation, 2015, "Four-Dimensional Education", DOA: 4-17-2017) //Snowball
//graphs omitted
The magnitude of the change of scale in human impacts is a relatively new development. Our global human
population has, historically speaking, only recently exploded to an unsustainable rate. 3 Since we are
all in a globally interconnected and interdependent network of life-support systems, this
population explosion has large consequences. Our societies are caught up in a web of
consumption and competition patterns, and we are rapidly using up the resources we rely on to
survive. Globally, the average resources we now use in one year take the earth about 1.5 years to
produce.4 Depending on a country’s lifestyle and degree of consumption, the land needed to support its level of
resource use can translate into the number of earths we would need to support all of
humanity, if everyone on the planet consumed resources at the rate of that one country (as seen in Figure 1.3). 5According to a number of
scientists, we have already effected environmental changes that could cause our extinction.
There are many historic examples of similar collective human dead-end actions operating on
smaller scales. The tribes of Easter Island competed with each other so fiercely (including the competitive creation of the iconic massive
statues) that they used up all the available resources on the island, and their civilization collapsed. According to evolutionary biologist Jared
Diamond, the parallels between the downfall of civilization on Easter Island and today’s world
are “chillingly obvious.” In his book, Collapse, he follows the arcs of several civilizations that have vanished, and shows the
similarities between them and our global civilization today. Diamond writes:

Because we are rapidly advancing along this non-sustainable course, the world’s
environmental problems will get resolved, in one way or another, within the lifetimes
of the children and young adults alive today. The only question is whether they will
become resolved in pleasant ways of our own choice, or in unpleasant ways not of our
choice, such as warfare, genocide, starvation, disease epidemics, and collapses of
societies.6
The survival of the human race depends on our ability to put our knowledge into action
across disciplines and political divides. Education can be a powerful tool for survival, but the
competencies to meet these challenges are currently not being taught consistently and
effectively.
4/20/17
 Digital Game Based Learning
Educational computer games promote better knowledge of computer science
than traditional methods of teaching- data analyses prove
Papastergiou 09 Marina Papastergiou, Department of Physical Education and Sport Science,
University of Thessaly, Karyes, “Digital Game-Based Learning in high school Computer Science
education: Impact on educational effectiveness and student motivation”, Computers &
Education 52 (2009) 1–12, doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2008.06.004, VM
The aim of this study was to assess the learning effectiveness and motivational appeal of a
computer game for learning computer memory concepts, which was designed according to
the curricular objectives and the subject matter of the Greek high school Computer Science
(CS) curriculum, as compared to a similar application, encompassing identical learning
objectives and content but lacking the gaming aspect. The study also investigated potential gender differences in
the game’s learning effectiveness and motivational appeal. The sample was 88 students, who were randomly
assigned to two groups, one of which used the gaming application (Group A, N = 47) and the
other one the non-gaming one (Group B, N = 41). A Computer Memory Knowledge Test
(CMKT) was used as the pretest and posttest. Students were also observed during the
interventions. Furthermore, after the interventions, students’ views on the application they
had used were elicited through a feedback questionnaire. Data analyses showed that the
gaming approach was both more effective in promoting students’ knowledge of computer
memory concepts and more motivational than the non-gaming approach. Despite boys’
greater involvement with, liking of and experience in computer gaming, and their greater
initial computer memory knowledge, the learning gains that boys and girls achieved through
the use of the game did not differ significantly, and the game was found to be equally
motivational for boys and girls. The results suggest that within high school CS, educational
computer games can be exploited as effective and motivational learning environments,
regardless of students’ gender.

Specifically, it’s more motivational and engages student interest more in the
learning process- not just in CS, but in math and science as well
Papastergiou 09 Marina Papastergiou, Department of Physical Education and Sport Science,
University of Thessaly, Karyes, “Digital Game-Based Learning in high school Computer Science
education: Impact on educational effectiveness and student motivation”, Computers &
Education 52 (2009) 1–12, doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2008.06.004, VM
The study demonstrated that the DGBL approach was both more effective in promoting
students’ knowledge of computer memory concepts and more motivational for students than
the non-gaming approach. It can, thus, be concluded that educational computer games can be
exploited as learning environments within high school CS courses, given that, as deduced
from this study, they can considerably improve both knowledge of the embedded subject
matter and student enjoyment, engagement and interest in the learning process. Those
findings seem to support the outcomes of certain prior studies (Klawe, 1999; Rosas et al.,
2003) and those of a very recent study (Ke & Grabowski, 2007) on school children, which
showed that educational computer games contributed to increased academic achievement
and motivation compared to traditional teaching in areas such as mathematics and science .
However, the findings of the present study are perhaps a stronger indicator in favour of
DGBL, given that in this study: (a) DGBL was not compared to traditional teaching, which
students find boring (Prensky, 2003), but to another appealing form of ICT-based learning,
and (b) the participants were not children, but adolescents who are more difficult to engage
in school learning and harder to motivate than children (e.g. Eccles & Midgley, 1989). In
addition, they suggest that DGBL can be effective in a variety of subjects – other than
computer programming in which games have so far been exploited within scholastic CS
education – which are included in scholastic CS curricula, and which require factual
knowledge and conceptual understanding, such as the topic of computer memory. Regarding
gender issues, as shown in the study, despite the fact that the boys of the sample exhibited significantly
greater involvement with, liking of and experience in computer gaming outside school as well
as significantly greater initial knowledge of the embedded subject matter, and greater
interaction among them during the intervention, the learning gains that boys and girls
achieved through the use of the game did not differ significantly. Furthermore, no significant
gender differences were found in students’ views on the overall appeal, quality of user
interface, and educational value of the game used. It can, thus, be concluded that, within high school CS education,
DGBL can be equally effective and motivational for boys and girls. Those findings contrast the findings of certain previous studies into school
children which showed that computer games were more effective with boys than with girls (De Jean et al., 1999; Young & Upitis, 1999) and
meet the outcomes of a recent study into school children (Ke & Grabowski, 2007), which found that gender did not influence the learning
effectiveness and motivational appeal of games.
4/21/17
 AT: Plan is Bipartisan
No education bipartisanship.
Camera 17 - (Lauren Camera, Education Reporter, 2-9-2017, "Bipartisan Education Politics a
Thing of the Past", https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2017-02-
09/bipartisan-education-politics-a-thing-of-the-past, DOA: 4-21-2017) //Snowball
When Congress passed a sprawling rewrite of the federal education law at the tail-end of 2015, it was hailed as a "Christmas miracle."
Drafted, negotiated and passed by members on both sides of the aisle and in both chambers, the Every
Student Succeeds Act, which overhauled the widely reviled No Child Left Behind by returning much of the authority over education
to states, stood out as a shining example of bipartisanship in an ever-partisan, log jammed
political system. A little more than a year later, that milieu of goodwill in the education sphere has seemingly
evaporated. “We have been able to work together well for the past two years, and it’s because we have worked in
good faith and across party lines to make sure we have what we needed to proceed,” Sen. Patty
Murray, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the Senate education committee, said prior to the committee vote that
cleared billionaire school-choice advocate Betsy DeVos, now Secretary of Education, for consideration by the full Senate. Confirming
DeVos in spite of staunch Democratic opposition, she warned committee Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., was
“a massive break with that strong bipartisan record, and it will dramatically impact our ability
to work together in good faith going forward.” Alexander, for his part, accused Democrats of unfairly holding up DeVos'
confirmation process. While DeVos' contentious confirmation garnered the lion’s share of media attention, across the Capitol and out of the
spotlight House
Republicans were moving on something just as noteworthy: They passed two,
separate resolutions that would block the Department of Education from implementing rules
set by the Obama administration.
4/22/17
 Funding Fails
Increasing funding doesn’t affect anything – it’s wasted dollars
Singman 17 - (Brooke Singman, Reporter, 1-25-2017, "Education Department report finds
billions spent under Obama had 'no impact' on achievement",
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/01/25/education-department-report-finds-billions-
spent-under-obama-had-no-impact-on-achievement.html, DOA: 4-22-2017) //Snowball
The Obama administration pumped more than $7 billion into an education program, first authorized under President
George W. Bush, that had no impact on student achievement – according to a report released by the
Department of Education in the final days of the 44th president’s term. The Department of Education’s findings were contained in
its “School Improvement Grants: Implementation and Effectiveness” report. The study could energize the debate over
national education policy just as the Senate considers President Trump’s controversial pick to lead the department, Betsy
DeVos, an outspoken school choice advocate who has questioned the way federal education dollars are
spent. “The timing of this report is so important and so interesting – this could have a positive influence on her confirmation,” American
Enterprise Institute resident fellow Andy Smarick told Fox News. The School Improvement Grants (SIG) program, first
introduced in 2001 under the Bush administration, was created to fund reforms in the country’s lowest-performing
schools with the goal of improving student achievement in test scores and graduation rates. The program
directed money to schools with low academic achievement and graduation rates below 60 percent for high schools, among other factors. SIG
was canceled under recently passed legislation, though similar funding can still be sought by school districts. SIG was first funded in 2007,
receiving $616 million under Bush. But it wasn’t until 2009, when the Obama administration designated $3.5
billion to the program through the stimulus, that funding soared. The administration continued to
pump more than $500 million annually to the program for the rest of his presidency. The report, though,
focused on data from nearly 500 schools in 22 states that received SIG funding, and concluded
the program had “no significant impact” on reading or math test scores; high school
graduation; or college enrollment. “Overall, we found that the SIG program had no impact on student achievement,” co-
author of the report Lisa Dragoset told Fox News. The authors are “non-partisan” researchers in the Education
Department, according to Tom Wei, project officer from the department’s Institute of Education Sciences.
4/23/17
 Funding K2 Solvency
Educational financial needs have outpaced natural economic growth –
increased funding is thus a prerequisite to successful education policy.
Jibson , R. (2017, April 22). Tribune Op-ed: Modern society demands excellence in education. Retrieved April 23, 2017, from http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/5198929-155/tribune-op-
ed-modern-society-demands-excellence

consensus presents a chance to bring real change to our schools. But the programs to
This level of

implement each of these policies require funding, and currently there is not enough available to make
a meaningful investment. As our economy grows, so does the need for more infrastructure and
an education system to serve more students. Funding for education from economic growth has
been insufficient in reducing teacher turnover and improving academic outcomes. It's clear
additional revenue sources are essential to elevate education in Utah. In order to maintain Utah's
quality of life, strengthen our economy, and provide students with opportunities for future
success, a significant investment in education is imperative. Failing to do so will drive away
top-notch teaching candidates, suppress student potential, and keep high-paying careers away
from Utah.
4/24/17
 STEM k2 Innovation
STEM efforts are failing now among minorities and in rural areas- but STEM
education is key to innovation, competitiveness, and national security and the
need is only growing
DOE 16 US Department of Education (DOE), Office of Innovation and Improvement,
September 2016, “STEM 2026, A Vision for Innovation in STEM Education”,
https://innovation.ed.gov/files/2016/09/AIR-STEM2026_Report_2016.pdf, VM
Understanding the Need for a Bold Vision in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education for Lifelong Learning This
report describes a vision (hereafter referred to as “STEM 2026”) for the future of STEM education, preschool–12th grade (P–12) and beyond.
STEM 2026 is aspirational but builds on the priorities the Obama Administration has established on improving innovation and equitable access
to high-quality learning experiences in these critical fields. The key components of the vision resulted from a series of workshops and
discussions held in 2015 that were organized by the U.S. Department of Education (the Department), with support from American Institutes for
Research (AIR). Nearly 30 individuals representing a wide diversity of expertise, experience, and perspectives were invited to exchange
knowledge and ideas for leveraging the opportunities of today to design a possible future of STEM education. This vision is not intended to
prescribe a set of activities or practices. Rather,
STEM 2026 is meant to start a conversation about
opportunities for innovation, and propel research and development that can build a stronger
evidence base for what works in various contexts, best serves diverse learners, and motivates
action toward achieving transformative change. As recognized in the Every Child Succeeds Act (ESSA), President
Obama’s Computer Science for All initiative, and the competitive priority to focus attention on STEM in several of the Department’s
discretionary grant programs, STEM
is a crucial component of a well-rounded education for all
students—an education that provides access to science, social studies, literature, the arts,
physical education and health, and the opportunity to learn an additional language. The
process of learning and practicing the STEM disciplines can instill in students a passion for
inquiry and discovery and fosters skills such as persistence, teamwork, and the application of
gained knowledge to new situations (Bailey et al., 2015; Betrus, 2015). Experts contend that
these are the types of growth mindsets and habits that demonstrate one’s capacity for
academic tenacity and lifelong learning in a rapidly changing world (Dweck, Walton, & Cohen,
2014; Sharples, 2000). A strong STEM education—one that results in the skills and mindsets
just described and opens the door for lifelong learning—starts as early as preschool, is
culturally responsive, employs problem- and inquiry-based approaches, and engages students
in hands-on activities that offer opportunities to interact with STEM professionals. The
development of and adherence to these types of STEM teaching and learning practices is not
widespread, however, and opportunity gaps persist throughout the education system. The
inequities in STEM education along racial and ethnic, linguistic, cultural, socioeconomic,
gender, disability, and geographic lines are especially troubling because of the powerful role a
foundational STEM education can play and because the gaps are so pronounced in STEM.
According to the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights’ Issue Brief Civil Rights
Data Collection: Data Snapshot: College and Career Readiness (2014), the STEM fields “are the
gateway to America’s continued economic competitiveness and national security, and the
price of admission to higher education and higher standards of living for the country’s
historically underrepresented populations” (p. 2). Recent analyses indicate that during the
next five years, major American companies will need to add a total of nearly 1.6 million
employees to their workforce: 945,000 who possess basic STEM literacy and 635,000 who
demonstrate advanced STEM knowledge (Business Roundtable & Change the Equation,
2014).5 Other data suggest that at least 20 percent of U.S. jobs require a high level of
knowledge in any one STEM field (Rothwell, 2013).6 Even outside of the traditional STEM job
sector, there is a need for STEM competencies and skills. Data show that the set of core
cognitive knowledge, skills, and abilities that are associated with a STEM education are in
demand in nearly all job sectors and occupations (Carnevale, Smith, & Melton, 2011;
Rothwell, 2013). Presently, policies and practices that ensure equitable access to the best STEM teaching and learning are not
widespread. States, districts, and schools struggle to provide all students with the STEM experiences required for the 21st century, regardless of
college and career aspirations. In particular, state and local education agencies and school-level educators struggle to close persistent
achievement gaps in core subjects like mathematics and science. National
Assessment of Educational Progress
(NAEP)7 results, for example, show that, compared with 43 percent of White students and 61
percent of Asian students, just 13 percent and 19 percent of Black and Hispanic students,
respectively, are scoring at or above proficiency in eighth-grade mathematics. NAEP data also show
that other underrepresented groups also perform below their White and Asian peer groups. In eighth-grade science, 45 percent and 46 percent
of White and Asian students, respectively, perform at or above proficiency, compared with 20 percent or less of racial and ethnic minorities.
NAEP performance gaps in mathematics and science also are evident by gender and are troublingly stark by student disability, English learner
(EL) status, and free or reduced-price lunch eligibility status. Eighth-grade students with disabilities and students eligible for free or reduced-
price lunch scored nearly 30 points below their peers in science and mathematics; EL students, nearly 40 and 50 points below their peers in
mathematics and science, respectively. Although gaps are narrowing in mathematics between girls and boys, performance trends over time
continue to show higher percentages of males than females scoring at or above proficiency in the last 10 years. In science, the gender gaps
have remained largely static from 2009–2011. Data
show that rural schools also are especially challenged in
meeting student performance benchmarks in mathematics and science. Rural children from
lower socioeconomic status families often start kindergarten with lower mathematics
achievement and make less progress during elementary and middle school than their
suburban and urban peers (Graham & Provost, 2012). Rural schools typically are challenged in
their education improvement efforts by geographic isolation, fewer numbers of experienced
teachers, and fewer resources (Boyer, 2006).
4/25/17
 K-12 Education Failing
U.S. K-12 public education is failing
McNealy 16 - (Scott McNealy, Former CEO of Sun Microsystems, 8-1-2016, "Our public
education system 'is failing': Scott McNealy", http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/09/our-public-
education-system-is-failing-scott-mcnealy-commentary.html, DOA: 4-12-2017) //Snowball
The major stakeholders in K-12 public education are at an impasse. Teachers' Unions are
primarily concerned with self-preservation, maintaining extravagant perks for union
administrators and exerting disproportionate political influence. A handful of publishing
houses sell us $8 billion worth of warmed- over text books every year. Testing companies
collectively spent tens of millions lobbying in states and on Capitol Hill from 2009 to 2014.
These politically powerful, entrenched special interests are heavily invested in maintaining
the failing status quo. The U.S. is falling behind other countries in test scores across a broad
range of subjects and grade levels. Polls show growing public dissatisfaction with everything
from school choice, classroom sizes, aging infrastructure, standardized testing and
curriculum. Everyone can criticize our government's public education system, with
justification. Based on any rational review of the facts, it is failing.
4/26/17
 Reform Turn & Politics Link
Passing the plan’s progressive education reform would force
ideological compromise and effectively legitimize President Trump’s
agenda – this sacrifices all resistant political capital and turns case.
Williams, C. (2017, January 18). Williams: The Temptation to Compromise With Trump on Schools - and Why It Might Kill Education Reform. Retrieved April 25, 2017, from
https://www.the74million.org/article/williams-the-temptation-to-compromise-with-trump-on-schools-and-why-it-might-kill-education-reform

And the political question behind that moral one is relatively manageable: Why shouldn’t progressives who believe in school choice sign up to
back a hypothetical Trump administration proposal to dramatically expand it? Well, “do it for the kids” is a much more complicated ask
than it seems. First of all, most of the old education reform priorities that commanded bipartisan support are big, hairy ideas that spark disagreements in the details. For
instance, school choice is not a panacea. Well-crafted choice programs can open doors of opportunity for underserved children. But these are hardly inevitable. Badly designed choice programs
with limited oversight generally do nothing for the students they serve. Though it’s a fool’s errand to predict Trump’s plans, it’s fair to say that his team has given no signals that it’s interested in

In Washington, policy wins

building oversight and accountability into its school choice proposals. Sure, that’s a garden-variety challenge of working across party lines.

come at the price of ideological priorities. For instance, in order to secure conservative support for Obama’s signature health care reform law,
progressives needed to adopt long-standing conservative policy ideas — like the individual mandate. OK, bad example. But you get the drift — even if the Trump administration’s approach to
school choice (or school accountability, or teacher evaluations, or etc.) isn’t ideal, progressive reformers will have to weigh any possible benefits against those costs. At present, there’s little

and accountability. Of course, standard-issue bipartisan

evidence to suggest that Trump-branded reform proposals will be even vaguely tempting to progressive reformers animated by equity

trade-offs aren’t the only challenge. Trump poses a second challenge for progressive reformers who believe in the promise of charter schools
but also work on issues proximate to immigration or civil rights. Consider this relatively likely scenario: the Trump administration moves forward with its regularly reiterated plans to deport
millions of undocumented immigrants and begins proceedings to close the border to Muslims. Meanwhile, his Department of Education announces plans to establish a large federal grants
competition with billions of dollars available to states who expand their charter school sectors. For the purposes of argument, however unlikely it might be, let’s assume that the grants

competition includes significant accountability measures that would increase the chance that the program helps underserved children. Progressive education
reformers eager to have more high-quality school options available for these kids would clearly be tempted to support such a proposal. And
yet, any engagement on this would also be a tacit normalization of the extraordinary damage that
Trump’s immigration proposals are likely to do to U.S. politics, governance and civil society. Civil rights organizations sympathetic to education reform would be
understandably confused to find progressive allies denouncing Trump’s radical immigration policies while assisting his administration’s work on education. Is it worth it to

move a few education reform priorities if those efforts permanently cost progressive reformers
their existing networks of allies and supporters? Are short-term reform goals worth that sort of
long-term detonation of political capital? “Trump has acted in a whole variety of bigoted ways,” says Jeffries. “It makes it much harder for people to
work with him. A great many of his policies — not only his rhetoric — are xenophobic, are Islamophobic ... he’s said things that are misogynistic, that are racially insensitive, and that makes it hard

to work with him.” Or, to put it another way — this wouldn’t really be garden-variety bipartisan policymaking. Trump is different from
the usual, as most of D.C.’s conservative education reformers admitted when they proclaimed themselves #NeverTrump fellow-travelers. They shouldn’t be surprised if progressive reformers balk
at helping Trump’s abhorrent behavior soak into American politics and governance. The Song of Solomon verse continues beyond the pastoral rhapsody I quoted above, announcing that, in the

this biblical “turtle” is really a turtledove, a symbol of peace,

season of change, “... the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.” Odd as that sounds to 21st-century American ears,

tolerance and friendship. As the raging Trumpstorm approaches the White House, conservatives hoping to re-establish comity among the education reform
movement might remember that this moment of rebirth is being heralded by the voice of a
much less gracious creature.
4/27/17
 States CP for STEM [needs text/net-benefit]
Counterplan: the governments of the 50 states should [plan].

It competes through non-topicality and net-benefit.

Doesn’t link to [spending, federalism, politics].

States are key to K-12 STEM.

Fitzpatrick 7 - (Erika Fitzpatrick is an editorial consultant based in Washington,D.C., 2007,
"Innovation America:A Public-Private Partnership",
https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/sites/default/files/publication/edu/Public_Private%20
Report%20ELECTONIC%20version%209.19.07.pdf, DOA: 4-27-2017) //Snowball
States are pivotal in driving innovation forward—they set the educational policies and make the
decisions that lead to success. States fund the core of the educational system from kindergarten through college.
They also provide the majority of dollars for workforce training; play a central role in the
provision of infrastructure, including broadband technology; and shape the business climate
through policies and investments. States understand their economic strengths and are familiar with their
industries, resources, and markets. They are attuned to their real and potential human talent pool
and have the policy tools to foster its growth to meet workforce demands. Many states have adopted
effective innovation practices—if not yet a comprehensive innovation agenda—by making investments in K–12
education and raising science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) standards; using their role as the
main funders of higher education to improve production of math and science-related
degrees; and linking research and development to key industrial, economic, and labor and
skills targets. States have also expanded junior, technical, and community college systems to provide
workforce training to meet the needs of growing, innovative industries, and have established
regional councils and other networks to understand and support business needs.

They solve better than the federal government.

Fitzpatrick 7 - (Erika Fitzpatrick is an editorial consultant based in Washington,D.C., 2007,
"Innovation America:A Public-Private Partnership",
https://www.uschamberfoundation.org/sites/default/files/publication/edu/Public_Private%20
Report%20ELECTONIC%20version%209.19.07.pdf, DOA: 4-27-2017) //Snowball
It is clear that, given the dynamics of today’s economy, this
nation can ill-afford to wait to innovate. States can
and should lead the way by strengthening the innovative processes within their boundaries
and staying ahead of the global competition unleashed by the computing and communications revolution. States
know that they must raise the rigor and relevance of educational systems to meet
international benchmarks and provide students with the 21st century skills that they need to
succeed in the knowledge economy. They must also create entrepreneurial economies that can compete
in the new innovation-based global marketplace. While acknowledging the federal and the
private sector roles in innovation, states hold most of the keys to innovation. An effective
innovation agenda hinges on their willingness to assess their competitive strengths and
weaknesses in concrete and realistic terms. Governors must identify their states’ competitive advantages and build specific, targeted
policies around them. Developing a comprehensive innovation agenda is a challenging mission, but it
is an imperative—and one that governors and the private sector are well equipped to tackle.
4/28/17
 Decreasing Federal Role
There’s a decreasing federal role in K-12 education under Trump.
Brown 17 - (Emma Brown Reporter — Washington, D.C., 26 Apr. 2017, "Trump orders study of
federal role in education", https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/trump-expected-
to-order-study-of-federal-role-in-education/2017/04/26/577dddbc-2a19-11e7-a616-
d7c8a68c1a66_story.html?utm_term=.4d4da33e60c8, DOA: 4-29-2017) //Snowball
President Trump signed an executive order Wednesday that requires Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to study
whether and how the federal government has overstepped its legal authority in K-12 schools, a
move he framed as part of a broader effort to shift power from Washington to states and local
communities. “Previous administrations have wrongfully forced states and schools to comply with
federal whims and dicate what our kids are taught,” Trump said at the White House. “But we know that local
communities do it best and know it best.” The order does not invest DeVos with any new authority. She already has broad powers
to revise or withdraw policies that her predecessors promulgated. Rob Goad, a department official, said the order gives DeVos
300 days to conduct a review to identify any regulations or guidance related to K-12 schools
that is inconsistent with federal law. The review will be led by a task force headed by Robert Eitel, a senior counselor to
DeVos who previously worked for a for-profit college company. The GOP has long been home to lawmakers who say
that the federal government should not be involved in public education. But complaints of
federal overreach intensified during President Barack Obama’s administration as the
department wielded billions of dollars in stimulus funds — and promises of relief from the No
Child Left Behind law — to push states toward adopting new teacher evaluations and Common
Core academic standards. The bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 transferred much authority over public schools from
the federal government to the states. Many on the right are looking for signs that Trump will do more to
unwind the federal role in education.
4/29/17
 Beautiful Risk of Education
Education always involves a risk – one which the Affirmative would rather not
take – but this denies human agency and the value of education. The alternative
is to hold an emancipatory dialogue with the other within the school.
Biesta 13 - (Gert Biesta, Professor of Education in the Department of Education of Brunel
University London, 2013, "The Beautiful Risk of Education", DOA: 4-29-2017) //Snowball
This book is about what many teachers know but are increasingly being prevented from talking about: that
education always involves a risk. The risk is not that teachers might fail because they are not sufficiently qualified.
The risk is not that education might fail because it is not sufficiently based on scientific evidence. The risk is not that
students might fail because they are not working hard enough or are lacking motivation. The risk is there because, as W.
B. Yeats has put it, education is not about filling a bucket but about lighting a fire . The risk is there because
education is not an interaction between robots but an encounter between human beings. The
risk is there because students are not to be seen as objects to be molded and disciplined, but as
subjects of action and responsibility. Yes, we do educate because we want results and because we
want our students to learn and achieve. But that does not mean that an educational technology, that is, a situation in
which there is a perfect match between “input” and “output,” is either possible or desirable.
And the reason for this lies in the simple fact that if we take the risk out of education, there is a real chance
that we take out education altogether. Yet taking the risk out of education is exactly what
teachers are increasingly being asked to do. It is what policy makers, politicians, the popular press, “the public,”
and organizations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank increasingly seem to
be expecting if not demanding from education. They want education to be strong, secure, and
predictable, and want it to be risk-free at all levels. This is why the task of schooling is more and more
being constructed as the effective production of pre-defined “learning outcomes” in a small number
of subjects or with regard to a limited set of identities such as that of the good citizen or the effective lifelong learner. It is also why there is
a more general push for making education into a safe and risk-free space (see Stengel and Weems 2010).
What should have been a matter of degree—the question, after all, is not whether education should achieve something
or not, or whether educational spaces should be safe or not, but what education should achieve and to what extent this can be pre-specified,
and what kind of safety is desirable and at which point the desire for safety becomes uneducational—has
turned into an “either-
or” situation in which the opportunity for teachers to exercise judgment has virtually
disappeared. The risk aversion that pervades contemporary education puts teachers in a very difficult
position. While policy makers and politicians look at education in the abstract and from a distance
and mainly see it through statistics and performance data that can easily be manipulated and
about which one can easily have an opinion, teachers engage with real human beings and
realize at once that education cannot be “fixed” that simply—or that it can only be “fixed” at a very high price.
The desire to make education strong, secure, predictable, and risk-free is in a sense an attempt to wish this
reality away. It is an attempt to deny that education always deals with living “material,” that is, with
human subjects, not with inanimate objects. The desire to make education strong, secure,
predictable, and risk-free is an attempt to forget that at the end of the day education should aim at making
itself dispensable—no teacher wants their students to remain eternal students—which means that education necessarily
needs to have an orientation toward the freedom and independence of those being educated. Surely, it is
possible to make education work; it is possible to reduce the complexity and openness of human learning—and one could
even say that the educational practices and institutions that have been developed over the centuries do precisely that (see Biesta 2010a). But
such complexity reduction always comes at a price, and the moral, political, and educational question is,
What price are we willing to pay for making education “work”? This is partly a pragmatic question, as it has to be addressed in
relation to the question, What do we want education to work for? (see Biesta 2010b). But it always also involves careful
judgment about the point where complexity reduction turns into unjustifiable and uneducational
suppression and where suppression turns into oppression. To simply demand that education
become strong, secure, predictable, and risk-free, and to see any deviation from this path as a problem
that needs to be “solved,” therefore misses the educational point in a number of ways. One has to do with
the attitude expressed in the desire to make education strong, secure, predictable, and risk-free. The French educationalist Philippe Meirieu has
characterized this attitude as infantile (see Meirieu 2008, p. 12). He argues that to
think that education can be put under
total control denies the fact that the world is not simply at our disposal. It denies the fact that
other human beings have their own ways of being and thinking, their own reasons and
motivations that may well be very different from ours. To wish all this away is a denial of the fact that
what and who are other to us are precisely that: other. It thus exemplifies a form of magical
thinking in which the world only exists as a projection of our own mind and our own desires. Education
is precisely concerned with the overcoming of this “original egocentrism,” not by overriding or eradicating where
the child or student is coming from but by establishing opportunities for dialogue with what or who is
other (see ibid., p. 13). And a dialogue, unlike a contest, is not about winning and losing but about ways of
relating in which justice can be done to all who take part. To demand that education become
strong, secure, predictable, and riskfree also misses the educational point in that it seems to assume that there
are only two options available for education: either to give in to the desires of the child or to
subject the child to the desires of society; either total freedom or total control. Yet the educational concern
is not about taking sides with any of these options—which reflect the age-old opposition between educational
progressivism and educational conservatism—or about finding a happy medium or compromise between the two. The
educational concern rather lies in the transformation of what is desired into what is desirable
(see Biesta 2010b). It lies in the transformation of what is de facto desired into what can justifiably
be desired—a transformation that can never be driven from the perspective of the self and its desires, but always requires
engagement with what or who is other (which makes the educational question also a question about democracy; see
Biesta 2011b). It is therefore, again, a dialogical process. This makes the educational way the slow way, the difficult way, the
frustrating way, and, so we might say, the weak way, as the outcome of this process can neither be guaranteed
nor secured. Yet we live in impatient times in which we constantly get the message that instant
gratification of our desires is possible and that it is good. The call to make education strong, secure, predictable,
and risk-free is an expression of this impatience. But it is based on a fundamental
misunderstanding of what education is about and a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes education “work.”
It sees the weakness of education—the fact that there will never be a perfect match between educational “input” and
“output”—only as a defect, only as something that needs to be addressed and overcome, and not
also as the very condition that makes education possible (see also Vanderstraeten and Biesta 2006). It is this
misguided impatience that pushes education into a direction where teachers’ salaries and even
their jobs are made dependent upon their alleged ability to increase their students’ exam
scores. It is this misguided impatience that has resulted in the medicalization of education, where
children are being made fit for the educational system, rather than that we ask where the causes of this misfit lie
and who, therefore, needs treatment most: the child or society. The educational way, the slow, difficult, frustrating, and weak way,
may therefore not be the most popular way in an impatient society. But in the long run it may
well turn out to be the only sustainable way, since we all know that systems aimed at the
total control of what human beings do and think eventually collapse under their own weight,
if they have not already been cracked open from the inside before. The chapters in this book, therefore, come to education from the angle of
its weakness. In them I try to show how, for what reasons, and under what circumstances the weakness of education—the
acknowledgment that education isn’t a mechanism and shouldn’t be turned into one—
matters. This book is not an unbridled celebration of all things weak, but an attempt to show, on the one hand, that education only
works through weak connections of communication and interpretation, of interruption and
response, and, on the other hand, that this weakness matters if our educational endeavors are
informed by a concern for those we educate to be subjects of their own actions—which is as much
about being the author and originator of one’s actions as it is about being responsible for what one’s actions bring about.
4/30/17
 Allocation Not Funding
The problem is resource-allocation not the amount of funding.
Jacobs 17 - (Al Jacobs, a professional investor for nearly five decades, holds a degree in civil
engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 4-28-2017, "A glimpse of reality on public
education in the U.S.", http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/glimpse-reality-public-
education-u-s-article-1.3109432, DOA: 4-30-2017) //Snowball
How can it be that an institution employing a huge work force and consuming a staggering amount of the
nation's resources can function in such a manner? A major impediment to learning is that the
school system was neither designed nor does it operate primarily to deliver an education to
its students. Instruction in America is, at best, a peripheral goal of the public schools. In reality, it
operates for the benefit of many diverse and conflicting groups including elected public
officials, administrative hierarchy of the schools, the teachers and their representatives, non-
credentialed employees, textbook publishers and distributors, and a host of groups and
individuals too numerous to mention. The brutal fact is students are not among the many groups to
whom the benefits are bestowed. And why is this? Students are children and, as such, possess neither
financial nor electoral influence. As they cannot enforce demands, they may safely be
ignored.
May
5/1/17
 Privates CP
Text: Private sector organizations and businesses should [insert plan]
Private actors solve education problems better while public schools create
inequality and kill freedom and innovation
McCluskey 16 Neal McCluskey, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational
Freedom and maintains Cato’s Public Schooling Battle Map, “Private Schools vs. Public Schools -
Why Private Schools Are Better”, August 3, 2016, The Cato Institute,
https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/private-schools-vs-public-schools-why-
private-schools-are-better, VM
Public schooling — schools run by government — is un-American. By its very nature it creates
inequality, forces people into conflict and smothers innovation. Private schooling, in contrast
— with money following children and educators able to teach as they want — is moored in
freedom and equality. When people contemplate inequality, they tend to think about unequal access or outcomes. Public schooling
suffers mightily in those areas, with the well-to-do able to access good public schools by purchasing homes in affluent districts. And the wealthy
tend to see much better outcomes in terms of test scores, college-going, and jobs. These
are not wholly a function of the
K-12 schools — what children experience outside of school has a greater impact on their lives
than what happens in it — but the huge barrier to accessing a good school called “the price of
a house” does not help. That said, the inequality that is even more distinctly un-American is inequality under the law. With all
people having to fund government schools, but only those able to exercise the most political power controlling them, that is what public
schooling creates. America is about liberty, equality under the law and dynamism. When it comes to education, only private schooling is, too.
Want evolution taught, but your district is dominated by creationists? Too bad . Mexican-
American, and you want a course on your history? You’re out of luck in many districts.
Religious, and you believe faith is essential to your child’s education? You are absolutely
unequal; teaching religion is impermissible in any public school, but religious people must still
pay for them. Of course, for over a century many public schools were de facto Protestant institutions, rendering Jews, Catholics, atheists
and others second-class citizens. The sad product of this winner-take-all system is not just inequality, but
often painful social conflict, as neighbors are forced to battle neighbors to get what they
want from the schools. The Cato Institute’s Public Schooling Battle Map contains nearly 1,500 values and identity-based conflicts in
districts around the country, and probably just captures a fraction — those that make headlines—of such battles. What keeps such
conflagrations from being even more common? Either
one side wins, perpetuating discrimination, or all sides
agree to lowest-common-denominator — but inoffensive — content, such as biology courses
free of human origins, or reading lists bereft of intellectually challenging literature. By
allowing people to choose schools, private schooling steps on the fuse of social conflict,
empowering all people to access coherent, rigorous content consistent with their values and
desires, and no longer pricing access at the cost of a house. It allows educators to establish
schools as they see fit, not according to hand-tying rules dictated by districts, states, or
Washington. And it enables teachers to specialize in the needs of unique children, and
innovate with new pedagogical approaches and ideas. America is about liberty, equality under the law and
dynamism. When it comes to education, only private schooling is, too.
5/2/17
 Trump XO Answer
Trump’s executive order can’t actually do much – bills in place stop
Resmotivs 17 – ( Joy Resmotivs April 27th, 2017 “What does Trump’s executive order on
education do? Not much” http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-essential-education-
updates-southern-trump-wants-to-get-the-feds-out-of-your-1493235054-htmlstory.html)
President Trump is giving Education Secretary Betsy DeVos 300 days to look over previous
administrations' actions in search of government overreach in K-12 education. Trump signed
an executive order Wednesday that, according to Rob Goad, a senior Department of Education
official, strikes down "top-down mandates that take away autonomy and limit the options
available to educators, administrators, and parents." The language seem aimed at the Obama
administration, which used funding competitions and the enforcement of civil rights law to
have an outsized impact on education nationwide. The Trump administration already has begun rolling back some
Obama initiatives, such as protections for transgender students. DeVos' staff is creating a task force aimed at curtailing and repealing
regulations they deem to be overstepping local control of schools.
It is unclear, however, whether an executive order
would in any way expand the limits of DeVos' authority. The Every Student Succeeds Act —
the successor to the No Child Left Behind Act — circumscribes the Education secretary's power,
particularly when it comes to altering states' curriculums or teacher evaluations. “Rather than
another executive order, perhaps the president and DeVos need to read the bipartisan Every
Student Succeeds Act," Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a
statement.
 U.S. Hegemony Bad
U.S. hegemony – in theory and practice – undermines global stability.
Gunnar 17 - (Ulson Gunnar, New York-based geopolitical analyst, 5-2-2017, "US foreign
policy: Hegemony or stability, not both", https://www.sott.net/article/347032-US-foreign-
policy-Hegemony-or-stability-not-both, DOA: 5-2-2017) //Snowball
US foreign policy has for decades been predicated on achieving and maintaining global peace, security and
stability. In reality, it has for over a century constituted an overreaching desire to achieve and maintain
global hegemony. And where US efforts focus on achieving hegemony, division and destruction
follow. From the Middle East to Eastern Europe, and from Southeast Asia to the Korean Peninsula, US intervention politically
or militarily all but guarantee escalating tensions, uncertain futures, socioeconomic instability
and even armed conflict. The Middle East and North Africa US efforts in the Middle East since the conclusion of the
first World War have focused on dividing the region, cultivating sectarian animosity and pitting
neighbors against one another in vicious, unending combat. During the 50s and 60s, the US pitted its
regional proxy, Israel, against its Arab neighbors . In the 1980's the US armed both the Iraqis and the
Iranians amid a destructive 8 year long war. Today, the US props up Persian Gulf states who in turn are
fueling regional, even global terrorism that has destabilized or entirely dismembered entire nations. And from
the Middle East and North Africa, waves of refugees have reverberated outward affecting adjacent
regions who have so far been spared from the chaos directly. In Syria, the United States poses as a central player in restoring
stability to the conflict stricken nation. In reality, it was the US itself that trained activists years ahead of the so called Arab
Spring, as well as funneled money into the Muslim Brotherhood and other extremist groups to serve as
militant proxies after the protests were finally underway. Today, militant groups operating under the banners
of Al Qaeda and its various affiliates are almost exclusively funded, armed and trained by the Persian Gulf
states through which the US launders its own support to these groups through. Thus, while the US poses as an
agent of stability in Syria, it is the central player intentionally creating and perpetuating chaos. Likewise, the
North African state of Libya has been rendered all but destroyed, fractured into competing regions
ruled by ineffective warlords, former generals, proxies of ever sort and Persian Gulf sponsored terrorist
networks including the Islamic State. The instability in Libya has afforded the United States, its policymakers
and the special interests who sponsor their work a safe haven for the vast infrastructure
required to maintain regional proxy forces including training camps and weapon depots. This infrastructure,
since 2011, has been used as a springboard to invade Syria, destabilize neighboring North African
states and to fuel a divisive refugee crisis in nearby Europe. Eastern Europe Since the conclusion of the Cold War and
the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO has continued to expand toward Russia's borders. Far from a defensive
alliance, NATO clearly serves as a multinational military conglomerate used as cover for
expanding US hegemony worldwide. NATO operations in far-flung Afghanistan and Libya illustrate the shape-shifting nature
of its alleged mission statement, revealing it to be but a pretext for an otherwise unjustified, aggressive front. Its expansion into Eastern Europe
and the ongoing military build-up along Russia's borders mirrors similar tensions fostered by
Nazi Germany during the 1930s. NATO's sponsorship of the violent coup which overthrew the Ukrainian government between
2013-2014 likewise provides an example of how US "stability" often manifests itself instead as failed states,
perpetual violence and the constant threat of further escalation. Asia Over the past 10 years, the United
States has attempted to "pivot" itself back toward Asia. While claiming this "pivot" represented an American
effort to maintain stability across Asia-Pacific, proclamations from the US State Department itself smacked of
literal imperialism. An article published in Foreign Policy titled, "America's Pacific Century," was penned by then US Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton all but admitting this. The United States is not an Asian nation, yet despite this obvious fact, it
declared its intent to reassert American primacy across Asia Pacific . In order to do this, the US found
itself fueling political opposition across much of Asia and more specifically, in Southeast Asia. Nations like
Myanmar are now headed by regimes installed into power via decades of US political support,
funding and training. And despite pro-democracy rhetoric accompanying these regimes as they ascend into
power, their true nature is nothing short of despotic, with Myanmar's current government
overseeing systematic violence targeting ethnic minorities, the silencing of political critics and
opponents, the curtailing of free press and other flagrant abuses the US now conveniently
ignores. In nations like Thailand, US efforts to co-opt regional political orders have failed. However, despite
their failure, simmering conflicts remain, threatening sociopolitical and economic stability both
currently and in the near future. On the Korean Peninsula, America's presence continues to
drive instability. Joint military exercises with South Korea often and openly serve as rehearsals for
"decapitation" strikes against the North Korean government, fueling North Korean paranoia and provoking
continued posturing on both sides. In short, the US presence serves to intentionally keep the
neighboring states pitted against one another, undermining, not bolstering regional stability. A
similar strategy of tension is being played in the South China Sea where the US has for two presidencies
now attempted to provoke China both directly and through the use of Japanese, Vietnamese and Philippine
tensions to contest and curtail Beijing's growing military deterrence. The endgame in the South China
Sea for China is to eventually push the United States out of the region, reducing or eliminating its
capacity to target China directly, and reduce America's ability to destabilize China's
peripheries. It should be noted that destabilizing China's peripheries (those nations bordering China) is a stated objective of US
policymakers. Hegemony or Stability, Not Both Ultimately the US seeks hegemony, not stability. Hegemony by
necessity requires the division and destruction of competitors, which in turn requires
constant and ever-escalating sociopolitical and economic instability. While the US has all but
declared its intent to establish global hegemony for decades, it uses the pretext of seeking
global peace, security and stability as cover along the way. Understanding that only through a
multipolar global order in which state sovereignty holds primacy, not multinational alliances,
institutions or openly hegemonic world powers, can a real balance of power be struck, and
only through this balance of power can real global stability be achieved. Until then, as the US
seeks hegemony over the planet, the world can expect an equal but opposite decline in
stability.
5/3/17
 De-dev Turn
Economic growth cannot be sustained and will eliminate life on Earth.
Decoupling the economy from the environment does not solve. There is a rising
movement towards economic and environmental homeostasis, but substantial
GDP increases prevent it from succeeding.
Alexander 16 - (Dr. Samuel Alexander is the co-director of the Simplicity Institute, and a
lecturer at the Office for Environmental Programs, University of Melbourne, Australia, 16th
September 2016, "Growth is unsustainable. It’s time to shrink the economy.",
https://www.opendemocracy.net/neweconomics/growth-is-unsustainable-its-time-to-shrink-
the-economy/, DOA: 5-3-2017) //Snowball
What would genuine economic progress look like today? The orthodox answer is that a bigger
economy is always better. But this idea is increasingly strained by the knowledge that, on a finite
planet, economies can’t grow forever. If developed nations were to grow GDP by 2% over coming
decades, and by 2050 the global population had achieved a similar standard of living, the global
economy would be approximately 15 times larger than it is today in terms of GDP. If the global economy
grew at 3% from then on it would be 30 times larger than the current economy by 2073, and 60 times larger
by the end of this century. iIt is utterly implausible to think that planetary ecosystems could
withstand the impacts of a global economy that was 15, 30, or 60 times larger than it is today. Even
a global economy twice or four times as big should be of profound ecological concern . It has been estimated that
we would need one and a half Earths to sustain the existing economy into the future. Every year this
ecological overshoot continues, the foundations of our existence, and that of other species, are
undermined. Like a snake eating its own tail, our growth-orientated civilisation suffers from
the delusion that there are no environmental limits to growth. But rethinking growth in an age
of limits cannot be avoided. The only question is whether it will be by design or disaster. This
realisation has given rise to calls for economic “degrowth”. This means a phase of planned and
equitable economic contraction in the richest nations, eventually reaching a steady state that
operates within Earth’s biophysical limits. At this point, mainstream economists will accuse
degrowth advocates of misunderstanding the potential of technology, markets, and efficiency
gains to “decouple” economic growth from environmental impact. But there is no
misunderstanding here. Tthe fatal problem with the growth model is that it relies on an extent of
decoupling that quickly becomes unachievable. We simply cannot make a growing supply of
food, clothes, houses, cars, appliances, gadgets, etc. with 15, 30, or 60 times less energy and
resources than we do today. We need to embrace renewable energy, but renewable energy cannot sustain
an energy-intensive global society of high-end consumers. Some countries have shown trends of
decoupling;, but under closer examination, this is generally because of them outsourcing energy and resource-
intensive manufacturing elsewhere. Technology and ‘free markets’ are not the salvation they promised to be. In order to move
toward a just and sustainable global economy, developed nations must reduce their resource
demands to a ‘fair share’ ecological footprint. This might imply an 80% reduction or more, if the global population is to
achieve a similar material living standard. But such significant quantitative reductions cannot be achieved if we persist
with the dominant economics of GDP growth. It follows that the developed nations need to initiate
policies for a post-growth economy at once, followed in due course by developing nations.
This is humanity’s defining challenge in coming years and decades . A degrowth society
embraces the necessity of planned economic contraction, seeking to turn our environmental
and social crises into opportunities for civilisational renewal. Among other things, we would tend to
reduce our working hours in the formal economy in exchange for more home-production and
leisure. We would have less income, but more freedom. Thus, in our material simplicity, we
would be rich – if we manage the transition wisely.
5/4/17
 Giroux K
Their education reform movement is nothing but a right-wing sham that
perpetuates oppression and exploitation - vote negative on presumption if we
win a link because they are treating the wrong causes to create change and they
have no impact on the education system as a whole
Hudson 99 Mark Hudson, Member/Data Analyst, Solidarity, ATC 83, November-December
1999, “Education for Change: Henry Giroux and Transformative Critical Pedagogy”,
https://www.solidarity-us.org/node/1734, VM (yes this is overhighlighted I know)
THESE ARE DIFFICULT times for teachers in U.S. public schools. The increasing size of schools, chronic underfunding of schools serving working-
class students (especially students of color), work overload, school violence, professional isolation and the deskilling and devaluing of teachers'
work have led to rising rates of teacher burnout in recent decades. The average career trajectory of a teacher in the United States is about five
years.1 Meanwhile, the corporate-controlled media give voice to a conservative chorus calling
for “school reform.” The “reforms” demanded include voucher plans and tax credits to force
public schools to compete with private schools in the “free-market” economy, “raising
standards” and “mandating competencies” through statewide and national standardized
testing, and calls for public schools to abandon multicultural and secular humanist curricula in
favor of “traditional values” and a back-to-basics “core curriculum.” These calls in reality amount to an
attack on the public education system itself, and on public school teachers in particular. As education theorist Michael Apple has argued,
(T)he political Right in the United States has been very successful in mobilizing support
against the educational system and its employees, often exporting the crisis in the economy
to the schools. Thus, one of its major achievements has been to shift the blame for
unemployment and underemployment, for the loss of economic competitiveness, and for the
supposed breakdown of “traditional” values and standards in the family, education, and paid
and unpaid workplaces, from the economic, cultural, and social policies and effects of
dominant groups to the school and other public agencies.2 This implies that legitimate
questions of how to improve the U.S. public education system cannot be seriously addressed
without simultaneously addressing the issues of economic exploitation, racist oppression and
patriarchal gender relations that form the socio-economic context in which public schools
operate. In other words, schools are not, as the right claims, the problem; rather, the very
real problems of schools and those who work and learn in them cannot and will not be solved
without a mass-based political movement from below against the injustices of capitalism,
sexism and racism. Thus liberals and other moderates who oppose all or parts of the
conservative education agenda but are silent about the essentially repressive nature of U.S.
society have no real alternative to offer. At best, they can provide isolated examples of
“enlightened” educational practices that perhaps benefit small groups of students and
teachers but have little if any impact on the public education system as a whole.3
 Cruelly Optimistic Education
Education gives us the cruelly optimistic promise of unending success, but in
doing so indebts us to following an impossible narrative. Resolving the paradox
affirms that meaning, value, and life-affirmation – not just data – can be
inherited and passed on.
Di Paolantonio 16 - (Mario Di Paolantonio, Associate Professor. PhD, Journal of Philosophy
of Education, Vol. 50, No. 2, 2016, "The Cruel Optimism of Education and Education’s
Implication with ‘Passing-on’", DOA: 5-4-2017) //Snowball
There is a ‘cruel optimism’ in education that drives us to constantly work at improving ourselves;
that is, we optimistically attach to things that promise us fulfillment but that actually perpetually
defer any such fulfillment and rather end up impoverishing us. We often undergo an education with
the confidence that it will secure our success in a future good life. Education seems inextricably bundled up
with this elusive drive of bettering ourselves; it offers incitements and exhortations of limitless possibilities
to manage and mortgage our own success. The discourse of ‘life-long learning’, for example, is peddled
under the guise that amidst today’s constantly changing circumstances, individuals, in order to succeed, need to learn
how to constantly learn (OECD, 2010). Emphasising learning as a transposable mode that can meet any
situation promises that education will allow us to adapt to (and survive) an ever volatile and menacing market. The
cruel paradox here is that under ‘late capitalism’ this optimism in education quite literally indebts us to
an impossible normative narrative of success. All such optimistic gesticulations and solicitations ultimately
wear us down and lock us down, as it were, within the privative sense that it is all up to the
individual to innovate and improve and to keep innovating and improving herself optimally and
persistently through an education. Putting the burden of such optimism on the individual
consequently alienates and isolates one from what it might mean to hold a world in common. Caught
in the endless pursuit of self-improvement and of managing oneself for success through an education, we
admittedly end up losing not only something of ourselves, but also something worldly and fundamental
about education itself. The cruel irony here is that this optimism in education ends up usurping
what is educational in education. Today’s optimism in education, with its emphasis on ‘answering
everything there is to say about education in terms of individual learners’ and how processes of learning
can secure personal future success, leads us to what Biesta describes as the ‘learnification of education’ (2005). This
‘ugly term’, according to Biesta, signals a time when ‘the language of learning makes it difficult if not
impossible’ to speak about the substantive purposes of education (2012, p. 584), and the role that
education plays (or should play) in tending to and forging a common world. The problem, as Biesta varyingly
points out, is that ‘learning’ basically emphasises the individual in isolation and also accents instrumental self-
serving methods over existential and interpretative world-building approaches. In this hyper-individualised
atmosphere, what is lost is how education is educational precisely because it always implies the
‘beautiful risk’ of human interaction, the relational encounter where human beings come together to
influence each other with words and interpretations that work to forge and sustain a common world. While the world was
there before us, and will most likely outlast us, its significance wears down and is in need of repair and renewal
through the words, interpretations and aspirations that we fashion through an education.
Education, at a very basic level, strives to assure the continuation of a common world, ‘passing on’
from generation to generation an interpretative repertoire that can sustain and expand our sense
of belonging to a world of significance. As Maxine Greene once put it, ‘what we think of as the common
world [has] come into view over time by means of the understanding that has developed and the
interpretations that have been devised’. She goes on to emphasise that this ‘growth of understanding is linked to the
bringing into being of a common world’ (1982, p. 7). By virtue of ‘passing on’ and giving on to others a repertoire of
understandings, meanings and visions, which in the first place has itself been received, education seems to
offer a place for a type of ‘organized remembrance’ or ‘inheritance’ (Peperzak, 2012, pp. 58–59). In fact, if
education involves the housing and transmission of a repertoire of interpretations, understandings and
visions from one generation to the next, the educational is ‘charged with the highest kind of
responsibility to continue and [to] renovate’ what we have come to value about the world (Peperzak,
2012, p. 60). It is important to emphasise that the remembrance and inheritance housed in education is never
consolidated or finally stored away. Rather remembrance and inheritance becomes educational precisely because
it partakes in the proliferating practice of maintaining, restating and re-signifying itself in a different
context, in which the past is received (and creatively reworked) by other living beings that inhabit their own particular
time.1 In other words, given that the process of transmission (as paradosis, as giving over) is enacted through
language what is ‘passed on’ through education is necessarily open to contests of interpretation,
recitations, multiple postings, re-description and transformation : hence, to an iteration that always adds and
sends ‘something more’ to what has come before. To be sure the educational task of transmitting the past in
the present does much more than extend the life of a certain corpus of works; it also adds (and
‘passes on’) the particular ways, the creativity, the sense and sensibility, in which the present
reanimates the past as one of its concerns. In this sense, what is educational in education involves
engaging the past and the present with ‘something more’ than itself, with something hopeful: with a trans-
generational beyond or sense that for us to meaningfully survive we must ‘pass on’ rather
than merely repeat (the Same). Our present must ‘pass on’ (in all senses of the word); that is, our present must inherit
the past (as something readable and transformable) to pass it on, and, at the same time, prepare for its own
passing, in which it itself is handed over to the unpredictable birth of another. Education thus
bears a remarkable affinity to readying ourselves to ‘pass on’ the past and to ‘pass on’ for the
future. Moreover, beyond tending to what bridges generations across the abyss of birth and death, education
also binds us together in the very moment of its passing. In other words, we have to appreciate that at a
very basic level, education is constituted by the flow of our passing time together. That is, that through
an education we are given a unique place to become, together, temporal subjects. Education
is where we literally pass the time together (in all senses of the term). We hangout for hours a week,
making time for each other and together spend time working through common material and,
thus, we give time to what is not here—to the past and to the future. And our passing time together through an
education enables us to possibly feel the sense in our fleeting togetherness, to share in a
sensibility and to possibly have the chance of saying ‘yes‘we’ are together in this world
passing time’. And in saying so, in saying so many things by this, we might come to feel a bond to each
other and to the world that outlasts even death, that gives us a surplus, a dividend, a
‘something more’, an ‘over-life’ that would exceed the cruelty of merely serving necessity
(Honig, 2009, p.10). Education as a place, perhapsthe place, chiefly vested and concerned with ‘passing on’
does not (thankfully) strive to teach us how to live (finally) or, even, how to die (finally). Rather, as an
exemplar of a place of ‘passing-on’, education invites us to affirm the ‘living-on’ of the
question of what it might mean to live together after all: to forge, sustain and pledge
something of significance in common (and across generations) amidst what is constantly passing away,
against the ruin of time. Education’s inevitable embroilment with what passes away, and its very work of ‘passing on’
the past into time once again, affords education a particular way of engaging with what threatens to
ruin time and what wears down human significance, a particular way of engaging with our
finiteness that is articulated (sublimated) through what strives to endure. Thus, what is educational
about education fosters the affirmation of life, of what can continue to live on in significance after all. Drawing on
Jacques Derrida’s notion of ‘survival’ we could say that education, concerned as it is with the possibility of ‘passing
on’ (with the paradosis of the variegated traces, remains, latent aspirations, visions, iterable legacies of another time and for another time),
gives us a chance to affirm the sense of our world and our love for the world as surviving, as
‘living-after-death’ in excess of death (2007, p. 6). Education, as a place where we become concerned with what it
means to ‘pass on’,2 seems to bring us together in a peculiar type of hopeful affiliation that, borrowing
from Derrida again, is forged on the ‘anterior affirmation of being-together in allocution’ (1997, p. 249).
We have here an affiliation, a sense of being together, forged not through familiarity, kinship or through any
straightforward will or economy but through finding ourselves already ‘charged’ and called out to
accept our implication with ‘passing on’. In other words, we are here tapping into a sense of co-
belonging (a non-chosen relationship) that is cast across different times, before and after my time, in which each
generation stands apart from all others but still remains ‘charged’ (like all others) with the promise
of maintaining, of interpreting, of thus affirming a common world to ‘pass on’. This ‘charge’, this feeling
of ‘allocution’ that the world might ‘live-on’ after all, forges an affiliation (a covenant) that is ‘infinitely larger and
more powerful’ than any one present: a common sensibility that gives sense to what might
be other than ourselves, a ‘plus que vie’, a ‘something more’, that hopefully and thankfully
can survive me.
5/5/17
 Trump Agenda Public Unpopular
The Trump/DeVos education agenda is extremely publicly unpopular.
Weingarten 17 - (Randi Weingarten is an American labor leader, attorney, and educator. She
is president of the American Federation of Teachers, TIME, 4-25-2017, "AFT President: DeVos
and Trump Are Dismantling Public Education", http://time.com/4765410/donald-trump-betsy-
devos-atf-public-education/, DOA: 5-5-2017) //Snowball
The Trump/DeVos agenda not only jeopardizes that work, their view that education is a commodity as
opposed to a public good threatens the foundation of our democracy and our responsibility to provide
opportunity to all of America’s young people. Americans have a deep connection to and belief in
public education. I see it every day as I crisscross the nation talking to parents, teachers, students and
community members about what they want for their public schools. And it transcends politics. It’s one
of the reasons we saw such a massive grass-roots response to the DeVos nomination from every
part of the country. A recent poll by Harvard and Politico showed that while parents want good public
school choices to meet the individual needs of their kids, they do not want those choices pit against
one another or used to drain money from other public schools. In other words, the DeVos/Trump
agenda is wildly out of step with what Americans want for their kids. It’s what I saw when I took
DeVos to visit public schools in Van Wert, Ohio, last month. This is an area that voted more than 70
percent for Trump, but people there love and invest in their public schools — from a strong early
childhood program, to robust robotics and other strategies that engage kids in powerful learning, to a community school that helps the kids
most at risk of dropping out stay on a path to graduation. It’s
what I saw at the Community Health Academy of
the Heights in New York City where the school provides a full-service community health clinic,
in-school social workers, a food pantry, parent resource center, and other services for parents
and kids. And it’s what I saw this week at Rock Island Elementary School in Broward County, Fla.,
where kids participate in robotics programs after school, where there is a library in every
classroom and a guided reading room where kids can build their literacy skills. The great
things happening in these schools are all funded by federal dollars and threatened by the
Trump/DeVos budget. Many of those who voted for Trump did so because they believed he
would keep his promise to stand up for working people and create jobs. They didn’t vote to
dismantle public education and with it the promise and potential it offers their children. Now, the person who ran on
jobs and the economy seems intent on crushing one of the most important institutions we
have to meet the demands of a changing economy, enable opportunity and propel our nation
forward. That’s one of the biggest takeaways from Trump’s first 100 days.
 Cyber Security and Power Attacks
Demand for cyber security growing, but not enough students are taking STEM to
fill that need– Kelley 16
(Debbie Kelley April 10th, 2016 “DEMAND FOR CYBERSECURITY WORKERS GROWING, BUT TOO
FEW STUDENTS CONSIDERING FIELD” http://gazette.com/cybersecurity/education)
An unending war happening in the nebulous realm of cyberspace needs more troops to fight
the bad guys and protect the innocent. With high-profile security attacks on big-box stores,
hospitals and government agencies, “All of a sudden, people are finding out there’s a cyberwar
going on,” said Edward Chow, a University of Colorado at Colorado Springs computer science
professor. But there aren’t enough cybersecurity workers to stop hackers from invading and
stealing information. Or enough students considering the field as a profession. “There’s a
tremendous demand for these skills,” said Martin Carlisle, director of the Air Force Academy’s
Center for Cyberspace Research in Colorado Springs. “We are seeing corporations as well as the
government constantly being attacked in the cyber domain, and we just aren’t producing
enough professionals who can handle the threat.” A record 79 percent of American businesses
reported some sort of cybersecurity incident in 2014. And the 238,158 job postings for
cybersecurity positions represented a 91 percent increase from 2010, according to a Burning
Glass Technologies report. Last year, aerospace and defense contractor Raytheon and the National
Cyber Security Alliance commissioned a survey to assess cybersecurity career interest and
preparedness. Released in October, the survey showed about two-thirds of nearly 3,900
millennials in 12 countries who responded were unaware they could pursue a career in
cybersecurity. And 58 percent said they were not taught in classrooms about ways to stay safe
online or were unsure they learned that. “We have these crazy ideas that are crazy enough to work. But nobody wants to
give us a chance.” - Andrew Dubiel, Vista Ridge The combination of not knowing about the field and not being taught cybersecurity principles
has contributed to the industry shortage. Todd Probert, vice president for mission support and modernization at Raytheon Intelligence,
Information and Services, said he wasn’t surprised by the survey results. “We’re focused on getting the message out there that we need more
folks,” he said. “With the proliferation of cellphones, our toasters talking to our refrigerators and other technology, if we don’t have that
workforce, we will be at a disadvantage globally.”

Without cyber-security, the US Power Grid is left open to attack – Morgan 16

(Steve Morgan, “Major cyber attack on U.S. Power Grid Likely” February 7th, 2016
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevemorgan/2016/02/07/campaign-2016-major-cyber-attack-
on-u-s-power-grid-is-likely/#31da79204110)
In his New York Times bestselling investigation, Koppel reveals that a major cyberattack on
America’s power grid is not only possible but likely, that it would be devastating, and that the
United States is shockingly unprepared. U.S. investigators recently found proof that a cyber
attack can take down a power grid. A destructive malware app known as 'BlackEnergy' caused a
power outage on the Ukranian power grid this past December, resulting in a blackout for
hundreds of thousands of people. Ukranian officials have blamed Russia for the cyber attack. A
CNN article states that U.S. systems aren't any more protected than those breached in Ukraine.
Koppel asks us to imagine a blackout that could last months - where millions of Americans over
several states are without running water, refrigeration, light, and a dwindling supply of food
and medical supplies. A blackout could shutdown banks, challenge the police as they've never
been before, and lead to widespread looting. A logical conclusion is that cyber security is a
complex topic which the media and the candidates are not equipped to knowledgeably discuss
in public. It is a sorry state of affairs for a potential cyber strike on U.S. power grids to be kept
quiet during an election year.
5/6/17
 AT: CO2 = Root Cause Warming
Framing CO2 as the root cause of warming is reductive and ignores the complex
set of factors that contribute to it.
Shellenberger and Nordhaus 4 - (Michael Shellenberger is a strategist for foundations,
organizations and political candidates, Ted Nordhaus is Vice President of Evans/McDonough,
one of the country’s leading opinion research firms, 2004, "The Death of Environmentalism",
https://www.thebreakthrough.org/images/Death_of_Environmentalism.pdf, DOA: 5-6-2017)
//Snowball
Most environmental leaders would scoff at such framings of the problem and retort, “Disaster preparedness is
not an environmental problem.” It is a hallmark of environmental rationality to believe that
we environmentalists search for “root causes” not “symptoms.” What, then, is the cause of
global warming? For most within the environmental community, the answer is easy: too much carbon in the
atmosphere. Framed this way, the solution is logical: we need to pass legislation that reduces carbon
emissions. But what are the obstacles to removing carbon from the atmosphere? Consider what would happen if we
identified the obstacles as: The radical right’s control of all three branches of the US government. Trade
policies that undermine environmental protections. Our failure to articulate an inspiring and
positive vision. Overpopulation. The influence of money in American politics. Our inability to craft
legislative proposals that shape the debate around core American values. Poverty. Old
assumptions about what the problem is and what it isn’t. The point here is not just that global warming has
many causes but also that the solutions we dream up depend on how we structure the problem.
The environmental movement’s failure to craft inspiring and powerful proposals to deal with
global warming is directly related to the movement’s reductive logic about the supposedly root
causes (e.g., “too much carbon in the atmosphere”) of any given environmental problem. The problem is that once
you identify something as the root cause, you have little reason to look for even deeper
causes or connections with other root causes. NRDC attorney David Hawkins, who has worked on environmental
policy for three decades, defines global warming as essentially a “pollution” problem like acid rain, which was
addressed by the 1990 Clean Air Act amendment. The acid rain bill set a national cap on the total amount of acid rain
pollution allowed by law and allowed companies to buy pollution credits from other companies that had successfully reduced their emissions
beyond the cap. This “cap-and-trade” policy worked well for acid rain, Hawkins reasons, so it should work
for global warming, too. The McCain-Lieberman “Climate Stewardship Act” is based on a similar mechanism to cap carbon
emissions and allow companies to trade pollution rights.
 STEM Omnibus Turn
STEM education kills creativity and creates inflexible thinkers- that turns
innovation, reduces American competitiveness, and kills American jobs in the
present and future due to computerization- only broad based liberal education
can solve and keep America’s economy strong
Zakaria 15 Fareed Zakaria writes a foreign affairs column for The Post. He is also the host of
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS and a contributing editor for The Atlantic. Washington Post, “Why
America’s obsession with STEM education is dangerous”, March 26, 2015,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-stem-wont-make-us-
successful/2015/03/26/5f4604f2-d2a5-11e4-ab77-
9646eea6a4c7_story.html?utm_term=.d041a7d09c68, VM
*also an indict of OECD test rankings which show US doing poorly consistently
If Americans are united in any conviction these days, it is that we urgently need to shift the country’s education toward the teaching of specific, technical skills.
Every month, it seems, we hear about our children’s bad test scores in math and science — and about new initiatives from companies, universities or foundations to
expand STEM courses (science, technology, engineering and math) and deemphasize the humanities. From President Obama on down, public officials have
cautioned against pursuing degrees like art history, which are seen as expensive luxuries in today’s world. Republicans want to go several steps further and defund
these kinds of majors. “Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists?” asked Florida’s Gov. Rick Scott. “I don’t think so.” America’s last bipartisan
cause is this: A liberal education is irrelevant, and technical training is the new path forward. It is the only way, we are told, to ensure that Americans survive in an

This dismissal of broad-based learning,

age defined by technology and shaped by global competition. The stakes could not be higher.

however, comes from a fundamental misreading of the facts — and puts America on a
dangerously narrow path for the future. The United States has led the world in economic
dynamism, innovation and entrepreneurship thanks to exactly the kind of teaching we are
now told to defenestrate. A broad general education helps foster critical thinking and
creativity. Exposure to a variety of fields produces synergy and cross fertilization. Yes, science
and technology are crucial components of this education, but so are English and philosophy.
When unveiling a new edition of the iPad, Steve Jobs explained that “it’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough — that it’s technology married with

Innovation is not simply a technical

liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our hearts sing.”

matter but rather one of understanding how people and societies work, what they need and
want. America will not dominate the 21st century by making cheaper computer chips but
instead by constantly reimagining how computers and other new technologies interact with
human beings. For most of its history, the United States was unique in offering a well-rounded education. In their comprehensive study, “The Race
Between Education and Technology,” Harvard’s Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz point out that in the 19th century, countries like Britain, France and Germany
educated only a few and put them through narrow programs designed to impart only the skills crucial to their professions. America, by contrast, provided mass
general education because people were not rooted in specific locations with long-established trades that offered the only paths forward for young men. And the
American economy historically changed so quickly that the nature of work and the requirements for success tended to shift from one generation to the next. People
didn’t want to lock themselves into one professional guild or learn one specific skill for life. That was appropriate in another era, the technologists argue, but it is
dangerous in today’s world. Look at where American kids stand compared with their peers abroad. The most recent international test, conducted in 2012, found
that among the 34 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States ranked 27th in math, 20th in science and 17th in
reading. If rankings across the three subjects are averaged, the United States comes in 21st, trailing nations such as the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia and

Since 1964,
Estonia. In truth, though, the United States has never done well on international tests, and they are not good predictors of our national success.

when the first such exam was administered to 13-year-olds in 12 countries, America has
lagged behind its peers, rarely rising above the middle of the pack and doing particularly
poorly in science and math. And yet over these past five decades, that same laggard country
has dominated the world of science, technology, research and innovation. Consider the same
pattern in two other highly innovative countries, Sweden and Israel. Israel ranks first in the
world in venture-capital investments as a percentage of GDP; the United States ranks second,
and Sweden is sixth, ahead of Great Britain and Germany. These nations do well by most
measures of innovation, such as research and development spending and the number of high-
tech companies as a share of all public companies. Yet all three countries fare surprisingly
poorly in the OECD test rankings. Sweden and Israel performed even worse than the United
States on the 2012 assessment, landing overall at 28th and 29th, respectively, among the 34
most-developed economies. But other than bad test-takers, their economies have a few
important traits in common: They are flexible. Their work cultures are non-hierarchical and
merit-based. All operate like young countries, with energy and dynamism. All three are open
societies, happy to let in the world’s ideas, goods and services. And people in all three nations
are confident — a characteristic that can be measured. Despite ranking 27th and 30th in math, respectively, American and
Israeli students came out at the top in their belief in their math abilities, if one tallies up their responses to survey questions about their skills. Sweden came in
seventh, even though its math ranking was 28th. Thirty years ago, William Bennett, the Reagan-era secretary of education, noticed this disparity between
achievement and confidence and quipped, “This country is a lot better at teaching self-esteem than it is at teaching math.” It’s a funny line, but there is actually
something powerful in the plucky confidence of American, Swedish and Israeli students. It allows them to challenge their elders, start companies, persist when
others think they are wrong and pick themselves up when they fail. Too much confidence runs the risk of self-delusion, but the trait is an essential ingredient for
entrepreneurship. My point is not that it’s good that American students fare poorly on these tests. It isn’t. Asian countries like Japan and South Korea have

But technical chops are just one ingredient needed for

benefitted enormously from having skilled workforces.

innovation and economic success. America overcomes its disadvantage — a less-technically-

trained workforce — with other advantages such as creativity, critical thinking and an
optimistic outlook. A country like Japan, by contrast, can’t do as much with its well-trained
workers because it lacks many of the factors that produce continuous innovation. Americans should be
careful before they try to mimic Asian educational systems, which are oriented around memorization and test-taking. I went through that kind of system. It has its
strengths, but it’s not conducive to thinking, problem solving or creativity. That’s why most Asian countries, from Singapore to South Korea to India, are trying to
add features of a liberal education to their systems. Jack Ma, the founder of China’s Internet behemoth Alibaba, recently hypothesized in a speech that the Chinese
are not as innovative as Westerners because China’s educational system, which teaches the basics very well, does not nourish a student’s complete intelligence,
allowing her to range freely, experiment and enjoy herself while learning: “Many painters learn by having fun, many works [of art and literature] are the products of
having fun. So, our entrepreneurs need to learn how to have fun, too.” No matter how strong your math and science skills are, you still need to know how to learn,
think and even write. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon (and the owner of this newspaper), insists that his senior executives write memos, often as long as six
printed pages, and begins senior-management meetings with a period of quiet time, sometimes as long as 30 minutes, while everyone reads the “narratives” to
themselves and makes notes on them. In an interview with Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky, Bezos said: “Full sentences are harder to write. They have verbs. The

paragraphs have topic sentences. There is no way to write a six-page, narratively structured memo and not have clear thinking.” Companies often
prefer strong basics to narrow expertise. Andrew Benett, a management consultant, surveyed 100 business leaders and found that 84
of them said they would rather hire smart, passionate people, even if they didn’t have the exact skills their companies needed. Innovation in

business has always involved insights beyond technology. Consider the case of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg was a classic
liberal arts student who also happened to be passionately interested in computers. He studied ancient Greek intensively in high school and majored in psychology
while he attended college. And Facebook’s innovations have a lot to do with psychology. Zuckerberg has often pointed out that before Facebook was created, most
people shielded their identities on the Internet. It was a land of anonymity. Facebook’s insight was that it could create a culture of real identities, where people
would voluntarily expose themselves to their friends, and this would become a transformative platform. Of course, Zuckerberg understands computers deeply and

Twenty years
uses great coders to put his ideas into practice, but as he has put it, Facebook is “as much psychology and sociology as it is technology.”

ago, tech companies might have survived simply as product manufacturers. Now they have to
be on the cutting edge of design, marketing and social networking. You can make a sneaker
equally well in many parts of the world, but you can’t sell it for $300 unless you’ve built a
story around it. The same is true for cars, clothes and coffee. The value added is in the brand
— how it is imagined, presented, sold and sustained. Or consider America’s vast
entertainment industry, built around stories, songs, design and creativity. All of this requires
skills far beyond the offerings of a narrow STEM curriculum. Critical thinking is, in the end, the
only way to protect American jobs. David Autor, the MIT economist who has most carefully
studied the impact of technology and globalization on labor, writes that “human tasks that
have proved most amenable to computerization are those that follow explicit, codifiable
procedures — such as multiplication — where computers now vastly exceed human labor in
speed, quality, accuracy, and cost efficiency. Tasks that have proved most vexing to automate
are those that demand flexibility, judgment, and common sense — skills that we understand
only tacitly — for example, developing a hypothesis or organizing a closet.” In 2013, two
Oxford scholars conducted a comprehensive study on employment and found that, for
workers to avoid the computerization of their jobs, “they will have to acquire creative and
social skills.” This doesn’t in any way detract from the need for training in technology, but it
does suggest that as we work with computers (which is really the future of all work), the
most valuable skills will be the ones that are uniquely human, that computers cannot quite
figure out — yet. And for those jobs, and that life, you could not do better than to follow your
passion, engage with a breadth of material in both science and the humanities, and perhaps
above all, study the human condition.
5/7/17
 Increase Federal Regulation on CMOs
Federal Regulation over charter schools is insufficient now and is causing
massive waste, fraud, abuse, and poor quality education
OIG 16 Office of Inspector General, United States Department of Education, September 2016,
“Nationwide Assessment of Charter and Education Management Organizations: FINAL AUDIT
REPORT”, https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oig/auditreports/fy2016/a02m0012.pdf, VM
Internal controls are integral to the operations of any organization. They are a means of identifying and managing risks associated with Federal
programs and a key component in preventing and detecting fraud, waste, and abuse. The Federal Government has reemphasized the
importance of internal controls through recent updates of various regulations and guidance, such as Title 2 of the Code of Federal Regulations
Part 200 – Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards and the U.S. Government
Accountability Office Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government issued by the Comptroller General of the United States. The
development and implementation of adequate internal controls is even more important when dealing with emerging operating environments,
such as the CMOs that were the focus of this audit. We determined that charter school relationships with CMOs
posed a significant risk to Department program objectives. Specifically, we found that 22 of
the 33 charter schools in our review had 36 examples of internal control weaknesses related
to the charter schools’ relationships with their CMOs (concerning conflicts of interest,
related-party transactions, and insufficient segregation of duties).5 See Appendix 1 for details regarding the
State summaries of 6 States and 33 charter schools we reviewed. We concluded that these examples of internal
control weaknesses represent the following significant risks to Department program
objectives: (1) financial risk, which is the risk of waste, fraud, and abuse; (2) lack of
accountability over Federal funds, which is the risk that, as a result of charter school boards
ceding fiscal authority to CMOs, charter school stakeholders (the authorizer, State
educational agency (SEA), and Department) may not have accountability over Federal funds
sufficient to ensure compliance with Federal requirements; and (3) performance risk, which is
the risk that the charter school stakeholders may not have sufficient assurance that charter
schools are implementing Federal programs in accordance with Federal requirements. We
also found that the Department did not have effective internal controls to evaluate and
mitigate the risk that charter school relationships with CMOs pose to Department program
objectives. The Department did not have controls to identify and address the risks related to CMO relationships because it did not believe
the risk to be materially different than risks presented by other grantees that received Department funds. In addition, Department officials
stated that OII uses a risk-based strategy in the monitoring and administration of CSP grants. Further,
the Department did not
implement adequate monitoring procedures that would provide sufficient assurance that it
could identify and mitigate the risks specific to charter school relationships with CMOs. With the
exception of the SIG and the CSP non-SEA programs, the Department did not include in its monitoring tools any steps to review the
relationships between charter schools and CMOs or to review the SEAs’ oversight of those relationships. Also, the Department did not ensure
that SEAs monitored the relationships between charter schools and CMOs in a manner that would have addressed financial risk, lack of
accountability, and program performance risk. This occurred in part because the Department did not collect
and analyze information needed to perform a risk assessment and then tailor its monitoring
procedures accordingly. Without performing a risk assessment, the Department did not provide guidance to SEAs related to the
potential risks posed by charter schools with CMOs. As a result, the Department’s internal controls were
insufficient to mitigate the significant financial, lack of accountability and performance risks
that charter school relationships with CMOs pose to Department program objectives .
Specifically charter schools with CMOS are not properly regulated, creating
financial risk, misuse of public funds, and horrendous education standards
OIG 16 Office of Inspector General, United States Department of Education, September 2016,
“Nationwide Assessment of Charter and Education Management Organizations: FINAL AUDIT
REPORT”, https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oig/auditreports/fy2016/a02m0012.pdf, VM
We identified significant risk to Department program objectives based on our audit procedures performed at 33 charter schools in 6 States for
the audit period July 1, 2011, through March 31, 2013, including reviewing the related State and local audit reports, as well as trends identified
by Office of Inspector General (OIG) investigative cases involving CMOs performed nationwide from January 2005 through June 2016. To assess
the current and emerging risk that charter school relationships with CMOs pose to Department program objectives, we performed reviews at
selected SEAs and charter schools with CMOs that received Federal funds during our audit period. We judgmentally selected 33 charter schools
with CMOs in 6 States; therefore, the rate of occurrence of these internal control weaknesses cannot be projected to the universe of all charter
schools with CMOs. However,
through these case studies, we determined that similar systemic
internal control issues could occur at other charter schools. We selected the 33 charter schools based on a
variety of factors including, but not limited to: 1. information from the Internal Revenue Service form 990;24 2. findings related to charter
school relationships with CMOs from State and local audit reports, where available; 3. news article searches regarding charter school
relationships with CMOs; and 4. management and operational characteristics, such as the CMOs’ for-profit/nonprofit status, the number of
States in which the CMOs operated, the number of years that the charter schools were open, and the charter schools’ LEA status. We
found 36 examples of internal control weaknesses, conflicts of interest, related-party
transactions, and insufficient segregation of duties concerning charter school relationships
with CMOs at 22 of the 33 charter schools we reviewed. Furthermore, we identified additional examples of
internal control weaknesses from other audit reports and nationwide OIG investigative cases. We determined that the internal
control weaknesses we identified have the potential to affect charter schools’ entity-wide
operations and consequently pose risk to all State and Federal funds awarded to the schools.
Specifically, we concluded that the examples we found of internal control weaknesses
represent the following significant risks to Department program objectives: 1. Financial risk.
This is the risk of waste, fraud, and abuse resulting from conflicts of interest, related-party
transactions, and insufficient segregation of duties. 2. Lack of accountability over Federal
funds. This is the risk that, as a result of charter school boards ceding fiscal authority to
CMOs, charter school stakeholders (the authorizer, SEA, and Department) may not have
sufficient accountability over Federal funds to ensure grantees and subgrantees are
complying with Federal requirements. As a result, the CMO may spend Federal funds on
expenditures that are not in accordance with Federal law, regulation, and grant
requirements. 3. Performance risk. This is the risk that, as a result of charter school board
ceding operational authority to CMOs, charter school stakeholders may not have sufficient
assurance that grantees and subgrantees are implementing Federal programs in accordance
with Federal requirements. As a result, the CMO may not provide charter school students
with services that are in accordance with Federal program requirements. We found that 13 of
the 36 examples of internal control weaknesses were applicable to multiple categories of
significant risk to the Department. Therefore, the number of internal control weaknesses is different from the number of
significant risks discussed below.
5/8/17
 Foucault and neolib K link
Education reform is a repressive technique of control and power and creates
neoliberalism within education systems
Skourdoumbis 16 Andrew Skourdoumbis, Senior Lecturer in Curriculum and Pedagogy with
major research interests in curriculum theory, education policy analysis, teacher practice, and
teacher effectiveness, Deakin University (Australia), 2016, New directions in education? A
critique of contemporary policy reforms, Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 36:4, 507-509, DOI:
10.1080/02188791.2014.961896,
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02188791.2014.961896?needAccess=true, VM
The work of Michel Foucault, in particular his studies of discipline, bio-politics and government, considers the repressive techniques of control
and exertions of power that seek to constrain. The practice of teaching operates within an economic and political context that shapes and/or
subjectifies. Foucault’s conception of governmentality illustrates that the art of government emphasizes specific forms of rationality that centre
on regulatory control of populations. Foucault’s theoretical tool-box, especially his “work on
governmentality is well suited to recent changes in the professional lives” (Binkley &
Capetillo, 2009, p. xiv) of teachers and to the critical analysis of education policy as it can
reveal current manifestations of a “science of government” (Peters, 2007, p. 166) through
policy control. To be exact, ruling discourses that document and objectify student learning, student achievement and classroom
teaching. Governing the work of teachers through the “ ... bodies of knowledge, belief and
opinion” (Dean, 2010, p. 24) in which education is engaged relies on corresponding
interactions of power and authority. Foucault is concerned with the rationalization of political affairs and how issues of
power, truth and identity, are expressed in the “ ... general axes of government corresponding to ... its techne¯ its episteme and its ethos”
(Dean, 2010, p. 27). His idea of governmentality focuses upon aspects of political economy that regulate behaviour and define actions. In
terms of education policy, Foucault’s conception of governmentality highlights issues of
public trust in the teaching profession. Sachs (2003), for example, points to the close scrutiny
of teachers at both the public and private level, and she also highlights the often made claim
that alleged poor standards in academic achievement link directly to teaching practice. She
suggests that: ... development and implementation of standards and regimes in the UK, the
US and elsewhere can be seen in this light. Governments want control over a compliant
teaching profession and see that standards regimes provide the regulatory framework to
achieve this end. (Sachs, 2003, p. 6) Furthermore, the connection between standards and
control integrating enhanced regulation and system enforcement of sanctions are specific
features of governmentality as it applies to educational practice. To be exact, the
administrative attitudes, and prescribed conduct of conduct (see Dean, 2010) found within
teaching standards provides the necessary reasoning, thinking about and systematic
reckoning needed to control teachers and teaching. The relevance of governmentality to a critical examination of
education policy concerning teaching interrogates new formative statements about teaching practice. The DEECD Discussion
Paper for instance uses a series of regulatory statements about teaching, learning, teacher
performance, and teacher education as a “system of rules” (Allen, 2010, p. 149). In other
words, their emergence validates system-imposed “norms of verification and coherence”
(Allen, 2010, p. 149) as an exercise in power that regulates behaviour, and more broadly,
defines actions. Importantly, as economies of power, regulatory specifications about teacher
performance communicate a particular techne¯, and legitimized epistemology (modes and
styles of teaching) signifying and indeed authenticating a standardized pedagogical ethos –
regularized forms of teaching practice. To be precise, a conceded logic of pedagogy with characteristic, distinctive and
specific forms and ways of understanding, pondering, and mediating teaching practice. Germane to the work of Foucault and governmentality
is then the prioritization of the specific question, how are teachers and teaching practice(s) to be governed? This means examining the current
education policy regime in Victoria as a techne¯ of government, gripped by the particular policy vocabularies and tools of post-Fordist neo-
liberalism. Neo-liberal conditions The
neo-liberal ambition and ascendancy in education, represents an
economic and political programme (of governmentality) that reflects an intensification of
economic matters and their application to schools. Giroux (2013, p.1) asserts that neo-liberalism is: ... part of a
broader project of restoring class power and consolidating the rapid concentration of capital. It is a political, economic, and political project that
constitutes an ideology, mode of governance, policy, and form of public pedagogy. As an ideology, it construes profit making as the essence of
democracy, consuming as the only operable form of citizenship, and an irrational belief in the market to solve all problems and serve as a model
for structuring all social relations. As a mode of governance, it produces identities, subjects, and ways of life free of government regulations,
driven by a survival of the fittest ethic, grounded in the idea of the free, possessive individual, and committed to the right of ruling groups and
institutions to accrue wealth removed from matters of ethics and social costs. As a policy and political project, neoliberalism is wedded to the
privatization of public services, selling off of state functions, deregulation of finance and labor, elimination of the welfare state and unions,
liberalization of trade in goods and capital investment, and the marketization and commodification of society. Peters
(2002)
documents the neo-liberal policy-making focus as one that embraces the extension of
economic rationality into all spheres of life. The political and economic move towards neo-
liberalism marks a post-Keynesian framework reflecting as Lingard (2000) states a
“restructured managerialist, competitive performative state apparatus, along with the
ministerialisation of policy production” (p. 29). The social imaginary of neo-liberal political
and economic reform has a double edged focus. At one level “designed to forge a shared
implicit understanding of the problems to which policies are presented as solutions, seeking a
sense of political legitimacy” and on the other disciplining the population and “guiding and
shaping their conduct” (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010, p. 36). Under neo-liberalism, education policies
are often configured to meet economic purposes. Corrective interventions re-formulate
educational practice towards an economization of schooling and teaching. Human capital
considerations dominate as development of national economic competitiveness counts.
Modifying schools is an implicit intention as teachers and their performance becomes a core
matter of concern. Specific incantations of the “preferred teacher” (Smyth & Shacklock, 1998, p. 107) mapped against a specified
accountability regime becomes a preferred managerial option. Smyth (2006) itemizes it namely that (1) we have a
crisis in schools, attributable to schools, teachers, and teacher education; (2) the way of fixing these
alleged problems is by cutting schools and higher education institutions loose from a public education system and allowing them to be
disciplined by “market forces”; (3)
the way of improving “quality” in education is by requiring close
adherence to arbitrarily determined standards and targets, and ensuring compliance through
forms of prescribed accountability; (4) the language, rhetoric, models and modes of thought
of the business sector are preferable and more appropriate to anything that can be
developed by schools, students, teachers or teacher educators; (5) the role of parents is that of judicious
consumers exercising “choice” of school that provides the best deal for them and their children, rather than active citizens interested in a
system of education that is in the interests of everyone’s children, not just those most adept at working the system. An
unremitting
and permanent assessment of students, teachers and schools moderated alongside and in
response to test results and their official public descriptions (see Lingard & Sellar, 2013) is the
embedded intent of a neo-liberal accountability regimen. The added constituent for teachers
and teacher education under this regime with its “emphasis upon testing and quantitative
measurement of academic performance”, is a concomitant influence on “teachers’ learning
which see such learning as enabled by information provided by test providers ” (Hardy & Boyle, 2011,
p. 216), in brief, the stylized treatment of teaching practice.
5/9/17
 Federalism Link and Turns Case
Federal education reform staves off federalism – the link alone turns the case by
creating a worse model of education.
Hess and Kelly 15 - (Frederick M. Hess is director of education policy studies at the American
Enterprise Institute, Andrew P. Kelly is a resident scholar and director of the Center on Higher
Education Reform at the American Entrprise Institute, 9-15-2015, "More Than a Slogan",
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/knowledge-bank/2015/09/15/5-reasons-federalism-in-
education-matters, DOA: 5-9-2017) //Snowball
Those seeking to do more and more of the nation's education business in Washington fail to
recognize that federalism has its own unique strengths when it comes to education. Now, those arguing
for a larger federal role have reasonable points to make. Some states do have a history of ignoring failing schools or doing too little for disadvantaged students. It is
also true that states can ignore federal inducements in order to go their own way (though that's easier said than done when non-participation comes with a giant

price tag). The response to these concerns should not be shallow sloganeering around the virtues of limited government, but a competing
vision of how to order our community affairs and an explanation of why, at least in the American system, the
federal government just isn't well suited to govern education. Anything less makes it all too easy
for liberals, and even well-intentioned moderates, to dismiss federalism as an inconvenient obstacle to be overcome rather than

an asset to be embraced. Federalism matters for at least five reasons. It's a matter of size. Education
advocates suffer from severe bouts of Finland and Singapore envy. They tend to ignore that most of these nations
have populations of 5 million or so, or about the population of Maryland or Massachusetts. Trying to make rules for
schools in a nation that's as large and diverse as the U.S. is simply a different challenge. It aligns
responsibility and accountability with authority. One problem with tackling education reform
from Washington is that it's not members of Congress or federal bureaucrats who are charged with
making things work or who are held accountable when they don't. Instead, responsibility and blame
fall on state leaders and on the leaders in those schools, districts and colleges who do the actual work. The more authority moves up the ladder in
education, the more this divide worsens. It steers decisions towards the practical. No Child Left Behind

promised that 100 percent of students would be proficient in reading and math by 2014. President
Barack Obama wants to ensure that all students can attend community college for "free" – though most of the funds would

come from states. It's easy for D.C. politicians to make grand promises and leave the consequences to

someone else. State leaders must balance the budget and are answerable to voters for what
happens in schools and colleges; this tends to make them more pragmatic in pursuing reform. When
policymakers are embedded in a community, as mayors and state legislators are, there is also more trust and opportunity for compromise. That kind of practicality

It leaves
might disappoint firebrands eager for national solutions, but it's a better bet for students than the wish lists and airy promises of Beltway pols.

room for varied approaches to problem-solving. One of the perils of trying to "solve" things
from Washington is that we wind up with one-size-fits-all solutions. No Child Left Behind
emerged from a wave of state-based efforts to devise testing and accountability systems. Those state efforts were
immensely uneven, but they allowed a variety of approaches to emerge, yielding the opportunity to learn,
refine and reinvent. That's much more difficult when Washington is seeking something that can be

applied across 50 states. It ensures that reform efforts actually have local roots. The Obama
administration's Race to the Top program convinced lots of states to promise to do lots of
things. The results have been predictably disappointing. Rushing to adopt teacher evaluation
systems on a political timeline, states have largely made a hash of the exercise . Free college proposals
make the same mistake; they depend on states and colleges promising to spend more money and adopt federally sanctioned reforms, an approach that seems
destined to frustrate policymakers' best-laid plans.
5/10/17
 Adv CP – U.S. Econ/Poverty/Fiscal Federalism
Counterplan: The United States federal government should streamline public
welfare by eliminating federal welfare bureaucracy and ceding the authority to
state governments and providing them a capped global block grant* and
incentives to establish individualized programs that emphasize the well-being of
welfare recipients.

The counterplan solves healthy economic growth, fiscal federalism, and

eliminates poverty – existing programs are a hyper-inefficient piecemeal that
drains national spending.
Alexander 17 - (Dr. Gary Alexander was Secretary of Human Services for the Commonwealth
of Pennsylvania from 2011-2013, FEB 17, 2017, "Taming Public Welfare Can Fix Our Economy
And Eliminate Poverty", https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2017/02/17/taming-public-
welfare-can-fix-our-economy-and-eliminate-poverty/#460d83701bfa, DOA: 5-10-2017)
//Snowball
*capped global block grant means states receive a set amount of funding and flexibility over
how to use that (to tailor it to the state), but the USfg can provide incentives (raising the cap)
for states that do a good job, so it promotes innovation/competition even though it results in
less federal spending by reducing inefficiencies
No nation has ever spent itself into prosperity. Yet the United States annually spends over $1 trillion on
“means-tested” or “unearned” public-welfare programs, covering one in three residents. Total expenditures for these
programs—including Medicaid, cash assistance, food stamps, housing, energy assistance and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) disability
programs have more than doubled since 1989 and outpace all categories of federal spending.
Comprising over 40% of state budgets and 60% of every tax dollar, welfare continues to crowd
out necessary services like education and infrastructure. As a former state official who spent nearly two decades managing
public welfare programs in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, I can attest that these programs are broken and riddled with
inefficiencies, abuse and fraud. The only way to reverse this is a new federal-state agreement
that harnesses the proven power of the states as laboratories of democracy and downsizes and
limits the top-down, heavy-handed, federal government approach to conduct the limitless
war on poverty, a war that Ronald Reagan said we lost. President Donald Trump and Republicans would
do well to quickly fix this system’s runaway growth and the serious threat that it poses to America’s
economic health. This new agreement should abolish the current 70-plus programs and thousands of
onerous and redundant rules engrained in at least nine federal agencies and replace them with a
simplified system that consolidates federal-funding streams into “super or global block
grants” of defined dollars diverted directly to the states from the U.S. Treasury—
circumventing the federal agencies. Replacing the current matching schemes of individual programs that reward states for
growing welfare, this new law’s scope must be “global,” encompassing all programs across agencies—not an
individual piecemeal fix. It should set compatible goals and broad outcomes across populations, focusing on
work, self-sufficiency, education and training, health improvement and spending reductions,
while establishing performance measures that will finally hold bureaucrats accountable. A
mechanism like this will provide states flexibility to strategically innovate and tailor programs and
benefits to their unique characteristics, resulting in increased competition, improved quality
and downsized bureaucracies, saving taxpayers hundreds of billions . In a 2016 Ernst and Young audit done
for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), HHS officials said they couldn’t track how much the
government spent on welfare overpayments and waste. States certainly don’t need more money
to spend. They need strong federal government oversight to improve every recipient’s health,
education and employment status without tying their hands with onerous regulations that
create waste, fraud and bloated bureaucracies. This reform doesn’t mean just providing health
coverage. It means working with the whole person—body, mind and spirit—to improve health and
economic status, smoothing out the cliffs that recipients hit so that they quickly move off the system. Flexibility and
accountability will create partnerships with the private sector to craft programs that provide
recipients with goals and outcomes that actually improve their future and instill a sense of
personal responsibility. To make this work, the federal government should provide states with a
capped global block grant of federal dollars based on a state’s previous spend. Since this is a major
undertaking, states will need time to fully transition from the current complex system to one that works more like the private sector. Funding
could be renegotiated only in case of a disaster. Why is a
funding cap important? It changes the culture from a
financing structure that automatically increases the federal share as state spending increases
to a system that forces states to be fiscally responsible. States will still have a chance to be
rewarded with additional federal dollars, but only if they are accountable, spend less,
innovate and hit health, education, employment and spending-reduction benchmarks.
Funding caps force fiscal discipline, something that all levels of government desperately need. Many
single mothers with multiple children have told me that they choose welfare over work because, if
they make over a certain amount of money, they end up losing benefits. This is what I have
repeatedly called hitting “the welfare cliff,” leading a recipient to choose roughly $45,000 in benefits instead of taking a $25,000-a-
year job. Couple this with the federal government’s incentivizing states to conduct extensive
welfare advertising to persuade residents, including non-citizens and even the middle class, to sign up for free
benefits like Obamacare, and the complexities of multiple programs with competing rules siloed
across different federal and state agencies; then we ask why generations remain on the
system. This reform’s flexibility and accountability will fix all of this. The welfare dysfunction begins at
the top. Most elected and nonelected government officials, including bureaucrats operating these
programs, don’t understand the system’s complexities or care about the people trapped in it.
During my tenure in Rhode Island attempting to gain federal approval for a global Medicaid waiver that provided the state with unprecedented
flexibility, a senior federal official asked us, “If we give you this type of relief, what will our job be?” This is exactly why every welfare
bureaucracy perpetuates its own existence, forcing states to spend billions hiring oodles of consultants and lobbyists that attempt to deal with
what Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence lamented as a “multitude of offices and officers sent to harass our people and to eat
out our substance.” Medicaid, the largest of the means-tested welfare programs, covers
one in four residents, costing
$600 billion per year. Its law, however, requires that it offer services for recipients to attain “self-
care or independence.” Decades of disjointed piecemeal additions, thousands of onerous
rules, dreadful management at the federal and state levels and Obamacare’s massive
expansion have created anything but. In fact, Rhode Island even once paid for an animal to receive health services. A
global fix like this is not untested. A block-grant model ensured the success of the bipartisan legislation
that created the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program in 1996. It also worked with
Medicaid after Rhode Island, in 2009, secured a five-year global waiver from federal red tape in
exchange for a funding cap. Instead of unlimited deficit spending, one “global” program broke down silos
and drove expenditure reductions and quality improvements . The flexibility spurred innovation and
competition and allowed America’s most liberal state to keep growth to just over 1% compared to a
national average of close to 7%. “Draining the swamp” is more than rhetoric. It will take mammoth
strength to consolidate and banish the current system that has created this mess. In Pennsylvania
alone, the ratio of workers to welfare recipients has narrowed from about 3.3 workers to 1 recipient in 2001 to about 2 to 1 in 2015. Although a
strong safety net is necessary for the most needy, the
Trump Administration would give our economy and
those who truly need help a huge boost by scrapping the entire system and starting over. If
Trump initiates a complete public welfare overhaul based on state flexibility, capped global
block grants, outcomes and accountability, and abolishes the current maze of federal public
welfare programs, the nation might finally have a chance to eliminate poverty, offer the
middle class high-wage jobs and fix our fiscal house. Finally, by focusing on servant leadership,
the Republicans might fulfill their promise to follow the Constitution and transfer authority
back to the states to solve problems that the federal government is unequipped to handle.
5/11/17
 2AC States CP Template
Permutation – do both – it’s dual solvency and apportions the net benefit
between the two.

States don’t solve – hollow promises and an impending shift back to federal
control.
Camera 15 - (Lauren Camera, Education Reporter, 12-9-2015, "Education Shifts to the States",
https://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2015/12/09/new-federal-education-law-
shifts-power-to-states, DOA: 5-11-2017) //Snowball
Even if states are successful in electing or appointing education chiefs who have ambitious plans
for closing achievement gaps and turning around failing schools, the political environment at
the state level presents a challenge all its own, says Aldeman. "While I appreciate what individuals are saying, I
don't expect the system will let them stay and execute all of their plans," Aldeman says. "There is
such churn at the states level in the people and plans that it's hard to believe any promises
people make." Kress, for his part, believes that four or five years from now the pendulum will swing back
toward a meatier role for the federal government. "I think there will be a recognition a few years
out that this was a mistake," he says. "It may have felt good, it may have been a natural response to an
unfulfilled No Child Left Behind and a response to [the Obama administration's use of executive authority]. But
I think people will say we should have stayed the course instead of throwing our hands up ."

50 states counterplans are a voting issue for fairness and education-

1. It’s unfair and unsupported by literature for 50 states to act in unison.
2. The judge only has jurisdiction over federal action.
3. Multiple-actor fiat has no literature and isn’t reciprocal to the Affirmative
or realistic to the world.
4. They reduce the breadth of education by shifting the debate to repetitive
federalism discussions.
5. It lets the Negative steal the 1AC, which is 8 minutes of strategic
Affirmative offense.

Permutation – do the counterplan – it’s equally as fair to sever the federal

government as it is to run a CP that isn’t a logical opportunity cost to the federal
government.
Financing Turn-
A) State approaches cause funding deficits.
Bowman 16 - (Kristi L. Bowman, Vice Dean For Academic Affairs And Professor Of Law, Nov
30, 2016, "The Failure Of Education Federalism", DOA: 5-11-2017) //Snowball
Education federalism is failing our children. Especially since the Great Recession, states have been
increasingly unlikely to invest in public schools and have been even less amenable to structural
education reform initiatives. In some states, the executive or judiciary has attempted to counteract this trend. In a small but
growing number of other states, checks and balances effectively no longer occur, at least when it
comes to financing public education. Because of the relationship between the states and federal government regarding
education, the federal government is largely unable to intervene via statute, regulation, or court order. The
debates that emerge from this situation are not new: Questions about federalism, courts’ ability to produce
social change, and the degree to which “money matters” in schools all have been at the heart of
American education law and policy for quite some time. In one form or another, these themes are woven throughout
more than a half-century of vigorous discussions about education funding reform by judges, legislators, and researchers.2 In fact, from the 1966
fountainhead of modern education research, the Coleman Report, 3 through today, ample
research has sought to unpack
the impact of funding and a new consensus may be emerging, documenting that court orders and
legislative reforms that result in increased school spending create short- and long-term gains
for students in the affected schools. This finding is especially significant because it is unusual to
identify a variable in a problem as complex as educational quality and poverty that one can
influence as easily as funding.

B) That creates inequalities between and within states.

Brown 15 - (Emma Brown Reporter — Washington, D.C., June 8, 2015, "Inequitable school
funding called ‘one of the sleeper civil rights issues of our time’",
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/06/08/inequitable-school-funding-
called-one-of-the-sleeper-civil-rights-issues-of-our-time/?utm_term=.be357f394207, DOA: 5-
11-2017) //Snowball
Funding for public education in most states is inadequate and inequitable, creating a huge
obstacle for the nation’s growing number of poor children as they try to overcome their circumstances, according to a
set of reports released Monday by civil rights groups. Students in the nation’s highest-spending state (New York)
receive about $12,000 more each year than students in the lowest-spending state (Idaho), according
to the reports, and in most states school districts in wealthy areas spend as much or more per
pupil than districts with high concentrations of poverty. In addition, many states were spending
less on education in 2012 than they were in 2008, relative to their overall economic productivity,
according to the reports. The two reports – the Education Law Center’s fourth annual report card on school finance and a companion piece co-
authored with the Leadership Conference Education Fund – are meant to help galvanize policymakers and activists to take on longstanding
school funding disparities. “School funding decisions are one of the sleeper civil rights issues of our
time,” said Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and Leadership Conference Education Fund. “The
evidence from across the country is clear and compelling: Our
nation must dramatically change the way that
educational resources are distributed so that there is true equity in America’s classrooms.”

Permutation – pass the plan through cooperative federalism – solves and

shields the net benefit.
Kurzweil 15 - (Martin A. Kurzweil, Director, Educational Transformation Program, Ithaka S+R;
Lecturer in Law, Columbia Law School, 2015 California Law Review, "Disciplined Devolution and
the New Education Federalism", http://www.californialawreview.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/07/Kurzweil_Devolution-Education-Federalism.pdf, DOA: 5-11-2017)
//Snowball
Cooperative federalism permits the state government to distribute benefits or regulate in
ways that are tailored to local conditions,83 including further devolution of authority to the local
level. Local decision making yields policy that is not only a closer fit to local needs, but also more closely
resembles selfgovernment. State and local political representatives and administrative officials are more familiar
(sometimes personally so) with the people affected by their policies. With less separation between government and
citizenry, there also may be greater opportunity for those affected to participate in or influence the policy-making process.84
Decentralizing policy formulation may also help evade national political gridlock. Inviting
state participation in federal policy formulation may go further and disrupt that gridlock.85
States that favor the federal government’s policy are empowered to implement it and even
go beyond what the federal government would do; states that generally oppose the federal
government’s policy have greater leverage to change or resist it.86
 ---Links to Politics
States counterplan links to federal politics – opposition manifests in lawsuits
and political negotiations.
Green 17 - (Emma Green is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where she covers politics, policy, and
religion, 1-4-2017, "Democrats Have Badly Neglected State and Local Politics",
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/the-ideological-reasons-why-
democrats-have-neglected-local-politics/512024/, DOA: 5-11-2017) //Snowball
Practically speaking, the narrative that progressives favor federal policymaking while conservatives
favor state and local action is far too simplistic. Both parties tend to use federal power when they
have it. “George W. Bush, as a matter of ideology, cared a lot about states,” Young pointed out. “But the first thing
he did as president was to shift power to the federal government in the area of education, which
had been a terribly important area of state predominance.” Conversely, both parties have used
state-level litigation to intervene in federal policymaking when they’ve been out of power. Take
Massachusetts vs. Environmental Protection Agency, the Bush-era Supreme Court case in which 12 states, several cities,
and advocacy groups sued to force the EPA to begin regulating greenhouse gases. During the Obama
years, other states pulled a similar move—Texas sued the administration over deferred
immigration enforcement for people in the country illegally, for example. “Broadly, I think federalism is not a
conservative or liberal thing, or a Republican or Democrat thing,” Young said. “It offers a way of not having all
your eggs in one basket when changes in who controls various institutions occur.” It’s also a way
of making sure one party doesn’t force the other permanently out of power at the national
level: As Democrats are now discovering, it’s hard to get elected in districts that Republican-
heavy state legislatures have gerrymandered to favor their own party. But there’s a reason why the United
States is not a constellation of self-determining city-states. Federalism is a political orientation,
not a body of clear-cut policy prescriptions. The negotiation of power between national and state
governments—and, relatedly, between state and local governments—is complicated and partisan. Larger bodies
of government, led by Democrats and Republicans alike, often threaten smaller bodies with litigation or
funding cuts if they don’t follow certain policies. During the Reagan years, the federal government
famously used this method to get states to comply with its policy on the legal drinking age. And in 2016, the
Obama administration used a similar method when it sent a letter to school districts instructing
them to comply with federal guidance on accommodations for transgender students .
 Education Funding and Competitiveness
States have drastically cut funding to public education – Leachman et al 16
(MICHAEL LEACHMAN NICK ALBARES KATHLEEN MASTERSON MARLANA WALLACE January
25th, 2016 “Most states have cut school funding, and some continue cutting”
http://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/most-states-have-cut-school-funding-
and-some-continue-cutting Michael Leachman is Director of State Fiscal Research with the
State Fiscal Policy division of the Center,

These cuts weaken schools’ capacity to develop the intelligence and creativity of the next
generation of workers and entrepreneurs. Our survey, the most up-to-date which analyzes state tax and
budget policy decisions and promotes sustainable policies that take into account the needs of
families of all income levels.)
Most states provide less support per student for elementary and secondary schools — in some
cases, much less — than before the Great Recession, our survey of state budget documents over the last three months finds.
Worse, some states are still cutting eight years after the recession took hold. Our country’s future depends
crucially on the quality of its schools, yet rather than raising K-12 funding to support proven reforms such as hiring and retaining excellent teachers, reducing class

These cuts weaken schools’

sizes, and expanding access to high-quality early education, many states have headed in the opposite direction.

capacity to develop the data available on state and local funding for schools, indicates that, after adjusting for inflation: At least 31
states provided less state funding per student in the 2014 school year (that is, the school year ending in 2014)
than in the 2008 school year, before the recession took hold. In at least 15 states, the cuts exceeded 10
percent. In at least 18 states, local government funding per student fell over the same period. In at least 27 states, local funding
rose, but those increases rarely made up for cuts in state support. Total local funding nationally ― for the states
where comparable data exist ― declined between 2008 and 2014, adding to the damage from state funding cuts. While data on total school

funding in the current school year (2016) is not yet available, at least 25 states are still
providing less “general” or “formula” funding ― the primary form of state funding for schools ―
per student than in 2008. In seven states, the cuts exceed 10 percent. Most states raised “general” funding per student slightly
this year, but 12 states imposed new cuts, even as the national economy continues to improve. Some of
these states, including Oklahoma, Arizona, and Wisconsin, already were among the deepest-cutting states since the recession hit.

Education funding is key to competitiveness – without funding competitiveness

is killed – Epstein 11
(Diana Epstein September 6th, 2011 “Investing in education Powers US competitiveness”
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/reports/2011/09/06/10376/investing-in-
education-powers-u-s-competitiveness/)
Education is the key to American competitiveness and a strong economy, and continued federal
investment in education is needed in order to support improvements in student achievement
and put our economy on the path to sustained growth. The United States suffers from
persistent differences in achievement between groups of students defined by race/ethnicity or
family income, and our students also rank well behind those in economically competitive
countries on international tests. We must continue to invest in education in order to create a
system that is more equitable and that produces American students who are more competitive
in the global marketplace for talent. Too few of our students are performing at the levels
needed to compete for the high-skill jobs that allow us to maintain global competitiveness. Only
33 percent of fourth graders and 33 percent of eighth graders scored at or above proficient in
reading on the 2009 NAEP exam; only 39 percent of fourth graders and 34 percent of eighth
graders were at or above proficient in mathematics. Furthermore, achievement tests
demonstrate that international competitors are performing better than U.S. students, and in a
globalized economy we cannot afford to fall any further behind. Research shows that
investment in education is essential for our country’s short- and long-term economic growth. A
recent report by McKinsey & Company estimates that bringing lower-performing states up to
the national average between 1983 and 1998 would have added $425 billion to $710 billion to
our 2008 GDP. Closing the racial/ethnic and income achievement gaps between 1983 and 1998
would have also added to our GDP. The estimates are that closing the racial/ethnic gap would
have added $310 billion to $525 billion by 2008 and closing the income achievement gap would
have added between $400 billion and $670 billion to our 2008 GDP. Continuing to tolerate
these achievement gaps is tantamount to accepting a chronic, self-induced economic recession.
Closing the international achievement gap between 1983 and 1998 would have added
$1.3 trillion to $2.3 trillion to our 2008 GDP. Another study found that increasing students’
scores on the PISA test by 25 points—one-fourth of a standard deviation—between 2010 and
2030 would result in economic gains for OECD countries. U.S. students currently rank below the
students from many OECD countries on this test, but if the United States and other countries
improved by this amount, the payoff to the United States would be more than $40 trillion by
2090.
5/12/17
 Culture Aff/K
Increasing diversity creates a necessity to change pedagogy to reflect
culturally relevant leadership
Horsford 11- (Sonya Douglass Horsford is a senior resident scholar of education with The
Lincy Institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas where she focuses on the history of
education in the U.S., politics of education, and role of schools in society.
Her research has been featured in journals such as Educational Administration Quarterly, Urban
Education, The Urban Review, and Journal of Negro Education. She is also editor of the book
New Perspectives in Educational Leadership: Exploring Social, Political, and Community
Contexts and Meaning (Peter Lang, 2010) and author of Learning in a Burning House:
Educational Inequality, Ideology, and (Dis)Integration (Teachers College Press, 2011).
Horsford is the recipient of the 2011 Emerging Scholar Award by Division A of the American
Educational Research Association (AERA), an award that recognizes a pre-tenure scholar who
has made outstanding contributions to the field of leadership, administration, or organizational
theory.)

The social and cultural contexts of today's schools are diverse in ways that require greater
attention to the educational philosophies, epistemologies, and perspectives of school leaders. In those environments
where educators are not aptly prepared or willing to meet the sometimes unique needs of
students who represent underserved racial, ethnic, and cultural groups, these matters move
beyond the personal and become professional, as they are further complicated by high-stakes accountability
standards and the prioritization of "closing the achievement gap" in schools and districts. As such, the purpose of this article is
to explore more fully the research literature on culturally relevant and antiracist pedagogy in ways that can inform the practice
of school leadership and explore the yet-untapped possibilities of speaking across areas of theory, research, and practice within
the field of education. Specifically, we offer a framework for culturally relevant leadership that includes the following four
dimensions: the political context, a pedagogical approach, a personal journey, and professional duty. Finally, we conclude with
implications for research and practice.

The social and cultural contexts of today's schools are diverse in ways that require greater attention to the educational
philosophies, epistemologies, and perspectives of school leaders (Brooks & Miles, 2010; Dancy & Horsford, 2010; Dantley &
Tillman, 2006; Horsford, 2009, 2010; Marshall & Oliva, 2006; Rusch & Horsford, 2009; Skrla, McKenzie, & Scheurich, 2008;
Scheurich & Young, 1997; Tillman, 2002). Whether the classroom teacher or building principal, the cultural and racial identities
of students and those who serve them have long continued to represent not only a demographic divide (Milner, 2007), but
growing degrees of cultural mismatch, which occurs when students experience incompatibility between their school and home
cultures (Boykin, 1986; Delpit, 1995; Gay, 2000, 2002; Hale-Benson, 1986; Hilliard, 1967; Irvine, 1990; Ladson-Billings, 1994). In
some instances, this mismatch results in cultural conflict (Delpit, 1995), cultural collision (Beachum & McCray, 2004, 2008), and,
in more troubling scenarios, the practice of cultural collusion, where teachers and school leaders implicitly usher out those
students whose culture is not recognized or valued in the classroom or school setting (Beachum & McCray, 2004). In other
cases, schools actively attempt to erase or "subtract" students' cultures through what Valenzuela (1999) described as
"subtractive schooling" in her ethnographic study of U.S. Mexican youth in a Texas high school.

In those environments where educators are not aptly prepared or willing to meet the sometimes unique needs of students who
represent underserved racial, ethnic, and cultural groups, these matters move beyond the personal and become increasingly
professional when further complicated by high-stakes accountability standards and the prioritization of "closing the
achievement gap" in schools and districts. In this climate, teachers and administrators are preoccupied with "making AYP"
(adequately yearly progress) to comply with a policy that is arguably designed to close these gaps in achievement and promote
academic and educational excellence (i.e., No Child Left Behind Act of 2001). Subsequently, the strained relationships,
discourse, and compromised learning opportunities in such sites of cultural conflict present
an educational challenge that becomes critical not only for teachers to understand but also
for school leaders to both recognize and manage successfully as education professionals. Add
the complexity of multiple conceptualizations, definitions, and interpretations of what culture is generally and how it functions
within schools specifically, and we discover how limited our knowledge and research base regarding culture is in the study and
practice of educational leadership (Brooks & Miles, 2010). This is particularly troubling given what we already know about the
significance of culture in organizations and how it informs the values, behaviors, and work of educational leaders, who in turn
influence the organization, its members, and those it serves.

In educational leadership, the research literature on organizational culture and school culture has dominated most discussion
and analysis concerning what culture is and the role that it plays in schools and school leadership (Brooks & Miles, 2010). While
organizational culture has been defined as "the shared philosophies, ideologies, values,
assumptions, beliefs, expectations, attitudes, and norms that knit a community together "
(Mllman, Saxton, & Serpa, 1986, p. 89) and "the interwoven patterns of beliefs, values, practices, and artifacts that define for
members who they are and how they are to do things" (Bolman & Deal, 1997, p. 217), its link to leadership, according to Schein
(1992), is the ways in which leaders "create and manage culture ... and their ability to understand and work with culture" (p. 5).
Similarly, school culture has been defined using nearly identical terms and constructs, limited only by the characteristics and
confines of the school context. For example, Deal and Peterson (1991) defined school culture as "the character of a school as it
reflects deep patterns of values, beliefs, and traditions that have been formed over the course of its history" (p. 7) and is largely
developed, fostered, and sustained by the school leader. What the educational leadership research literature has not yet
explored in deep and critical ways is how sociocultural differences at the individual and group levels inform leadership
dispositions and behaviors and how failure to acknowledge such differences problematizes the knowledge base on which we
study issues of culture in educational leadership (Brooks & Miles, 2010).

For the purposes of this article, we frame our discussion on culture in educational leadership by using Lindsey, Robins, and
Terrell's (2009) definition of culture as "everything you believe and everything you do that enables you to identify with people
who are like you and that distinguishes you from people who differ from you" (pp. 24-25). We
recognize that race,
ethnicity, gender, sexuality, ability, language, social class, and faith tradition are just a few
examples of what shapes a person's individual and group culture and, in turn, are significant
to one's multiple constructions of identity and representation (Larson & Murtadha, 2002; Tatum, 2000;
Terrell & Lindsey, 2009). Due to our respective research interests on race and racism in education, however, we focus much of
our discussion in the article on the construction of race as an aspect of culture, recognizing the words of Beverly Tatum (2000),
who in her book chapter entitled "The Multiplicity of Identity: Who Am IT' wrote, "Even as I focus on race and racism in my own
writing and teaching, it is helpful to remind myself and my students of the other distortions around difference that I (and they)
may be practicing" (p. 11).

Unlike the field of teacher education, which has engaged in research that considers sociocultural contexts and factors, as
evidenced in the literature on multicultural education (Banks, 1993, 2005; Banks & Banks, 1988; Grant, 1992; Nieto, 1999;
Sleeter & Grant, 1996; Sleeter & McClaren, 1996), culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1998),
culturally responsive instruction (Gay, 2000, 2002), and antiracist pedagogy (Cochran-Smith, 1995; Kailin, 2002; Lawrence &
Tatum, 1997; Lee, 1998, 2006; Trepagnier, 2006), such considerations remain understudied in the field of educational
leadership. There is, however, as Bustamante, Nelson, and Onwuegbuzie (2009) noted in their work on schoolwide
cultural competence and leadership preparation, a growing body of research that documents how
"culturally responsive educational leadership positively influences academic achievement and
students' engagement with the school environment" (p. 794). Although we do not entirely attribute
persistently racialized gaps in educational achievement and student performance to cultural mismatch, conflict, or collusion, we
do believe such contexts warrant serious attention to the ways that such manifestations of cultural and racial incongruence
affect and inform the work of not only teachers but the administrators who lead them and, through action or inaction, shape
school culture (Brooks & Miles, 2010; Deal & Peterson, 1999).

The purpose of this conceptual project is to explore more fully the research literature on culturally relevant
pedagogy and antiracist pedagogy in ways that can inform the practice of school leadership. As Brooks
and Miles (2010) explained, it is important that we "connect our research and practice more directly to that of our colleagues in
other fields of education and in the social sciences" (p. 23). And as emerging scholars representing the fields of educational
leadership and teacher education, we seek to make these connections by exploring the yet-untapped possibilities of speaking
across educational contexts in ways that result in improved leadership practice for school leaders. Through a selected review of
the teacher education research literature on culturally relevant and antiracist pedagogy and cultural proficiency in educational
leadership, we endeavor to further strengthen emergent connections between these fields of study in ways that advance
culturally relevant and antiracist pedagogy in leadership research and practice. To better contextualize and emphasize the
significance of such a review of literature, the next section offers a brief discussion of culture and its multiple
conceptualizations in present-day U.S. schooling contexts, with attention to demographic trends and data as they inform and
relate to the cultures of students, teachers, and school leaders.

The increasing significance of culturally relevant, responsive, and competent leadership in schools is made clear given the sheer
increases in the number and percentages of schoolchildren representing a diversity of racial, ethnic, and linguistic populations
in the United States.
While the White population is expected to increase by only 7% by 2050, the
U.S. Census Bureau projects an 188% among the Hispanic population, 213% among Asians, and 71% among Blacks. As
a result, in 40 years, Whites will only make up roughly one half of the U.S. population (Young &
Brooks, 2008). Furthermore, the demographic divide (Milner, 2007) between students and educators in the United States
presents unique challenges for teaching, learning, and leading in these diverse educational contexts. Children, families,
teachers, and school leaders bring varied cultural assumptions, perspectives, experiences, and expectations to the school
environment, and as a result, "subcultures in schools often develop naturally around content areas, grade levels, and among
educated and students who share specific values not fully held by the larger group" (Brooks & Normore, 2010, p. 58). Thus,
the potential for cultural conflict resulting from conflicting values among subcultures as well
as the racial incongruence that occurs given the significant demographic differences among
schoolchildren and families and the teachers and leaders who serve them require school
leaders to "be mindful of how their practice and decisions helps create an environment
where subcultures can collaborate synergistically or potentially pit them in adversarial stances" (p.58). In this
section, we briefly present data on the racial and ethnic demography of students, teachers, and school leaders in U.S. public
schools to contextualize our discussion of culturally relevant and antiracist pedagogy and approaches to school leadership.

According to U.S. data from the 2006-2007 school year, as reported by the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at
University of California, Los Angeles, "continued declines in the proportion of white students, increase in minority growth,
particularly of Latino and Asian students, and deepening segregation of black and Latinos by race and poverty" (Orfield, 2009, p.
9) reflect the changing demography of U.S. public schools. At the national level, during the 2006-2007 school year, White
students represented 56.5% of the public school population, followed by 20.5% Latino, 17.1% Black, 4.7% Asian, and 1.2%
American Indian. This demonstrates a dramatic shift from the 1988-1989 school year, where 68.6% of students were White,
15.5% Black, 11.5% Latino, and 3.4% Asian.

Many of these percentage changes can be attributed to the overall decrease in the number of White students as part of the
overall school-age population, the increase in the number of students of color (primarily Latino and Asian students), and
demographic trends of suburbanization, resegregation, immigration, and migration (Clotfelter, Vigdor, & Ladd, 2005; Horsford,
2010; Orfield, 2009). It is also important to note that these percentages look very different when disaggregated by geographic
region. For example, in 2007, the largest numbers of Black, Hispanic, Asian/ Pacific Islander, and American Indian/Native
Alaskan students were in the West, surpassing the percentage of White students enrolled in that region (Planty et al., 2009). In
fact, projections show that between the years 2000 and 2020, the White student population is expected to decline from 64.8%
to 55.6% while the Hispanic population will grow from 15.3% to 22.9% and the Asian population, from 4.1% to 6.3% (Fowler,
2009). As Fowler (2009) warned, "in
thinking about the demographic policy environment, school
leaders are truly dealing with a moving target. Those who do not stay abreast of these
changes risk creating the impression that they are hopelessly out of date" (p. 68), and in turn, unable
to meet the educational needs of their students and their families.

As the U.S. student population in public schools becomes increasingly Latino, Asian, and African American, the racial and ethnic
demographic data on U.S. schoolteachers reveal a much different picture. For example, while the percentage increase of non-
White full-time teachers increased from 13% to 17% between 1993-1994 and 2003-2004, the teaching force remains
overwhelmingly White and female, with a 2003-2004 teaching staff that was 83.3% White and 74.8% female,
representing only a fairly subtle shift from data collected 10 years prior (i.e., 86.6% White and 72.9% female; National Center
for Education Statistics, 2007). Specifically, during the 2003-2004 school year, only 7.8% of full-time teachers were Black, 6.2%
Hispanic, 1.6% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 0.5% American Indian/Alaska Native, numbers starkly different from those of the
While we know that the racial or ethnic identity of a teacher
student populations that teachers serve.
does not solely determine the ability of that teacher to meet the needs of students
representing historically and perpetually underserved racial, ethnic, and cultural groups (see
Ladson-Billings, 1994), the demographic divide in the classroom underscores the importance of culturally relevant and antiracist
pedagogical practices that work to bridge the divide in meaningful ways.

Research demonstrates the critical role that classroom teachers play in delivering curriculum,
engaging students, and influencing, either positively or negatively, student learning and
academic success (Darling-Hammond, 1990; Kozol, 1991; Ladson-Billings, 2000; Marzano, 2003; Nieto, 2000). While
traditional teacher education programs work diligently to produce graduates who are "highly qualified" (meaning they have
completed required coursework and earned passing scores on certification exams), manytraditionally trained
teachers soon discover they are not adequately prepared for the challenges of the diverse
classroom. Haberman (2005) argued, "Traditional university-based teacher education has demonstrated over half a century
that it cannot provide teachers who will be effective and who will remain in these schools for longer than brief periods" (p. 35).
Thus, this growing racialized demographic divide between students and teachers, coupled
with limited training in culturally relevant and antiracist epistemologies and educational
practices, has significant implications for student learning, engagement, and achievement in
cultural and racially incongruent contexts.

The affirmation begins with Pan-humanism as to unite mankind under

a culturally diverse landscape
Larsen 06- (Rune Engelbreth Larsen (born 1967) is a Danish writer, M.A. History of Ideas,
columnist and blogger at the daily newspaper Politiken. Main-website in Danish: Humanisme.dk
A frequent participant in the public debate in Denmark since the mid-nineties speaking out
against xenophobia, supression of minorities and the undermining of civil rights in general. Also
a poet whose online-poems can be found at Polifilo.dk, and a photographer of nature with
hundreds of online-photos from Denmark: Danarige.dk. Former national boardmember of
European Network Against Racism (ENAR) 2001-2010, and European boardmember 2007-2010.
Boardember og Danish PEN since 2012.)

Humanism is a worldview that dawns in the European Renaissance, especially the Italian Renaissance, although the word itself
the so-called renaissance
wasn't coined untill the early nineteenth century. However, from the roots of
humanism stems an accentuation of education and skills within several fields of knowledge,
as well as a pluralistic approach to culture that revives and reevaluates aspects of classical
culture in a synthesis with various Christian traditions.

Rather than an ideology it was a cultural frame of ideas with an emerging non-absolutistic
approach to any truth. It emphasized the uniqueness of the individual and often unfolded an
intimate connection between man and nature, in which Amor was depicted as a natural or cosmic principle.

At the core of Renaissance humanism we find the concept of humanitas that in many ways unites and
elaborates these elements:

»Humanitas meant the development of human virtue, in all its forms, to its fullest extent. The
term thus implied not only such qualities as are associated with the modern word humanity -
understanding, benevolence, compassion, mercy - but also such more aggressive
characteristics as fortitude, judgment, prudence, eloquence, and even love of honour.
Consequently the possessor of humanitas could not be merely a sedentary and isolated philosopher or man of letters but was
of necessity a participant in active life. Just as action without insight was held to be aimless and barbaric, insight without action
was rejected as barren and imperfect. Humanitas called for a fine balance of action and contemplation, a balance born not of
compromise but of complementarity. The goal of such fulfilled and balanced virtue was political in the broadest sense of the
word. The purview of Renaissance humanism included not only the education of the young but also the guidance of adults
(including rulers) via philosophical poetry and strategic rhetoric. It included not
only realistic social criticism
but also utopian hypotheses, not only painstaking reassessments of history but also bold
reshapings of the future. In short, humanism called for the comprehensive reform of culture,
the transfiguration of what humanists termed the passive and ignorant society of the 'dark'
ages into a new order that would reflect and encourage the grandest human potentialities.
Humanism had an evangelical dimension. It sought to project humanitas from the individual into the state at large.«

This is the definition of Encyclopaedia Britannica, and not only does it reflect the meaning of a word, but to some extent the
very spirit of the Renaissance - and thereby also characterizes the inheritance of humanism.

One of the key purposes of this website is to emphasize the need for a new and genuine
humanism in the twenty-first century, inspired by the historical foundations of the
Renaissance, for which humanitas is essential.

A humanism that is concerned with the diversity of all mankind as a source to cultural
renewal as well as respect for cultural traditions. Dedicated to the dignity of any individual, regardless of
political, philosophical or religious views and values - but at the same time sticking to and fighting for precisely such humanistic
values that allows for the greatest possible individual liberty, while opposing any law or dogma that limits freedom beyond the
necessesary protection of another individual's freedom.

Or as stated in the French Declaration of Human Rights in 1789, »thus, the exercise of the natural rights of every man has no
bounds other than those that ensure to the other members of society the enjoyment of these same rights«.

A humanism which neither denounces nor prescribes religious beliefs as such, but in accordance with
the individualistic outset of this frame of ideas places Man - rather than e.g. God or gods - at the fulcrum.

Thus, any religion, ideology or science will inevitable have to be experienced, acknowledged or believed by man to become the
basis of any life-experience or worldview. Whether one person's life or worldview is believed to revolve around God(s) or not is
up to that person's own beliefs - but either way, man is at the beginning of the equation in a humanistic view.

Since man is not one man, but all men, and because no two people are alike, man cannot be at the fulcrum of existence, unless
this fulcrum is comprised of man's individual diversity.

By using the term panhumanism as a common denominator for humanistic implications of

these basic principles, I wish to stress a humanism that calls for a pluralistic view on modern
society as well as an individualistic view on man as the basis of cross-cultural understanding
and respect in a globalized world.

For this reason man's individual diversity becomes the starting point of this particular
humanism.

And for this reason also, the struggle for encouragement and respect of human and cultural diversity becomes a goal as well as
a consequence of humanism.
 Gee K (kritik of traditional learning)
Policymakers have bungled education and learning completely which causes a
laundry list of impacts- 12 different warrants!
Gee 4 James Paul Gee, MA Linguistics (1974), PhD Linguistics, Stanford University (1975),
Currently Mary Lou Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies at Arizona State
University(2007-present), Previously Professor at UW-Madison(1998-2007), Clark
University(1993-1997), USC(1989-1993), Boston University(1982-1988), Northeastern
University(1981-1982), Hampshire College (1976-1981), Stanford University (1971-1976)
“SITUATED LANGUAGE AND LEARNING: A critique of traditional schooling”, Taylor and Francis,
2004, http://networkedlearningcollaborative.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/james-paul-
gee-situated-language-and-learning-a-critique-of-traditional-schooling-2004.pdf, VM
1 What’s hard about school is not learning to read, which has received the lion’s share of
attention from educators and policy-makers, but learning to read and learn in academic
content areas like mathematics, social studies, and science (students can’t get out of a good high school, let
alone get out of any decent college, if they can’t handle their content-area textbooks in biology or algebra). Unfortunately, a good
many students, at all levels of schooling, hate the types of language associated with academic
content areas. Indeed, many people in the public don’t very much like us academics and our “ways with words.” 2 What’s hard
about learning in academic content areas is that each area is tied to academic specialist
varieties of language (and other special symbol systems) that are complex, technical, and
initially alienating to many learners (just open a high-school biology or algebra textbook).
These varieties of language are significantly different from people’s “everyday” varieties of
language, sometimes called their “vernacular” varieties. 3 Such academic varieties of
language are integrally connected (actually “married”) to complex and technical ways of
thinking. They are the tools through which certain types of content (e.g. biology or social
studies) are thought about and acted on. 4 Privileged children (children from well-off,
educated homes) often get an important head start before school at home on the acquisition
of such academic varieties of language; less privileged children (poor children or children
from some minority groups) often do not. The privileged children continue to receive support
outside of school on their academic language acquisition process throughout their school
years, support that less privileged children do not receive. 5 Schools do a very poor job at
teaching children academic varieties of language. Indeed, many schools are barely aware they
exist, that they have to be learned, and that the acquisition process must start early. At best
they believe you can teach children to think (e.g. about science or mathematics) without
worrying too much about the tools children do or do not have with which to do that thinking.
Indeed, schools create more alienation over academic varieties of language and thinking than they do understanding. 6 All children,
privileged and not, can readily learn specialist varieties of language and their concomitant
ways of thinking as part and parcel of their “popular culture.” These specialist language
varieties are, in their own ways, as complex as academic varieties of language . The examples I use in
the book involve Pokémon and video games. (If you don’t think things like Pokémon involve specialist language and ways of thinking connected
to it, go get some Pokémon or Digimon cards.) There are many more such examples. While confronting specialist academic languages and
thinking in school is alienating, confronting non-academic specialist languages and thinking outside school often is not. 7
The human
mind works best when it can build and run simulations of experiences its owner has had
(much like playing a video game in the mind) in order to understand new things and get ready
for action in the world. Think about an employee roleplaying a coming confrontation with a boss, a young person role-playing an
imminent encounter with someone he or she wants to invite out on a date, or a soldier roleplaying his or her part in a looming battle. Such
role-playing in our minds helps us to think about what we are about to do and usually helps
us to do it better. Think about how poorly such things go when you have had no prior experiences with which to build such role-
playing simulations and you have to go in completely “cold.” Furthermore, a lecture on employee-employer relations, dating, or war won’t help
anywhere near as much as some rich experiences with which you can build and run different simulations to get ready for different
eventualities. 8
People learn (academic or non-academic) specialist languages and their
concomitant ways of thinking best when they can tie the words and structures of those
languages to experiences they have had—experiences with which they can build simulations
to prepare themselves for action in the domains in which the specialist language is used (e.g.
biology or video games). 9 Because video games (which are often long, complex, and difficult)
are simulations of experience and new worlds, and thus not unlike a favored form of human
thinking, and because their makers would go broke if no one could learn to play them, they
constitute an area where we have lots to learn about learning. Better yet, they are a domain
where young people of all races and classes readily learn specialist varieties of language and
ways of thinking without alienation. Thus it is useful to think about what they can teach us
about how to make the learning of specialist varieties of language and thinking in school
more equitable, less alienating, and more motivating. 10 In the midst of our new high-tech
global economy, people are learning in new ways for new purposes. One important way is via
specially designed spaces (physical and virtual) constructed to resource people tied together,
not primarily via shared culture, gender, race, or class, but by a shared interest or endeavor.
Schools are way behind in the construction of such spaces. Once again, popular culture is ahead here. 11
More and more in the modern world, if people are to be successful, they must become
“shape-shifting portfolio people”: that is, people who gain many diverse experiences that
they can then use to transform and adapt themselves for fast-changing circumstances
throughout their lives. 12 Learning academic varieties of language and thinking in school is
now “old.” It is (for most people) important, but not sufficient for success in modern society.
People must be ready to learn new specialist varieties of language and thinking outside of
school, not necessarily connected to academic disciplines, throughout their lives. Children are having
more and more learning experiences outside of school that are more important for their futures than is much of the learning they do at school.
 T – School Choice
Interpretation: the Affirmative must increase funding or regulation of
education.

‘Increase’ is to make greater.

Dictionary.com - (Dictionary.com, Increase, "the definition of increase",
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/increase, DOA: 5-11-2017) //Snowball
to make greater, as in number, size, strength, or quality; augment; add to: to increase taxes.

2 Violations:
1. Regulation - they are de-regulation, not an increase.
Encyclopedia.com 4 - (School Choice, Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and
Society, COPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc., "School Choice",
http://www.encyclopedia.com/children/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/school-
choice, DOA: 5-11-2017) //Snowball
Deregulation of public education, especially in the form of charters and vouchers, raises a
number of policy issues. Will school choice plans lead to more equitable access or will school
choice plans further stratify education? Is school choice related to improved student learning?
What evidence is there that school choice leads to more innovative educational opportunities?
How economical are school choice programs, especially in an era of declining resources?

2. Funding - the Affirmative rearranges funding instead of increasing it.

EdChoice - (EdChoice is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, nonpartisan organization for school choice,
"What is School Choice?", https://www.edchoice.org/school-choice/what-is-school-choice/,
DOA: 5-12-2017) //Snowball
OUR DEFINITION School choice allows public education funds to follow students to the
schools or services that best fit their needs—whether that’s to a public school, private school,
charter school, home school or any other learning environment parents choose for their kids.

Limits – they un-educationally justify endless resource adjustments and a slew

of school choice and financial aid Affirmatives.
Ground – they skirt the issue of education itself – unfairly spikes any ground
about whether or not funding and regulation are good.

Fairness is key to even debates and competitive equity.

Education is vital to scholarship and skill development.

Prefer competing interpretations – reasonability is subjective and self-serving.

5/13/17
 Achievement Gaps = Permanent Recession
Internal and international achievement gaps are the economic equivalent of a
permanent recession for the U.S.
McKinsey & Company 9 - (McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm
that serves leading businesses, governments, non governmental organizations, and not-for-
profits, April 2009, "The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America’s Schools",
http://mckinseyonsociety.com/downloads/reports/Education/achievement_gap_report.pdf,
DOA: 5-13-2017) //Snowball
Put differently, the persistence
of these educational achievement gaps imposes on the United States the
economic equivalent of a permanent national recession. The recurring annual economic cost of
the international achievement gap is substantially larger than the deep recession the United
States is currently experiencing.4 The annual output cost of the racial, income, and regional or
systems achievement gap is larger than the US recession of 1981–82. While the price of the
status quo in educational outcomes is remarkably high, the promise implicit in these findings is
compelling. In particular, the wide variation in performance among schools and school systems
serving similar students suggests that the opportunity and output gaps related to today’s
achievement gap can be substantially closed. Many teachers and schools across the country are
proving that race and poverty are not destiny; many more are demonstrating that middle-
class children can be educated to world-class levels of performance. America’s history of
bringing disadvantaged groups into the economic mainstream over time, and the progress of
other nations in education, suggest that large steps forward are possible.
 Cap K link
Education reform is another sham support for capitalism- our entire education
system is complicit in capital
Perera 16 Sanjay Perera, author, “Capitalism and the efficacy of education reform”,
Philosophers for Change, February 09, 2016,
https://philosophersforchange.org/2016/02/09/capitalism-and-the-efficacy-of-education-
reform/, VM
*really good link for standardized testing good/quantitative data collection good affs
2.1. Capitalism qua Success Capitalism, as the dominant American ideology, is wholly and completely illiterate, which is to say that it does not
have the capacity or wherewithal to comprehend anything that is measured qualitatively. The
only method it has for
comparing one individual to another, one ideology to another, one organization to another,
one government to another and even one philosophy to another is by forcibly reducing
everything to quantifiable units of capital — in short, to money. And success as such, is the
rendered outcome from said quantifiable assessment and is henceforth the only metric for
success in capitalism. Moreover, it could be further argued — although I am only going to grant a cursory consideration to this point
— that the normative ethical system in act under capitalism is a product-of the aforementioned dichotomous formulation. The avid — and
perhaps compulsive — positivist qua rationalist would persist that quantitative assessment allows an objective comparison that is not
susceptible to biased and subjective projections. However, as educational psychologist Donald Campbell notes in his theory that is known as
Campbell’s law, this intuitive position is falsely reasoned, as “the
more any quantitive social indicator is used for
social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it
will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor” (Goldstein 209). In spite
of the kernel of insight this theory provides, the philosophy of American education is not
prescriptive in articulating a desired concept of the ends of education (or “the good” in
Platonic terms) and any organization that does not prescribe its ends will be subjugated to, as
John Dewey states, the “mercy of accident and caprice” (Dewey 95). However, Dewey’s
assessment, albeit reasonably discursive, is abhorrently reduced to dismiss the elusive and
omnipotence of the dominant ideology, which will apply its ends to any and all systems that
do not articulate their own. In other words, if you do not formally declare the ends of the
education system, capitalism will supply one for you — to create success, as rendered in
quantifiable units of capital. This process is not only applied to education systems in process,
but is also applied to how an agent’s education is utilized after graduation — “everything is
‘commodified,’ or assigned a numeric value based on what’s worth in the marketplace”
(Knopp 15) and this process of commodification becomes the means upon which human
value is determined. In other words, as Henry Giroux succinctly stated, “losing one’s individuality is now tantamount to losing one’s
ability to consume” (Giroux 6). Capitalism only values people by their ability to produce capital and their ability to consume with their capital —
make money and spend money. 2.2. Capitalism qua Freedom Education is not the only system or concept that has failed to explicitly denote its
own ends and has henceforth received the ethos of the capitalist ideology projected on it. The metaphysical quality of freedom is also guilty of
the same assumption/problem. Freedom, as being the tacit core quality of the American experiment, is a very difficult term to define, measure
and apply and notwithstanding the implicit virtue in championing freedom, eo ipso, what does it actually mean? The deep philosophical
question that roots within this question — to which Rousseau articulated in great style and depth — is, simply put: is freedom something
granted or is it something asserted? And secondly, what free activity is implied by the word freedom? Capitalism
assumes that
the “free market is a perfect scientific system” and that assumption creates a “closed loop”
(Klein 51) that allows the aforementioned philosophical question about freedom to collapse
in on itself. In other words, capitalism perceives a) government in of itself to be an unnatural institution and its only role is to promote
freedom as a “natural attribute as reasoned by the […] enlightenment” (Peters 172) — this would be an act of granting freedom — and b)
allowing individuals qua free agents to champion their own freely willed desire — this would be an act of asserting freedom. In sum, the role of
government is to grant the freedom for people to asserttheir freedom. And
without a prescriptive notion of the ends
of freedom it will reduce itself — as does education — to assuming quantifiable units of
capital are the metric to determine the value of one actualized freedom to another. If,
freedom par excellence, is the objective of a freely determined democracy as the prescriptive
and championed ends to which our entire civilization rests upon as the quintessential ethos
upon which we define the degree to which an agent is an American qua patriot, and if this
freedom is measured by one’s freely willed capacity to generate/spend capital, then it could
be further reduced and argued that the degree to which you are free is equal to the degree to
which you can generate money. And, further, the degree to which you can generate capital is the degree to which your
patriotism can be measured. This formula side-steps the paradoxical problem of freedom, by making the closed loop of freedom by utilizing the
ends as a justification to the means that hence bring forth the ends. Converting all agents of America into what Foucault refers to as homo
economicus— a model of the human who’s behavior can be fully reducible to economic analysis (Peters 171) — who can justify the unbridled
and measurable ends of capital accumulation by assuming a de facto correlation to the incommensurable metaphysical ends of freedom.
Hence, capital success (capital accumulation) — as justified as being intrinsically correlated to freedom — is an ends in itself. 2.3. Capitalism qua
the Aims of Education If
freedom is the core quality that our democracy — and the world over —
promotes and if freedom is measured in one’s capacity to accumulate capital, then it could be
argued that this is the reason American education is reduced to the aforementioned formula
of success. And, moreover, this would imply that capitalism uses education as a mere means
to an ends — to create conditions that maximize capital accumulation — and that education,
eo ipso, has only instrumental value in the United States. That is to say, education is an
instrument used for the promotion of capitalism qua freedom and freedom qua capitalism is
a tautology. Since American education does not denote a normative (and transcendental)
teleology — to which John Dewey persists as a necessary condition for the enablement of a
free democracy — then it could be only reasoned that the descriptive teleology of the
American education system is a product of capitalism insofar as it is used instrumentally for
the replication of the freely willed projected ends of the capitalist ideology.
5/14/17
 Corporatism K Link
Education reform is corporatist which is bad for society- we need to re-mobilise
against this right now otherwise the subject dies
Wexler 94 Phillip Wexler, Professor of Sociology Emeritus at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem, “Educational corporatism and its counterposes” Adelaide, South Australia: NCVER,
1994, http://hdl.voced.edu.au/10707/36336, VM
**corporatism \= capitalism: corporatism is concerned with increasing businessization of
society, capitalism k’s are critiques of the free market system
Introduction I want to describe three moments in education. My interest is at once correctively empirical, but also socially critical, and finally,
historically transcendental and utopian. First,
there is a powerful movement to transform the social,
cultural and psychological organisation of educational institutions. Despite the ostensibly
Marxist attention to education, with a few exceptions, there has been remarkably little
analytical description of the social movement in education that I referred to almost a decade
ago, as a corporatist reorganisation. A great deal has happened since then, and our earlier
emphasis on privatisation that is combined with moral attacks on the 'secular humanism' of
school culture captured only the most salient, but I think not the most enduring aspects of
the continuing social reorganisation of education. It is rather the progressive, liberal platform of educational reform
and restructuring which represents a partnership of the state, business corporations, and significant groups of educational professionals that is
effecting change in the infrastructure and, ultimately, the very meaning of education. Second, during the moment of a new
corporatist structural reorganisation and redefinition of education, there is an everyday,
socially differentiated struggle for identity, in conditions of institutional emptying and lack,
among those who are increasingly referred to as the 'workers of the school.' The everyday
social existence of youths in schools is a concrete instance of the decentering, lack and
absence that is usually presented in a textual register in postmodern discourse about 'the
subject'. Socially oriented postmodernism that reaches beyond textualism speaks in very
general terms about macro-social trends like implosion, rather than describe the specific
meaning of either post-structuralism as a theory, or postmodernism as a form of life in the
institutions within which 'the subject' acts, disappears or is decentered. Articulations of
identity in a post-modern world presume the triumph of consumption as the lead social
activity. Instead, we have studied everyday school life in different social strata, and have tried to describe not a textual, but an institutional
post-modernism in which there are socially differentiated lacks. These absences are experienced by youths, who struggle with and against
them, in their efforts to establish distinguishable identities-'to become somebody'. Third,
the long-term effect of the social
reorganisation and institutional emptying may, I think, realise post-modern predictions about
the end of grand narratives, collapse of the referentials and death of the subject, or critical
theory projections about closing the universe of discourse and the reduction of autonomous
spheres of social life to one dimension. More likely, the restructuring will combine
microflexibility of classroom production and macro-integration of social regulation and
interlocking networks of control, for discipline and legitimation . Moral conservatism that now
appears still relevant in educational censorship and seems a likely candidate for the
resocialisation required by a new, flexible, performance-oriented schooling, may be
appropriate for ideologies of nostalgia, but is less useable for 'jet-age' education. The need
for re-moralisation reopens questions of meaning, against the current of new corporatist,
performance-driven, techni-flattening and institutional emptying and desocialisation. This
contradiction between techni-performance, cultural destruction and the need for culture is
the transformative site in education.
5/15/17
 Zizek Pedagogy of Impossible Capitalism Alternative
The alternative is for pedagogues to develop a “pedagogy of the impossible”
when teaching in critical spaces by withdrawing from the position of ego-ideal
because it leaves open the possibility for students to encounter the Real.

Ruptures in the social constructions of students are inevitable, but assimilating

them leaves subjectivity under the threat of dissonance. Refusing to posit an
objective Truth to which students can be corrected means rejecting any attempt
to immediately smooth over these disruptions and removes the grip of capital
from education.
McMillan 15 - (Chris McMillan, Ph.D, Instructor, London Center, EDUCATIONAL THEORY
Volume 65 Number 5, 2015, "Pedagogy Of The Impossible: Žižek In The Classroom", DOA: 5-14-
2017) //Snowball
Both constructivist and social constructionist pedagogy holds that the interpreting student learns
most effectively when he or she is able to make connections between classroom discourse and his
or her existing frameworks of understanding. The Žižekian conception of subjectivity thus far
presented makes a similar point in stronger terms: the affective desire of the learner is to assimilate
new information within the fantasmatic narratives through which we perceive. Here unknown
or potentially disruptive knowledge is pacified by way of expanded understanding of selfhood
and the externally constructed world. As noted thus far, however, such knowledge — even if highlighting
marginalized undercurrents in society — does not necessarily transform the frameworks through
which the learner perceives the world. For Žižek, radical transformation occurs when ideological
fantasy is unable to contain the emergence of what Lacan called “the Real”: “the un-nameable
against which symbolization fails,”44 or the moment of the subject within subjectivity. As a point of
impossibility within subjectivity, the (absent) presence of the Real is always experienced as a moment
of disruption and trauma that resists easy symbolization.45 We feel most anxious (it “hits a nerve”) when
discourse approaches the Real axis of our construction, the moment at which the narratives we use to
understand the world fail. We feel this effect when we see or hear ourselves in a recording or video that
clashes with our ideal-ego (“I don’t sound like that … do I?!”), which then comes under threat
from this dissonance. For many, such an experience is almost literally impossible: we just cannot stand
listening to ourselves for more than a few seconds. A similar experience occurs when a political
narrative is exposed to that which has no established position in the discourse, yet insists
upon its presence. To take a vulgar example, when John Edwards, a candidate in the 2008 Democratic Party
presidential primary in the United States, was exposed as having cheated on his cancer-stricken wife
and having produced a child along the way, there was no “space” for this discourse within the public
narrative of “John Edwards” and this narrative collapsed.46 A Žižekian pedagogy seeks to
confront those impossible positions within the learner’s subjective construction of social
reality that are experienced as impossible because they cannot be assimilated into the
smooth fantasmatic flow of subjectivity. Vitally, it is not that an element of discourse cannot objectively
fit into a nonsubjective reality47 (say, that capitalism is incompatible with ecological
sustainability48), but rather that, in the learner’s own subjective construction of the society through the
ego-ideal, there is an irresolvable conflict between a newly encountered element of discourse
and the already existing fantasmatic narrative. It is here that the pedagogical value of the
Žižekian conception of subjectivity can be seen in relation to the structure/agency dichotomy
previously identified between constructivism and social constructionism. While, in a constructionist vein, discursive adjustments do occur at the
level of meaning, the learner appears absent from this process. Conversely, against
the constructivist image of a learner
who is able to actively engage with discourse, Žižek argues that the agency of change in
subjectivity lies in its point of failure: the subject. The subject qua void ensures that discursive
identification is never complete and that the learner experiences anxiety on account of this failure. In
response, new, more complete identifications are sought (in the case of classroom pedagogy,
more secure answers from the ego-ideal) and the flow of discourse modulates to make
traumatic knowledge more palatable. Furthermore, while the subject propels modifications in identification, a greater
transformative potential exists through which progressive learning shifts to subjective
realignment. The lack in subjectivity and discourse ensures that it is always threatened by what
it cannot accommodate. Whereas the regular flow of subjectivity and of learning is for adjustments to
occur in discursive position in response to this threat,49 the potential always exists for subjectivity to
be ruptured. This dislocation potentially occurs when discourse encounters a
contradictory/impossible point (in regard to our fantasmatic construction of reality) that cannot
be resolved within the confines of our fantasmatic narratives. Put otherwise, it is when these narratives
that mediate our sense of reality can no longer effectively explain the dislocation caused by
confronting an impossibility that a subjective paradigm shift that “redefines the very
contours of what is possible” can potentially occur.50 The art of a “pedagogy of the
impossible” is to prevent the foreclosure of this rupture. As such, critical pedagogical practice
should seek to facilitate an encounter between the narrative fantasy that holds the trauma of
the subject at bay and the subjective impossibility that threatens it, an encounter with the
Real that Glyn Daly identifies as the “politics of the impossible.”51 As Peter Taubman states, “one never knows in
advance when one will be confronted with the Real or be seized by an event” — nonetheless, he continues, “one
can only remain open or present to such a possibility.”52 Remaining open to this
confrontation requires withdrawing the pacifying defenses constructed by the learner in
order to evoke rupture when it is neither desired nor enjoyed. When the Real is evoked for a
learner within the classroom, the learner often seeks to find reassurance in the Other to smooth over
this dislocation. The teacher, in holding the place of the ego-ideal/Other, should avoid providing such
reassurance. It is in these circumstances, where a rupture occurs that is unable to be immediately
sutured, that a pedagogy of the impossible comes into being. Such a pedagogical procedure
requires the withdrawal of the master/teacher from the position of the ego-ideal (the idea of
the Other to whom students narrate their fantasies) in order to create a space in which
students not only feel that their own fantasmatic narrative is threatened, but also that there
is no respite in the Other that “does not exist.”53 That is, in the learner’s subjective construction
of reality, much like in the analytic process, the dislocated student narrates to the master/teacher in an act of
transference whereby it is the teacher who holds the answer to the questions posed in class and it is the
student’s responsibility to find and repeat these answers. The teacher’s withdrawal from this
position of the “Big Other” that holds the place of objective Truth is a key step in moving toward
a more transformative pedagogy, as learners can no longer rely on the support of this suturing
position but are forced to confront the moments of impossibility in their own subjective
constructions of the world. This charge does not necessitate some kind of group therapy in the classroom, but it
does require engaging learners such that they come to confront the contradictions and
symptoms of their subjective constructions of the social. Facilitating this confrontation through
our pedagogical practices involves a rejection of any attempt to suture fractures in subjectivity:
to reject students’ (and our own) desire for definitive “answers” to the questions we ask. The difficulty of
writing Žižekian conclusions is wonderfully exemplified in a story told by Simon Critchley: when asked about
the political implications of his work, Žižek replied, “I have a hat, but I do not have a rabbit.”54 Likewise, this article
has no magic programmatic formula for a more radical critical pedagogy. Instead, Žižek has
persistently argued that the role of the philosopher is to redefine the questions we ask rather
than to provide the “right” answers. And so it is with a Žižekian pedagogy. That is, Žižekian pedagogy does not
provide any kind of a system for radically inclined teachers, but it does suggest the potential for
a reoriented critical pedagogical practice in insisting that transformative learning is most
likely to occur when learners are facilitated toward asking disruptive questions of their
subjective constructions of reality rather than searching for definitive answers that would
suture these insecurities. This focus upon disruption and “traumatic knowledge” provides an
effective response to the lacuna identified in critical pedagogy between constructivist and social constructionist
practices. Where the latter emphasizes the structural operation of discursive subject positions, constructivist approaches, as
embodied by Kincheloe’s critical constructivism, have advocated for the agency of the learner who is able to adopt a
critical consciousness toward discourse and the self. Where, without an embodied agent, social constructionism
appears unable to explain the potential for discursive shifts to occur beyond ideological
struggle, constructivism posits a positive agent able to position itself within discourse . Yet,
given the apparent autonomy of the learner to adopt these positions, constructivist approaches are
inadequately placed to explain the robustness of identification, of knowledge, and of the self.
A Žižekian conception of subjectivity is able to respond to this inability to account for both
the restrictions on and opportunities for radical pedagogical change. It does so by explaining
the apparent stability of knowledge through the Lacanian notion of embodied discourse, by
positing the negativity of the subject as the agent of transformation, and by offering a
“pedagogy of the impossible” that evokes the moments of impossibility within discourse
embodied by the subject qua the Real. In this approach a radically transformative pedagogy
facilitates exploration of the affective dimensions of these narratives and engages with those
moments of impossibility and anxiety that exist within the knower’s perception. This is where the
specific Žižekian contribution to pedagogy lies. Just as Žižek has insisted upon the influence of the “level of enjoyment” in ideological critique,55
arguing for political practices to engage with the “Real impossibilities” within ideological
fantasy that open up space for dislocatory transformation, the application of a similar
understanding of subjectivity and transformation reveals new avenues for critical pedagogical
practice: a pedagogy of the impossible. This pedagogy of the impossible, one that seeks to “redefine the very
contours of what is possible,”56 is not a pedagogy for all seasons. Providing students with the
intellectual resources to understand why our climate is changing or how many people are
unemployed does not necessitate any particular engagement with the Real. Moreover, a
pedagogical “act” or “event” does not need to be monumental, but it does need to reactivate
what is sedimented in subjectivity to allow space for dislocation and the transformation of
critical pedagogy. In this regard, any pedagogy that seeks to shift beyond current conditions of
possibility would benefit from taking into account Žižek’s understanding of subjectivity and the
Real. Specifically, through recognizing the robustness of identification, critical pedagogues are
better positioned to engage in more disruptive practices that reveal the inconsistencies both
in our narrative fantasies and in the Other. Of course, these pedagogical practices do not occur in a
political vacuum. The focus of much of Žižek’s work, and my own,57 has been on the application of
these ideas to political economy and to ideological fantasy in late capitalism. In this realm we see that the
influence of capital has such a grip on contemporary subjectivity that not only is higher
education typically understood in the context of employability, thus subverting its critical impulse, but
“critical thinking” has become the basis for employability in a knowledge economy plagued
by an excess of knowledge. Under these conditions, even the most ambitious critical pedagogy (which
would most likely be subject to the desires of managerial accountability and student
evaluations) faces an arduous task. As such, it is easy to read a “pedagogy of the impossible”
literally. Nonetheless, if such a pedagogy facilitates a new generation of subjects to reject the
rabbits we are being presented with as our only options, then it opens new spaces for hope.
5/16/17
 Consult Teachers CP [needs text]
Counterplan: The United States federal government should engage in prior and
embedded consultation with United States elementary and secondary
education teachers in the implementation of the plan to [plan].

The counterplan prevents the Affirmative from backfiring and elevates the
status of the teaching profession. It’s not normal means.
Honda and Milgrom-Elcott 16 - (Rep. Mike Honda represents California's 17th District.
Talia Milgrom-Elcott is the co-founder and executive director of 100Kin10, a coalition of
government, public, and private sector groups formed in response to Obama’s 2011 call to train
100,000 STEM teachers in ten years, 12-9-2016, "Bringing teachers into the policymaking
process", http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/education/309667-bringing-teachers-into-
the-policymaking-process, DOA: 5-15-2017) //Snowball
But even as legislators, from the local to federal level, understand the importance of education policy, they often fail to
seek counsel from perhaps the most important experts: teachers. As a result, vital pieces of
legislation like 2015’s Every Student Succeeds Act are drawn up and implemented across the country with limited direct
input from those who know America’s classrooms best. This is not good politics. Teachers—and
the parents of the children in their classrooms—are voters who don’t want to be ignored. This does not yield
good policy. As we saw with the No Child Left Behind law in 2001, when we fail to consult teachers, the result is
legislation that does not work. We should not make big picture decisions about education
policy without consulting the end users who have the most expertise in how those choices
play out in our nation’s schools. These laws directly impact the daily lives of tens of millions
of American school children, parents and teachers; we need to hear directly from teachers on
what they need and what changes they think will have maximum impact . Our failure to consult
teachers on policy also speaks to the broader issue of how we as a society undervalue and
underappreciate teachers. This is especially true when we compare the U.S. with other
countries – such as Finland – where becoming a teacher is a professional career track on par with being a doctor or a
lawyer—and one that commands societal respect. Fortunately, there is a simple fix. There is a legion of
teachers in America, and their knowledge, skills and expertise are waiting to be tapped by
any lawmaker or other stakeholder willing to reach out and listen. They could be our “teacher
advisors.” We need to engage them from the federal level to the local level, where so much education
policy happens and where knowledge of local needs is particularly key. There are numerous ways to do this, many of which are
happening right now across America. We don’t need to invent new approaches; we just need to expand
the models that are already working. For example, teachers can act as full-time teacher advisors to
policy-makers for a set period of time. This already occurs with the Albert Einstein Distinguished
Educator Fellowship, where science, technology, engineering and math teachers spend 11 months in federal agencies or
congressional offices, adding their voices to education policy discussions. Or it could be summer internships like those in the
state of Delaware, where teachers spend six weeks working full-time in the state’s Department of Education. Or lawmakers could
consult teacher advisory groups, such as the Teachers Advisory Council in Kentucky. Made up of about 40 teachers from across
the state, the Council provides a direct line of communication from the classroom to the state commissioner of education. All these
examples are invaluable, but we need more of them to ensure that this engagement becomes
the rule, not the exception. An essential component of any of these initiatives is that the teachers
involved are working in the classroom, so that their current teaching experience finds its way
straight into policy debates and decisions. Their firsthand experience—more so than theories and
abstractions—can be our guide. Engaging with teachers in this way helps everyone. Teachers bring
their knowledge into policy circles and then take that experience back to the classroom—ultimately
bettering both places. Creating space in the policymaking process for teachers’ voices also
elevates the status and prestige of the profession, as the public sees practitioners and politicians engaging in dialogue
for the betterment of all. These essential conversations provide an opportunity for teachers to take
leadership on – and feel ownership over – policies they will help implement in classrooms. And this
collaborative, inclusive approach will yield smarter decisions about America’s classrooms. If policymakers
want buy in from the educators and stakeholders – who will eventually be the ones implementing new policy – we need
to ensure that real life experts have a seat at the table as we hash out new education
legislation. Including teachers in the development of policy not only benefits the quality of
the policy itself – it also bolsters the success of its implementation. Too often, America’s
politicians only hear from educators who are responding to policies handed down to them.
That’s reactive; if we wait for that moment, it might be too late. By having teachers as trusted
advisors from the start and proactively embedding them in the process of developing policy,
both local and federal lawmakers can make sure that America’s kids get the quality teaching they
deserve and need. Whether it happens in Congress, a state capitol, or a local city government, politicians from both sides of the aisle
can agree on the need to listen to our teachers. Education policy will be at its best when we heed the ideas
and input of our teacher advisors.

Respect for the teaching profession is key to international educational

competition.
Lynch 12 - (Matthew Lynch, Ed.D., Author of The Call to Teach, 7-18-2012, "Lack of Respect for
Teaching to Blame for Mediocre US Education Results",
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-lynch-edd/american-students-
conside_b_1682100.html, DOA: 5-15-2017) //Snowball
Based on research provided by Dr. Steven Paine, a nationally renowned American educator, the OECD has offered a
number of simple and practical lessons to the United States. According to Paine, money is not the answer to boosting our
country’s international educational status, nor will it bring about a greater classroom experience. In studying the
world’s highest achievers — Finland, Singapore and Ontario, Canada — Paine suggests our lack of respect for
teachers is the nation’s number one enemy of education. “The major difference between
those systems and the one in the U.S. had to do with how teachers are valued, trained and
compensated,” he noted. Paine stated in his report to the OECD, “In Finland, it is a tremendous honor to be a
teacher, and teachers are afforded a status comparable to what doctors, lawyers and other highly regarded professionals enjoy in the U.S.”
The report also suggested the teaching profession in Singapore “is competitive and highly selective, [a
country] that works hard to build its own sense of professional conduct and meet high
standards for skills development.” The study of Ontario revealed similar findings. Paine insists, “The U.S. must
restore the teaching profession to the level of respect and dignity it enjoyed only a few decades
ago. This will not be easy, particularly in the current economic environment with states and localities strapped for funds. But improving the
regard with which teachers are held is not principally about how much they are paid.” Paine continued, “OECD countries that have
been most successful in making teaching an attractive profession have often done so by
offering teachers real career prospects and more responsibility as professionals — encouraging
them to become leaders of educational reform. This requires teacher education that helps
teachers to become innovators and researchers in education, not just deliverers of the
curriculum.” The report concluded that the U.S. has the resources and talent to compete more
effectively and raise its level of educational achievement. This is contingent upon our
willingness and ability to “demonstrate with action that it truly values education, display an
understanding of the vital importance of having an educated workforce that can compete
globally, and develop the political will to devote the necessary resources for educational
reform.”

Competing educationally is key to leading economically.

Cooper, Hersh, and O’Leary 12 - (Donna Cooper is a Senior Fellow with the Economic
Policy team and Adam Hersh is an Economist at the Center for American Progress. Ann O’Leary
is director of the Children and Families program at The Center for the Next Generation, 8-21-
2012, "The Competition that Really Matters",
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2012/08/21/11983/the-
competition-that-really-matters/, DOA: 5-15-2017) //Snowball
The U.S. economy is weakening relative to our global competitors. Recent economic growth is 40 percent
below any other growth period since World War II as other economies around the globe draw in more investment, both
foreign and domestic. In contrast, despite still being the world’s leading recipient of direct foreign
investment, business investment overall in the United States between 2001 and 2007 was the
slowest in U.S. history. Meanwhile, competition is on the rise. From 1980 to 2011 China increased its
share of world economic output from 2 percent to 14 percent. And India more than doubled its
output during that period, from 2.5 percent of global production to 5.7 percent. The U.S. share of the world
economy fell to 19 percent from 25 percent. While increasing global competition is inevitable,
lackluster U.S. performance need not be. Indeed, rising growth and incomes in other countries
present potential new opportunities and markets for American workers and companies. But if the
United States means to continue to lead the world and to share our prosperity with it, U.S.
policymakers must deploy an American strategy that is responsive to modern economic
challenges—a strategy that makes it possible for every American family to ensure that children entering adulthood are prepared to find a
successful place in the global economy. What should the strategy be? Economists of all stripes point to a robust pipeline of
skilled workers as the essential ingredient of a strong and growing economy. Indeed, the two
countries most rapidly gaining on the United States in terms of economic competitiveness—China and India—have
ambitious national strategies of investing and promoting improved educational outcomes for
children to strengthen their positions as contenders in the global economy.

Only U.S. economic leadership solves global issues and conflict.

Haass 13 - (Richard N. Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, APR 30, 2013,
"The World Without America", https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/repairing-the-
roots-of-american-power-by-richard-n--haass, DOA: 5-15-2017) //Snowball
NEW YORK – Let me posit a radical idea: The most critical threat facing the United States now and for the foreseeable future is not a rising
China, a reckless North Korea, a nuclear Iran, modern terrorism, or climate change. Although all of these constitute potential or actual threats,
the biggest challenges facing the US are its burgeoning debt, crumbling infrastructure, second-rate primary and
secondary schools, outdated immigration system, and slow economic growth – in short, the domestic
foundations of American power. Readers in other countries may be tempted to react to this judgment with a dose of
schadenfreude, finding more than a little satisfaction in America’s difficulties. Such a response should not be surprising. The US and
those representing it have been guilty of hubris (the US may often be the indispensable nation, but it would be better
if others pointed this out), and examples of inconsistency between America’s practices and its
principles understandably provoke charges of hypocrisy. When America does not adhere to the principles that it
preaches to others, it breeds resentment. But, like most temptations, the urge to gloat at America’s imperfections and
struggles ought to be resisted. People around the globe should be careful what they wish for. America’s
failure to deal with its internal challenges would come at a steep price. Indeed, the rest of the
world’s stake in American success is nearly as large as that of the US itself. Part of the reason is
economic. The US economy still accounts for about one-quarter of global output. If US growth
accelerates, America’s capacity to consume other countries’ goods and services will increase, thereby
boosting growth around the world. At a time when Europe is drifting and Asia is slowing, only the US (or, more broadly,
North America) has the potential to drive global economic recovery. The US remains a unique
source of innovation. Most of the world’s citizens communicate with mobile devices based on technology developed in Silicon
Valley; likewise, the Internet was made in America. More recently, new technologies developed in the US greatly
increase the ability to extract oil and natural gas from underground formations. This technology is now making its
way around the globe, allowing other societies to increase their energy production and decrease both
their reliance on costly imports and their carbon emissions. The US is also an invaluable source of
ideas. Its world-class universities educate a significant percentage of future world leaders. More fundamentally, the US has long
been a leading example of what market economies and democratic politics can accomplish .
People and governments around the world are far more likely to become more open if the American model is perceived to be succeeding.
Finally, the world faces many serious challenges, ranging from the need to halt the spread of weapons of mass
destruction, fight climate change, and maintain a functioning world economic order that promotes
trade and investment to regulating practices in cyberspace, improving global health, and preventing armed
conflicts. These problems will not simply go away or sort themselves out. While Adam Smith’s “invisible
hand” may ensure the success of free markets, it is powerless in the world of geopolitics. Order requires the
visible hand of leadership to formulate and realize global responses to global challenges. Don’t
get me wrong: None of this is meant to suggest that the US can deal effectively with the world’s
problems on its own. Unilateralism rarely works. It is not just that the US lacks the means; the very nature of contemporary global
problems suggests that only collective responses stand a good chance of succeeding. But multilateralism is much easier to
advocate than to design and implement. Right now there is only one candidate for this role:
the US. No other country has the necessary combination of capability and outlook. This brings me back to the argument that the US
must put its house in order – economically, physically, socially, and politically – if it is to have the resources
needed to promote order in the world. Everyone should hope that it does: The alternative to a world led
by the US is not a world led by China, Europe, Russia, Japan, India, or any other country, but rather a world that is not led at
all. Such a world would almost certainly be characterized by chronic crisis and conflict. That
would be bad not just for Americans, but for the vast majority of the planet’s inhabitants.
5/17/17
 Adv CP – U.S. Hegemony
Counterplan: The United States federal government should shift to a strategy of
offshore balancing in international politics.

Global engagement drains U.S. resources. Offshore balancing safeguards U.S.

primacy by shedding the “global police force” role and dispersing responsibility
to allies without sacrificing core American interests.
Mearsheimer and Walt 16 - (John J. Mearsheimer is R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished
Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. Stephen M. Walt is Robert
and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, July/August
2016, "The Case for Offshore Balancing",
http://mearsheimer.uchicago.edu/pdfs/Offshore%20Balancing.pdf, DOA: 5-17-2017)
//Snowball
Americans’ distaste for the prevailing grand strategy should come as no surprise, given its abysmal record
over the past quarter century. In Asia, India, Pakistan, and North Korea are expanding their nuclear arsenals,
and China is challenging the status quo in regional waters. In Europe, Russia has annexed Crimea, and
U.S. relations with Moscow have sunk to new lows since the Cold War. U.S. forces are still fighting in
Afghanistan and Iraq, with no victory in sight. Despite losing most of its original leaders, al Qaeda has metastasized
across the region. The Arab world has fallen into turmoil—in good part due to the United States’ decisions to effect regime
change in Iraq and Libya and its modest efforts to do the same in Syria—and the Islamic State, or isis, has emerged out of the
chaos. Repeated U.S. attempts to broker Israeli-Palestinian peace have failed, leaving a two-
state solution further away than ever. Meanwhile, democracy has been in retreat worldwide, and
the United States’ use of torture, targeted killings, and other morally dubious practices has
tarnished its image as a defender of human rights and international law. The United States does not bear
sole responsibility for all these costly debacles, but it has had a hand in most of them. The setbacks are
the natural consequence of the misguided grand strategy of liberal hegemony that Democrats and
Republicans have pursued for years. This approach holds that the United States must use its power
not only to solve global problems but also to promote a world order based on international institutions,
representative governments, open markets, and respect for human rights. As “the
indispensable nation,” the logic goes, the United States has the right, responsibility, and wisdom to manage
local politics almost everywhere. At its core, liberal hegemony is a revisionist grand strategy: instead of calling on the United States
to merely uphold the balance of power in key regions, it commits American might to promoting democracy everywhere and defending human
rights whenever they are threatened. There is a better way. By pursuing a strategy of “offshore balancing,”
Washington would forgo ambitious efforts to remake other societies and concentrate on
what really matters: preserving U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere and countering
potential hegemons in Europe, Northeast Asia, and the Persian Gulf. Instead of policing the
world, the United States would encourage other countries to take the lead in checking rising
powers, intervening itself only when necessary. This does not mean abandoning the United States’ position as
the world’s sole superpower or retreating to “Fortress America.” Rather, by husbanding U.S. strength,
offshore balancing would preserve U.S. primacy far into the future and safeguard liberty at
home.
5/18/17
 Adv CP – U.S. Heg/Military/Security
Counterplan: The United States federal government should increase funding to
the U.S. Navy in order to establish a fleet of 350 ships.

It solves U.S. hegemony, security, and military presence globally.

Slattery 17 - (Brian Slattery is a policy analyst in national security at The Heritage Foundation,
3-3-2017, "Trump Makes Strong Case for Rebuilding the Navy",
http://dailysignal.com/2017/03/03/in-aircraft-carrier-speech-trump-makes-strong-case-for-
rebuilding-the-navy/, DOA: 5-18-2017) //Snowball
Trump has called for a 350-ship Navy as one pillar of rebuilding the military. This closely matches the
recommendations of both The Heritage Foundation’s Index of U.S. Military Strength (346 ships) and the
Navy’s recent update to its own fleet requirements (355 ships). All three represent a more realistic
assessment of the threats and challenges the Navy faces and the resources it will need to meet
them. Unfortunately, due to chronic underfunding of the Navy’s shipbuilding and maintenance accounts,
the fleet currently stands at 275 ships—a fifth less than what the president has called for. This
underinvestment has resulted in a Navy that is stretched dangerously thin. Though the fleet has
declined from over 400 ships in the early 1990s (a result from the Reagan buildup), maritime threats around the
world have arguably grown over that time. Thus, the Navy finds itself in greater demand with fewer
ships. This in turn has caused two issues for the Navy. First, the fleet simply cannot be where it needs to be
everywhere in the world. This was starkly evident over Christmas of last year when the Navy was
unable to deploy a carrier to the Middle East for a month due to an unforeseen maintenance issue. This
might not have as gravely affected carrier deployments if the fleet had 12 carriers as recommended by Trump and the Navy, but today there
are only 10. The Navy simply cannot sustain its high rate of operations without increasing the size
of its fleet to account for such mishaps. Budget cuts have also strained the Navy’s ships and
crews as they try to do more with less. Extending deployments beyond the normal six months has
become a common occurrence, which puts unnecessary stress on the fleet in a number of ways. First,
ships are sailing for longer stretches than expected, essentially adding mileage to the hulls more rapidly.
Second, because they are out to sea longer, they consequently have less time to receive needed
depot maintenance and repair work. Finally, sailors that already work in a high-demand environment
are now being asked to stay out to sea and away from their families longer than expected.
The Navy therefore finds itself both less able to provide global presence and overworked
because its fleet has shrunken so far below what is required. Trump expanded on his remarks to
Congress Tuesday about reinvesting in the military, saying, “By eliminating the sequester and the
uncertainty it creates, we will make it easier for the Navy to plan for the future and thus to control
costs and get the best deals for the taxpayers.” For all the services and the Navy in particular, this is a key point. Without
predictable, robust budgeting, programs like aircraft carriers suffer delays and cost overruns
that could have been prevented. Furthermore, with projects on a scale as massive as
shipbuilding, stable long-term funding enables shipbuilders and their supplier companies to
plan years ahead, make use of economies of scale, and otherwise reduce overall costs . A
combination of defense cuts and Congress’ failure to pass normal budgets has made such
efficient practices more difficult. The Navy has a long way to go before reaching its needed
fleet size. Yet with concerted effort and persistence, the president and Congress can in the
coming years begin to rebuild the fleet and the other armed services. As the military
continues to operate at a high rate to protect America’s security and interests around the
globe, our elected leadership owes it to those service members to provide them the tools
they need to succeed.
5/19/17
 U.S. Hegemony Good
United States unipolar hegemony is responsible for great power peace,
democracy, development, and economic growth. No turns – we’re benevolent
and don’t generate balancing.
Fettweis 17 - (Christopher Fettweis is an Associate Professor for the Department of Political
Science at Tulane University, 08 May 2017, "Unipolarity, Hegemony, and the New Peace", DOA:
5-19-2017) //Snowball
The basic logic behind the hegemonic-stability argument is straightforward: the anarchic
international system will be unstable unless one power is able to create and enforce rules.
While the theory is centuries old, the modern version was first articulated to describe the Bretton Woods
international economic order and the stabilizing force played by the dollar.47 In security studies,
hegemonic dominance is thought to ease security dilemma pressures by decreasing
unpredictability in the system. The hegemon essentially provides three services: establishment of
the rules of global order, enforcement of those rules, and reassurance for other members.48
The logic of the theory may be uncontroversial, but the suggestion that the United States plays such a role—and that it brings stability to the
system—is not. The hegemonic-stability explanation for the New Peace comes in two distinct versions
that differ concerning the role played by US hard power. To some liberal internationalists, the
current order is based on the institutions, rule-based regimes, and law promoted by the United States,
which create a positive-sum system that provides incentives for other states to cooperate.49
Rational, self-interested actors soon realize that the advantages of cooperating with the established order far
outweigh those of remaining outside it. This liberal version of hegemonic-stability theory posits
an order with no obvious enemies, one that is not dependent on continued US hard-power dominance.
It is also nearly self-sustaining. If and when the relative military capability of the United States declines, according
to one of this version’s primary proponents, “the underlying foundations of the liberal international order
will survive and thrive.” 50 Diplomatic and economic engagement, rather than military power,
are the primary tools of US hegemony. Others are more skeptical of institutions’ potential to shape behavior, and believe
instead that stability is dependent upon the active application of the hegemon’s military power.51 The second version of the
hegemonic-stability explanation is based upon a different view of human nature than is the liberal, one less
sanguine about the potential for voluntary cooperation. Actors respond to concrete incentives,
according to this outlook, and will ignore rules or law if transgressions are not punished. The would-be
hegemon must enforce stability, therefore, not merely establish it. Policing metaphors are
common in this literature, with the United States playing the role of sheriff or globocop charged
with keeping the peace.52 Take away the police, or damage their credibility, and instability
would soon return. “The present world order,” according to Robert Kagan, “is as fragile as it is unique,”
and would collapse without sustained US efforts.53 “In many instances,” add Lawrence Kaplan and William Kristol,
“all that stands between civility and genocide, order and mayhem, is American power.” 54 Though
this argument is commonly associated with neoconservatism55—and will be referred to as the neoconservative explanation from here
on in—it is also accepted by a number of scholars and observers generally considered outside of
that ideological approach.56 The two versions are united on this point: it is not unipolarity in
general that accounts for the New Peace, but American unipolarity in particular. US
hegemony is essentially benevolent, according to both liberals and neoconservatives. The United
States has constructed an order that takes the interests of other states into account, which
decreases revisionist impulses. At the very least, it is nonthreatening, and does not generate the
kind of balancing behavior that might be expected to bring it to an end.57 In the liberal version, the order
constructed by the United States is beneficial to all its members, who have a stake in its maintenance.
Adherents of the more muscular version, whether neoconservative or not, assume that the default position
of smaller states in a unipolar system is to bandwagon with the center.58 No one seems to suggest that there is an
irenic structural logic of unipolarity independent of US behavior. The question is therefore not so much about the
connection between unipolarity and the New Peace as much as it is whether US behavior , in one
form or another, has brought it about. Hegemonic stability is in some ways more theoretically elegant
than the other possible explanations for the New Peace. For one thing, it does not suffer from
questions regarding its causal direction. While it may be reasonable to suggest that peace produced the expansion of
democracy and/or economic development rather than the other way around, peace did not produce unipolarity. In fact, if
the United States is indeed supplying the global public good of security, it might be able to take
credit for a number of these positive trends. Not just peace but democracy, economic
stability, and development all might be beneficial side effects of unipolarity.59 “A world
without U.S. primacy,” argued Samuel P. Huntington, “would be a world with more violence and
disorder and less democracy and economic growth.” 60 There is a great deal at stake here, for both scholarship and
practice. If hegemony is responsible for the New Peace, then its peaceful trends are unlikely to
last much beyond the unipolar moment. The other proposed explanations described above are
essentially irreversible: nuclear weapons cannot be uninvented, and no defense against their use
is ever going to be completely foolproof; the pace of globalization and economic
interdependence shows no sign of slowing; democracy seems to be firmly embedded in the
cultural fabric of many of the places it currently exists, and may well be in the process of
spreading to the few places where it does not. The UN, while oft criticized, shows no signs of
disappearing. And finally, history contains precious few examples of the return of institutions
deemed by society to be outmoded, barbaric, and/or futile.61 In other words, liberal normative evolution is
typically unidirectional. Few would argue, for instance, that either slavery or dueling is likely to
reappear in this century; illiberal normative recidivism is exceptionally rare.62 If the neoconservatives are correct and US hard
power is primarily responsible for the New Peace, however, then it cannot be expected to last long
after US hegemonic decline, or adjustment in its grand strategy toward retrenchment. If liberal internationalists are right and the
New Peace is largely a product of the world order that the United States has forged, then it may have a bit more staying power beyond
unipolarity, but not necessarily much. Determining
the relationship between hegemony and the New
Peace has importance that goes beyond the academy. Whether or not decline is on the
immediate horizon, unipolarity is unlikely to last forever. If the New Peace is essentially an
American creation, that post-unipolar future is likely to be quite a bit more violent than the
present.
 U.S. Hegemony Bad
American hegemony was and is an illusion and has caused nothing but violence
& carnage for 75 years and risks nuclear war and extinction
Dower 17 John Dower, professor emeritus of history at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, “An American Century of Carnage”, essay adapted from chapter one of his book
“The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War Two, Medium Corporation,
April 7, 2017, https://medium.com/defiant/an-american-century-of-carnage-b930fd03f2b, VM
The “American Century” catchphrase is hyperbole, the slogan never more than a myth, a fantasy, a delusion. Military victory in
any traditional sense was largely a chimera after World War II. The
so-called Pax Americana itself was riddled
with conflict and oppression and egregious betrayals of the professed catechism of American
values. At the same time, postwar U.S. hegemony obviously never extended to more than a
portion of the globe. Much that took place in the world, including disorder and mayhem, was
beyond America’s control. Yet, not unreasonably, Luce’s catchphrase persists. The twenty-first-century world may be
chaotic, with violence erupting from innumerable sources and causes, but the United States does remain the planet’s “sole
superpower.” The myth of exceptionalism still holds most Americans in its thrall. U.S. hegemony, however frayed at the edges,
continues to be taken for granted in ruling circles, and not only in Washington. And Pentagon planners still emphatically define
their mission as “full-spectrum dominance” globally. Washington’s commitment to modernizing its nuclear arsenal rather than
focusing on achieving the thoroughgoing abolition of nuclear weapons has proven unshakable. So has the country’s almost
religious devotion to leading the way in developing and deploying ever more “smart” and sophisticated conventional weapons
of mass destruction. Welcome to Henry Luce’s — and America’s — violent century, even if thus far it’s lasted only 75 years. The
question is just what to make of it these days. We live in times of bewildering violence. In 2013, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff told a Senate committee that the world is “more dangerous than it has ever been.” Statisticians, however, tell a
different story. That war and lethal conflict have declined steadily, significantly, even precipitously since World War II. Much
mainstream scholarship now endorses the declinists. In his influential 2011 book, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why
Violence Has Declined, Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker adopted the labels “the Long Peace” for the four-plus decades of the
Cold War from 1945 to 1991, and “the New Peace” for the post-Cold War years to the present. In that book, as well as in post-
publication articles, postings, and interviews, he has taken the doomsayers to task. The statistics suggest, he declares, that
“today we may be living in the most peaceable era in our species’s existence.” Clearly, the number and deadliness of global
conflicts have indeed declined since World War II. This so-called postwar peace was, and still is, however, saturated in blood
and wracked with suffering. It is reasonable to argue that total war-related fatalities during the Cold War decades were lower
than in the six years of World War II from 1939 to 1945 and certainly far less than the toll for the 20th century’s two world wars
combined. It is also undeniable that overall death tolls have declined further since then. The
five most devastating
intrastate or interstate conflicts of the postwar decades — in China, Korea, Vietnam,
Afghanistan and between Iran and Iraq — took place during the Cold War. So did a majority of
the most deadly politicides, or political mass killings, and genocides — in the Soviet Union,
China, Yugoslavia, North Korea, North Vietnam, Sudan, Nigeria, Indonesia,
Pakistan/Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique and Cambodia, among other countries .
The end of the Cold War certainly did not signal the end of such atrocities — as witness Rwanda, the Congo and the implosion of
Syria. As with major wars, however, the trajectory has been downward. Unsurprisingly, the declinist argument celebrates the
Cold War as less violent than the global conflicts that preceded it, and the decades that followed as statistically less violent than
the Cold War. But what motivates the sanitizing of these years, now amounting to three-quarters of a century, with the label
“peace”? The answer lies largely in a fixation on major powers. The great Cold War antagonists, the United States and the
Soviet Union, bristling with their nuclear arsenals, never came to blows. Indeed, wars between major powers or developed
states have become, in Pinker’s words, “all but obsolete.” There has been no World War III, nor is there likely to be. Such
upbeat quantification invites complacent forms of self-congratulation. In the United States, where we-won-the-Cold-War
sentiment still runs strong, the relative decline in global violence after 1945 is commonly attributed to the wisdom, virtue, and
firepower of U.S. “peacekeeping.” In hawkish circles, nuclear deterrence — the Cold War’s mutually-
assured-destruction doctrine that was described early on as a “delicate balance of terror” — is
still canonized as an enlightened policy that prevented catastrophic global conflict. What
doesn’t get counted Branding the long postwar era as an epoch of relative peace is
disingenuous, and not just because it deflects attention from the significant death and agony
that actually did occur and still does. It also obscures the degree to which the United States bears responsibility
for contributing to, rather than impeding, militarization and mayhem after 1945. Ceaseless U.S.-led
transformations of the instruments of mass destruction — and the provocative global impact
of this technological obsession — are by and large ignored. Continuities in American-style
“warfighting” such as heavy reliance on airpower and other forms of brute force are
downplayed. So is U.S. support for repressive foreign regimes, as well as the destabilizing
impact of many of the nation’s overt and covert overseas interventions. The more subtle and
insidious dimension of postwar U.S. militarization — namely, the violence done to civil society
by funneling resources into a gargantuan, intrusive, and ever-expanding national security
state — goes largely unaddressed in arguments fixated on numerical declines in violence since
World War II. Beyond this, trying to quantify war, conflict, and devastation poses daunting methodological challenges.
Data advanced in support of the decline-of-violence argument is dense and often compelling, and derives from a range of
respectable sources. Still, it must be kept in mind that the precise quantification of death and violence is almost always
impossible. When a source offers fairly exact estimates of something like “war-related excess deaths,” you usually are dealing
with investigators deficient in humility and imagination. Take, for example, World War II, about which countless tens of
thousands of studies have been written. Estimates of total “war-related” deaths from that global conflict range from roughly 50
million to more than 80 million. One explanation for such variation is the sheer chaos of armed violence. Another is what the
counters choose to count and how they count it. Battle deaths of uniformed combatants are easiest to determine, especially on
the winning side. Military bureaucrats can be relied upon to keep careful records of their own killed-in-action — but not, of
course, of the enemy they kill. War-related civilian fatalities are even more difficult to assess, although — as in World War II —
 they commonly are far greater than deaths in combat. Does the data source go beyond so-called battle-related collateral
damage to include deaths caused by war-related famine and disease? Does it take into account deaths that may have occurred
long after the conflict itself was over, as from radiation poisoning after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or from the U.S. use of Agent
Orange in the Vietnam War? The difficulty of assessing the toll of civil, tribal, ethnic and religious conflicts with any exactitude is
obvious. Concentrating on fatalities and their averred downward trajectory also draws attention away from broader
humanitarian catastrophes. In
mid-2015, for instance, the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees reported that the number of individuals “forcibly displaced
worldwide as a result of persecution, conflict, generalized violence or human rights
violations” had surpassed 60 million and was the highest level recorded since World War II
and its immediate aftermath. Roughly two-thirds of these men, women, and children were
displaced inside their own countries. The remainder were refugees, and over half of these
refugees were children. Here, then, is a trend line intimately connected to global violence
that is not heading downward. In 1996, the United Nations’ estimate was that there were
37.3 million forcibly displaced individuals on the planet. Twenty years later, as 2015 ended,
this had risen to 65.3 million — a 75-percent increase over the last two post-Cold War decades
that the declinist literature refers to as the “new peace.” Other disasters inflicted on civilians are less
visible than uprooted populations. Harsh conflict-related economic sanctions, which often cripple hygiene and health-care
systems and may precipitate a sharp spike in infant mortality, usually do not find a place in itemizations of military violence.
U.S.-led U.N. sanctions imposed against Iraq for 13 years beginning in 1990 in conjunction with the first Gulf War are a stark
example of this. An account published in The New York Times Magazine in July 2003 accepted the fact that “at least several
hundred thousand children who could reasonably have been expected to live died before their fifth birthday.” And after all-out
wars, who counts the maimed, or the orphans and widows, or those the Japanese in the wake of World War II referred to as the
“elderly orphaned” — parents bereft of their children? Figures and tables, moreover, can only hint at the psychological and
social violence suffered by combatants and noncombatants alike. It has been suggested, for instance, that one in six people in
areas afflicted by war may suffer from mental disorder — as opposed to one in 10 in normal times. Even where American
military personnel are concerned, trauma did not become a serious focus of concern until 1980, seven years after the U.S.
retreat from Vietnam, when post-traumatic stress disorder was officially recognized as a mental-health issue. In
2008, a
massive sampling study of 1.64 million U.S. troops deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq between
October 2001 and October 2007 estimated “that approximately 300,000 individuals currently
suffer from PTSD or major depression and that 320,000 individuals experienced a probable
TBI [traumatic brain injury] during deployment.” As these wars dragged on, the numbers
naturally increased. To extend the ramifications of such data to wider circles of family and
community — or, indeed, to populations traumatized by violence worldwide — defies
statistical enumeration. Terror counts and terror fears Largely unmeasurable, too, is violence in a
different register: the damage that war, conflict, militarization, and plain existential fear
inflict upon civil society and democratic practice. This is true everywhere but has been
especially conspicuous in the United States since Washington launched its “global war on
terror” in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. Here, numbers are perversely
provocative, for the lives claimed in 21st-century terrorist incidents can be interpreted as
confirming the decline-in-violence argument. From 2000 through 2014, according to the
widely cited Global Terrorism Index, “more than 61,000 incidents of terrorism claiming over
140,000 lives have been recorded.” Including 9/11, countries in the West experienced less than five percent of
these incidents and three percent of the deaths. The Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism, another
minutely documented tabulation based on combing global media reports in many languages,
puts the number of suicide bombings from 2000 through 2015 at 4,787 attacks in more than
40 countries, resulting in 47,274 deaths. These atrocities are incontestably horrendous and alarming. Grim as
they are, however, the numbers themselves are comparatively low when set against earlier conflicts. For specialists in World
War II, the “140,000 lives” estimate carries an almost eerie resonance, since this is the rough figure usually accepted for the
death toll from a single act of terror bombing, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The tally is also low compared to
contemporary deaths from other causes. Globally, for example, more than 400,000 people are murdered annually. In the
United States, the danger of being killed by falling objects or lightning is at least as great as the threat from Islamist militants.
This leaves us with a perplexing question: If the overall incidence of violence, including twenty-first-century terrorism, is
relatively low compared to earlier global threats and conflicts, why has the United States responded by becoming an
increasingly militarized, secretive, unaccountable and intrusive “national security state”? Is it really possible that a patchwork of
non-state adversaries that do not possess massive firepower or follow traditional rules of engagement has, as the chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff declared in 2013, made the world more threatening than ever? For those who do not believe this to be
the case, possible explanations for the accelerating militarization of the United States come from many directions. Paranoia
may be part of the American DNA — or, indeed, hardwired into the human species. Or perhaps the anticommunist hysteria of
the Cold War simply metastasized into a post-9/11 pathological fear of terrorism. Machiavellian fear-mongering certainly enters
the picture, led by conservative and neoconservative civilian and military officials of the national security state, along with
opportunistic politicians and war profiteers of the usual sort. Cultural critics predictably point an accusing finger as well at the
mass media’s addiction to sensationalism and catastrophe, now intensified by the proliferation of digital social media. To all this
must be added the peculiar psychological burden of being a “superpower” and, from the 1990s on, the planet’s “sole
superpower” — a situation in which “credibility” is measured mainly in terms of massive cutting-edge military might. It might be
argued that this mindset helped “contain Communism” during the Cold War and provides a sense of security to U.S. allies.
What it has not done is ensure victory in actual war, although not for want of trying. With some exceptions — Grenada,
Panama, the brief 1991 Gulf War and the Balkans — the U.S. military has not tasted victory since World War II. Korea, Vietnam,
and recent and current conflicts in the Greater Middle East being boldface examples of this failure. This, however, has had no
impact on the hubris attached to superpower status. Brute force remains the ultimate measure of credibility. The traditional
American way of war has tended to emphasize the “three Ds” — defeat, destroy, devastate. Since 1996, the Pentagon’s
proclaimed mission is to maintain “full-spectrum dominance” in every domain — land, sea, air, space and information — and, in
practice, in every accessible part of the world. The Air Force Global Strike Command, activated in 2009 and responsible for
managing two-thirds of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, typically publicizes its readiness for “global strike … any target, any time.” In
2015, the Department of Defense acknowledged maintaining 4,855 physical “sites” — meaning bases ranging in size from huge
contained communities to tiny installations — of which 587 were located overseas in 42 foreign countries. An unofficial
investigation that includes small and sometimes impermanent facilities puts the number at around 800 in 80 countries. Over
the course of 2015, to cite yet another example of the overwhelming nature of America’s global presence, elite U.S. Special
Operations Forces were deployed to around 150 countries, and Washington provided assistance in arming and training security
forces in an even larger number of nations. America’s overseas bases reflect, in part, an enduring inheritance from World War II
and the Korean War. The majority of these sites are located in Germany (181), Japan (122), and South Korea (83) and were
retained after their original mission of containing communism disappeared with the end of the Cold War. Deployment of
Special Operations Forces is also a Cold War legacy — exemplified most famously by the Army’s “Green Berets” in Vietnam —
 that expanded after the demise of the Soviet Union. Dispatching covert missions to three-quarters of the world’s nations,
however, is largely a product of the war on terror. Many of these present-day undertakings require maintaining overseas “lily
pad” facilities that are small, temporary and unpublicized. And many, moreover, are integrated with covert CIA “black
operations.” Combating terror involves practicing terror — including, since 2002, an expanding
campaign of targeted assassinations by unmanned drones. For the moment, this latest mode
of killing remains dominated by the CIA and the U.S. military, with the United Kingdom and
Israel following some distance behind. Counting nukes The “delicate balance of terror” that
characterized nuclear strategy during the Cold War has not disappeared. Rather, it has been
reconfigured. The U.S. and Soviet arsenals that reached a peak of insanity in the 1980s have been reduced by about two-
thirds — a praiseworthy accomplishment but one that still leaves the world with around 15,400 nuclear weapons as
of January 2016, 93 percent of them in U.S. and Russian hands. Close to 2,000 of the latter on each side
are still actively deployed on missiles or at bases with operational forces. This downsizing, in other words, has
not removed the wherewithal to destroy the Earth as we know it many times over. Such
destruction could come about indirectly as well as directly, with even a relatively “modest”
nuclear exchange between, say, India and Pakistan triggering a cataclysmic climate shift — a
“nuclear winter” — that could result in massive global starvation and death. Nor does the fact
that seven additional nations now possess nuclear weapons — and more than 40 others are
deemed “nuclear weapons capable” — mean that “deterrence” has been enhanced. The
future use of nuclear weapons, whether by deliberate decision or by accident, remains an
ominous possibility. That threat is intensified by the possibility that non-state terrorists may
somehow obtain and use nuclear devices. What is striking at this moment in history is that paranoia couched as
strategic realism continues to guide U.S. nuclear policy and, following America’s lead, that of the other nuclear powers. As
announced by Pres. Barack Obama’s administration in 2014, the potential for nuclear
violence is to be “modernized.” In concrete terms, this translates as a 30-year project that will
cost the United States an estimated $1 trillion not including the usual future cost overruns for
producing such weapons, perfect a new arsenal of “smart” and smaller nuclear weapons and
extensively refurbish the existing delivery “triad” of long-range manned bombers, nuclear-
armed submarines and land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles carrying nuclear
warheads. Nuclear modernization, of course, is but a small portion of the full spectrum of
American might — a military machine so massive that it inspired Obama to speak with
unusual emphasis in his State of the Union address in January 2016. “The United States of
America is the most powerful nation on Earth,” he declared. “Period. Period. It’s not even
close. It’s not even close. It’s not even close. We spend more on our military than the next
eight nations combined.” Official budgetary expenditures and projections provide a snapshot
of this enormous military machine, but here again numbers can be misleading. Thus, the
“base budget” for defense announced in early 2016 for fiscal year 2017 amounts to roughly
$600 billion, but this falls far short of what the actual outlay will be. When all other
discretionary military- and defense-related costs are taken into account — nuclear
maintenance and modernization, the “war budget” that pays for so-called overseas
contingency operations like military engagements in the Greater Middle East, “black budgets”
that fund intelligence operations by agencies including the CIA and the National Security
Agency, appropriations for secret high-tech military activities, “veterans affairs” costs
including disability payments, military aid to other countries, huge interest costs on the
military-related part of the national debt and so on — the actual total annual expenditure is
close to $1 trillion. Such stratospheric numbers defy easy comprehension, but one does not
need training in statistics to bring them closer to home. Simple arithmetic suffices. The
projected bill for just the 30-year nuclear modernization agenda comes to over $90 million a
day, or almost $4 million an hour. The $1-trillion price tag for maintaining the nation’s status
as “the most powerful nation on Earth” for a single year amounts to roughly $2.74 billion a
day, over $114 million an hour. Creating a capacity for violence greater than the world has
ever seen is costly — and remunerative. So an era of a “new peace”? Think again. We’re only
three quarters of the way through America’s violent century … and there’s more to come.
5/20/17
 Mental Health Aff
1 in 5 public school students suffers from mental health problems and schools don’t
have a way to deal with this
Meg Anderson and Kavitha Cardoza, NPR, “Mental Health In Schools: A Hidden Crisis
Affecting Millions Of Students”, August 31, 2016,
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/08/31/464727159/mental-health-in-schools-a-hidden-
crisis-affecting-millions-of-students, VM
You might call it a silent epidemic. Up
to one in five kids living in the U.S. shows signs or symptoms of a
mental health disorder in a given year. So in a school classroom of 25 students, five of them may be struggling with the
same issues many adults deal with: depression, anxiety, substance abuse. And yet most children — nearly
80 percent — who need mental health services won't get them. Whether treated or not, the
children do go to school. And the problems they face can tie into major problems found in
schools: chronic absence, low achievement, disruptive behavior and dropping out . Experts say
schools could play a role in identifying students with problems and helping them succeed. Yet it's a role many schools are not prepared for.
Educators face the simple fact that, often because of a lack of resources, there just aren't
enough people to tackle the job. And the ones who are working on it are often drowning in
huge caseloads. Kids in need can fall through the cracks.

The impact of mental health issues in children are really bad and numerous
Perou et al 13 Ruth Perou, PhD, Rebecca H. Bitsko, PhD, Stephen J. Blumberg, PhD, Patricia Pastor, PhD, Reem
M. Ghandour, DrPH, Joseph C. Gfroerer, Sarra L. Hedden, PhD, Alex E. Crosby, MD, Susanna N. Visser, MS, Laura A.
Schieve, PhD, Sharyn E. Parks, PhD, Jeffrey E. Hall, PhD, Debra Brody, MPH, Catherine M. Simile, PhD, William W.
Thompson, PhD, Jon Baio, EdS, Shelli Avenevoli, PhD, Michael D. Kogan, PhD, Larke N. Huang, PhD, Division of
Human Development and Disability, National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, CDC, Atlanta,
Georgia 2Division of Health Interview Statistics, National Center for Health Statistics, CDC, Hyattsville, Maryland
3Office of Analysis and Epidemiology, National Center for Health Statistics, CDC, Hyattsville, Maryland 4Office of
Epidemiology and Research, Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Health Resources and Services Administration,
Rockville, Maryland 5Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality, Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration, Rockville, Maryland 6Division of Violence Prevention, National Center for Injury
Prevention and Control, CDC, Atlanta, Georgia 7Division of Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, National
Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, CDC, Atlanta, Georgia 8Division of Health Nutrition
Examination Surveys, National Center for Health Statistics, CDC, Hyattsville, Maryland 9Division of Population
Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC, Atlanta, Georgia 10National
Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland 11Office of Policy, Planning and Innovation, Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Services Administration, Rockville, Maryland; “Mental Health Surveillance Among Children —
United States, 2005–2011”; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); May 17, 2013;
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/su6202a1.htm, VM

Mental disorders among children are an important public health issue because of their
prevalence, early onset, and impact on the child, family, and community. A total of 13%–20% of children
living in the United States experience a mental disorder in a given year (6,8–10). Suicide, which can result from the
interaction of mental disorders and other factors, was the second leading cause of death
among children aged 12–17 years in 2010 (11). In the United States, the cost (including health
care, use of services such as special education and juvenile justice, and decreased
productivity) of mental disorders among persons aged <24 years in the United States was
estimated at $247 billion annually (6,12,13). In 2006, mental disorders were among the most costly conditions to treat in
children (14). Two recent studies have reported substantial increases in use of services for mental disorders among children. One study
included insurance claims from approximately 20% of the privately insured U.S. population aged <65 years with private insurance and weighted
the data to reflect a national estimate. This
study reported a 24% increase in inpatient mental health and
substance abuse admissions among children during 2007–2010, as well as increases in use and cost of these
services and psychotropic medications for teenagers specifically over the same period (15). A second nationally representative study, which
used data on principal diagnoses for hospital stays in the United States from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, reported that in 2010,
mood disorders were among the most common principal diagnoses for all hospital stays
among children in the United States, and the rate of hospital stays among children for mood
disorders increased 80% during 1997–2010, from 10 to 17 stays per 10,000 population (16). For
some children, mental disorders might result in serious difficulties at home, with peer
relationships, and in school (17–19). These disorders also can be associated with substance
use, criminal behavior, and other risk-taking behaviors (20–22). Persons with mental disorders frequently have
more than one type of disorder, with an estimated 40% of children with one mental disorder having at least one other mental disorder (23–26).
Children with mental disorders also more often have other chronic health conditions (e.g., asthma, diabetes, and epilepsy) than children
without mental disorders (6,26–30). Finally,
mental disorders in children are associated with an increased
risk for mental disorders in adulthood (6), which are associated with decreased productivity,
increased substance use and injury, and substantial costs to the individual and society (31,32)

Plan: The United States federal government should substantially increase its
regulations on primary and secondary schools in the United States by mandating
increased mental health surveillance of students.

Plan solves by creating a better network of data which is critical to combatting mental
health issues in children
Perou et al 13 Ruth Perou, PhD, Rebecca H. Bitsko, PhD, Stephen J. Blumberg, PhD, Patricia Pastor, PhD, Reem
M. Ghandour, DrPH, Joseph C. Gfroerer, Sarra L. Hedden, PhD, Alex E. Crosby, MD, Susanna N. Visser, MS, Laura A.
Schieve, PhD, Sharyn E. Parks, PhD, Jeffrey E. Hall, PhD, Debra Brody, MPH, Catherine M. Simile, PhD, William W.
Thompson, PhD, Jon Baio, EdS, Shelli Avenevoli, PhD, Michael D. Kogan, PhD, Larke N. Huang, PhD, Division of
Human Development and Disability, National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, CDC, Atlanta,
Georgia 2Division of Health Interview Statistics, National Center for Health Statistics, CDC, Hyattsville, Maryland
3Office of Analysis and Epidemiology, National Center for Health Statistics, CDC, Hyattsville, Maryland 4Office of
Epidemiology and Research, Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Health Resources and Services Administration,
Rockville, Maryland 5Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality, Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration, Rockville, Maryland 6Division of Violence Prevention, National Center for Injury
Prevention and Control, CDC, Atlanta, Georgia 7Division of Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, National
Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, CDC, Atlanta, Georgia 8Division of Health Nutrition
Examination Surveys, National Center for Health Statistics, CDC, Hyattsville, Maryland 9Division of Population
Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC, Atlanta, Georgia 10National
Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland 11Office of Policy, Planning and Innovation, Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Services Administration, Rockville, Maryland; “Mental Health Surveillance Among Children —
United States, 2005–2011”; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); May 17, 2013;
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/su6202a1.htm, VM

Although numerous systems provide estimates of the prevalence of individual mental

disorders in children, additional information is needed regarding the overall prevalence and
impact of mental health issues on children. First, because many of the ongoing surveillance
systems discussed are based on ascertaining previously diagnosed cases, cases that have not
been previously identified (e.g., those in children without access to care) are not represented
in the available estimates. Second, similar to the findings of the report on surveillance of
mental illness among adults (31), limited data are available on many conditions, particularly
specific anxiety disorders and bipolar disorder. Third, and also similar to the adult report (31),
no dedicated surveillance system on mental health in children exists. Available data do not allow for an
overall estimate of the prevalence of all childhood mental disorders. Previous reports of the overall prevalence of having any mental disorder
have been limited by the disorders included within the surveillance system. The 2007 NSCH indicates that 11.3% of children aged 2–17 years
had been diagnosed with an emotional, behavioral, or developmental condition (26). Using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview to
assess 14 disorders (and therefore identify previously undiagnosed cases), NCS-A found that nearly 50% of adolescents aged 13–18 years had
ever had a mental disorder, including substance use disorders, with 28% meeting the criteria for severe impairment (25). Differences in
methods between these two systems, including conditions assessed, age of assessment, and how the conditions were assessed, might be
responsible for the substantial difference in overall estimates. Substantial but not insurmountable challenges to surveillance of mental
disorders in children exist. An
overall challenge is the establishment of consistent surveillance case
definitions that allow for comparability and reliability of estimates among surveillance
systems. Standard surveillance case definitions are needed to reliably categorize and count
mental disorders among surveillance systems. Criteria for mental disorders are subjective, are
based on a symptom count instead of a biologic measure, might require assessment by
different persons or in different settings, and might change over the course of development.
In addition, there has been little study on the validation of case ascertainment methodology
for surveillance of childhood mental disorders (85). For example, although national telephone surveys are cost-
effective, the validity of measuring mental disorders using the telephone needs to be studied. Even when standardized diagnostic interviews
are used, the findings might differ depending on whether or not the child or parent is reporting the symptoms and might also differ with expert
clinical judgment (137–140). Different
strengths and limitations are associated with surveillance efforts
based on symptoms and those based on previous diagnoses. Assessing symptoms requires
more time and might limit sample size but might identify previously undiagnosed cases.
However, if a child is receiving adequate treatment for a condition, symptoms might not be
reported, and the case might be missed. Relying on report of previous diagnoses takes little
time and can be easily integrated into ongoing surveys but does not catch undiagnosed cases
and might include misdiagnosed cases. To improve comprehensive surveillance of mental
disorders among children, validation of current methods (e.g., studies comparing parent
report or screening instruments with diagnostic interviews) is needed, including those that
can be incorporated into national surveys. In addition, targeted and longitudinal
epidemiologic studies are needed to complement national surveys to better describe mental
disorders among children, as well as their impact and course during development. For example,
ADDM data address issues regarding ASDs, whereas NCS-A provides national estimates for a large number of mental disorders based on a
clinical interview. The Great Smoky Mountains Study and the Project to Learn about ADHD in Youth (PLAY) monitored community samples of
children longitudinally (23,141).
Longitudinal studies can provide data on incidence, emerging health
risk behaviors and comorbid conditions, and risk and protective factors to guide intervention
strategies for diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. Targeted epidemiologic studies also can
increase understanding of mental disorders that are difficult to diagnose and are not being
monitored in existing surveillance systems, including childhood-onset schizophrenia (142);
however, they might not be generalizable to the U.S. population. Validation and complementary approaches to
better document the prevalence and impact of childhood mental disorders might best be
achieved by strengthening partnerships and strategic coordination of surveillance efforts. One
way this has been addressed is through the partnership between HRSA and CDC in the sponsorship and execution of NSCH and its associated
survey, the National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs. In addition, SAMHSA, NIMH, and CDC are working together to develop
an indicator of serious emotional disturbance (143). CDC collaborated with several organizations including NIMH and the Department of
Veterans Affairs, state health departments, and clinicians over several years to develop uniform definitions and recommended data elements
for surveillance of self-directed violence (119). NIMH, HRSA, and CDC collaborated on the Survey of Pathways to Diagnosis and Services, a
follow-back survey with parents of children with ASD, intellectual disability, or developmental delay (or all of these) when first interviewed for
the 2009–2010 National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs. This survey examined the emergence of symptoms; the history of
diagnoses, treatments, and interventions used; and current behavioral, diagnostic, and functional status. Collaboration among
partnering agencies could improve surveillance efforts. Although this report focused on
selected mental disorders and indicators of mental health among children, surveillance of
mental health service use (144) and use of psychotropic medications also are important for
understanding the public health impact of mental disorders among children (145–149). In addition,
more attention to the prevalence and treatment of mental disorders among preschool-age children is needed (146,149). Surveillance is
a critical first step in the public health approach to mental health among children. Data
collection and monitoring are important to identify need and target resources at the national,
state, and local levels. Surveillance data can help prioritize areas for research on risk and
protective factors and provide empirical evidence to develop effective interventions that can
prevent mental disorders and promote mental health as recommended by a recent IOM report (6,37,150). As
intervention and prevention strategies are implemented, surveillance is needed to
continually monitor progress in reducing the impact of mental disorders and improving
mental health.
5/21/17
 Test Scores ≠ Economy
The relationship between assessment rankings and the economy is correlation not
causation.
Strauss 17 - (Valerie Strauss, Reporter — Washington, D.C., Washington Post, Apr. 27, 2017, "Is
there really a link between test scores and America’s economic future?",
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/04/27/is-there-really-a-link-
between-test-scores-and-americas-economic-future/?utm_term=.65d20a9225bd, DOA: 5-21-
2017) //Snowball
So when we ask: Does the mediocre rankings of U.S. pupils on international learning assessments
foreshadow future American economic decline? We answer: The evidence does not support these
claims, even when we use the same data and methods. As such, contemporary anxieties derive less from
evidence, more from the stubborn beat of global competition that has, unfortunately, come to
dominate American educational culture. Research “findings” such as these reveal more about
cultural predilections than reality itself. This becomes most clear when we viewed against the
larger historical backdrop sketched here. What might actually endanger prosperity then is hastily
implementing structural reforms based on truncated comparisons and flawed statistical
analyses. To be clear, the United States should keep trying to learn about educational policy and practice
elsewhere. But international comparisons should be understood as means of learning about ourselves,
not as a baton to bring domestic debates to an anxious crescendo . In doing so, we might discover that
nowhere are schools viewed as a means to economic superiority as strongly as in the U nited
States. By replacing our competitive mind-set with a learning one, perhaps we might break
from the cultural cadence of global expectations pacing postwar America education.
5/22/17
 Deregulate CP
The United States federal government should substantially reduce its regulation of
elementary and secondary education in the United States by allowing wide ranging
voucher programs, more charter schools and school privatization, and allow every
student in the U.S. to choose the school they attend.

That solves the aff- improves education greatly- studies prove

EdChoice, 501(c)(3) nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, no date, “School Choice FAQs”,
https://www.edchoice.org/school_choice_faqs/how-does-school-choice-affect-public-schools/,
VM
Positively. Sound research has demonstrated consistently that school choice policies improve
public school performance. Thirty empirical studies (including all methods) have examined
private school choice’s impact on academic outcomes in public schools. Within that body of
research, 29 studies find that choice improved the performance of nearby public schools. One
study finds no significant effects. To date, no empirical study has found that school choice harms
students in public schools. Four recent research studies support this conclusion: A 2016 study by Anna Egalite of North Carolina
State University looked at the impact of the Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) on Louisiana public schools. Egalite found, “The competitive
threat of the LSP ranges from negligible to modestly positive in the public schools exposed to the threat of
competition, with effect sizes growing in magnitude as the competitive threat looms larger.” A 2014 study by David Figlio and Cassandra
Hart of Northwestern University examined the competitive effects of the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program on public schools. They
learned that more access and variety of private schools increased the competitive pressure on public schools in the wake of the policy
announcement. They state in their conclusion, “The fact that we observed
generalized improvements in school
performance in response to the competitive threats of school vouchers, even in a state with rapid
population growth, suggests that voucher competition may have effects elsewhere.” A 2011 peer-reviewed study by Jay Greene of the
University of Arkansas and Marcus Winters of the University of Colorado – Colorado Springs looked at the impact of Florida’s McKay special
education voucher program on Florida public schools. Greene
and Winters found there was approximately a “12
percent reduction in the probability that a fourth- through sixth-grade student” was
diagnosed with a learning disability in a public school with average levels of competition. They
also found that “being in a public school surrounded by the average number of McKay-
accepting private schools was related to an increase in academic proficiency of about 0.01
standard deviations in both math and reading. The positive but very mild competitive effect is consistent with what has
been found in previous research evaluating more conventional school choice policies.” A 2009 study by Jay Greene and Ryan Marsh of the
University of Arkansas considered the systemic effects of expanding school choice in Milwaukee. Greene and Marsh found that public school
students in Milwaukee fare better academically when they have more free private options through the voucher program. They concluded, “It
appears that Milwaukee public schools are more attentive to the academic needs of students when those students have more opportunities to
leave those schools. This finding is robust across several different specifications of the model.” MYTH: Vouchers hurt public schools by taking
only the best students. Many people are concerned about the impact school vouchers will have on public schools. One concern is that voucher
programs will “drain money” from public schools. Another is that they may result in “creaming,” a situation in which the brightest students use
vouchers while the students who are hardest to teach stay in public schools. In addition to fears that vouchers will harm public schools, there is
also a related contention that vouchers will not have as much positive impact that has been claimed. Some have argued that vouchers cannot
spur public schools to reform because public schools are too weighed down by bureaucracy, unions, or other barriers to change. FACT:
Vouchers improve public schools by providing choice and competition. Although evidence
showing that vouchers improve public schools is counter-intuitive to many people, it is not
hard to explain. One reason vouchers improve public schools is that they enable parents to
find the right particular school for each child’s unique educational needs. Children have
different needs and preferences, and everyone’s schooling experience can improve if children
are allowed greater freedom to find the right niche. Vouchers also provide positive incentives
for responsiveness and improvement that are lacking in the traditional public school system.
When public schools know that students have a choice and can leave using vouchers, those
schools have a much more powerful incentive to improve their performance and keep those
students from walking out the door. EVIDENCE: Data confirm vouchers serve disadvantaged
students well and improve outcomes. The available evidence suggests that voucher programs
do not “cream-skim” the best students. To the contrary, the best analysis of this question
found voucher applicants in three cities and a representative sample of the eligible
population to be virtually identical on a variety of demographic and educational indicators.1
The acid test, however, is what actually happens to public school outcomes when vouchers are implemented. A large body of high-quality
empirical research has examined this question, using statistical methods to isolate and measure the impact vouchers have on academic
achievement in public schools (see accompanied chart). In
some cases the student improvement gains under
vouchers are only moderate. That’s not surprising, given that many existing voucher
programs are limited in the number and type of students they’re allowed to serve and the
amount of choice they’re allowed to offer. Narrowly constricted programs produce narrowly
constricted results. To produce revolutionary results, we would need broad programs—
eligibility for all students. Overwhelmingly, studies have found that vouchers improve public
schools. No empirical study has ever found that vouchers harm public schools.
 Nuke Mistrust → War
Nuclear mistrust causes mutual build-up - leaders act with immense pressure and
unreliable information – treaties fail and it’s too big for deterrence logic – extinction.
Krepon and Thompson 13 - (Michael Krepon, director of the Stimson Center’s programming
on nuclear and space issues and Julia Thompson, research associate at the Stimson Center,
2013, "Deterrence Stability And Escalation Control In South Asia",
https://www.stimson.org/sites/default/files/file-
attachments/Deterrence_Stability_Dec_2013_web_1.pdf, DOA: 5-22-2017) //Snowball
These treaties did not, despite their valuable contributions, provide for deterrence stability and escalation
control. One reason for failure was because mistrust was so great that treaties were accompanied by
hedging strategies that, in turn, required even greater efforts to stabilize the competition. Deterrence
stability eluded the United States and the Soviet Union because of their interactive strategic modernization programs. Protagonist and
antagonist alike viewed the ratcheting up of nuclear capabilities as a necessary signal of resolve, and
as effort to prevent being placed at a disadvantage in crises or a breakdown of deterrence.
These signals were received otherwise — as the pursuit of advantage and a rejection of
sufficiency. The more force structure was diversified and filled out, the more nuclear capabilities
seemed suited for war-fighting rather than deterrence. Once stockpiles grew to dizzying levels,
possible devastation became too immense to fit within a construct of deterrence stability. Similarly,
once nuclear capabilities became greatly diversified and widely dispersed, command and control
became too complicated to ensure escalation control. Under these conditions, the essence of
deterrence stability and escalation control crystallized into the avoidance of the first
mushroom cloud. Beyond this, the fate of planetary health and humankind was left to chance, or
rather to the human frailties of leaders placed under unfathomable pressures, operating on the basis
of insufficient and unreliable information . Well before massive nuclear arsenals are accumulated, deterrence
stability and escalation control proceed unevenly, not in a straight line . Deterrence stability and
escalation control are weakest at the outset of a nuclear competition, where decisive advantage might be
perceived by preemptive attack and when safety and security measures as well as command and control
arrangements for nascent nuclear arsenals are being developed. Stability and escalation control improve somewhat as nuclear
competitors acquire tens of nuclear weapons, work out the modalities of mobile basing modes for medium- and intermediate-range delivery
systems, improve safety and security mechanisms, and develop more mature command and control arrangements. Then, deterrence
stability and escalation control deteriorate as competing arsenals grow to three digits and as basing modes
diversify further — especially if shorter-range delivery vehicles are introduced. Pakistan and India are approaching this
juncture. Nuclear dangers are inherent in the Bomb; they grow as a nuclear competition heats
up. Even the demise of a competitor does not necessarily reduce, let alone eliminate, nuclear
dangers, as was evident when the Soviet Union imploded. Instead, nuclear dangers present themselves in new
ways, requiring creative responses in the form of cooperative threat reduction programs. Even the terminology of
cooperative threat reduction raises hackles in South Asia, as it suggests (to some ears) denuclearization. Since
no one will forcibly denuclearize the Subcontinent, improved deterrence stability and
escalation control will need to be found, if at all, by the competitors themselves, not by outsiders.
5/23/17
 Efficiency Focus Bad
A narrow-minded focus on educational efficiency and performance metrics trades off
with every other important priority.
Smarick 17 - (Andy Smarick is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, 5-8-2017,
"Efficiency Can Cost Education", https://www.usnews.com/opinion/knowledge-
bank/articles/2017-05-08/dont-put-efficiency-in-schools-ahead-of-other-education-goals, DOA:
5-23-2017) //Snowball
There are very good reasons to resist (or at least be skeptical of) efforts to drive "efficiency" in public
education. One of the biggest reasons is that any attempt to maximize efficiency automatically elevates – some might
say inflates – the role of performance metrics. Once we decide which indicators are going to
define success and then set people off to find the swiftest and cheapest way to get those
outcomes, we can begin to distort complex enterprises. Other outcomes become expendable,
even if those outcomes are important. This phenomenon has been studied in lots of other fields. Yes, you can dramatically
increase the lumber production of a forest by planting a single type of tree and arranging them in tidy
lines. But that ultimately kills the forest. You can arrange a city's buildings, streets and homes to maximize commuting efficiency.
But that can diminish the city's livability. You can more efficiently house low-income people by razing old neighborhoods and replacing them
with public-housing skyscrapers. But that destroys social capital. In each of these cases, we have a three-step process: First, we allow
the success of a multifaceted endeavor or environment (e.g. a forest) to be defined narrowly (lumber
production); second, we develop sophisticated systems (scientific forestry) to efficiently accomplish our
now too-narrow goal; third, we later recognize that our efficiency-mindedness came at a cost,
namely other important things were neglected.
5/24/17
 More funding doesn’t improve education
Spending is at an all-time high but more doesn’t help student performance
Lips and Watkins 8 Dan Lips and Shanea Watkins, analysts at Heritage, “Does Spending More
on Education Improve Academic Achievement?” September 08, 2008, The Heritage Foundation,
http://www.heritage.org/education/report/does-spending-more-education-improve-academic-
achievement, VM
American spending on public K-12 education is at an all-time high and is still rising. Polls show that
many people believe that a lack of resources is a primary problem facing public schools. Yet spending on American K-12 public Education is at
an all-time high. Approximately $9,300 is spent per pupil. Real spending per student has increased by 23.5 percent over the past decade and by
49 percent over the past 20 years. Continuous
spending increases have not corresponded with equal
improvement in American educational performance. Long-term measures of American
students' academic achievement, such as long-term NAEP reading scale scores and high school graduation rates, show
that the performance of American students has not improved dramatically in recent decades,
despite substantial spending increases. The lack of a correlation between long-term Education
spending and performance does not suggest that resources are not a factor in academic
performance, but it does suggest that simply increasing spending is unlikely to improve
educational performance. Increasing federal funding on Education has not been followed by
similar gains in student achievement. Federal spending on elementary and secondary
Education has also increased significantly in recent decades. Since 1985, real federal spending
on K-12 education has increased by 138 percent. On a per-student basis, federal spending on K-12 education has
tripled since 1970. Yet, long-term measures of American students' academic achievement have not seen similar increases. Long-term test
scores among specific student populations, including ethnic minorities that have been a main focus of federal Education policy, have improved
some. However,the achievement gaps among white, black, and Hispanic students persist in test
scores and graduation rates.
5/25/17
 Education Privatization Good
Privatization is net-beneficial for public education.
Robinson 17 - (Gerard Robinson, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, 5-25-
2017, "The Positive Privatization Narrative", https://www.usnews.com/opinion/knowledge-
bank/articles/2017-05-25/dont-ignore-the-positives-of-privatization-in-american-education,
DOA: 5-26-2017) //Snowball
Fast forward to 2017: Public-private partnerships remain an important aspect of doing business in
America; private prisons are still part of our state and federal corrections landscape; 26 school voucher programs are operating in 15 states
and the District of Columbia; and 21 tax credit programs are operating in 17 states. The election of billionaire Donald Trump as
president, the confirmation of free-market supporter Betsy DeVos as secretary of education and the consolidation of
Republican majorities in Congress have reignited the negative stereotypes of privatization. Indeed,
since November, seemingly any discussion of education reform or policies that deviate from the traditional,
district-run public school model invariably run into charges of attempting to "privatize public
education." Public charter schools are lumped into the privatization category, too. But this overgeneralized narrative
obscures the true nature of some existing public-private educational partnerships and
assumes nefarious motives fuel someone's decision to enter this type of work. For a host of reasons, school districts
find it more feasible to manage some educational services in-house and outsource others to for-
profit companies. Take student transportation, for example. According to a recent report from Bellwether, district-
managed public school buses account for approximately two-thirds of the 480,000 buses that
transport 25 million students in urban and rural school districts each year. Private companies
such as First Student, Inc., which has a contract with 1,200 school districts and employs 57,000 people to drive 6 million students to school each
day, are among for-profit service providers that compose the remaining one-third. Why do districts
outsource transportation? According to the National School Transportation Association, "School bus contracting benefits
schools and school districts nationwide. Outsourcing transportation redirects attention and
financial resources back into the schools that were overburdened by the expense and
administrative commitment of providing their own student transportation ." And it is not just
transportation: Districts outsource educational services to big-name corporations like Apple, Microsoft and
McGraw-Hill, as well as small businesses that offer specialized student services or technology
support to local public schools. Though anti-privatization advocates often claim that private-sector outsourcing hurts those in
the public system, in many cases, it is just the opposite. The private sector is benefiting school districts and other
public employees in another area, too: pension investment. According to an American Investment Council report
regarding the investments of over 155 public pension funds in various equity markets, funds invested in private equity
produce a median 10-year annualized return rate nearly 4 percent higher than those invested
in public equity. For example, the Teacher Retirement System of Texas invested $16.41 billion in private equity, and came away with a
15.4 percent increase in their annualized 10-year return. The New York State Teachers' Retirement System invested $8.26 billion in private
equity, and garnered a 13.2 percent increase in their return. The point is that these
teachers, and countless more, will be able to
retire with some comfort based on the investment of their public pensions in the private
equity market. School districts depend on private-sector service providers to support their
educational duties. Examples of positive public-private partnership exist in American
education, and they should be marketed as lessons for how privatization is working to the
benefit of many.
5/26/17
 Education Backlash Coming
There will be public backlash to revolt against the dominant education regime.
Tierney 13 - (John Tierney, contributing writer for The Atlantic and a former professor of
American government at Boston College, 4-25-2013, "The Coming Revolution in Public
Education", https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/04/the-coming-revolution-in-
public-education/275163/, DOA: 5-26-2017) //Snowball
It's always hard to tell for sure exactly when a revolution starts. Is it when a few discontented people gather in a room to
discuss how the ruling regime might be opposed? Is it when first shots are fired? When a critical mass forms and the opposition acquires
sufficient weight to have a chance of prevailing? I'm not an expert on revolutions, but even I can see that a
new one is taking
shape in American K-12 public education. The dominant regime for the past decade or more has been
what is sometimes called accountability-based reform or, by many of its critics, "corporate education reform."
The reforms consist of various initiatives aimed at (among other things): improving schools and educational
outcomes by using standardized tests to measure what students are learning; holding schools and teachers
accountable (through school closures and teachers' pay) when their students are "lagging" on those standardized
assessments; controlling classroom instruction and increasing the rigor of school curricula by pushing all states to
adopt the same challenging standards via a "Common Core;" and using market-like competitive pressures (through the
spread of charter schools and educational voucher programs) to provide public schools with incentives to improve.* Critics of the
contemporary reform regime argue that these initiatives, though seemingly sensible in their original framing, are
motivated by interests other than educational improvement and are causing genuine harm to
American students and public schools. Here are some of the criticisms: the reforms have self-interest and
profit motives, not educational improvement, as their basis; corporate interests are reaping
huge benefits from these reform initiatives and spending millions of dollars lobbying to keep those
benefits flowing; three big foundations (Gates, Broad, and Walton Family) are funding much of the
backing for the corporate reforms and are spending billions to market and sell reforms that
don't work; ancillary goals of these reforms are to bust teacher unions, disempower educators,
and reduce spending on public schools; standardized testing is enormously expensive in terms both of public
expenditures and the diversion of instruction time to test prep; over a third of charter schools deliver "significantly
worse" results for students than the traditional public schools from which they were
diverted; and, finally, that these reforms have produced few benefits and have actually
caused harm, especially to kids in disadvantaged areas and communities of color . (On that last
overall point, see this scathing new report from the Economic Policy Institute.)
5/27/17
 Standardized Tests ≠ Critical Thinking
Even if standardized tests cover important content, they restrict students from critical,
complex, and creative thinking.
Popham 17 - (George Popham, Huffington Post Contributor and Founder & Executive Director
at Bay State Learning Center, 5-4-2017, "Standardized Testing Misses The Mark When It Comes
To Student’s Cognitive Competency", http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/standardized-
testing-misses-the-mark-when-it-comes_us_590b8958e4b0f7118072428b, DOA: 5-28-2017)
//Snowball
This situation is absolutely corrosive to actual learning because the testing culture of the school system is a
self-reinforcing feedback loop that rewards oversimplification and punishes critical and creative
thought. This is especially true of the humanities, but it applies in science and mathematics as well. Yes, it is true that there are
many important facts that are not in dispute and should be taught as such, but it is precisely my point that these
are the easiest parts of any discipline to teach and test, which leaves out contextual integration of
the material and critical thinking skills. Test-based teaching, therefore, avoids ambiguous and uncertain
issues, which is exactly where the most important learning and complex thinking is to be
done. As with so many aspects of our common culture, we often emphasize trivia at the expense of substance.
The truth is, learning, insight, intellectual development are not quantifiable. These traits can certainly be
assessed, but they cannot be measured. The implicit assumption behind comparing the average
test scores of different children, schools, or countries is that education can be a kind of competition, that we
can apply statistics to it like we do in professional sports. In reality, this is completely misguided, there are no
creative or intellectual batting averages, and by redesigning our educational system to
produce data we actually abandon education and replace it with a kind of international quiz show
competition, which generates a great deal of sound and fury but signifies absolutely nothing.
5/28/17
 AT: Standardized Tests → Inequality
Standardized testing doesn’t create inequality, it reveals it.
Almagor 14 - (Lelac Almagor teaches English at a charter school in Washington, D.C., Boston
Review, Sept. 2, 2014, "The Good in Standardized Testing", http://bostonreview.net/us/lelac-
almagor-finding-good-in-standardized-testing, DOA: 5-29-2017) //Snowball
Lately, when we talk about testing, we whisper with apocalyptic trepidation about the coming shift
to the Common Core and new national assessments that align to it. These exams are less repetitive and grueling than the DC
CAS, but so much harder. They require even young students to synthesize multiple sources, write analytical
essays, perform a “research simulation,” and solve multi-part problems that feel more like logic puzzles. It
is less practical to “prep” kids for this kind of test. They have to actually be prepared—to be confident reading
and writing at or above grade level—before they can begin to tackle the task itself. Compared with
state tests such as the DC CAS, early versions of these Common Core–aligned tests have often revealed bigger gaps in achievement between
disadvantaged kids and their peers. But the measurement is not the problem. Testing doesn’t produce the
staggering gaps in performance between privileged and unprivileged students ; historical,
generational, systemic inequality does. Testing only seeks to tell the truth about those gaps, and the
truth is that the complex tasks of the Common Core are a better representation of what our students need to and ought to be able to do. I’m
all for measuring that as accurately as we can. In recent years our schools have in fact made huge
gains in helping our students tackle real complexity. I’d love to take genuine pride in our scores, knowing they
reflect those strides toward rigor. If we could give these harder tests internally and get back detailed
results—share them only with parents, and use them only to improve our own planning—many more
teachers would embrace them. Liberated from the testing tricks and stamina lessons, we
would embrace more honest feedback about where our students are and how they still need
to grow.
5/29/17
 Agency Matters
Emphasizing a specific agent of action drastically changes the outcome of education
policies.
Rigby et al. 16 - (Jessica Rigby, Assistant Professor at the University of Washington College of
Education, March 16, 2016, "Understanding How Structure and Agency Influence Education
Policy Implementation and Organizational Change",
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/685849, DOA: 5-30-2017) //Snowball
The relationship between structure and agency is a perennial sociological question. Scholars who draw on structural accounts usually explain
action as limited by economic, political, and social contexts, whereas those who draw on agentic accounts look for human motivation and
understanding to explain behavior (Giddens 1979). Education policy implementation is a particularly fruitful topic to
explore the interaction between structure and agency given the manifold and complex structures,
multiple stakeholders, and ongoing need for improvement . Although the articles in this special issue each define
structure and agency in particular ways, brief field-level definitions of the terms they use are a useful foundation. Structures are
regular patterns that can both enable and constrain individual actions. Giddens (1979) defines structure as
“rules and resources” (64), or the ways in which we understand how things should be done, practices organized around those understandings,
and capabilities that support those understandings. Agency describes situated practices, or the temporal
capacity of individuals to take actions (Archer 1996; Meyer and Jepperson 2002). Scholars that focus on structure attend to
issues such as policies themselves (Mazmanian and Sabatier 1983), the influence of formal organizational structures (McDonnell and Elmore
1987), and the allocation of resources. In contrast, scholars that attend to agency study individual actors such as teachers (Achinstein and
Ogawa 2006; Anagnostopoulos and Rutledge 2007) and students (Miron and Lauria 1998; Stefanou et al. 2004). Typically, a
focus on either
structure or agency also results in an emphasis on one organizational level, such as the macro,
environmental level or the micro, classroom level. Although this type of research highlights particular
sites and processes of policy implementation, it often ignores other potential conditions and
interactions that may be instrumental in how policy plays out. In this special issue, we integrate structure and agency
to understand policy implementation in educational settings. The educational system has become increasingly
complex, with greater prominence and prevalence of nonsystem actors and heavier federal
influence (Fuller et al. 2007; Labaree 1997; Rowan 2002; Sun et al. 2013). As a result, educational organizations
encompass more actors and structures that shape the implementation of each policy and the
everyday work of teaching, learning, and leading. To explore this complicated policy environment, the authors explicitly explore multiple levels
of the environment, the boundaries between these levels, and the interaction between structure and agency. Further, in accordance with the
sociology literature (Cooney 2007; Giddens 1986; Sewell 1992), the articles use multiple conceptions of structure and agency to represent the
increasingly complex environments of schooling.
5/30/17
 Queer Theory Link
The education system is a microcosm of queer exclusion – even if stories are told,
narratives are silenced.
Helmer 15 - (Kirsten Helmer, Presenting a Dissertation for Doctor of Education, May 2015,
"Reading Queerly In The High School Classroom: Exploring A Gay And Lesbian Literature
Course",
http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1369&amp;context=dissertations_
2, DOA: 5-30-2017) //Snowball
Despite the dramatic socio-political shifts in the United States during the first decade of the 21st century which
significantly increased the visibility and the legal rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, the
pervasive and seemingly impenetrable silence concerning LGBT topics in most schools continues to
persist (Blackburn & Buckley, 2005; DePalma & Atkinson, 2008, 2009a-c). Even though many scholars and educators
advocate for curriculum changes to make classrooms more inclusive of LGBT students and their concerns (e.g., Allan, 1999;
Blackburn & Buckley, 2005; Killoran & Pendleton Jiménez, 2007; Laskey & Beavis, 1996; Nieto & Bode, 2012), research shows that
most students still do not have access to LGBT-related resources in their schools (Whelan, 2006;
Kosciw, Greytak, Bartkiewicz, Boesen, & Palmer, 2012) and only a small percentage have ever been taught
positive representations about LGBT people, history, or events in their schools (Blackburn & Buckley, 2005;
Kosciw et al., 2012). However, students are exposed to media representations and discussions of LGBTQ
issues outside of the schooling contexts all the time since these topics are front and center within the current social
and political context. In addition, schools as micro-social environments are sites where social identities
around gender and sexuality are developed, and normative notions of masculinity and
femininity are practiced and actively produced or contested (Tharinger, 2008). Particularly, high schools are
places where young people experience “the meanings of various social locations and non/dominant
social positioning by class, ethnicity, disability, sexuality, gender, and race” (Bertram, Crowley, & Massey, 2009,
p. 3). The silencing of the stories and experiences of LGBTQ people reinforces the homophobia,
heterosexism, heteronormativity, and cissexism that are already routinely and performatively
constituted in the everyday life of schools (Gorski, Davis, & Reiter, 2013). In order to challenge and disrupt
oppressive practices related to sexuality and gender, students should have opportunities to engage with
LGBTQI topics in meaningful ways as part of their official school curriculum. Research has also shown that
teachers tend to shy away from addressing controversial topics in their classrooms with LGBT
issues being among the most controversially discussed contemporary topics (Conoley, 2008). There is a
pervasive thinking that children cannot understand complex social issues that adults are uncomfortable
discussing and that these topics are inappropriate for classrooms (Martino & Cumming-Potvin, 2011; Schall & Kauffmann,
2003). Many teachers cite parental surveillance grounded in the “cultural, religious and moral
values of the parent community” as reasons for cautiousness and self-monitoring related to the use of LGBT-
themed literary resources (Martino & Cumming-Potvin, 2011, p. 487). Furthermore, research on teacher education has
shown that many preservice teachers struggle when thinking about making teaching inclusive
of LGBTQ people and issues (Blackburn & Buckley, 2005; Clark, 2010; Kissen, 2002; North, 2010). This cannot be a surprise,
considering that teacher preparation programs rarely include content related to sexualities and
gender diversity in their curriculums (Gorski et al., 2013; Jennings, 2014), and that the treatment of LGBTQ topics
in multicultural education textbooks (Jennings & Macgillivray, 2011), in educational foundations textbooks (Macgillivray &
Jennings, 2008), or in multicultural texts used in education classes (Young & Middleton, 2002) lacks breadth, depth and
complexity. Few teachers, therefore, can imagine or feel confident to design and implement a
comprehensive curriculum around LGBTQ topics (DePalma & Atkinson, 2009a, 2009b; Gorski et al., 2013). For teachers
who want to engage in anti-homophobia and counter-heteronormative work few resources or narratives
exist to reference and this work is often seen as subversive, risky and controversial within local
school communities (Atkinson, DePalma, & No Outsiders Project, 2010; DePalma & Atkinson, 2008, 2009a-c). Moreover, when teachers
address LGBTQ topics in classrooms or use LGBTQ-themed texts and literature, they frequently frame such
teaching in problematic terms which limits the possibilities for how students can engage with
these topics and texts (Clark & Blackburn, 2009). Oftentimes, school-based readings of LGBT-themed texts are
shaped by homophobia and heteronormativity (Epstein, 2000) because of the way teachers position their
student readers and the texts in the classroom (Clark & Blackburn, 2009). For example, many teachers presume their
students “to be straight and often aggressively homophobic,” frequently allowing their students
“to maintain a homophobic position in [the] classroom” (Clark & Blackburn, 2009, p. 27) while at the same
time trying to “provoke empathy, understanding, and a sense of commonality across differences” for LGBTQ
people instead of positioning their students as LGBTQ people or straight allies (p. 28). Moreover, the
LGBTQ-themed texts chosen for readings in classrooms frequently present limited, or even troubling,
representations of LGBTQ people, foregrounding their negative experiences (e.g., as they encounter
bullying or battle AIDS). In other cases, the readings of LGBTQ-themed texts emphasize homophobia by embedding
such readings within thematic units that focus on topics like fear or survival (see Clark & Blackburn,
2009 for a more detailed discussion of classroom studies). In other words, when including LGBTQ-themed texts and
literature in the curriculum it not only matters what texts students read but also how
students are positioned for reading these texts and what reading practices are employed.
5/31/17
 Memes K2 Heg
Memes are a crucial aspect of US military leadership – They can be spread in order to
make civilians and enemies more aware and fond of the US – They promote a
psychological aspect to war which gives us the advantage
Michael B. Prosser 06 [Academic Year 2005-2006, "MEMETICS—A GROWTH INDUSTRY IN US
MILITARY OPERATIONS", http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a507172.pdf, Prosser is a
Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Marine Corps]//NV
While meme acceptance remains elusive within the US military and largely the US
government, the time has come to at least test the conceptual framework argued in this
examination. Contemporary combat operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa
offer ripe conditions to employ memes, if only as a test bed. Reshaping tomorrows US
military must encourage an alternative approach to warfighting and shifting to a mindset fully
prepared to include all available national resources in order to gain advantage in the contest
for human minds. By obvious implication, future battlefield application of memes will lean
heavily on the intelligence community and other scientific disciplines, which are not
traditionally members of a battle staff. Cognitive scientists, cultural anthropologists, behavior
scientists, and game theory experts are the new professional meme wielding gunfighters,
who can be organized, trained and equipped for future battlefields. The US military must
acknowledge the nature of future battlefields are inherently nonlinear and must adapt the
force to achieve advantage within the contested territories of human minds. At the same
time, the US must recognize the growing need for emerging disciplines in ideological warfare
by ‘weaponeering’ cultural information, transmission and replication—in other words, using
memes as weapons. While perhaps contentious, current US military Information Operations,
PsyOps and Strategic Communications structure are inadequate to offer sophisticated combat
methods to counter the nonlinear threats lurking inside the minds of our enemies. Recent
comments by the Secretary of Defense underline this chasm, “Our enemies have skillfully
adapted to fighting wars in today's media age, but for the most part we, our country, our
government, has not…. the violent extremist[s] have established ‘media relations
committees’—and have proven to be highly successful at manipulating opinion elites. They
plan and design their headlinegrabbing attacks using every means of communications to
intimidate and break the collective will of free people.” 15 The Meme Warfare Center offers a
more complex and intellectually rich capability absent in current IO, PsyOps and SC
formations and is specifically designed to combat the enemy’s sophistication as highlighted
above. The emerging tools to win the metaphysical fight are memes. Managing, employing
and leveraging memetic power is key for the US to shape and win on future battlefields.
 T-Regulation
Interpretation: Regulation does not include the authority to control specific aspects of
schools or mandate specific things be taught- anything else destroys limits
United States v. Lopez 95 514 U.S. 549 (1995), “UNITED STATES v. LOPEZ”, No. 93-1260.
United States Supreme Court. Argued November 8, 1994. Decided April 26, 1995,
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=18310045251039502778&q=United+States+v.+
Lopez,+514+US+549+-+Supreme+Court+1995&hl=en&as_sdt=2006, VM
The Government argues that Congress has accumulated institutional expertise regarding the regulation of firearms through previous
enactments. Cf. Fullilove v.Klutznick, 448 U. S. 448, 503 (1980) (Powell, J., concurring). We agree, however, with the Fifth Circuit that
importation of previous findings to justify § 922(q) is especially inappropriate here because the "prior federal enactments or Congressional
findings [do not] speak to the subject matter of section 922(q) or its relationship to interstate commerce. Indeed, section 922(q) plows
thoroughly new ground and represents a sharp break with the long-standing pattern of federal firearms legislation." 2 F. 3d, at 1366. The
Government's essential contention, in fine, is that we may determine here that § 922(q) is valid because possession of a firearm in a local
school zone does indeed substantially affect interstate commerce. Brief for United States 17. The Government argues that possession of a
firearm in a school zone may result in violent crime and that violent crime can be expected to affect the functioning of the national economy in
two ways. First, the costs of violent 564*564 crime are substantial, and, through the mechanism of insurance, those costs are spread
throughout the population. See United States v. Evans, 928 F. 2d 858, 862 (CA9 1991). Second, violent crime reduces the willingness of
individuals to travel to areas within the country that are perceived to be unsafe. Cf. Heart of Atlanta Motel, 379 U. S., at 253. The Government
also argues that the presence of guns in schools poses a substantial threat to the educational process by threatening the learning environment.
A handicapped educational process, in turn, will result in a less productive citizenry. That, in turn, would have an adverse effect on the Nation's
economic well-being. As a result, the Government argues that Congress could rationally have concluded that § 922(q) substantially affects
interstate commerce. We pause to consider the implications of the Government's arguments. The
Government admits, under
its "costs of crime" reasoning, that Congress could regulate not only all violent crime, but all
activities that might lead to violent crime, regardless of how tenuously they relate to
interstate commerce. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 8-9. Similarly, under the Government's "national
productivity" reasoning, Congress could regulate any activity that it found was related to the
economic productivity of individual citizens: family law (including marriage, divorce, and child custody), for example.
Under the theories that the Government presents in support of § 922(q), it is difficult to
perceive any limitation on federal power, even in areas such as criminal law enforcement or
education where States historically have been sovereign. Thus, if we were to accept the
Government's arguments, we are hard pressed to posit any activity by an individual that
Congress is without power to regulate. Although Justice Breyer argues that acceptance of the
Government's rationales would not authorize a general federal police power, he is unable to
identify any activity that the States may regulate but Congress may not . Justice Breyer posits
that there might be some limitations on Congress' 565*565 commerce power, such as family
law or certain aspects of education. Post, at 624. These suggested limitations, when viewed in
light of the dissent's expansive analysis, are devoid of substance. Justice Breyer focuses, for the most part, on
the threat that firearm possession in and near schools poses to the educational process and the potential economic consequences flowing from
that threat. Post, at 619-624. Specifically,
the dissent reasons that (1) gun-related violence is a serious
problem; (2) that problem, in turn, has an adverse effect on classroom learning; and (3) that
adverse effect on classroom learning, in turn, represents a substantial threat to trade and
commerce. Post, at 623. This analysis would be equally applicable, if not more so, to subjects
such as family law and direct regulation of education. For instance, if Congress can, pursuant
to its Commerce Clause power, regulate activities that adversely affect the learning
environment, then, a fortiori, it also can regulate the educational process directly. Congress
could determine that a school's curriculum has a "significant" effect on the extent of
classroom learning. As a result, Congress could mandate a federal curriculum for local
elementary and secondary schools because what is taught in local schools has a significant
"effect on classroom learning," cf. ibid., and that, in turn, has a substantial effect on
interstate commerce. Justice Breyer rejects our reading of precedent and argues that
"Congress . . . could rationally conclude that schools fall on the commercial side of the line."
Post,at 629. Again, Justice Breyer's rationale lacks any real limits because, depending on the
level of generality, any activity can be looked upon as commercial. Under the dissent's
rationale, Congress could just as easily look at child rearing as "fall[ing] on the commercial
side of the line" because it provides a "valuable service—namely, to equip [children] with the
skills they need to survive in life and, more specifically, in the workplace." Ibid. We do not
doubt that Congress 566*566 has authority under the Commerce Clause to regulate
numerous commercial activities that substantially affect interstate commerce and also affect
the educational process. That authority, though broad, does not include the authority to
regulate each and every aspect of local schools.

Vote negative -
Limits: they make thousands of small mandates fair game for the aff which makes neg prep
impossible since we can’t argue against every possible rule- only our interp forces affs to get
bigger which creates more clash and better debates
Legal precision: we have the most legally precise definition which is best for education
because it’s most in line with what governments can do which creates the best
simulations
June
6/1/17
 Consult Teacher Unions CP
Text: The United States federal government should enter into prior binding consultation
with the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, and all
other relevant teacher unions over whether <<INSERT PLAN>>.
The United States federal government will abide by the result of the consultation and
advocate for the proposal for the duration of the discussion.
Teacher Unions are important shapers of education policy in the country- working
with them is key to success in education
Rawls 12 Kristin Rawls, Freelance Writer, August 16, 2012, “ 6 Reasons Teacher Unions Are
Good For Kids”, Alternet, http://www.alternet.org/6-reasons-teachers-unions-are-good-kids,
VM
- Their anti-union studies are methodologically biased
- Lots of historical samples
- Study after study proves unions improve student performance
that teachers unions continue to play a vital role in the
Yet by a number of important measures, there is no doubt

health and wellbeing of our schools, the teachers who work in them and the children they
serve. Though the country’s two major teachers unions, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA), have taken
well deserved criticisms from the left for caving on charter schools and for uncritically supporting Democratic candidates who push for corporate education reform
just as Republicans do when it comes to helping build our children’s success, the fact is we need teachers unions today as much as we ever have. Here are six

1. Teachers unions are the only major educational

reasons teachers unions continue to be good for America’s kids:

players still focused on advancing school equity by leveling the playing field . For the most part, both
Democratic and Republican politicians have dispensed with the rhetoric about achieving true equality in education. Rarely do politicians propose policy measures
motivated by concerns about equity like school integration based on socioeconomic status or equitable school funding. These kinds of policies would help put
schools on equal footing, but today’s politicians ignore them in favor of various, ineffectual corporate reforms like school choice and teacher accountability, as well
as programs like Teach for America, whose popularity in these corners remains unconnected to actual success. Increasingly, it seems evident that the adoption of
these corporate reforms will not merely fail to address the core inequality issues that plague our education system, but they may actually make them worse. Writing
for Truthout, Paul Thomas, associate professor of education at Furman University, explains that a recent New York study suggests that “components of [this] ‘no
excuses’ education reform are likely to increase the current problems with social and educational equity, instead of addressing them.” The preface of this study also

corporate style reform has led to the growth of “apartheidlike” conditions. The growth of
indicates that, at least in New York City schools,

those conditions, in New York City and beyond, has led teachers unions to stand as perhaps the last, strong

advocates for equity in education. The AFT affiliated Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), for example, has been particularly vocal in its pushback
against market based reforms in Chicago Public Schools (CPS). As its Web site explains, “Students and their families recognize the apartheidlike system managed by
[Chicago Public Schools]. It denies resources to the neediest schools, uses discipline policies with a disproportionate harm on students of color, and enacts policies
that increase the concentrations of students in high poverty and racially segregated schools.” CTU has also pushed hard for specific reforms that address inequality,
including increasing the number of “school counselors, nurses, social workers, and psychologists… [who] serve Chicago’s population of low income students,” as

Alongside the advocacy of local union

well as bolstering programs that serve bilingual students and students with special needs.

operations like the CTU, the two largest teachers unions, AFT and NEA, also stand as bold
proponents of equity in education. Though they have become increasingly friendly to charter
schools in recent years, both organizations oppose most corporate reform measures that lead
to greater inequality, including underregulated school choice, which tends to create racially
and economically segregated public schools. And in an era in which many in the public arena
claim that inequitable funding is not the reason for school “failure,” both organizations
continue to lead the charge in pressing for more equity in school funding. For example, a decades long
commitment to equity by the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAENEA) in collaboration with Civil Rights activists famously led to the establishment of a
high achieving, relatively equitable school system in Wake County, North Carolina. Though the system has been under attack by conservative school choice
advocates for the past two years, the NCAENEA has a taken a leadership role in organizing opposition throughout the state alongside the NCNAACP. Their efforts
were rewarded last year, when a new school board majority endorsed by the NCAE took office and then, in June 2012, promised to restore the so called “diversity”
school assignment plan, which desegregates schools on the basis of economic inequality to ensure well funded, high quality schools throughout the large school

. Teachers unions fight to protect teachers’ First Amendment rights, allowing them to
system. 2

advocate for children and schools without facing retaliation. Teachers unions have long
fought to prevent political repercussions against members who speak out or disagree with
their superiors. The AFT was at the forefront of fighting some school districts’ requirements
that teachers take an anticommunist loyalty oath in the 1930’s, and again in the 1950’s. The
NEA also protested these oaths in the 1950s. The unions’ early commitment to academic and
political freedom helped provide teachers in union dense areas with freedoms to speak out
that they might not have otherwise had. This was, and remains, a very important protection
for teachers trying to advocate for their classrooms and individual students. Teacher Alicia Maud Wein of
New York State United Teachers told AlterNet that speech protections have been indispensible for her as she advocates on behalf of her students: "Without job
protections, the balance is tipped so heavily in favor of administration (who must prioritize issues like the budget, school reforms, and legislation) that teachers are
silenced. I know in my 15 year career I have had to respond in writing, at meetings or by speaking publicly on all of the above issues as a matter of course when
advocating for my students and what's best for their learning. Frequently, I have been in the position of airing those concerns to transient or inexperienced
administrative staff with whom I had not yet developed a working relationship. I would have been far too wary to do so if I thought it could mean a dismissal from

Teachers living in fear of losing

my job without due process, and those students would not have benefited from my experience and support…

their jobs are not in a position to speak up for their kids, fight for appropriate curricular
decisions, special education accommodations, funding, disciplinary actions, etc ." This advocacy can take
many forms, whether it involves advocating for individual students who need specific accommodations or working at the structural level with schools and school
districts. For example, NEA and AFT get involved when poor schools are missing an adequate supply of books or other course materials. NEA’s Priority Schools
Campaign helps the organization build networks in poor school districts so that they can proactively help teachers and administrators serve their students. NEA’s
grievance process allows the organization to follow up and ensure that kids have the books and other supplies they need. AFT’s similar procedures also provide
teachers with helpful avenues through which they can speak out to make sure students have enough materials. Just last month, AFT affiliates in Michigan and Ohio,
organized book drives that provided tens of thousands of new books to the homes of poor families with children. Without speech protections firmly in place,

. Schools with unionized teachers often produce higher

teachers would risk workplace retaliation for speaking out. 3

achieving students. Citing a well regarded 2002 study from Arizona State University, former
NEA head John Wilson told AlterNet that, "[Research] on this topic indicates higher student
achievement in unionized districts. That should make perfect sense if unions are creating
work places where teachers are better paid with better working conditions… [It] results in
attracting and retaining great teachers as well as having great learning conditions for
students. Show me a school district that invests in good education policy and funding
developed in collaboration with the teachers, and I will show you a high performing district."
As researcher Robert M. Carini notes in the study’s preface, at the time the study was
conducted “only 17 prominent studies [had] looked at the relationship between teacher
unions and achievement.” But he goes on to point out that, "The 12 studies that reported
favorable union effects [were] generally more methodologically sound than those that found
harmful effects. Studies that reported favorable effects used more extensive statistical
controls and were often conducted at the student level. In contrast, studies reporting harmful
effects were conducted at the state or district level, which, due to aggregation, are more
prone to error.” According to the ASU research, gains catalogued among students taught by
unionized teachers were notable: “Several studies found math, economics and SAT scores in
unionized schools improved more than in nonunionized schools. Increases in state
unionization led to increases in state SAT, ACT, and NAEP scores and improved graduation
rates. One analysis attributed lower SAT and ACT scores in the South to weaker unionization
there.” The impact of unionism on minority students was also of note, with “minority
students [showing] larger high school math gains in unionized schools than those in nonunion
schools.” And among male students, attending schools with unionized teachers appeared to
lower their probability of dropping out of high school. So all those popular myths about the deleterious effects of unions on
learning? Probably time to scrap ‘em. 4. Teachers unions help teachers get better. The conservative spin

generally implies that teacher protections like tenure protect bad teachers and suggest that
this reduces the quality of education. But Wein disputes this claim, noting that unions
provide invaluable opportunities for professional development and teacher improvement.
They guard against bad teaching most effectively by giving teachers the tools they need to
succeed rather than punishing them: "Teachers must have opportunity to study, to learn, to
develop their craft, to read education research, and to collaborate. We need to model
ourselves as learners for our students, to know our profession well, and be supported as we
address new state mandates and reform…Teaching is already a profession where more than 50 percent leave the profession before
the five year mark, which equals about 1,000 teachers per day. As inspiring and important as the work is, it can also be very fast paced and even overwhelming.
Students need and deserve well trained, experienced professionals in the classroom, and that doesn't happen without professional development, for which teacher

NEA sponsors a variety of both state specific and nationwide professional

unions fight tirelessly."

development programs. National programs range from support staff assistance to learning
how to be a mentor to training in collective action and bargaining. AFT promotes a holistic,
ongoing process of professional development. Its Web site states, “Professional development…should enable teachers to offer
students the learning opportunities that will prepare [students] to meet world class standards in given content areas and to successfully assume adult
responsibilities for citizenship and work.” Its Educational Research and Development Program (ER&D) was launched in 1981 to bring educators and researchers

. 5. Teachers unions protect student and

together to trade information about how to become a better teacher through using research

teacher safety in schools. Both the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) require good sanitation practices and cleanliness
in American public schools. But sometimes schools fail to meet minimal standards, and in
those cases it is often left to the unions to step up and advocate on behalf of teacher and
student safety. Norm Scott, a retired teacher and former building representative with the United Federation of Teachers of New York City told AlterNet
that the union “has insisted that each school have a safety plan, and the union has to sign off on the plan. At my former school, the union found that the boiler
room had asbestos, and the union jumped in [to fix the problem]. We couldn’t necessarily trust that our employer would do it independently. The union is called in
for most any heath issue.” For example, he says it has asked for an investigation into high incidents of cancer among teachers in some New York schools Often the

NEA hosts training for custodial staff

unions’ safety advocacy takes the form of support for greener schools and better indoor air quality.

that teaches practices that can help improve school air quality. “The goal of this training,”
according to NEA’s Web site, “is to assist NEA state and local affiliates create local association
IAQ [Indoor Air Quality] action plans and to provide custodial staff with the tools, tips and
resources that will help them improve and maintain a quality indoor environment.” This
makes schools safer for both students and teachers. AFT, meanwhile, published its own guide
to greener, more sustainable schools in 2008, citing research showing “that better
environmental quality yields more productive human beings and greater academic
achievement for all students.” Both organizations also support local and state campaigns for
healthier, greener schools. 6. Teachers unions oppose school vouchers. Both NEA and AFT
have always advocated against school vouchers that is, tax entitlements diverted from public
funds that assist parents with private school tuition, including religious instruction. Vouchers
divert money from public school systems already strapped for resources, and both unions
have campaigned tirelessly against voucher programs cropping up throughout the United
States. According to AFT, “vouchers don’t improve outcomes for kids who receive them or drive improvements in nearby neighborhood schools.” Not only this,
the organization points out, but voucher programs rely on false advertising to promote their mission: “Although much of the pro voucher rhetoric uses the word

In areas where voucher programs exist,

‘choice,’ in practice it is the private schools that choose the kids, not the other way around.

private school operators decide whether they want taxpayers to subsidize their schools. They
also decide how many, if any, voucher students they will admit.” NEA, meanwhile, notes that
it “oppose[s] alternatives that divert attention, energy, and resources from efforts to reduce
class size, enhance teacher quality, and provide every student with books, computers, and
safe and orderly schools” and vouchers are certainly one such “alternative.” Affiliates of both
organizations have been important organizers against a far reaching voucher program introduced this year in Louisiana. NEA affiliates in the state threatened to sue
individual schools last month, alleging that vouchers are “an unconstitutional payment of public funds.” AFT affiliates, meanwhile, requested a “hearing at which
critiques, comments and suggestions for improvements can be made in regard to accountability standards for private and religious schools that will accept vouchers
this fall.” The organization says accountability measures for these schools in Louisiana are more or less nonexistent, noting that there are very few checks in place to

So, if the health and well being of students and

ensure that children receive a high quality private school education.

teachers is what matters to you, avoid joining the popular chorus against teachers unions in
the United States. Current and future students will benefit from having them in classrooms
for a long time to come.

Unions improve the economy

Walters and Mishel 3 Matthew Walters, former research assistant, and Lawrence Mishel,
president of Economic Policy Institute and Ph.D. Economics UW-Madison , August 26, 2003,
“How unions help all workers”, Economic Policy Institute,
http://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_bp143/, VM
Unions have a substantial impact on the compensation and work lives of both unionized and non-unionized workers. This report presents
current data on unions’ effect on wages, fringe benefits, total compensation, pay inequality, and workplace protections. Some of the
conclusions are: Unions
raise wages of unionized workers by roughly 20% and raise compensation,
including both wages and benefits, by about 28%. Unions reduce wage inequality because
they raise wages more for low- and middle-wage workers than for higher-wage workers,
more for blue-collar than for white-collar workers, and more for workers who do not have a
college degree. Strong unions set a pay standard that nonunion employers follow. For
example, a high school graduate whose workplace is not unionized but whose industry is 25%
unionized is paid 5% more than similar workers in less unionized industries. The impact of
unions on total nonunion wages is almost as large as the impact on total union wages. The most
sweeping advantage for unionized workers is in fringe benefits. Unionized workers are more likely than their nonunionized counterparts to
receive paid leave, are approximately 18% to 28% more likely to have employer-provided health insurance, and are 23% to 54% more likely to
be in employer-provided pension plans. Unionized workers receive more generous health benefits than nonunionized workers. They also pay
18% lower health care deductibles and a smaller share of the costs for family coverage. In retirement, unionized workers are 24% more likely to
be covered by health insurance paid for by their employer. Unionized workers receive better pension plans. Not only are they more likely to
have a guaranteed benefit in retirement, their employers contribute 28% more toward pensions. Unionized workers receive 26% more vacation
time and 14% more total paid leave (vacations and holidays). Unions play a pivotal role both in securing legislated labor protections and rights
such as safety and health, overtime, and family/medical leave and in enforcing those rights on the job. Because unionized workers are more
informed, they are more likely to benefit from social insurance programs such as unemployment insurance and workers compensation.
Unions are thus an intermediary institution that provides a necessary complement to
legislated benefits and protections.
<<Insert Economy Impact>>
 T Card for Non-school Education
Education isn’t just school – libraries, museums, parks, community centers, and other
sites of knowledge are public education.
McDonald 17 - (Kerry McDonald, education choice advocate in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 5-
30-2017, "Public Education Vs. Public Schooling",
https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2017/05/30/public-education-vs-public-
schooling/#48670f3a248a, DOA: 6-1-2017) //Snowball
The primary difference between public education and public schooling is that the former is
openly accessible and self-directed, while the latter is compulsory and coercive. Both are
community-based and taxpayer-funded; both can lead to an educated citizenry. But public
education--like public libraries, public museums, public parks, community centers, and so on—
can support the education efforts of individuals, families, and local organizations with
potentially better outcomes than the static system of mass schooling.
6/2/17
 Federal Action useless
Federal role in education is tiny- the power and change lies in state and local levels-
means acting through the federal government is meaningless outside emergencies
U.S. Department of Education, no date, “The Federal Role in Education”,
https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/role.html, VM
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
2012-2013, a substantial majority will come from State, local, and private sources. This is
especially true at the elementary and secondary level, where about 92 percent of the funds
will come from non-Federal sources. That means the Federal contribution to elementary and
secondary education is about 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. Although ED's share of total education funding in the U.S. is relatively small, ED works hard to get a big bang for its taxpayer-
provided bucks by targeting its funds where they can do the most good. This targeting reflects the historical
development of the Federal role in education as a kind of "emergency response system," a
means of filling gaps in State and local support for education when critical national needs
arise.
 AT States CP (federal key)
Federal action first spurs better state government education policy
Brown et al 11 Cynthia G. Brown, Vice President for Education Policy at the Center for
American Progress, Frederick M. Hess, resident scholar and director of education policy studies
at American Enterprise Institute, Daniel K. Lautzenheiser, research assistant in education policy
at the American Enterprise Institute, and Isabel Owen, Policy Analyst for Education Policy at
American Progress, July 2011, Center for American Progress, American Enterprise Institute, and
the Broad Foundation for Education, “State Education Agencies as Agents of Change What It
Will Take for the States to Step Up On Education Reform”,
https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2011/07/pdf/sea.pdf, VM
- SEAs = state education agencies
Role of the federal government Provide political cover to states to drive improvement Whether
one embraces the direction
of its efforts or not, it is clear that the federal government has the ability to use funding,
statute, and rule-writing to promote changes within SEAs. Under the pressures brought by the No Child Left
Behind Act, for example, SEAs developed state standards and assessments (of varying quality), designed accountability systems, and established
data systems. Federal
incentive programs like Race to the Top and the Teacher Incentive Fund
offered substantial financial rewards to states that took steps toward turning around low
performing schools and overhauling data and teacher evaluation systems. These federal
programs catalyzed dramatic change and gave SEAs the ability to push an agenda that many
governors or legislatures would not have adopted on their own. The power of political cover
cannot be ignored, and the federal government should continue to impel states to reform. At
the same time, would-be reformers would do well to note that while the federal government can prod states to act, it can’t force them to do
something that they don’t want to do. This is less a problem for easily gauged activities such as states annually testing in reading and math or
reporting subgroup scores, and becomes an issue when the measures are more subjective, such as states strengthening charter school
authorizing or devising an effective strategy to turn around low-performing schools. Unless officials in a given state are
seeking an excuse to act, it is very possible for federal encouragement to spur compliance
rather than coherent reform. Grant flexibility around federal strictures State chiefs make clear that SEAs would benefit from a
fresh look at restrictions tied to federal funding and federal rule making. Existing rules and regulations tied to federal
funding came of age in an era when there was little or no data on school and state
performance, when education governance was almost entirely focused on inputs, and when
de jure racial segregation was an active concern. The result was federal policy that very
consciously sought to tightly regulate the use of federal funds, often with little concern for
how federal requirements might handicap state and district educators. Dating to the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act of 1965, federal and state bureaucrats have written rules and regulations that remain on the books, creating a vast
paper burden, forcing SEAs to spend enormous energy complying with federal rules, and hindering the ability of state chiefs seeking to move
from a compliance to a performance mindset in the accountability era. When the No Child Left Behind Act was adopted in 2001, the federal
government embraced the “accountability” half of the “reinventing government” equation, but failed to free newly accountable officials from
decades of micromanagement and accumulated rules. Needed is a concerted effort at the U.S. Department of Education, in the Office of
Management and Budget, and in the Congress to take a public look at what the federal government demands of states and to scour those
books for burdens and requirements that can be effectively loosened or dropped in the 21st century. Scrutinize how federal demands shape
culture and practice in SEAs Federal
activity has helped foster a bifurcated, stifling culture in SEAs .
Bifurcated, because agency officials working on federal reporting are often regarded as
something of a privileged group, with their own training and networks and the ability to
intimidate even high-ranking state officials by warning of potential federal displeasure with
this or that action. Stifling, because decades of accumulated rules have led to strata of
procedural, restrictive interpretations of federal guidelines. State officials are forced to
operate in accord with regulations developed by federal officials in the input-focused 1970s
and 1980s, rather than what might make sense today. One consequence is that federal
officials can insist that they have created flexibility for state officials, but risk-averse SEA
bureaucrats will continue to tell school districts and state officials that an action is
impermissible—because they’ve worked at the agency for 15 years, and it’s been impermissible for that period. The flexibility promoted
by political appointees at the U.S. Department of Education is not forcefully penetrating the established routines of federal career civil servants
or the ranks of SEA veterans. Rethinking
not only what the federal government mandates and formally
requires, but also how it signals its openness to creative, performance-based problem solving,
is essential.
6/3/17
 Men ≠ Feminists
Sexism is a lived experience and so feminism is a lived advocacy – men don’t have the
right to it.
Alimi 17 - (Bisi Alimi, Nigerian gay rights activist, public speaker, blog writer and HIV/LGBT
advocate, Jan 7, 2017, "Men Can’t Be Feminists – The Development Set",
https://thedevelopmentset.com/male-feminism-is-fakery-be-a-femally-f109ef37e9a3, DOA: 6-
3-2017) //Snowball
This kind of unconscious bias and discrimination is just one example of the challenges women have to live through on a daily basis.
Hundreds of thousands of women have shared their stories of #EverydaySexism, of being assaulted,
dismissed, looked over, and talked down to by men. In a recent story, a woman recounted how her boss wished
male employees Happy New Year by shaking hands but demanded a kiss from her. She quit soon after. Gender-based violence is
a frequent form of discrimination, including by men in power. Across England and Wales, the “most serious
corruption issue facing” the (mainly male) police service is police officers sexually abusing female victims and suspects, including survivors of
domestic abuse. In the U.S., Donald Trump will become President this month despite bragging about grabbing women
by their private parts, a form of sexual assault that 23% of American women have experienced in public spaces. This kind of abuse
is also often accompanied by victim-blaming. On New Year’s Eve, men sexually assaulted numerous
women in Bangalore, India, and the (male) Home Minister for the area partially blamed women for copying
“Westerners” in their dressing. In Nigeria, in recent conversations about addressing domestic violence, a leading (male)
constitutional lawyer and rights activist blamed women for not reporting incidents of
violence they face. Some might argue that people should be allowed to call themselves whatever
they want, and that my stance is perhaps petty or minute. That if well-meaning men believe in gender
equality, they can call themselves feminists. That liberals shoot themselves in the foot with this kind of nitpicking. That
standing up for one’s sister, aunt, mother, daughter, or significant other makes one a feminist. But to me, lived experience is
important, as are the labels we give ourselves. If you have not personally been cat-called,
victim-blamed, or made to feel uncomfortable at your job because of your gender identity, then
you have no legitimate right to call yourself a feminist.
 Funding key to Competiveness
Education funding is key to competitiveness – Epstein 11
(Diana Epstein September 6th, 2011 “Investing in education Powers US competitiveness”
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/reports/2011/09/06/10376/investing-in-
education-powers-u-s-competitiveness/)
Education is the key to American competitiveness and a strong economy, and continued federal
investment in education is needed in order to support improvements in student achievement
and put our economy on the path to sustained growth. The United States suffers from persistent differences in achievement between
groups of students defined by race/ethnicity or family income, and our students also rank well behind those in economically

competitive countries on international tests. We must continue to invest in education in order to create a system that is more equitable and that
produces American students who are more competitive in the global marketplace for talent. Too few of our students are performing at the

levels needed to compete for the high-skill jobs that allow us to maintain global
competitiveness. Only 33 percent of fourth graders and 33 percent of eighth graders scored at or above proficient in reading on the 2009 NAEP exam; only 39 percent of
fourth graders and 34 percent of eighth graders were at or above proficient in mathematics. Furthermore, achievement tests demonstrate

that international competitors are performing better than U.S. students, and in a globalized
economy we cannot afford to fall any further behind. Research shows that investment in
education is essential for our country’s short- and long-term economic growth. A recent report by McKinsey &
Company estimates that bringing lower-performing states up to the national average between 1983 and 1998 would have added $425 billion to $710 billion to our 2008 GDP. Closing the
racial/ethnic and income achievement gaps between 1983 and 1998 would have also added to our GDP. The estimates are that closing the racial/ethnic gap would have added $310 billion to

Continuing to tolerate
$525 billion by 2008 and closing the income achievement gap would have added between $400 billion and $670 billion to our 2008 GDP.

these achievement gaps is tantamount to accepting a chronic, self-induced economic recession.

Closing the international achievement gap between 1983 and 1998 would have added
$1.3 trillion to $2.3 trillion to our 2008 GDP. Another study found that increasing students’
scores on the PISA test by 25 points—one-fourth of a standard deviation—between 2010 and
2030 would result in economic gains for OECD countries. U.S. students currently rank below the
students from many OECD countries on this test, but if the United States and other countries
improved by this amount, the payoff to the United States would be more than $40 trillion by
2090.
6/4/17
 World Solves Warming w/o Trump
The world will solve global warming with or without Trump.
Rabinowitz 17 - (Abby Rabinowitz, has written for New Republic, The New York Times, and
The Guardian, and teaches a class on sustainable development, 2-28-2017, "Can the World Beat
Climate Change Without the U.S.?", https://newrepublic.com/article/141000/can-world-beat-
climate-change-without-us, DOA: 6-5-2017) //Snowball
Here is the good news: Other countries, not led by climate deniers, are not poised to abandon their greenhouse
gas–cutting commitments. Last November, participants from all signatory nations for Paris gathered
in Marrakech, Morocco, to work on next steps. When the results from our 2016 presidential election
rolled in, they kept working. “There were thousands of people trying to solve problems,” said
Christoph Gebald, founder of a Swiss carbon-capture start-up, reminding The New Republic that Trump is just one person. “The world
keeps on turning.” In the U.S., states like California, which is now passing bills to lock in
Obama-era federal and state environmental regulations, and city mayors from both red and
blue states affirmed their commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Business leaders
were also on board. During the Marrakech convention, more than 360 companies and
investors, including DuPont, eBay, Nike, Unilever, and Starbucks, wrote an open letter calling for the U.S. to
remain in Paris (it now has almost 900 signatures). Why? Because investing in renewable energies is good
economics, and not merely because rising sea levels are expected to literally swamp Wall
Street. The global economy is “set” toward de-carbonization with or without the Trump
administration. That’s what Christiana Figueres, the Costa Rican diplomat who led the Paris Climate Agreement, told CNN’s Christiane
Amanpour earlier this month. “It’s not set by ideology. It is set by economics, and it is set by the
advance of technology,” Figueres said. She pointed out that, in the U.S., one out of every 50 jobs is in solar
energy, and argued that if the United States doesn’t meet demands for cheap renewable
energy, China and India will. The data bears her out. In April, Bloomberg reported that investments in wind and solar were
beating fossil fuels two to one and that solar power in December was for the first time the cheapest source of electricity on the market, selling
for half the price of coal in energy auctions in India and Chile. Reassuringly, the
U.S. Congress recently extended the
federal tax credits that incentivize wind and solar to 2019 and 2021, respectively. As these
credits are popular in red states in the Great Plains, Congress may be loath to repeal them .
6/5/17
 Debate Hyper-rational
The deliberative discussion of debate is hyper-rational and ignores the affective and
subconscious modes of students.
Backer 17 - (David I. Backer is an assistant professor in the College of Education and Social
Work at West Chester University of Pennsylvania, 2017, "The Critique of Deliberative
Discussion", Democracy & Education, vol 25, no. 1,
http://democracyeducationjournal.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1300&amp;context=home,
DOA: 6-5-2017) //Snowball
Deliberative discussion’s emphasis on giving reasons tends not to mention emotion, by which I mean
feelings, desires, drives, affects, and other interior modes/moods that are not conscious, rational, or
reasonable. People in discussion feel things as well as think things, and insofar as democracies
include flesh-and-blood people rather than minds one-dimensionally wired for giving reasons, it
behooves us to consider what those emotions are like during discussion: namely, what is happening for
participants unconsciously when they put forth reasons. Ruitenberg (2009) drew from Mouffe’s psychoanalytic
influences to critique deliberative democracy from this perspective. “As psychoanalysts realized long ago,” Ruitenberg wrote,
“the suppression of fundamental desires and emotions will not make those desires and emotions disappear,
but only defer their manifestation” (p. 3). From this insight, Mouffe worried that repressing desire and emotion can lead to
tribalism. When it comes to classroom discussion, though, this deferred manifestation can directly contradict the
supposed democratic character of the discussion, but in a different way than Mouffe’s worry about tribalism. Theories
of discussion like the deliberativedemocratic model that advocate the suppression of desires (see Englund below)
can overlook monarchical tendencies in group dynamics, no matter how much emphasis teachers place on rational
deliberation. To see exactly how this works, I would consult Freud’s (1975) Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. Freud claimed
throughout his oeuvre, and in this helpful book in particular, that people
in groups are not merely conscious minds pursuing rational
interest. They also have an unconscious inner lives that inform their behavior. These unconscious lives are driven
by love, desire, and sexuality. Freud noted some trends in how psyches (conscious minds and unconscious inner lives) operate when they get
together in groups. One thing psyches do is fall in love, become attached, and project previous love-loss
experiences onto others in the world, particularly those with authority. When several psyches, like students, do this
together with the same person, like a teacher in a classroom, the psyches become partially hypnotized by the person in charge, which
alters the way they think and react. Student psyches can tend to treat the teacher like a parent figure, desiring the teacher or
identifying with them or rejecting them. The students then treat one another like siblings (see Britzman, 2003). Reason has very little to do with
this process and, if left unchecked, can quickly create a monarchical classroom politics where the teacher is a
king-father (Backer, forthcoming).

The rationality of discussion ignores personal subjectivity and assumes an equal

deliberative subject.
Backer 17 - (David I. Backer is an assistant professor in the College of Education and Social
Work at West Chester University of Pennsylvania, 2017, "The Critique of Deliberative
Discussion", Democracy & Education, vol 25, no. 1,
http://democracyeducationjournal.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1300&amp;context=home,
DOA: 6-5-2017) //Snowball
Samuelsson’s (2016) reflective requirement entails a willingness to listen to others’ reasons in discussion. But not
all students and
teachers will be willing to listen to one another equally: They may be sexist, racist, classist,
xenophobic, homophobic, ableist, or otherwise discriminatory against one another’s identities.
Deliberative democracy tends to downplay how racialized, classed, and gendered identities
prevent harmonious interaction, rarely mentioning that it may be difficult for a man to listen
to a woman putting forth reasons, or difficult for a White person to listen to a Black person
putting forth reasons, a trans person to a cis person, and vice versa. Solnit (2014) has popularized the term
mansplaining to refer to the way men speak in privileged ways, for instance, and conversation analysts have demonstrated the many ways
gender influences speech habits (Tannen, 1993). Often, advocates of deliberative democracy like Englund reduce
these critiques to identity politics. But this is misleading. As Ruitenberg (2010) pointed out, “liberalism, in
its emphasis on the individual, has underestimated the importance of belonging to
collectivities” (p. 3). Focusing solely on the individual is a predictable move for liberal-deliberative theories. What they call
identity is also group membership, and people who participate in discussions belong to
collectivities whose habits, epistemologies, and histories can diverge dramatically—even to
the point where it is difficult to listen to people who belong to different collectivities , particularly
oppressor collectivities.
6/6/17
 History Masks American Violence
The educational insistence on a definitive narrative masks the horrors of America’s
past.
Conway 15 - (Michael Conway, writer based in Chicago, 3-16-2015, "The Problem With History
Classes", https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/03/the-problem-with-history-
classes/387823/, DOA: 6-6-2017) //Snowball
Although there may be an inclination to seek to establish order where there is chaos, that urge
must be resisted in teaching history. Public controversies over memory are hardly new.
Students must be prepared to confront divisiveness, not conditioned to shoehorn agreement
into situations where none is possible. Historiography is potentially freeing for the next generation of
students. When conflict is accepted rather than resisted, it becomes possible for different
conceptions of American history to co-exist. There is no longer a need to appoint a victor. More importantly, the
historiographical approach avoids pursuing truth for the sake of satisfying a national myth.
Fisher’s demand for a curriculum that covers "American exceptionalism," a term that often risks masking
the horrors of America’s past with its greatest triumphs, hints at this risk. The country’s founding
fathers crafted some of the finest expressions of personal liberty and representative government the world
has ever seen; many of them also held fellow humans in bondage. This paradox is only a problem if the goal is to
view the founding fathers as faultless, perfect individuals. If multiple histories are embraced, no one needs to fear that one history will be lost.
Lionization and demonization are best left to the heroes and villains of fairy tales. History
is not indoctrination. It is a
wrestling match. For too long, the emphasis has been on pinning the opponent . It is time to shift the
focus to the struggle itself. Conflict does not necessarily demand a resolution. Disagreements among
highly educated, well-informed people will continue. Why should history ignore this reality?
There is no better way to use the past to inform the present than by accepting the
impossibility of a definitive history—and by ensuring that current students are equipped to grapple with the contested
memories in their midst.
 History and Segregation
History is sugarcoated to disguise the oppressive grip of government
on African Americans

National Public Radio 15- (Richard Rothstein is a research associate of the Economic
Policy Institute and a Fellow at the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense
Fund. He lives in California, where is a Fellow of the Haas Institute at the University of
California-Berkeley.)

Rothstein, Richard. "Historian Says Don't 'Sanitize' How Our Government Created Ghettos." Interview by Terry Gross. National
Public Radio. Fresh Air, 14 May 2015. Web. 6 June 2017.

Fifty years after the repeal of Jim Crow, many African-Americans still live in segregated
ghettos in the country's metropolitan areas. Richard Rothstein, a research associate at the Economic Policy
Institute, has spent years studying the history of residential segregation in America.

"We have a myth today that the ghettos in metropolitan areas around the country are what
the Supreme Court calls 'de-facto' — just the accident of the fact that people have not
enough income to move into middle class neighborhoods or because real estate agents steered black and
white families to different neighborhoods or because there was white flight," Rothstein tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross.

"It was not the unintended effect of benign policies," he says. "It was an explicit, racially
purposeful policy that was pursued at all levels of government, and that's the reason we have these
ghettos today and we are reaping the fruits of those policies."

On using the word "ghetto"

One of the ways in which we forget our history is by sanitizing our language and pretending
that these problems don't exist. We have always recognized that these were "ghettos." A
ghetto is, as I define it, a neighborhood which is homogeneous and from which there are
serious barriers to exit. That's the technical definition of a ghetto.

Robert Weaver, the first African-American member of the Cabinet appointed by President Johnson as his secretary of Housing
and Urban Development, described many of the policies that I've described today in a book he published in 1948 called The
Negro Ghetto.

The Kerner Commission referred to the ghetto.

This is a term that we no longer use because we're embarrassed to talk about it, and we need
to confront our history and stop sanitizing our language and talk openly about what we've
done as a nation and what we need to do to undo it. And we can't talk openly if we're going
to use euphemisms instead of being explicit about what the reality is.
On how the New Deal's Public Works Administration led to the creation of segregated ghettos

Its policy was that public housing could be used only to house people of the same race as the neighborhood in which it was
located, but, in fact, most of the public housing that was built in the early years was built in integrated neighborhoods, which
they razed and then built segregated public housing in those neighborhoods. So public housing created racial segregation
where none existed before. That was one of the chief policies.

On the Federal Housing Administration's overtly racist policies in the 1930s, '40s and '50s

The second policy, which was probably even more effective in segregating metropolitan areas, was the Federal Housing
Administration, which financed mass production builders of subdivisions starting in the '30s and then going on to the '40s and
'50s in which those mass production builders, places like Levittown [New York] for example, and Nassau County in New York
and in every metropolitan area in the country, the
Federal Housing Administration gave builders like
Levitt concessionary loans through banks because they guaranteed loans at lower interest
rates for banks that the developers could use to build these subdivisions on the condition
that no homes in those subdivisions be sold to African-Americans.

On real estate agents' practice of "blockbusting"

In the ghettos, government policy — municipal policy, for example — denied adequate
services, garbage wasn't collected frequently. African-Americans were crowded into
neighborhoods in the ghetto because so much other housing was closed to them and as a
result, housing prices in ghettos were much higher than similar housing in white areas. Rents
were much higher than similar housing in white areas ... because you had a smaller supply.
It's the basic laws of supply and demand. ... So this created slum conditions.
6/7/17
 AT: Plan Popular - Rhetoric
Politicians love to make rhetorical commitments to education reform, but hate having
to follow through on them because other priorities are key to their re-election.
Isackson 17 - (Peter Isackson is the chief visionary officer of SkillScaper and the creator of
innovative solutions for learning in the 21st century, 6-8-2017, "Red Margins in Public Education
Debate", https://www.fairobserver.com/region/north_america/american-public-schools-
education-usa-latest-world-news-analysis-today-74102/, DOA: 6-7-2017) //Snowball
Few would disagree with this suggestion. But such a pious wish begs more questions than our thinkers and politicians have answers to and
skirts the real issues, which one would expect any venture capitalist to be immediately aware of. How much would this cost and who will pay
for it? And politicians, who will unanimously affirm their approval of the idea, will then add: “But do we
really need to think about these issues now, when there are so many other priorities, such as
reducing taxes for the rich and protecting the population from Islamic terrorism?” In recent months,
the one initiative concerning education that governments in the United States and the United Kingdom have taken action on is the
elimination of free school lunches. This presumably brings home the essential lesson dear to neoliberal economists that “there’s no such thing
as a free lunch.” Although
they are unlikely to admit it in public, politicians understand that long-
term processes such as educational reform and investment in infrastructure cannot compete with short-
term issues, such as homeland security or military operations abroad, especially when reducing
taxes is the key to getting re-elected. There’s never enough money to go around, so let’s deal
with the issues that panic us today. Total spending for homeland security since September 11,
2001, has been calculated at $635.9 billion, without taking into account the trillions spent on
wars ostensibly justified by the same political objective. US President Donald Trump has now
proposed to cut $9.2 billion from the already modest federal budget for education in 2018, reducing
it to $59 billion while boosting investment in charter schools and vouchers for private education, which amounts to a transfer of both funds and
responsibility to the private sector. On the subject of renewal and adapting to new conditions, the key issues cited by Westly, The Atlantic
reports that “Trump’s budget plan would remove $2.4 billion in grants for teacher training.” One
could reasonably conclude
after studying these figures that nothing serious will be done in the United States, at least in the
next four years, to implement the measures all the experts and visionaries have identified as
a necessity for the economy and the future of the country. But Trump is hardly innovating when he further marginalizes
education. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair claimed in 2001 that “our top priority was, is and
always will be education, education, education.” History tells us where he ended up focusing his
government’s attention, and it wasn’t on education. To the extent that Blair’s government did invest in education, it
turned out to be a failure, replacing teaching with “little more than exam indoctrination,” a trend that both George W. Bush and Barack Obama
followed in the US, with their respective programs No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.
6/8/17
 Neoliberalism Link – School Choice
School choice is the marketization of public sector education and neoliberalizes the
system.
Blakely 17 - (Jason Blakely, assistant professor of political philosophy at Pepperdine University,
4-17-2017, "How School Choice Turns Education Into a Commodity",
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/04/is-school-choice-really-a-form-of-
freedom/523089/, DOA: 6-8-2017) //Snowball //the middle part of the card that seems to
advocate for neoliberalism is quoting DeVos, not the article author
Making educational funding “portable” is part of a much wider political movement that began in the
1970s—known to scholars as neoliberalism—which views the creation of markets as necessary for the
existence of individual liberty. In the neoliberal view, if your public institutions and spaces don’t
resemble markets, with a range of consumer options, then you aren’t really free. The goal of
neoliberalism is thereby to rollback the state, privatize public services, or (as in the case of
vouchers) engineer forms of consumer choice and market discipline in the public sector. DeVos is a
fervent believer in neoliberalizing education—spending millions of dollars on and devoting herself to political activism for
the spread of voucher-system schooling. In a speech on educational reform from 2015, DeVos expressed her long-held view
that the public-school system needs to be reengineered by the government to mimic a
market. The failure to do so, she warned, would be the stagnation of an education system run monopolistically by the government: We are
the beneficiaries of start-ups, ventures, and innovation in every other area of life, but we don’t have that in education because it’s a closed
system, a closed industry, a closed market. It’s a monopoly, a dead end. And the best and brightest innovators and risk-takers steer way clear of
it. As long as education remains a closed system, we will never see the education equivalents of Google, Facebook, Amazon, PayPal, Wikipedia,
or Uber. We won’t see any real innovation that benefits more than a handful of students. Many Americans now find DeVos’s
neoliberal way of thinking commonsensical. After all, people have the daily experience of being able to choose
competing consumer products on a market. Likewise, many Americans rightly admire entrepreneurial pluck. Shouldn’t the
intelligence and creativity of Silicon Valley’s markets be allowed to cascade down over public
education, washing the system clean of its encrusted bureaucracy? What much fewer people
realize is that the argument over “school of choice” is only the latest chapter in a decades-
long political struggle between two models of freedom—one based on market choice and the
other based on democratic participation. Neoliberals like DeVos often assume that organizing public spaces like a market
must lead to beneficial outcomes. But in doing so, advocates of school of choice ignore the political
ramifications of the marketization of shared goods like the educational system .
6/9/17
 Cities K2 Warming – Nation Fails
The worst impacts of climate change can only be prevented by individual cities, not
sweeping national reforms.
Barber 17 - (Benjamin Barber, Benjamin Barber was Distinguished Senior Fellow at Fordham
Law School's Urban Consortium, 6-5-2017, "It’s Time for Cities to Take the Lead in the Struggle
Against Climate Change", https://www.thenation.com/article/us-abdicated-role-climate-
struggle-can-cities-take-place/, DOA: 6-9-2017) //Snowball //the author of this card does not
endorse the offensive language included in a quotation within the text
The science of human survival is political science. Survival depends on sustainability and resilience, and the means to
sustainability and resilience are political. It is for survival (security) that naturally free human beings enter into a
social contract and bind themselves to obey the sovereign governing bodies they establish. Centuries
ago, when the idea of a social contract was established in the West, the sovereign governing bodies able to secure life and
liberty were conceived as nation-states. But as the world has become more global and interdependent,
sovereign nations and their international networks have grown less effective, sometimes even
dysfunctional. Survival—a sustainable world—depends more and more on citizens acting locally in the
name of global goods, of which climate change and decarbonization are prime examples. Sustainability today entails
glocality, action that is simultaneously local and global . Municipal policies must be crafted with an eye on their impact
not over months or even years but over generations, as well as among communities and peoples across the interdependent planet. Of the
many threats to a sustainable world, none is more dramatic and perilous than human-
induced climate change and its consequences, which include global warming, sea-level rise, and extreme weather. The
collective impact of these consequences is putting civilization at risk—indeed, perhaps putting
life on earth at risk. For even though as Lynn Margulis liked to say, “Gaia is a tough bitch,” whether the planet is tough enough to deal
with our species’ hubris is yet to be seen. I propose in this volume to address climate change by focusing on municipal approaches to renewable
energy and a non-carbon economy, to decarbonization in a metropolitan setting. Cities
can do decarbonization, and when
they act interdependently, they can do it on a scale relevant to global warming. The agency
and actions needed are urban and local rather than national. Cities are home to more than half of
the human population and more than three-quarters of the population of developed nations. They
generate 80 percent of global GDP as well as 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. They also suffer the lion’s share
of the economic damage from extreme weather events and sea-level rise. Along with agriculture, they consume much of the planet’s water,
and the metropolitan regions they define house the factories and plants that run on carbon energy and account
for a preponderance of carbon emissions. Private-sector automobiles and trucks are massively
polluting, and public transit systems, unless they are upgraded and electrified, make things worse. The
density and lack of green space in cities make them an environmental problem from the get go. Yet
density also gives them a smaller collective carbon footprint per capita than suburbs or rural regions. Cities are the problem. But
cities, as both the prime sources and prime victims of climate change, can also be agents of
remediation: politics at the municipal level may prove the equal of climate change at the
global level. We can take the solution into our own hands. Whether we will is the question of the hour, and of
the millennium.
6/10/17
 Global WARming
Climate change drives global war – 12 reasons – mitigation should be the highest
priority globally.
Chow 17 - (Lorraine Chow, reporter, citing Center for Climate and Security, 9 June 2017,
"Security Experts Identify 12 Likely Triggers of War as the Planet Warms",
https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change-national-security-2438142951.html, DOA: 6-10-
2017) //Snowball
Climate change isn't just causing glaciers to melt, sea levels to rise and forests to set fire. It has becoming increasingly evident that Earth's
rising temperatures also threatens international security. In fact, an analysis released Friday by the
Center for Climate and Security has identified 12 "epicenters," or categories, where the world's rising
temperatures could trigger major global conflict. "Any one of the climate and security epicenters can
be disruptive," said Caitlin Werrell, co-president of the Center for Climate and Security and editor of the report, Epicenters of Climate
and Security: The New Geostrategic Landscape of the Anthropocene. "Taken together, however, these epicenters can
present a serious challenge to international security as we understand it." The categories include eroding state
sovereignty, low-lying nations going underwater, as well as the disruption in the global coffee trade that employs 125 million people worldwide.
Previous studies have identified how terrorist groups in certain regions are taking advantage of increasingly
scarce natural resources such as water and food as a "weapon of war." Additionally, a U.S. military report
from 2014 called climate change a "catalyst for conflict" and a "threat multiplier." President Obama
once said that "no challenge poses a great threat than climate change, and it's an "immediate risk to our
national security." Meanwhile, President Trump and many top officials in his administration brush off or reject the
science of climate change. Conservative media has also mocked the idea that climate change is related to the growth of terrorism.
And let's not forget Trump's middle finger to the world when he dropped the U.S. out of the Paris
climate agreement, which has been signed by every nation on Earth except war-torn Syria and Nicaragua, which didn't think the accord
was strong enough. The Center for Climate and Security report stresses why mitigating climate change should be the
highest priority for governments and institutions around the world. "This report
demonstrates the kind of cross-sectorial thinking needed to anticipate and mitigate climate-
related systemic risks—risks that will be disruptive at local, national, regional and global levels," said Francesco Femia, co-president
of the Center for Climate and Security and editor of the report. "Security risks thousands of miles away can have an effect on us at home.
Understanding that can help advance preventive rather than reactive solutions." These are the 12 epicenters identified by the
security experts in the report: 1.
Eroding State Sovereignty: An inability to absorb the stresses of a rapidly-changing climate may
erode state sovereignty (Francesco Femia and Caitlin Werrell); 2. Disappearing Nations: Many low-lying nations are in danger of
being completely submerged by rising seas (Andrew Holland and Esther Babson); 3. Conflict Over Melting Water
Towers: Climate change can increase tensions and conflict among the 4 billion people dependent on mountain “water
towers" (Troy Sternberg); 4. Conflict Over Fisheries: A warming ocean is driving critical fish stocks into
contested waters, contributing to conflict between states (Michael Thomas); 5. Tensions in a Melting Arctic:
Increased activity in a melting Arctic raises new security and geopolitical risks (Katarzyna Zysk and
David Titley); 6. Weaponized Water: As climate change exacerbates water stress, non-state actors, including international
terrorist organizations, are increasingly using water as a weapon (Marcus King and Julia Burnell); 7. Disrupted
Strategic Trade Routes: Climate change will place strains on maritime straits that are critical for global
trade and security (Adam H. Goldstein and Constantine Samaras); 8. Compromised Coffee Trade: Climate change
may also disrupt critical global trading networks, like the coffee trade. which currently supports 125 million people
worldwide (Shiloh Fetzek); 9. More (and Worse) Pandemics: Climate change may increase the
likelihood and range of pandemics, which could threaten global security (Kaleem Hawa); 10. Flooded Coastal
Megacities: Rapidly expanding coastal megacities are threatened by climate impacts like sea
level rise, which can destabilize nations (Janani Vivekenanda and Neil Bhatiya); 11. Increased Displacement
and Migration: Climate change is becoming a more significant driver of migration and displacement
(Robert McLeman); 12. Enhanced Nuclear Risks: Climate change, nuclear security, and policies that
are not sensitive to both simultaneously, can increase regional and global security threats
(Christine Parthemore)
6/11/17
 Congress Fights Trump on Refugees
Bi-partisan pushback on Trump’s refugee plan – Democrats hate what he’s doing and
Republicans hate how he’s doing it.
Fandos 17 - (Nicholas Fandos, Reporter, 1-29-2017, "Growing Number of G.O.P. Lawmakers
Criticize Trump’s Refugee Policy",
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/29/us/politics/republicans-congress-trump-refugees.html,
DOA: 6-11-2017) //Snowball
Democrats were nearly united in their condemnation of Mr. Trump’s policy, with several of them
rushing to airports to speak out in defense of people who had been detained and even those representing states that Mr.
Trump won voicing dissent. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, called on Mr. Trump to
immediately reverse the action on Sunday, saying it made the country “less humanitarian, less
safe, less American.” “It must be reversed immediately, and Democrats are going to introduce legislation to overturn it,” Mr.
Schumer told reporters gathered for a news conference in New York. Republicans who spoke out were more measured,
directing their criticism at the planning for the policy and its carrying out, though their
disagreement with Mr. Trump was still clear. Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, wrote on the website Medium
that the president “and his administration are right to be concerned about national security, but it’s unacceptable when even
legal permanent residents are being detained or turned away at airports and ports of entry.”
6/12/17
 Vouchers Bad
In prioritizing competition, vouchers drain resources from schools and detract from
genuine educational equity.
Campbell and Brown 17 - (Neil Campbell is the Director of Innovation for the K-12 Education
Policy team at the Center for American Progress. Catherine Brown is the Vice President of
Education Policy at the Center, 3-3-2017, "Vouchers Are Not a Viable Solution for Vast Swaths
of America",
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/news/2017/03/03/414853/vouchers-are-
not-a-viable-solution-for-vast-swaths-of-america/, DOA: 6-12-2017) //Snowball
The Trump-DeVos plan for privatizing the nation’s schools is not a workable solution in vast swaths of the
country. Under the best-case scenario, this one-size-fits-all reform will have no impact on these schools. Under
the worst-case scenario, it will direct funds away from public school systems, either through a new
formula that advantages states that establish voucher programs or by draining students and their accompanying per-pupil allocation away from
public schools. The result will be overcrowded classrooms; even more poorly paid teachers and
school staff; and fewer resources for enrichment activities, school facilities, and more. As
secretary of education, DeVos is responsible for meeting the department’s mission to “[s]trengthen
the Federal commitment to assuring access to equal educational opportunity for every
individual.” We hope Secretary DeVos recognizes that our nation’s public schools are far from one-size-fits-
all—and that the solutions and reforms needed to improve them should not be either .
6/13/17
 LGBT Rollback
Rollback- DeVos refuses to enforce the aff
Kreighbaum 6/12 Andrew Kreighbaum, Inside Higher Ed, June 12, 2017, “Do DeVos comments
encourage anti-gay bias?”, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/06/12/comments-
betsy-devos-about-unsettled-law-raise-doubts-about-commitment-lgbt, VM
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos last month told lawmakers at a congressional hearing that
states and local communities were better equipped than the federal government to deal with
issues of regulation, drawing condemnations and negative headlines. In front of a Senate
subcommittee last week, she had noticeably changed her tune, telling senators repeatedly that any school receiving federal
funding is required to follow federal law. That assurance came with a pretty big caveat, however. Pressed by Democrats on how
she would protect the rights of LGBT students, DeVos said in areas where the law is
“unsettled,” which she said included issues of bias against gay people, her department would
not be “issuing decrees.” Those comments have fueled concerns among advocates for those
students that the department under DeVos will abandon its role in enforcing protections for
gay and transgender students under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
Meanwhile, her testimony was hailed by conservatives who accused the Obama
administration of overstepping its bounds in clarifying the rights of those students. Advocates
were disturbed by DeVos’s statements partly because many view as increasingly settled that
federal anti-bias rules do apply in cases of sexual orientation and gender identity. A growing number
of high-level federal court cases have found those protections under federal law extend to LGBT individuals. While exemptions exist for
religious institutions, the trend overall has been clear, according to many legal experts. And
advocates say the department
plays an essential role not just in enforcing those protections but in clarifying the rules that
colleges and universities operate under. Others say that even if the law is unclear, that
doesn’t remove the obligation of the department to offer guidance and enforce the law . The
language of the Title IX statute is itself vague as to whom it extends protections to, stating only that institutions shall not discriminate against
someone on the basis of sex, said Jim Newberry, a lawyer who heads the higher education practice at Steptoe & Johnson. Even with an
accumulating number of federal court rulings, the absence of a Supreme Court decision mean some guidance from the department is
necessary. And as the enforcer of federal civil rights law, it must also spell out the rules of the road for the institutions it polices in those areas.
 Discrimination UQ
LGBT discrimination high now in education system- DeVos
Kreighbaum 6/12 Andrew Kreighbaum, Inside Higher Ed, June 12, 2017, “Do DeVos comments
encourage anti-gay bias?”, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/06/12/comments-
betsy-devos-about-unsettled-law-raise-doubts-about-commitment-lgbt, VM
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos last month told lawmakers at a congressional hearing that
states and local communities were better equipped than the federal government to deal with
issues of regulation, drawing condemnations and negative headlines . In front of a Senate
subcommittee last week, she had noticeably changed her tune, telling senators repeatedly that any school receiving federal
funding is required to follow federal law. That assurance came with a pretty big caveat, however. Pressed by Democrats on how
she would protect the rights of LGBT students, DeVos said in areas where the law is
“unsettled,” which she said included issues of bias against gay people, her department would
not be “issuing decrees.” Those comments have fueled concerns among advocates for those
students that the department under DeVos will abandon its role in enforcing protections for
gay and transgender students under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
Meanwhile, her testimony was hailed by conservatives who accused the Obama
administration of overstepping its bounds in clarifying the rights of those students. Advocates
were disturbed by DeVos’s statements partly because many view as increasingly settled that
federal anti-bias rules do apply in cases of sexual orientation and gender identity . A growing number
of high-level federal court cases have found those protections under federal law extend to LGBT individuals. While exemptions exist for
religious institutions, the trend overall has been clear, according to many legal experts. And
advocates say the department
plays an essential role not just in enforcing those protections but in clarifying the rules that
colleges and universities operate under. Others say that even if the law is unclear, that
doesn’t remove the obligation of the department to offer guidance and enforce the law . The
language of the Title IX statute is itself vague as to whom it extends protections to, stating only that institutions shall not discriminate against
someone on the basis of sex, said Jim Newberry, a lawyer who heads the higher education practice at Steptoe & Johnson. Even with an
accumulating number of federal court rulings, the absence of a Supreme Court decision mean some guidance from the department is
necessary. And
as the enforcer of federal civil rights law, it must also spell out the rules of the
road for the institutions it polices in those areas.
6/14/17
 Shut Down DoE
Schools pay more to implement federal funding than they receive to spend – it’s time
to shut down the DoE.
Knapp 17 - (Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison
Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism, 6-14-2017, "The federal education budget: Teapot,
meet tempest", http://www.heraldchronicle.com/the-federal-education-budget-teapot-meet-
tempest-editorial-by-thomas-l-knapp/, DOA: 6-14-2017) //Snowball
Keeping in mind that those numbers have likely gone up, not down, in the intervening years, and that state and local spending will probably
continue to increase, a 13% cut to the US Department of Education would in reality be at most a
reduction of only eight tenths of one percent in total US education spending. Calling that a
tempest in a teapot demeans tempests and teapots. This disturbance is more like dropping a grain
of salt in a shot glass. Secondly, there’s a good case to be made that federal education spending cancels out
any positive effects of state and local spending rather than boosting them. As former New Mexico
governor and Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson notes, “[t]he Department of Education grants each
state 11 cents out of every dollar it spends on education. Unfortunately, every dollar of this money
comes with 16 cents of strings attached. States that accept federal funding lose five cents for
every dollar spent on education to pay for federal mandates and regulations, taking millions
of dollars out of the classroom.” And don’t forget that that 11 cents started out as a 13 cent deduction from your paycheck.
Finally, although the federal government spends more than twice as much per student on
education today as it did when the department was created in 1980, student performance
remains, at best, stagnant. After 40 nearly years, it’s reasonable to conclude that the US Department of
Education is a failed experiment. Its budget should be cut by 100% — turn out the lights, send
the bureaucrats home, sell the buildings and equipment — not by a mere 13%.
6/15/17
 Education = Anti-Black-Male
American public education deprives Black male students of literacy, resulting in
racialized educational tyranny in a modern manifestation of slavery and dominance.
Arseneau 17 - (Guy Arseneau, Freelance Writer, AmsterdamNews, 6-15-2017, "Brains in
chains", http://amsterdamnews.com/news/2017/jun/15/brains-chains/, DOA: 6-16-2017)
//Snowball
On Jan. 1, 1863, America’s 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Ranked in the
same category as the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, this secular document, granting freedom to 3
million Black slaves, took on the aura of Holy Writ. Sadly, more than a century and a half after this text wrapped
itself in the mantle of law, the marginalized descendants of those original slaves are still waiting for
this iconic edict to sustain the weight of its own illusions. This disparity between hope and
possibility, played out against the opposing backdrop of a social structure defined by escalating street violence,
drugs and poverty creates and sustains a reality of despair on a daily basis. Nowhere is this dichotomy
more evident and underscored than in the field of American public education. According to figures released by the
Chicago-based nonprofit, The Black Star Project, only 10 percent of eighth grade Black boys in the cities of
Chicago and Detroit read at their respective classroom level. By comparison, 46 percent of their white
counterparts read at their grade level. The consistency of these findings continue to be reflected in the
lack of reading skills among Black males throughout the nation. In Milwaukee and Cleveland, urban
centers within America’s heartland, on average, only three Black boys out of 100 read at or above their
respective grade level. These gaps in literacy skills among Black males are obvious and consistent on a
national basis. Grade level reading ability for Black boys in New York City is 13 percent, Boston 10 percent, Los
Angeles 9 percent and a low of 6 percent in Washington, D.C. Of particular note, and as a sidebar irony, former
President Barack Obama, the first Black man to occupy the White House, noted, “It is easier to
obtain a gun in some Washington, D.C., neighborhoods than it is to get a book.” In other areas of The Black Star Project report,
statistical data indicate that young Black males represent the largest ethnic/racial group enrolled in
Special Education academic programs. Among these middle and high school students, many cannot read such
basic words as “peace” and “water.” The social and economic ramifications associated with
these failures in education are evident to even the most casual observer. According to a 2010 evaluation by the Schott
Foundation for Public Education, in the Chicago public school system, only 30 percent of Black males graduate
from high school. The rate for high school graduation for Black boys in New York City shrinks to a mere 25 percent.
The lack of basic literacy skills and academic ability, coupled with an urban street culture
defined by gang affiliation and crime, is clearly discernible in terms of ever declining scholastic
achievement. In Chicago, only three Black boys out of 100 who attend that city’s public educational system graduate from college. Phillip
Jackson, the founder and executive director of The Black Star Foundation, recognizes these downward trends as a national crisis when he notes
that, “InSan Francisco only one out of 100 Black males qualify academically to attend a public
university in California.” These discouraging observations and figures, compiled over a century and a half after
the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, represent a new dimension in slavery that is bipartisan in nature. The
most concrete example of this problem is evident in the enactment of the No Child Left Behind legislation. National in scope but
local in terms of impact, this bill was supported by Republican President George W Bush, Sen. Ted Kennedy, John Boehner and Rep. George
Miller. Boehner and Miller both served on the House Education Committee. In short, this legislation calls upon each state to
develop minimum standards in terms of academic achievement in local schools. Although this goal may sound laudable, in
reality, the application of this law creates a “smoke and mirrors” illusion that supports a system
of de facto slavery and discrimination. To ensure a continuing flow of federal dollars into their respective education
budgets, many states simply “dumb down” the reading tests to make sure that every student earns a passing grade. In this way, it appears
there is an overall improvement in academic scores. What is the outcome of this practice, known among educators as “teaching to the test?”
We now have a generation of young people getting high school diplomas that they literally cannot read. Society
relies on and
continues to be defined by the ever-growing use of computers. Technological advancements, coupled
with a future generation that lacks basic literacy skills, creates a deadly potential for social
disintegration. What will happen when the culture reaches a point whereby people can no longer read the directions on how to use
computers? The social structure will then be divided into those who know how to read and those
who do not. Educational tyranny will replace the outdated historical regimes that relied on military
force and political maneuvering. As things now stand, we are on the threshold of this dystopian universe that
will lock members of the Black and Latino communities into a tech-driven caste system. This type
of marginalization will insure that only those “in the know” will have a say in running the world. The
abilities and achievements of Black writers and intellectuals such as James Baldwin, Langston Hughes and
Maya Angelou serve as a reminder of the vast contributions Black Americans have made to this
nation and to the world at large. Their respective legacies can and should be the cultural point of
reference in measuring how much can be achieved against a backdrop of state-sanctioned slavery
and discrimination. The world of tomorrow depends on the achievements of today. Simply put, we cannot afford to
allow the potential of an individual or an entire generation to be squandered because of a lack of
basic literacy skills or for any other reason. The complexity of today’s world demands the best from each of us. We must heed the
message or perish.
6/16/17
 Education Helps Hegemony
Elementary and secondary education is key to protecting U.S. hegemony – even if
unipolarity fades, we can remain dominant in IR with an educational advantage.
National Intelligence Council 12 - (National Intelligence Council, December 2012, "Global
Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds",
https://globaltrends2030.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/global-trends-2030-november2012.pdf,
DOA: 6-16-2017) //Snowball
The United States’ dominant role in international politics has derived from its preponderance across
the board in most dimensions of power, both “hard” and “soft.” The United States’ weight in the
global economy has steadily lessened since the 1960s, but it has been dropping more rapidly since
the early 2000s with the rise of China’s place in the world economy. Nevertheless, the US remains among
the world’s most open, innovative, and flexible countries. Despite being home to less than five percent of the
world’s population, the US accounted for 28 percent of global patent applications in 2008 and is home to
nearly 40 percent of the world’s best universities. US demographic trends are favorable compared to other advanced and
some developing countries. US strength also derives from high immigrant inflows and the United States’ unusual ability to integrate migrants.
US industry will also benefit from increased domestic natural gas production, which will lower energy costs for many manufacturing industries.
Over time, the increased domestic energy production could reduce the US trade deficit because the US would be able to reduce energy imports
and may be able to export natural gas and oil. Increased domestic energy production could boost employment at home. The
multifaceted nature of US power suggests that even as its economic weight is overtaken by
China—perhaps as early as the 2020s based on several forecasts—the US most likely will remain the “first among
equals” alongside the other great powers in 2030 because of its preeminence across a range of power
dimensions and legacies of its leadership. Nevertheless, with the rapid rise of multiple other powers, the “unipolar
moment” is over and Pax Americana—the era of unrivalled American ascendancy in international politics that began in
1945—is fast winding down. The graphic on page 103 shows a snapshot of the relative power and factors underlying leading
countries in 2030. A DIFFERENT SETUP GOING FORWARD The US faces stiff economic challenges—not as clearly foreseen
before the 2008 financial crisis—which will require broad-based structural reform if it is to avoid a rapid
decline in its economic position. Health care is expensive and inefficient: public and private health spending is 50 percent
higher per capita than that of the next highest OECD country. As the population ages, these costs are expected to rise rapidly. Secondary
education is weak, with 15 year-old American students ranking only 31st of 65 countries in
mathematics and 22nd in science in a survey that includes many developing countries. The US educational
advantage relative to the rest of the world has been cut in half in the past 30 years. Without large-
scale improvements in primary and secondary education, future US workers—which have
benefited from the world’s highest wages—will increasingly bring only mediocre skills to the
workplace.
6/17/17
 DeVos Cut Civil Rights Investigations
DeVos cut systematic investigations of civil rights violations in public schools.
McKay 17 - (Tom McKay is a staff writer at Mic, covering national politics, media, policing and
the war on drugs, 6-17-2017, "Betsy DeVos' education department moves to reduce civil rights
investigations in schools", https://mic.com/articles/180210/betsy-devos-education-
department-moves-to-reduce-civil-rights-investigations-in-schools, DOA: 6-18-2017) //Snowball
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos will be downsizing the number of investigations it conducts into possible civil
rights violations throughout the public school system, the New York Times reported on Saturday. According
to an internal memo issued by acting DOE office of civil rights director Candice E. Jackson, the Times wrote,
investigators at the agency will no longer be required to "broaden their inquiries to identify
systemic issues and whole classes of victims." They have also been instructed it is no longer
mandatory to alert D.C. officials of "all highly sensitive complaints" like allegations of racial
discrimination or failure to properly investigate campus sexual assaults. As the Times noted, DOE investigations
soared after Barack Obama's administration put an emphasis on systemic reviews and major
reforms at school districts and colleges. Donald Trump's budget proposes cutting more than 40 jobs at the
DOE civil rights division, while department spokeswoman Liz Hill emphasized the agency's new focus on efficiency in investigations
in a statement. The decision to roll back investigations comes not long after DeVos suspended
Obama-era rules designed to make it easier for students to discharge loans for deceptive or
fraudulent for-profit colleges. Jackson also recently defended new policies on the rights of trans
students after one employee told the Huffington Post "officials should investigate issues of discrimination just as they would have before
the Obama-era rules were implemented."
6/18/18
 Capitalism K – Education Technology Link
Promoting education technology invites private companies to shape the classroom
without a corresponding check on power.
Singer 17 - (Natasha Singer is a technology reporter covering digital learning as well as
consumer privacy, 6-6-2017, "The Silicon Valley Billionaires Remaking America’s Schools",
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/technology/tech-billionaires-education-zuckerberg-
facebook-hastings.html, DOA: 6-19-2017) //Snowball
In the space of just a few years, technology giants have begun remaking the very nature of schooling
on a vast scale, using some of the same techniques that have made their companies linchpins
of the American economy. Through their philanthropy, they are influencing the subjects that schools teach, the
classroom tools that teachers choose and fundamental approaches to learning. The involvement by some
of the wealthiest and most influential titans of the 21st century amounts to a singular
experiment in education, with millions of students serving as de facto beta testers for their ideas.
Some tech leaders believe that applying an engineering mind-set can improve just about any
system, and that their business acumen qualifies them to rethink American education. “They
are experimenting collectively and individually in what kinds of models can produce better results,”
said Emmett D. Carson, chief executive of Silicon Valley Community Foundation , which manages donor
funds for Mr. Hastings, Mr. Zuckerberg and others. “Given the changes in innovation that are underway with artificial intelligence and
automation, we need to try everything we can to find which pathways work.” But the
philanthropic efforts are taking hold
so rapidly that there has been little public scrutiny. Tech companies and their founders have been
rolling out programs in America’s public schools with relatively few checks and balances, The
New York Times found in interviews with more than 100 company executives, government officials, school administrators, researchers,
teachers, parents and students. “They
have the power to change policy, but no corresponding check on
that power,” said Megan Tompkins-Stange, an assistant professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. “It does subvert
the democratic process.” Furthermore, there is only limited research into whether the tech giants’
programs have actually improved students’ educational results.
6/19/17
 10x Green-Tech K2 Warming
Green technology development would have to be accelerated by 10 times to solve
global warming.
Phys.org, citing study by postdoctoral associate Manoli, 17 - (Paris, 1-3-2017, "Tenfold jump
in green tech needed to meet global emissions targets", https://phys.org/news/2017-01-
tenfold-green-tech-global-emissions.html, DOA: 6-20-2017) //Snowball
"Based on our calculations, we won't meet the climate warming goals set by the Paris Agreement unless we
speed up the spread of clean technology by a full order of magnitude, or about ten times faster
than in the past," said Gabriele Manoli, a former postdoctoral associate at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment, who led the
study. "Radically new strategies to implement technological advances on a global scale and at
unprecedented rates are needed if current emissions goals are to be achieved," Manoli said. The
study used delayed differential equations to calculate the pace at which global per-capita
emissions of carbon dioxide have increased since the Second Industrial Revolution—a period of
rapid industrialization at the end of the 19th century and start of the 20th. The researchers then compared this pace to the
speed of new innovations in low-carbon-emitting technologies. Using these historical trends coupled with
projections of future global population growth, Manoli and his colleagues were able to estimate the likely pace of
future emissions increases and also determine the speed at which climate-friendly
technological innovation and implementation must occur to hold warming below the Paris Agreement's 2o C
target. "It's no longer enough to have emissions-reducing technologies," he said. "We must scale
them up and spread them globally at unprecedented speeds."
6/20/17
 Gun Violence + Child Victims
Gun violence is the third-leading cause of death for children.
Boyle 17 - (David Boyle, Journalist, 6-20-2017, "Guns kill almost 1,300 children in America
every year, study finds", http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-20/guns-kill-nearly-1300-
children-in-the-us-each-year/8635174, DOA: 6-20-2017) //Snowball //edited to fix typo in
brackets
Guns kill nearly 1300 children in the United States every year, making them the third-leading cause
of death for those under 18 years of age, a new study has found. The Centres of Disease Control and Prevention study published
in the journal Pediatrics examined trends in national US Government data from 2002 to 2014 and found on average 5790 children
were treated for gunshot wounds each year between 2012 and 2014. Children from southern states and
the Midwest faced higher rates of firearm homicide than other parts of the country. Nationwide, data indicated that 4.2 per cent of
children in the US had witnessed a shooting in the past year. Boys accounted for 82 per cent of
all child firearm deaths while African American children were some 10 times more like[ly] to die from
gunshots than white and Asian American children. Approximately 19 children per day were killed by or treated in
an emergency department because of gunshot wounds. After 20 children and six adults were shot and killed in a massacre at the
Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012, then US president Barack Obama ramped up efforts to tighten gun
control. But his efforts to introduce measures such as universal background checks for gun buyers and a ban on
assault weapons failed to pass the US congress under persistent pressure from the National Riffle Association. Since
then the gun massacres have continued, including the worst in US history in June 2016 at a nightclub in
Orlando that left 49 people dead, and the more recent shooting of a special education teacher and her
eight-year-old student in a classroom at an elementary school in California in April this year. The US congress has met
each new tragedy with a steadfast refusal to act on gun control while President Donald Trump has
made it clear he firmly supports the NRA’s opposition to such measures.
6/21/17
 Student Data Privacy
Student data privacy is an emerging concern – it gets leaked through company
turnovers and Big Data companies.
Kurshan 17 - (Barbara Kurshan, Forbes Contributor on edtech, OER, ecosystems and investing
in education, 6-22-2017, "The Elephant in the Room With EdTech Data Privacy",
https://www.forbes.com/sites/barbarakurshan/2017/06/22/the-elephant-in-the-room-with-
edtech-data-privacy/2/#2a6d93df26fd, DOA: 6-22-2017) //Snowball
In an earlier piece, I wrote about student data privacy and the implications for edtech entrepreneurs. While
Big Data provides
the opportunity for edtech entrepreneurs to create innovative technology solutions for educational
issues, it also has ushered in a wave of privacy issues. Concerns about privacy related to these technology
solutions is the “elephant in the room.” Each time an edtech company changes hands, it opens
the possibility of failing to maintain student data privacy safeguards. For example, let’s consider the student data
management system PowerSchool to illustrate the difficulty in maintaining student privacy when there is leadership or ownership turnover. The
PowerSchool system tracks student data in a number of areas ranging from attendance to behavioral misconduct to performance on academic
assessments. The company has changed ownership three times in 16 years. It was first bought first by Apple, then Pearson, then Vista Equity
Partners. High ownership turnover rates are a common phenomenon among many ventures in the
edtech space. Each time a company changes hands, however, it opens the possibility for
weakened protections around its student data. Privacy concerns also stem from companies that occupy
a disproportionate share of the market. Google is one example. Google has gained mass market share
in classrooms in part because the company’s size allows for the development of quality
products that can be offered to users for free. For example, Google Apps for Education [GAFE] is on pace to hit 110M
users by 2020. This growth should raise serious concerns for two primary reasons. First, school
administrators who place everything in a single GAFE account (or a comparable product such as Microsoft 365 for
Education) make it possible for a single hacked administrator login to reveal a swath of student
data, including student work, teacher feedback, grades and class history. Second is the issue of mining student data.
Google makes about 90 percent of its money from selling ads and collects and mines user
data on an ongoing basis. In response to a lawsuit brought forward by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Google
admitted that it mined data from G Suite for Education users who use core services outside of
G Suite for Education-- contrary to their user license agreements. This G Suite for Education user data includes name,
email address, telephone number, device information, and IP address. In response to another lawsuit,
Google admitted that it scanned student emails for advertising purposes. In fact, the state of Mississippi
recently sued Google for illegally harvesting student data, and asked the company to fully disclose its data tracking practices. Google relies on
data mining because the practice supports the company’s non-paid business model for users by providing a way for the company to make a
profit. The issue of data mining as a component of an edtech company’s business model extends to Facebook, which makes 98 percent of its
money from advertising, is also giving away a free education software product. The EU found that the company illegally changed its position
regarding data mining for Whatsapp users in order to better advertise to target customers.
6/22/17
 Funding Charter Drains Public
Funding charter schools drains public school funding.
Burris 17 - (Carol Burris, a former New York high school principal who is executive director of
the nonprofit Network for Public Education, Washington Post, Jun. 22, 2017, "Analysis",
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/06/22/problems-with-
charter-schools-that-you-wont-hear-betsy-devos-talk-about/?utm_term=.1ddd1113726c, DOA:
6-22-2017) //Snowball
Each state funds charters differently. The best question to ask when examining the fiscal drain from public schools
to charters is what would public school districts save if charter students returned. When a district student attends a charter, there
are stranded costs — money the district must still spend when a student leaves . Here is a simple
example. In New York, the amount lost is based on a formula that depends on per pupil
spending. The more generous the taxpayers are with their own students, the more the charter gets. The Rockville Centre School District
lost four students to a charter school in Hempstead. The district cost is $19,000 a student, plus transportation and other related costs. What
would the district save if the four students came back? Nearly every penny could go back to
the taxpayers. Pennsylvania, like New York and New Jersey, sets tuition rates based on district per pupil
spending. I asked Joe Roy, Pennsylvania’s Superintendent of the Year, how much he could save if all
of his Bethlehem district’s charter school students came back to the district. Roy told me that the
district budgeted $26 million (about 10 percent of its annual budget) this year to pay for tuition and associated costs to charter schools.
According to Roy, “We estimate that if
all of the students in charters returned, even with hiring the
additional needed staff, we would save $20 million.” A report by MGT of America, an independent research firm,
revealed that the Los Angeles Unified School District has lost $591 million to charter school growth
in 2016. If costs associated with charter school expansion are not mitigated, the district will
eventually face financial insolvency.
6/23/17
 Urbanization Solves Warming
Urbanization’s key to solve warming – it’s a better political structure and causes inter-
city cooperation.
Cho 16 - (Renee Cho is a staff blogger for the Earth Institute, received Executive Education
Certificate in Conservation and Sustainability from the Earth Institute Center for Environmental
Sustainability, 11-10-2016, "Cities: the Vanguard Against Climate Change",
http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2016/11/10/cities-the-vanguard-against-climate-change/, DOA: 6-
23-2017) //Snowball
The density of cities, however, also affords them myriad opportunities to lower their carbon
footprints. And while no two cities are identical in their infrastructure, governance, technical sophistication or needs, they can
collaborate and share knowledge, because most urban emissions arise from the same
sources: buildings that are not energy efficient, landfills that emit methane, street lighting that produces waste heat, traffic emissions and
wasteful water systems. Cities are able to coordinate the efforts of citizens, businesses, institutions
and government more easily than nations can. It is also less complicated for mayors to meet up and work together than it
is for heads of state. “And in terms of passing climate change laws or policies, national governments
can get bogged down in politics, in lobbying, in different interests, as we all know,” said Ali Ibrahim.
“Cities are able to very quickly pass legislation or to have a policy in place within weeks and
months.” Cities around the world are joining forces. The Global Covenant of Mayors for
Climate and Energy, formed in June from the merging of the Compact of Mayors and the EU Covenant of Mayors, now
comprises 7,100 cities from six continents. The largest coalition of cities fighting climate change, it is co-chaired by former
NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and European Commission Vice President, Maros Sefcovic. The participating cities set targets
that will eventually be more ambitious than the pledges their countries made under the Paris
agreement. The initiative will centralize data on the cities’ climate actions, enable them to
compare their efforts, foster greater collaboration and increase funding for climate actions.
 US Leadership Dying
US leadership is dying with no way to revive it- blame Trump
Wolf 5/30/17 Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator at the Financial Times, London. He
was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 2000 “for services to financial
journalism”. , “Donald Trump and the surrendering of US leadership”, Financial Times, May 30,
2017, https://www.ft.com/content/f0b9fba6-4241-11e7-9d56-25f963e998b2?mhq5j=e1, VM
Donald Trump has been the American president for just over four months. It is still impossible to predict what his presidency will mean. But it is
already a transformative event: Mr Trump has revolutionised our ideas of what the US stands for. We
live in the world the US
made. Now it is unmaking it. We cannot ignore that grim reality. Mr Trump’s domestic programme is in accord
with the agenda of the Republican party. Its aim is to cut taxes on the rich by lowering spending on the poor. The Congressional Budget Office’s
analysis of the American Health Care Act, recently passed by the House of Representatives and the replacement of Barack Obama’s Affordable
Care Act, is startling. Over the 2017-26 period, the act would reduce tax revenues by $992bn, paid for by a $1.1tn reduction in expenditures on
Medicaid and other subsidies. According to the CBO, the number of uninsured might have increased by 23m by 2026. Proposals for tax reform
and spending go in the same direction. Discretionary spending proposals for next year include a $52bn increase in defence spending, paid for by
big cuts in other areas. These include
a $13bn (16 per cent) cut to health and human services; $12bn (29
per cent) to the budgets of the state department and the international development agency;
and $9bn (14 per cent) to education. The diplomatic capacity of the US would be devastated.
Hard power and lower taxes: these are the US priorities under Mr Trump. They are also traditionally Republican. Waging what amounts to an
economic war on one’s supporters might seem perverse. But there is method in the madness. As the programmes poor whites depend upon
are slashed, those who voted for Mr Trump will become more desperate. This will make politics even more polarised. That has been the all-too
successful ploy of pluto-populism. So what is new at home? The answer is Mr Trump’s personality. He is in a permanent war with reality and so
with the media and his intelligence services. The press and the bureaucracy have both held up well. So has the legal system. But these are early
days. The president is undisciplined and his administration chaotic. Under Mr Trump, a terrorist outrage might produce a lurch into
authoritarianism. Mr Trump’s impact on the very idea of the west is already significant. The western
alliance is still the world’s biggest economic bloc and largest repository of scientific and
business knowledge. But it is disintegrating. As Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany, admitted, Europe can no longer
rely on the US. It might have been unwise to say so, but she was surely right. Mr Trump seems to prefer autocrats to
today’s western Europeans. He is warm towards Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, not to
mention Russia’s Vladimir Putin. He appears to care not at all about democracy or human rights. Neither
does he seem committed to the mutual defence principles of Nato. Mr Trump’s “alt- right”
supporters see not a divide between the democracies and the despotisms; but rather
between social progressives and globalists, whom they despise, and social traditionalists and
nationalists, whom they support. For them, western Europeans are on the wrong side: they
are enemies, not friends. Deep down, Mr Trump might agree. He is surrounded by orthodox advisers, such as
James Mattis, defence secretary. Yet the president’s heart seems not to be in it. The west may not be dead. But as a set
of countries with shared interests and values, it is moribund. Now consider the west and,
above all, the US in the world. The rise of China has reduced its economic and political
weight. A recent history of failed wars and financial crises has savaged its leaders’ credibility .
The choice of Mr Trump, a man so signally lacking in the virtues, abilities, knowledge and
experience to be expected of a president, has further damaged the attractions of the
democratic system. Now the west seems deeply divided internally too. Across the world, people question the future role of the US.
Would it not be wiser, they wonder, to move closer to China? Mr Trump would not appear to mind if this did happen. He voluntarily
withdrew the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, aimed at being an alternative to Chinese
leadership. Under him, the US seems to be abandoning the notion of soft power. Indeed, the
proposed budget tells us that the administration sees the idea as largely empty: guns matter,
diplomacy does not. The soft power of democracy is not what it was. It has produced Mr Trump as leader of
the world’s most important country. It is not an advertisement. Yet much is at stake in the world. Three big challenges exist: prosperity, peace
and protection of the commons. On the first, Mr Trump’s administration is still tempted by the idea of
restricting imports — or at least by bilateralism. So far its protectionist bark seems worse than its bite.
Nevertheless, globalisation is stalled. Without US support it could well remain so. On peace, the
question remains whether Mr Trump’s instinct for conflict can be contained. The biggest challenge is the relationship with China. Mr
Trump seems to thinks he can do business with Xi Jinping, China’s president. Maybe he likes
the autocracy. Perhaps the most depressing consequence of Mr Trump’s ascent to power emerged at the G7 meeting in Taormina, Sicily,
at the weekend. The Paris climate change agreement of December 2015 was not an answer to the
challenge, but it was at least a recognition that climate change is a real and pressing danger.
Now may well be the last chance to head off the worst of it. In agreement with many Republicans, Mr Trump
refuses to recognise the threat. He finds it impossible to admit that strong and concerted
government action might be required. So he rejects the very notion of environmental limits. An
optimistic and self-confident US would embrace the challenge of overcoming such limits. Alas, Mr Trump does not speak for that US. If the US
withdrew from the Paris accord, the rest of the world must consider sanctions. It is possible to look at the first four months of this presidency as
a story of successful containment. It is also possible to view Mr Trump as a normal Republican. Unfortunately,
regular
Republicans have damaging ideas and Mr Trump may not be contained. This still looks like
the end of the US-led world order.
6/24/17
 Not Enough Thinking
Rarely do schools require critical thinking.
Khadaroo 17 - (Stacy Khadaroo, Education Reporter, 6-23-2017, "There's an essential skill not
being taught enough in classrooms today", http://www.businessinsider.com/education-critical-
thinking-school-criticism-2017-6?amp, DOA: 6-25-2017) //Snowball
“Most teachers never really ask students to think very deeply…. Most of what is assigned and tested are
things we ask students to memorize,” writes Karin Hess, president of Educational Research in Action in Underhill, Vt., and an
expert on assessment, in an email to the Monitor. As people fret about politicians unwilling to compromise or
business owners unable to find qualified workers, a common underlying problem is this “dearth of critical
thinking skills,” says William Gormley, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University and author of “The Critical Advantage:
Developing Critical Thinking Skills in School.” The purpose of schooling is undergoing a significant shift. With
growing agreement that students need more than basic recall and reasoning skills, efforts are
under way to infuse what’s sometimes referred to as “deeper learning” – mindsets and skills such as
critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and problem-solving. Anecdotes abound about class projects that get kids thinking on their feet
and working together. But
education researchers and business leaders say deeper learning is still
relatively rare in schools, and they’d like to see the pace accelerate.
6/25/17
 AT: Radical Solutions Bad
Reject their dismissal of radical solutions – they’re key to solve extinction.
Jensen 17 - (Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin,
6/21/17, "How radicals are offering realistic solutions to our spiraling political problems",
https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/06/21/radicals-offering-realistic-
solutions-spiraling-political-problems, DOA: 6-25-2017) //Snowball
My left politics also focus on the human species' intensifying assault on the larger living world —
multiple, cascading ecological crises that we can't afford to ignore. Modern humans'
arrogance puts us all at risk. The naïve assumptions of the high-energy and high-technology
industrial world — especially the idea that we can solve all problems with more energy-intensive technology — must be
abandoned as we struggle to understand how many people can live sustainably on the planet.
There's not a widely used term for going beyond liberal environmentalism's half measures,
but some people call it "ecospherism," the understanding that humans must find our place in the ecosphere rather than try
to dominate. Ecospherists reject the idea that humans really "own" the Earth and fight to end the
accompanying abuse and exploitation of land, water, air and other creatures. Liberals and
conservatives typically ignore ecological realities, but so does much of the left. The
overwhelming nature of the challenge scares many into silence, but problems ignored are not
problems solved. For example, research on renewable energy is important, but no combination of
so-called clean energy sources (and let's remember that wind turbines and solar panels are industrial products, which can't be
manufactured cleanly) can power the affluence of the First World . The solution is dramatically lower levels of
consumption in the developed world. Many people in the U.S. disagree with this kind of left/radical feminist analysis. Many people have told
me that these views make me unfit to teach at a state university. I welcome serious challenges, but left
political positions are
too often dismissed as crazy because that's the one thing both liberals and conservatives
agree on. The U.S. is a dramatically right-wing society when compared with other industrialized countries, illustrated by Bernie Sanders'
2016 campaign. He offered no foundational critique of U.S. systems, opting instead for a traditional social democratic platform to make our
institutions more humane. Yet in America, such policy proposals were seen by many as revolutionary and Sanders was often dismissed as a
wild-eyed radical. In a recent call to action, Sanders supported a single-payer plan for health care and stated "our current economic model is a
dismal failure," but he did not dare use the term capitalism or even hint at a deeper structural critique. His discussion of the ecological crises
stopped with a weak call for renewable energy, and there was no mention of racism, sexism or U.S. foreign policy. I realize politicians shape
rhetoric to win votes, but let's not pretend this is a left agenda. (For the record, I'm not a Democrat, but I'm also not purist in electoral politics; I
voted for Sanders in the Democratic primary and Hillary Clinton in the general election.) Sanders' success suggests more people might support a
candidate with an even deeper critique of illegitimate structures of authority. If in the short term the best we can hope for is reform of existing
systems, we can pursue those reforms with an eye on more radical long-term goals. It's
hard to imagine a decent human
future — perhaps any human future at all — if these radical ideas are not part of the mix.
"Radical" is often used as a political insult, suggesting people who focus on violence and
destruction. But the word simply means "going to the root," and at the root of our
contemporary crises of justice and sustainability are capitalism, imperialism, white
supremacy, patriarchy, and the human willingness to destroy the world in pursuit of
affluence. Leftists are told that we have to be realistic, and I agree. But how realistic is it to
expect solutions to human injustices and ecological crises to emerge from the systems that
have created the problems? If you want to be realistic, get radical.
 T - No Middle Schools
Elementary schools and secondary schools are distinct from “middle school”
US Department of Education 08 [February 2008, "Organization of U.S. Education", US
Department of Education,
https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/schoollevel.doc, this link
will download a word doc with the article contained]//NV
Public Schools. Primary and secondary public schools are governed by local school districts and their
boards. Policies and regulations tend to be uniform across all schools within a district , but can vary
among districts. Individual schools are administered within the confines of these general requirements, so autonomy is limited. States vary as to
the curricular freedom they give local schools, but most impose a basic statewide curricular framework which local schools may embellish to a
limited degree, and also issue a statewide list of approved textbooks for each grade level from which locals may select or, in some cases,
require the use of a single set of approved texts. Schools are organized into elementary (primary) schools, middle
schools, and high (secondary) schools. Primary or elementary education ranges from grade 1 to
grades 4-7, depending on state and school district policy. Middle schools serve pre-adolescent and young
adolescent students between grades 5 and 9, with most in the grade 6-8 range. Middle schools in the upper grade range
(7-9) are sometimes referred to as junior high schools. Secondary or high schools enroll students in the upper
grades, generally 9-12 with variations. In the United States these tend to be comprehensive schools enrolling students of widely different
interests and capabilities who follow different educational tracks within the same school.
6/26/17
 Trump/DeVos Destroy Title IX
Trump and DeVos are undermining the authority of Title IX.
Gibbs 17 - (Lindsay Gibbs, Sports Reporter, 6-23-2017, "The Trump administration is
systematically dismantling Title IX", https://thinkprogress.org/how-the-trump-administration-
is-systematically-attacking-title-ix-21bde2f73fc6, DOA: 6-26-2017) //Snowball
Butas Title IX supporters celebrate how much the legislation has accomplished, particularly for women and girls in sports,
many who have been closely monitoring the actions of President Donald Trump and his Secretary of Education Betsy
DeVos are extremely concerned about its future. “There’s a sense that Title IX and girls participating in sports and
gender equality is a done deal, when in fact the reality is it’s very fragile,” Nancy Hogshead-Makar, an Olympic champion,
civil rights lawyer, and founder of Champion Women, told ThinkProgress. There is evidence from the past few months to suggest that Hogshead-Makar’s warning is

Trump’s budget proposal recommends a seven percent budget reduction for the
not merely hyperbole.

Office for Civil Rights, which would force the department to slash approximately 27 jobs at a time when Title IX complaints are on the rise. The
ratio of Title IX cases per investigative staff members in the OCR was 41 to 1 in fiscal year
2016, and that ratio will only become more lopsided if these cuts go into effect. Additionally, DeVos has named
Candice Jackson — a woman who once insisted she faced discrimination because she is
white — as the deputy assistant secretary of the Office for Civil Rights. And DeVos has shown no
signs that she will fight for members of any marginalized community. If a law is only as good
as its enforcement, then Title IX is in trouble. The authority of Title IX seems to be trending in the
wrong direction, and that could mean bad news for sexual assault victims on college
campuses, transgender (and other LGBTQ) students, and equality in athletics.
6/27/17
 Urban Density K2 Economic Growth
Economic growth is a function of urban density – clusters of individuals catalyze collective productivity.
Florida, R. (2012, November 28). Cities With Denser Cores Do Better. Retrieved June 27, 2017, from https://www.citylab.com/life/2012/11/cities-denser-cores-do-better/3911/
//CynicClinic

Ever since Jane Jacobs,urban thinkers and economists have argued that clusters of talented and ambitious people increase one another’s
productivity and the productivity of the broader community, spurring economic growth. So, what about economic growth: Is it higher in
metros where density is more concentrated? The short answer is yes. Economic growth and development, according to several key measures, is

higher in metros that are not just dense, but where density is more concentrated. This is true for productivity, measured as
economic output per person, as well as both income and wages.
6/28/17
 AT: Debate = Democratic Engagement
Their appeal to democratic engagement is “political hobbyism” – politics for leisure –
and detracts from genuine democratic participation.
Hersh 17 - (Eitan D. Hersh, associate professor of political science at Tufts University, 6-29-
2017, "The Problem With Participatory Democracy Is the Participants",
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/29/opinion/sunday/the-problem-with-participatory-
democracy-is-the-participants.html, DOA: 7-1-2017) //Snowball
Americans who live in relative comfort are emotionally invested in politics, especially in the aftermath of the
election, but in a degraded form of politics that caters to the voyeurism of news junkies and the
short attention spans of slacktivists. They are engaging in a phenomenon I call “political hobbyism.” They
desperately want to do something, but not something that is boring, demanding or slow. Political hobbyists
want easy ways to register their feelings. Democrats in particular embrace tools like Resistbot that offer instantly
gratifying participation. Beyond the current political climate, Democrats, more than Republicans, believe in mass
participation as a core value and also believe it empowers their side. But cheap participation reflects a
troubling infirmity in how partisans of both parties engage in politics . In fact, it is not because of
gerrymandering, Citizens United, cable news or any of the other common scapegoats that our system
is broken, but because of us: ordinary people who are doing politics the wrong way. For years,
political scientists have studied how people vote, petition, donate, protest, align with parties
and take in the news, and have asked what motivates these actions. The typical answers are civic duty and
self-interest. But civic duty and self-interest do not capture the ways that middle- and upper-class
Americans are engaging in politics. Now it is the Facebooker who argues with friends of
friends he does not know; the news consumer who spends hours watching cable; the repeat online
petitioner who demands actions like impeaching the president; the news sharer willing to
spread misinformation and rumor because it feels good; the data junkie who frantically toggles between horse races in suburban
Georgia and horse races in Britain and France and horse races in sports (even literal horse races). What is really motivating this
behavior is hobbyism — the regular use of free time to engage in politics as a leisure activity.
Political hobbyism is everywhere. There are several reasons for this. For one, technology allows those interested in
politics to gain specialized knowledge and engage in pleasing activities, such as reinforcing their views with like-minded
friends on Facebook. For another, our present era of relative security (nearly a half-century without a conscripted military)
has diminished the solemnity that accompanied political talk in the past. Even in the serious moments
since the 2016 election, political engagement for many people is characterized by forwarding the latest clip that embarrasses the other side,
like videos of John McCain asking incomprehensible questions or Elizabeth Warren “destroying” Betsy DeVos. Then there
are the well-
intentioned policy innovations over the years that were meant to make politics more open but in
doing so exposed politics to hobbyists: participatory primaries, ballot initiatives, open-data policies,
even campaign contribution limits. The contribution rules that are now in place favor the independent
vanity projects of wealthy egomaniacs instead of allowing parties to raise money and build durable local support. The
result of all this is political engagement that takes the form of partisan fandom, the seeking of cheap
thrills, and amateurs trying their hand at a game. This can be seen in the billionaire funding “super PACs” all the way down
to the everyday armchair quarterback who professes that the path to political victory is
through ideological purity. (In the face of a diverse and moderate country, the demand for ideological purity itself can be a
symptom of hobbyism: If politics is a sport and the stakes are no higher, why not demand ideological purity if it feels good?) Not all activism is
political hobbyism. ABlack Lives Matter protest meant to call attention to police misconduct and
demand change on an issue with life-or-death consequences is not hobbyism. Neither is a spontaneous airport
protest over the president’s travel ban, which also had clear goals and urgent demands. What about attendance at town hall
meetings hosted by members of Congress? These events could be places for serious discourse and reveal crucial citizen
perspectives on matters of public policy, but they are more often hijacked by fair-weather activists looking to
see action. It is certainly peculiar that Democrats who are motivated by the health care debate now couldn’t be bothered to show up at
town hall meetings back in 2009 (or to vote in 2010), and the Tea Party activists of 2009 can’t be bothered now, since it wouldn’t be any fun for
them. What, exactly, is wrong with political hobbyism? We live in a democracy, after all. Aren’t we supposed to
participate? Political hobbyism might not be so bad if it complemented mundane but important
forms of participation. The problem is that hobbyism is replacing other forms of participation, like
local organizing, supporting party organizations, neighbor-to-neighbor persuasion, even voting in
midterm elections — the most recent midterms had the lowest level of voter participation in over 70 years. The Democratic
Party, the party that embraces “engagement,” is in atrophy in state legislatures across the country.
Perhaps this is because state-level political participation needs to be motivated by civic duty; it is not
entertaining enough to pique the interest of hobbyists. The party of Hollywood celebrities also struggles to
energize its supporters to vote. Maybe it is because when politics is something one does for fun rather than out
of a profound moral obligation, the citizen who does not find it fun has no reason to engage.
The important parts of politics for the average citizen simply may not be enjoyable. Political hobbyism is a problem not just for Democrats. The
hobbyist now occupying the Oval Office is evidence enough of the Republican version of this story. Donald Trump’s
election was
possible because both political parties mistakenly decided several decades ago to have
binding primary elections determine presidential nominations. Rather than having party leaders vet candidates for competency
and sanity, as most democracies do, our parties turned the nomination process into a reality show in
which the closest things to vetting are a clap-o-meter and a tracking poll. Nevertheless, the problem of
hobbyism holds more severe consequences for Democrats than for Republicans because of their commitment to mass engagement as a core
value. An
unqualified embrace of engagement, without leaders channeling activists toward clear goals, yields the
spinning of wheels of hobbyism. Democrats should know that an unending string of activities intended
for instant gratification does not amount to much in political power. What they should ask is whether their
emotions and energy are contributing to a behind-the-scenes effort to build local support across the country or whether they are merely a
hollow, self-gratifying manifestation of the new political hobbyism.
6/29/17
 AT: Capitalism → Exploitation
Social capitalism prevents exploitation – companies are forced by consumers to avoid
abusive practices.
Ladd 17 - (Chris Ladd, Forbes Contributor / Republican precinct committeeman, 6-21-2017,
"Commerce Is Replacing Politics At The Center Of Our Democracy",
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisladd/2017/06/26/commerce-is-replacing-politics-at-the-
center-of-our-democracy/#f7c0c0a5f0e5, DOA: 7-1-2017) //Snowball
Commerce is beginning to challenge democracy as our highest means of expressing public values.
Through markets, we are slowly and unintentionally instituting a form of pure democracy, in which we
vote all day long, in dozens of transactions, that reward or punish actors for their values. As a
sclerotic outdated political system increasingly fails to meet public needs, commerce is filling
the void. Social capitalism is an economic order in which social forces influence markets to more responsibly
incorporate formerly “external” costs into the price of good and services. In capitalism’s industrial era,
capital owners paid no price for polluting a river or destroying a forest. The only factors influencing price
were the cost of production and the demands of each individual purchaser. Workers and consumers lacked the
power to force capital owners to “price-in” external costs of socially-abusive or reprehensible business
practices. The nastiest, greediest players enjoyed a competitive advantage in the marketplace. In that
environment, people turned to government to mitigate the negative externalities of abusive
business practices like child labor, pollution, extortion and wealth concentration. Government was
the only force powerful enough to counter the influence of capital, but government has always been slow and cumbersome. Its efforts to curb
abusive practices carried with them bureaucratic burdens that often limited business effectiveness. Meanwhile that government itself was
under constant risk of “capture” by corporate interests, or over-reach that stifled economic growth. Three trends are interlacing to transform
market incentives: 1) a broad, global devolution of power away from traditional institutions in favor of individuals, 2) rapidly increasingly speed
of communication, and 3) the end of “labor” as we once knew it, creating a new market for talent blurring the labor/capital divide. In 1955, the
average lifespan of a company on the Fortune 500 list was 61 years. Today it is 18, and declining. Entire industries can be spawned, grow to
enormous size, and disappear in a decade or so. For an example, try to find a video rental store. This is not merely a business phenomenon.
Almost every participatory institution from PTA’s to churches has seen steeply declining engagement and power in recent decades. Political
parties, unions, professional organizations – almost any of the institutional forces that seemed unshakeable a generation ago have seen their
influence weaken. Power is shifting toward the atomized individual. Faster communication has made
it easier for consumers to incorporate externalities like corporate social practices into their
purchases. It took years for dolphin-protection advocates to get labels attached to tuna that was more safely-harvested. It took a few
hours for protesters at Newark Airport to launch a social media wave that would bend Uber’s growth curve, perhaps permanently. Thanks to
the smart phone and search engines, consumers now carry in their hands a data source that can tell them which products and services match
their values. A purchase is becoming a vote.
6/30/17
 Capitalism – Privatization Solves Economy
Privatization boosts economic growth – it gives incentives to compete and prevents
political favors.
Economist 17 - (Economist, Jun 17th 2017, "The perils of nationalisation",
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21723408-more-state-ownership-
not-right-answer-economic-ills-perils, DOA: 7-1-2017) //Snowball
But in the 1970s economists came to see state ownership as a costly fix to such problems. Owners of private firms benefit
directly when innovation reduces costs and boosts profits; bureaucrats usually lack such a clear
financial incentive to improve performance. Firms with the backing of the state are less vulnerable to competition; as they lumber on
they hoard resources that could be better used elsewhere. Inattention to cost-cutting is not always a flaw. Oliver Hart, co-winner of
last year’s Nobel prize for economics, pointed to private prisons as a case in which profit-focused
managers might accept a cost-efficient decline in the welfare of prisoners that society would
prefer not to have. Yet economists saw in the productivity slowdown of the 1970s evidence
that an overreaching state was throttling economic dynamism. Mr Corbyn first won election to parliament
when the Tory government of Margaret Thatcher, inspired by Milton Friedman, was busily selling off bits of state firms like British Leyland (the
nationalised carmaker), British Airways and what was then called British Petroleum. Other governments followed suit although public assets in
most countries remain large (see right-hand chart). State-owned
firms pose risks beyond that to dynamism.
Government-run companies may prioritise swollen payrolls over customer satisfaction. More worryingly,
state firms can become vehicles for corruption, used to dole out the largesse of the state to
favoured backers or to funnel social wealth into the pockets of the powerful. As state control over the
economy grows, political connections become a surer route to business success than
entrepreneurialism. Even botched privatisations can improve governance in corruption-plagued
emerging economies.
July
7/1/17
 2017 – Capitalism Kills Democracy/Hegemony
Capitalism will collapse U.S. primacy and democracy in 2017.
Power 17 - (Michael Power, Strategist, Investec Asset Management, 6-13-2017, "Has Western-
style democracy become too expensive for capitalism?",
https://www.ft.com/content/d0a5c460-5044-11e7-a1f2-db19572361bb?mhq5j=e3, DOA: 7-1-
2017) //Snowball
These fractures threaten the very fabric of democracy. The latter is predicated on the assumption that a
clear majority of citizens must think that the democratic system works for them if they are to continue
supporting it. In the US, with a majority of its citizens now predicting that their children’s generation will be worse off than their own, the
American dream and with it, American democracy, is surely faltering. As Western democracy
stumbles, the East makes progress. With faster GDP growth, it generates the world’s most sizeable economic
surpluses, even though — save for Japan — Asia has a far less sophisticated surplus redistribution
mechanism embedded in its various political systems. With a few notable exceptions, Asian
demographics are generally supportive while labour productivity growth is still materially
positive, driven by its rising service economy and its labour moving up the value-added ladder. The phrase “Cometh the hour, cometh the man”
is usually meant as a compliment. But this is not so when it is applied to Mr Trump’s ascendancy to power in the US. Just
as the West’s
democratic dream is faltering and the US’s position as the world’s leading economic power is
a decade away from being eclipsed, the US has elected a president who seems intent on
withdrawing the US into its fortress and, by doing so, hastening both those declines. Twenty-
seventeen may well mark the year when the politics underlying the primacy of democracy
and the economics underlying the primacy of the US both took decisive turns in new
directions. It is distinctly possible that these developments will disadvantage both the US and
the West at large.
7/2/17
 Vouchers Key to Reform
Vouchers are key to education reform – they solve educational quality, instill
democratic values, and decrease segregation.
U.S. News 17 - (U.S. News, 6-29-2017, "Vouchers Are Key to Education Reform",
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/letters/articles/2017-06-29/comprehensive-education-
reform-must-include-school-voucher-programs, DOA: 7-2-2017) //Snowball
But, by the time we agree on how to overhaul our public school system, it will be far too late for too
many kids. This is an inequity we can do something about now by allowing parents to choose
the school that is best for their child – whether that is at traditional public schools, public charter schools, private schools or
virtual learning. Education is not an either-or proposition; we should do everything we can to improve our public
schools while, at the same time, offering families the freedom to choose a school that can provide the best
education in a safe, secure environment. And we shouldn't use test scores – which are not a definitive indicator of future success
– as an excuse not to let parents choose. We know from the body of school choice research that test scores after only
one year do not accurately predict whether children who receive scholarships vouchers will ultimately
succeed. There is irrefutable evidence that kids enrolled in voucher-based school choice
programs are achieving some of key predictors of future success, including greater education
attainment and stronger democratic values, such as tolerance, political activity and voluntarism. What's more, taxpayers
and public schools save money, and schools become less segregated as a result. While we
continue to pursue education reform, we can't condemn our children to bear the brunt of the
status quo, and decrease their chances of future success. We owe it to families to provide school choice options,
including vouchers, as part of a comprehensive solution.
7/3/17
 U.S. Hegemony Bad
U.S. hegemony is unsustainable and counterproductive.
Preble and Ruger 16 - (Christopher Preble is the vice president for defense and foreign policy
studies at the Cato Institute, and William Ruger is vice president for research and policy at the
Charles Koch Institute, 8-31-2016, "No More of the Same: The Problem with Primacy",
https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/no-more-same-problem-primacy, DOA: 7-3-
2017) //Snowball
U.S. policymakers have invited this response. For decades, U.S.
foreign policy has followed a quixotic goal of primacy, or
global hegemony. It presumes that the United States is the indispensable nation, and that every
problem, in any part of the world, must be resolved by U.S. leadership or else will impact American
safety. But primacy has proved both difficult and costly. It is also frequently disconnected from
American security needs. An alternative approach to global affairs would concentrate on vital U.S. national
interests and maintain the tools necessary to defend them. It would also reject the need for global
hegemony. The idea that we can only be safe once the world is remade in our image is riddled
with logical fallacies. Moreover, an interests-driven foreign policy would take seriously the
consequences of our actions abroad and here at home — on our soldiers, our fiscal health, and our
principles. America’s default foreign policy is unnecessarily costly and unnecessarily risky. Instead of asking,
whenever a distant crisis breaks, “What is the United States going to do?” we should ask, first, “How does this affect vital U.S. national
interests?” and, second, “In light of recent developments, what can the United States do, while remaining prosperous and relatively safe, and
what must others do to protect themselves?” This might seem like common sense, but it runs counter to the foreign policy thinking among
American elites. They argue that America’s dominant position in the international system is good not only
for America but also for the world. A large, expensive, and globally deployed military is designed to
smother potential peer competitors and stop prospective threats before they materialize. Primacy also
requires a globe-girdling array of allies and the active spread of liberal values. It even means
“resisting, and where possible, undermining, rising dictators and hostile ideologies” through frequent military interventions, as
primacists Robert Kagan and Bill Kristol have argued. They are comfortable going to war even “when we
cannot prove that a narrowly construed ‘vital interest’ of the United States is at stake.” Primacists hold
that it would simply be too dangerous to allow allied countries to defend themselves or independently
assert their interests; therefore, the United States must do it for them. Though such a strategy encourages
free riding, primacists are more worried by the prospect that allies’ self-defense efforts might fail, necessitating more costly U.S.
intervention later and under less favorable circumstances. U.S. security guarantees, the primacists say, tamp down
the natural inclination of states to want to provide security for themselves, thus preventing allies from
engaging in arms build-ups that might unsettle their neighbors, perhaps even unleashing regional arms races. Unfortunately — but
predictably given what theory and history teach us — primacy has been neither easy to implement nor cheap to sustain.
When the U.S. military is called upon to fight wars across the globe, the human toll is
considerable. Since 9/11 and through 2014, nearly 7,000 U.S. troops have been killed, 52,000
have been wounded in action, and close to a million veterans have registered disability claims. The
fiscal burdens of primacy are severe as well. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost the United States
trillions of dollars, some of which we will be paying for many decades in the form of additional debt
servicing and veteran care. And primacy guarantees more fighting in the future — and the bills that
come with it. Of course, we ought to have a strong defense. But, under primacy, the U.S. military is expected both to
stop threats from materializing and to stomp out any fires it fails to prevent. That expectation requires us to maintain the
world’s largest and most active military. Notwithstanding the false claims that the Budget Control Act is responsible for “gutting national
defense”, or the widespread belief that the U.S. military has been hollowed out and needs to be rebuilt, the
U.S. military is the
preeminent fighting force in the world. No state can match U.S. global power-projection capabilities. And U.S.
military spending remains near historic highs. In inflation-adjusted dollars, military spending — both war and non-war
— averaged $612 billion per year during President George W. Bush’s two terms in office. Under President Barack Obama, it has averaged $675
billion. The United States will have spent nearly $500 billion more on the military in the Obama years than during the Bush years. The
United
States spends at least as much on its military as the next eight countries worldwide and nearly three
times more than China and Russia combined. Although not all of that money is spent wisely, it still buys incomparable
capabilities. No sensible American should wish to trade places with any other country on earth. The U.S. military is second to none, and our
massive economy is a solid foundation for generating military power when it is needed.. In the current strategic environment, the
United
States could easily spend less and still safeguard America’s vital interests. It could do so through
smarter spending, eliminating wasteful gold-plated programs such as the F-35, and demanding greater
burden-sharing from allies. At present, U.S. security guarantees to wealthy allies cause them to
underprovide for their own defense, meaning they have less capacity to help us deal with common security challenges.
Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen warned that debts and deficits represent threats to not
just our fiscal health but our national security as well. Although military spending is not the primary driver of the
nation’s massive and unprecedented fiscal imbalance, primacy’s high costs undermine our economic security.
Such expenditures might still be justified if they were instrumental in keeping Americans safe. But, in fact,
primacy is based on a number of faulty premises, including: (a) that the United States is subjected to
more urgent and prevalent threats than ever before; (b) that U.S. security guarantees reassure
nervous allies and thus contribute to global peace and stability; and (c) that a large and active U.S.
military is essential to the health of the international economy. Primacists hold that the United States
cannot adopt a wait-and-see attitude with respect to distant trouble spots. They believe that the security of all states are
bound together and that threats to others are actually threats to the United States. Primacists believe that instability and crises abroad will
adversely affect American interests if they are allowed to fester. “The alternative to Pax Americana-the only alternative-is global disorder,”
writes the Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens, with emphasis. Because
any problem, in any part of the world, could
eventually threaten U.S. security or U.S. interests, primacy aims to stop all problems before they
occur. This assumption is based on a very selective reading of world history, grossly exaggerates
the United States’ ability to control outcomes, and underplays its costs. It also miscasts the nature
of the threats that are facing us. Technology has not evaporated the seas, allowing large land armies to march across the ocean floor.
Meanwhile, potential challengers like China face more urgent problems that will diminish their desire and ability to project power outside of
their neighborhood. They can cause trouble in the South China Sea, but that does not mean they can or will in the South Pacific or the
Caribbean. China’s economic troubles and rising popular unrest, for example, could constrain Chinese military spending increases and focus
Beijing’s attention at home. Causing problems abroad would threaten critical trading relations that are essential to the health of the Chinese
economy. Primacists argue that we cannot rely on oceans to halt nuclear missiles that fly over them or
cyberattacks in the virtual realm. And terrorists could infiltrate by land, sea, or air, or they could be grown
right here at home. But our own nuclear weapons provide a powerful deterrent against state actors with
return addresses, and a massive, forward-deployed military is not the best tool for dealing with
terrorists and hackers. The hard part is finding them and stopping them before they act. That is a job for the
intelligence and law enforcement communities, respectively. And small-footprint military units like special operations forces
can help as needed. There have always been dangers in the world, and there always will be. To the extent that we can identify
myriad threats that our ancestors could not fathom, primacy compounds the problem. By calling on the
United States to deal with so many threats, to so many people, in so many places, primacy ensures that even
distant problems become our own. Primacy’s other key problem is that, contrary to the claims of its
advocates, it inadvertently increases the risk of conflict. Allies are more willing to confront
powerful rivals because they are confident that the United States will rescue them if the confrontation turns
ugly, a classic case of moral hazard, or what MIT’s Barry Posen calls “reckless driving.” Restraining our impulse to
intervene militarily or diplomatically when our safety and vital national interests are not threatened
would reduce the likelihood that our friends and allies will engage in such reckless behavior in the first
place. Plus, a more restrained foreign policy would encourage others to assume the burden of
defending themselves. Such a move on the part of our allies could prove essential, given that primacy
has not stopped our rivals from challenging U.S. power. Russia and China, for example, have resisted
the U.S. government’s efforts to expand its influence in Europe and Asia. Indeed, by provoking security
fears, primacy exacerbates the very sorts of problems that it claims to prevent, including
nuclear proliferation. U.S. efforts at regime change and talk of an “axis of evil” that needed to be eliminated certainly provided
additional incentives for states to develop nuclear weapons to deter U.S. actions (e.g., North Korea). Meanwhile, efforts intended to
smother security competition or hostile ideologies have destabilized vast regions, undermined our
counterterrorism efforts, and even harmed those we were ostensibly trying to help. After U.S. forces deposed
the tyrant Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraq descended into chaos and has never recovered. The civil war in
Syria, and the problem of the Islamic State in particular, is inextricable from the U.S.-led invasion and
occupation of Iraq. The situation in Libya is not much better — the United States helped overthrow Muammar al-Qaddafi in 2011, but
violence still rages. The Islamic State, which originated in Iraq, has now established a presence in Libya as well, provoking still more U.S. military
action there. It is clear that those
interventions were counterproductive and have failed to make
America safer and more secure, yet primacists call for more of the same. Lastly, primacists
contend that U.S. military power is essential to the functioning of the global economy. “U.S. security
commitments,” explain leading primacists Stephen G. Brooks, G. John Ikenberry, and William C. Wohlforth, “help maintain an open world
economy and give Washington leverage in economic negotiations.” The United States sets the rules of the game and punishes
those who disobey them. If the United States were less inclined to intervene in other people’s disputes, the primacists say, the risk of war
would grow, roiling skittish markets. But such
claims exaggerate the role that U.S. ground forces play in
facilitating global trade, especially given the resiliency and flexibility of global markets in the face
of regional instability. Moreover, primacists ignore the extent to which past U.S. military activism has
actually undermined market stability and upset vital regions. Smart alternatives to primacy feature a
significant role for the U.S. Navy and Air Force in providing security in the global commons while
avoiding the downsides of onshore activism. In conclusion, America’s default foreign policy is unnecessarily costly
and unnecessarily risky. Its defenders misconstrue the extent to which U.S. military power has
contributed to a relatively peaceful international system, and they overestimate our ability to
sustain an active global military posture indefinitely. The United States needs an alternative
foreign policy, one that focuses on preserving America’s strength and advancing its security, and that
expects other countries to take primary responsibility for protecting their security and preserving their
interests. America’s leaders should restrain their impulse to use the U.S. military when our vital
interests are not directly threatened while avoiding being drawn into distant conflicts that sap
our strength and undermine our safety and values.
7/4/17
 Leftist Politics dead- new approach key
Status quo leftist or radical politics are ineffective- might as well be dead- new
approach is needed
Harris 16 John Harris, journalist for The Guardian, “Does the Left have a future?”, September
6, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/06/does-the-left-have-a-future, VM
If the left’s predicament comes down to a single fault, it is this. It is very good at demanding
change, but pretty hopeless at understanding it. Supposedly radical elements too often regard
deep technological shifts as the work of greedy capitalists and rightwing politicians, and demand
that they are rolled back. Meanwhile, the self-styled moderates tend to advocate large-scale
surrender, instead of recognising that technological and economic changes can create new openings for
left ideas. A growing estrangement from the left’s traditional supporters makes these problems worse,
and one side tends to cancel out the other. The result: as people experience dramatic change in their everyday
lives, they form the impression that half of politics has precious little to say to them. In a political reality
as complex as ours, there are inevitable problems for the political right as well. It is a long time since the Conservative party has spoken the
visceral, populist language that was the hallmark of Margaret Thatcher. As with Blair in 2005, the Tories were recently elected to power with
the support of less than a quarter of the electorate. Similarly, in Germany, Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats once vied with the Social
Democrats for the support of a majority of the population, but they are now down to around 30%. But modern challenges for the centre-right
will always be less difficult than they are for the left. The former, after all, seeks to safeguard and advance modern capitalism rather than
substantially change it. Even in the absence of a broad social base, the right is sustained by big business and the conservative press, which give
it huge political advantages. The left has responded to its crisis by looking endlessly inward – but occasionally,
there are flashes of hope. There is a rising recognition, among both former followers of Blair and alumni of the traditional left, that Labour’s old
majoritarian dreams are probably finished – and that it should finally embrace proportional representation and build new alliances and
coalitions. This change would probably trigger a split between the party’s estranged left and right, and thereby bring Britain into line with the
rest of Europe, where the left’s crisis is highlighted by a tussle between traditional social democrats and new radicals. In Britain and plenty of
other places, there is growing interest in the idea of a universal basic income, built on an understanding of accelerating economic changes, and
their far-reaching consequences for the left’s almost religious attachment to the glories of paid employment. It is early days for such a leap. But
proposing that the state should meet some or all of people’s basic living costs would be an implicit acknowledgement that work alone cannot
possibly deliver the collective security that the left has always seen as its basic mission, and that space has to be created for the other elements
of people’s lives. Whether
the left can come to terms with the new politics of national identity and
belonging and thereby rein in its nastier aspects is a much more difficult question – but if it
doesn’t, its activists may very well gaze at their parties’ old “core” supporters across an
impossible divide. Perhaps the most generous verdict is that here and across the world, the left – radicals and liberals
alike – is stuck in an interregnum. You could compare it to the predicament of the 1980s, but it is even more reminiscent of
the 1930s, when the aftershocks of an economic crash saw the left pushed aside by the politics of hatred and division. In 1931, the great Labour
thinker RH Tawney wrote a short text titled The Choice Before the Labour Party, casting a cold eye over its predicament in terms that ring as
true now as they must have done then. Labour, he wrote, “does not achieve what it could, because it does not know what it wants. It frets out
of office and fumbles in it, because it lacks the assurance either to wait or to strike. Being without clear convictions as to its own meaning and
purpose, it is deprived of the dynamic which only convictions supply. If it neither acts with decision nor inspires others so to act, the principal
reason is that it is itself undecided.” No party can exist forever. Political
traditions can decline, and then take on
new forms; some simply become extinct. All that can be said with certainty is that if the left is to finally
leave the 20th century, the process will have to start with the ideas and convictions that
answer the challenges of a modernity it is only just starting to wake up to, let alone understand.

Only a new politics acting of hope, rather than for hope can solve
Wrangel 17 Claes Tӓngh Wrangel, PhD Candidate in Peace and Development Research at the
School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, His current research interrogates the
biopolitical use of hope as articulated in US security discourse. “The Post-Trump Desire for
Hope”, Society and Space, http://societyandspace.org/2017/06/13/the-post-trump-desire-for-
hope/, June 13, 2017, VM
In a time defined by the continual rise of right wing populism in general, and by the election of Donald Trump in particular, talk of hope
seems to be re-emerging at the center of political debates in both US and global politics. This seems to be
particularly true within parts of the American academic left, whose growing disillusionment seems to have fostered a desire for hope. Aside
from Rebecca Solnit’s columns in The Guardian on the imperative to hope in dark times, an increasing number of scholars have argued for the
necessity of hope to mobilize resistance against Trump. For instance, Corey Robin recently argued in Jacobin that “fighting Trump requires
believing in the possibility that we can change our circumstances,” and in The Nation, Ronald Aronson pleaded to the left to resist what he
perceives as a growing hope fatigue: “hope matters to us because the left is its natural home, one the left should not lose” (2017). However, as
Ben Anderson has argued on this site, there are risks entailed in the current desire for hope. For Anderson, “there is something too comforting
about this story of hope kept alive.” The risk is that it installs a sense that Trump—and the general right wing populism he represents—is but a
passing moment, and that the “normal” order of liberal politics is soon to return. According to Anderson, a forward-looking hope may thus
come to naturalize the status quo: “by attempting to name what is possible it [the desire for hope] risks presuming the stability and legibility of
the present.” To his unease I wish to add three points that I feel every desire towards hope should bear in mind. There is no genuine
hope Underpinning the contemporary desire for hope, as well as the historical fascination for hope as a mode of
“transformative political agency” within critical political theory (what Susan McManus has referred to as the “hope project” [2011]), is a
tendency to define what a “genuine hope” as a prerogative of the left and of the future is. Hence, the
contemporary obsession to describe the hope articulated by Trump as not really hope, but as an “anti-hope,” whose real
affective logic is one of “despair and anger,” of “fear,” and “decline.” In contrast to Trump’s hope, real hope is
progressive and pluralistic. It is a matter of trust, of being open both to an unknown future and to others who we not yet know. According to
Solnit, hope is an experience of the world’s “interconnectedness” and “indivisibility.” For Robin, hope is grounded on a belief in contingency, on
a recognition that the present realities of war and division are not rooted in “dark and deep truths” about human nature, but are possible to
overcome. However, hope arguably does not have a uniform “genuine” meaning or direction. On
the contrary, as Terry Eagleton’s exposé of its conceptual history makes abundantly clear (2015), the concept of hope seems to be essentially
contested. Hope is not one emotion. According to Eagleton, “there is in fact no characteristic feeling, symptom, sensation or behaviour pattern
associated with hope” (2015: 55). In other words, hope should not be read by default as the opposite of neither fear, despair, nor anger, but as
being ambiguously related to such concepts. As noted by McManus, there is fear and uncertainty attached to every hope. Quoting Ernst Bloch,
she holds hope to be a precarious experience without guarantees: “else it would not be hope” (1986a: 340). This ambiguity is evident
throughout hope’s conceptual history, at times causing great debate as to hope’s political potential. The first historical reference to hope that
has survived to our days—Hesiod’s narration of the legend of Pandora (1983)—is a clear example both of this ambiguity and of the political
contestation surrounding the definition of hope. According to the legend, hope both belongs to, and is separated from, the category of human
suffering. Embodied in the goddess Elpis, hope is included in the box of miseries that Pandora is ordered by Zeus to unleash onto mankind as
punishment for stealing from the Gods. However, in her final act Pandora closes the lid, keeping hope alone from being released. Hope’s
ambiguous position has puzzled interpreters. Some have taken the fact that hope “is caught by the lid [of Pandora’s
box] to symbolize that hope always desires to be realized but never is” (Verdenius, 1985: 68). According to Nietzsche, Hesiod’s poem is
evidence that hope “is in truth the worst of all evils, because it protracts the torment of men” (1996: 45). Another common interpretation has
sought to maintain the purity of hope that Hesiod’s poem seems to problematize, arguing that Elpis should not be interpreted as hope, but as
expectation. But as argued by Willem Jacob Verdenius, such interpretations reduce neither the ambiguity of Hesiod’s poem nor of hope (1985:
69). It is this ambiguity that every attempt to define hope, such as those offered by the “hope project,” is reductive of. Definitions that, because
of this ambiguity, appear not to describe, but to be performative of, hope.
Importantly, the object such acts are
performative of is not only the affect of hope, but also the affective subject of hope . Which brings
me to my second point: There is not one hopeful subject Central to the “hope project” is a definition of hope as formative of a revolutionary
and becoming subject, capable of transcending particular identities. While hope is held as an activist affect, it is ultimately defined to be
without an antagonistic Other. According to Negri and Hardt, “hope ultimately resides in camaraderie, the possibility of the creation of a
fraternal society of equals” (quoted in Brown et. al., 2002: 200). Aronson holds hope to be “an experience of coming together” (2017),
constitutive of “a we committed to expanding and deepening democracy.” For Solnit, the mobilization of resistance against Trump is evidence
of “another America rising and taking action,” one that is “beautiful,” “empathic” and “solidaristic.” According to such definitions, hope is both
there and not there. Hope is both intrinsic to life—an inextinguishable and uncontainable human force of
creativity that forever transcends totalitarian attempts of sovereign power, as defined by Anthony Burke (2011: 108)—and
formative of a particular transcendent form of life, as per Solnit’s, Aronson’s, and Negri and Hardt’s claims rehearsed
above. According to Richard Rorty, hope is the task of politics: to foster a subject capable of setting “aside religious and ethnic identities in
favour of an image of themselves as part of a great human adventure” (Ibid.: 238-9). Yet
despite how attractive such
descriptions undoubtedly are, it is difficult, if not impossible, to find an articulation of hope
that does not remain particular, that does not invoke the very limits they claim to transcend .
This is arguably especially true for a universal hope presented as without subject. As argued by Julian Reid, every definition of life—every claim
to establish the fact of life, however progressive they may seem—is part of an “imperative discourse on life” (Reid, 2011: 772). The “fact” of
hope included. As Reid reminds us, not only are such “facts” necessarily particular, they are also contingent, dependent on a set of historical
and political conditions. Contrary to Aronson’s proclamation, commitment to hope is not a prerogative of the left, nor of progressive politics.
Hope is rather omnipresent in the political vocabulary of the West. According to Anderson, all political campaigns, including Trump’s, “express
and offer more or less specific hopes, albeit in a range of different tones.” The object of such campaigns are not only to project a vision of the
future, but to invoke a subject of hope it claims to represent, to establish the limits of human belonging, by identifying which lives are on the
side of hope and consequently of life, and who is perceived to obstruct its path. Contemporary examples of this language include not only
Barack Obama’s empathic promise to recognize the inherent hopefulness of the global poor of human life to transform the world “from the
bottom up,” but also the notion of a “striving” hope that Trump holds to be the life force of the nation state, as detailed in his inaugural
address: “a nation is only living as long as it is striving.” Contrary
to the leftist subject of hope—held to be
revolutionary and transcendental—the subject of this hope is arguably a neoliberal form of
life, whose cosmopolitan values may vary, but at its core remains the same: individual,
entrepreneurial and struggling—capable of succeeding “despite great odds.” As I have argued
elsewhere (Tängh Wrangel, 2017), the hope this individual is called to embody is not directed towards the future. Its task is not to transform
the world, but to change one’s individual place in the present world. Which brings me to my third and final point: Hope is not the
future While hope undoubtedly is related to the future, the “hope project” often perceives this relation to be uniform, defining hope as a
radical break in which the future enters the present. Bloch’s conceptualization of the “ontology of the not-yet” (1986b: 87) is perhaps the most
well-known example of this category of thought. According to Bloch, hope is an actualization of the future in the present, an unsettling
experience beyond the steady pace of predictable linear time. Reid holds a similar view, finding in Gaston Bachelard’s conceptualization of the
imagination what Bloch would describe as hope: “not only the promise of a world beyond […], but the actual existence of the beyond in the
psychic life of the subject. It is the enactment of the beyond now” (2011: 161, emphasis added). It is arguably from this perspective that Rorty is
able to argue that hope, not the future, should be the true object of politics. According to Rorty, what
ultimately matters to
politics is not whether particular hopes are realized, but whether politics realizes hope; the
production of a critical “imaginative power” (Ibid.: 87) that would increase the scope of “human freedom” (Ibid.: 129).
According to this logic, it is not only that hope and the future becomes one and the same. It is rather that hope substitutes
itself for the future, replacing the desire to actualize the future with a desire to experience
the future as possibility. According to Ghassan Hage, this logic of substitution, in which hope
takes the place of the future, is exemplary of our present capitalist society: “Instead of living
an ethic of joy, we live an ethic of hope, and that becomes an ethic of deferring joy ” (2002: 151).
As Hage notes, there is a suffering entailed in this form of hope, one that keeps the working
class docile. It is neither agential nor subversive, but is better described as a kind of waiting,
as observed by Brian Massumi: “a deferral of the present to the future [rather than] a way of
bringing the future into the present” (2015: 32). This neoliberal hope is not false; it is not opposite to “genuine” hope. On
the contrary, it represents the paradigmatic form through which hope is defined today. If we do not acknowledge this, we
risk being unable to see that hope is complicit with the fear, despair, and antagonisms of our
present society. We also risk alienating those whose hopes the left should ignite and represent, portraying them as devoid of
something that is arguably central to their populist mobilization. Indeed, while right wing populism seemingly competes in portraying the future
in negative terms—warning of the end of Western civilization—it is not without hope. If anything, the populist promise is immersed in what is
presented as a radical hope: a dream that the political center can be disrupted, that the future is not pre-defined by “natural” laws of
globalization, that relations of power and domination can be restored to its “proper” form. Is this not hope? Is this not to believe in the human
capacity to initiate change? To
disrupt this nostalgic, racist, and reactionary hope, it is arguably not
enough to commit to hope. No particular politics follows from such commitments. As argued by
Hage: “we need to look at what kind of hope a society encourages rather than simply whether it
gives people hope or not” (2002: 152). Hope alone is no answer. Indeed, given hope’s ambiguous relation to despair,
fear, and suffering, it seems crazy to desire hope. At risk with the desire for hope is not only our capacity to imagine a world beyond human
vulnerability, but also our capacity to bring the future forth. If
hope is a “tough-minded and inspired disposition to
act,” as argued by Aronson, then this disposition arguably requires that it acts towards the realization
of something other than itself. If this disposition is to be released does it not demand that we
replace the desire for hope with a desire towards a different and better future? That we act
not for hope, but of hope—recognizing that while hope may be a great means, it is a lousy
end. As stated by Reid, the “imaginary must find its matter, its reality” (2011: 161).
7/5/17
 U.S. Hegemony Unsustainable
U.S. hegemony is unsustainable – counterbalancing, overstretch, and expenditure.
Abeyrathne and Hettiarachchi 16 - (Upul Abeyrathne, Professor of Political Science,
University of Peradeniya, and Nishantha Hettiarachchi, African Journal of Political Science and
International Relations, July 2016, "The US attempt of supremacy in the twenty first century:
Russian and Chinese response ", http://academicjournals.org/journal/AJPSIR/article-full-text-
pdf/127471959978, DOA: 7-5-2017) //Snowball
There was evidence that the pro-US realist school‟s assumption of unipolar situation was wrong and
permanence of US supremacy was unsustainable in the context of emerging powers, and that the balanceof-power
realists were correct in predicting that unipolarity would stimulate the emergence of new great powers
that would act as counterweight to American hegemony (Layne, 2011:151). Some balance-of-power realist
forecast that unipolarity would give way quickly to multi-polarity after the Soviet Union‟s fall proved to be wrong (Ibid). However, the key
insight was correct: the over-concentration of power in US hands after the Cold War would spur the
emergence of an international system in which American hegemony would be counter-
balanced (Layne, 1993, 2006a). Further, the United States was saddled with the responsibility for maintaining
stability in Europe, East Asia and the Persian Gulf-commitment that were the legacy of cold war (Layne, 2011:153-
155). At the end of the Cold War, the United States had taken on additional responsibilities in the Central Asia
and Eastern Europe (Ibid). These critical situations required the United States to maintain large, capable and
expensive military forces. However, strategic experts increasingly had realized that America‟s force structure had
been insufficient to meet all the United States far-flung security commitments (Layne, 2006b:7-41). It was
evident in Russia-Georgia war in August 2008. Many U.S. leaders, including Republican presidential nominee John McCain wanted the United
States to come to Georgia‟s aid (Layne, 2011:153). However, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States simply did
not have the forces needed to defend Georgia. Similarly, there was good evidence that the United States
wanted to use the military option to stop the nuclear programme of Iran and North Korea.
But, it prevented military option because the bulk of the U.S. military was committed to the conflict in Iraq and
Afghanistan. All these evidences had substantiated the fact that the American military was too
small to meet the demands of these two wars, much less any other obligations the United States may had. All these facts revealed
the incapacity of single super power to regulate the number of violent conflicts in the
scattered places around the world. Recently, in the context of financial and economic crisis, many
economists had been raising concerns about the economic costs of America‟s hegemonic
military posture (Ibid). For example, economists had estimated that the direct and indirect costs of the Iraq war
would exceed US Dollar 3 trillion (Stiglitz and Bilmes, 2008). No similar estimate has been made for the Afghanistan conflict. In
recent years, the weakening of the US economy and budget deficits were going to make for US. It was
increasingly difficult to sustain the level of military commitments that U.S. hegemony required.
Thus, the military expenditure became unbearable and number of conflict made single superpower‟s inability in assuring
order in world political affairs. The emerging World Powers, particularly, China and Russia had sought to build new
alliance in international political, military and economic spheres to counter and counterbalance US and
its allies. The new developments in international political economy and military operations had marked the end
unipolar world system that US aspired to have.
7/6/17
 Trump Marks End of Hegemony
Hegemony is declining under Trump – it’s only a question of whether the coming
multipolar order will be peaceful.
Marchetti 17 - (Raffaele Marchetti is senior assistant professor (national qualification as
associate professor) in International Relations at the Department of Political Science and the
School of Government of LUISS and Peter Geoghegan, 2-14-2017, "End of the American
hegemonic cycle", https://www.opendemocracy.net/raffaele-marchetti/end-of-american-
hegemonic-cycle, DOA: 7-6-2017) //Snowball
Trump’s election marks the end of the long phase of American world hegemony. Despite the electoral slogan
“Make America Great Again” and the great expectations this may have generated, his presidency will presumably be
characterized by an overall retrenchment. Many different interpretations have been provided on the reasons of Trump’s
success ranging from populist framing to FBI support. Contrary to the mainstream debate, I see a more fundamental reason
underpinning his victory: the changed costs/benefits balance in the US role in the world . The theory of
hegemonic stability holds that at some point the hegemon will start to decline due to the
increased costs of the management of the system which outbalance the benefits the
hegemon gains out of it. The costs of the management of the system have in fact been accumulating in
the last 4 presidencies. During the Bush administrations, security costs due to the military operations in
Afghanistan and Iraq have, among other damage, impacted negatively on the US government. Equally, during the
Obama presidencies costs due to economic stimuli have increased the overall debt of the country. As
predicted by hegemonic theory, we finally come to a point in which the costs became too heavy
for the citizens, or rather their perception of this becomes more evident, so that they start to protest and demand a
change. This was intercepted by Trump much more than by Clinton, with Trump stepping back to
decrease the costs of international projection. So-called “imperial overstretch”, formed much earlier,
led Trump’s electorate to seek less international costs (and possibly, but less likely, more domestic benefits).
Hence, the promised withdrawal from a number of Free Trade Agreements, the discussion of
the terms of NATO participation, cancellation of the environmental deals etc. From this perspective
Trump’s election has to do with a much longer trend of international order rather than the specific
time-lapse of the electoral campaign, a trend of dis-engagement that had already begun during the Obama
administration and will now be more clearly visible with Trump. The system in which we have been living in the
last 70 years was created in large part by the US leadership. The UN system, Bretton Woods Institutions,
NATO, and WTO are all institutional arrangements that have been strongly promoted by the post WWII
hegemon and that have been preserved in life thanks to continuous support by the USA. Now all of this is
put into question by the resistance of the newly elected president to engage in and with
these multilateral organizations. Trump will most likely have a more unpredictable, possibly
turbulent behaviour vis a vis all of these institutions and this will lead to their transformation
and perhaps for some, to their marginalization. Other significant elements in this jigsaw puzzle have to do
with the phenomenon of globalization. It is because of global transformation in production chains, the
relocation of multinational corporation abroad coupled with the possibility of (re-)importing goods, and the
subsequent loss of jobs that a component of the middle class has been badly affected by unemployment. But it is also
thanks to globalization that China is rising fast and challenging the US leadership in economic,
but also increasingly in political and military terms. It is clear by now that the policy choice for globalization
taken by the US leadership in the ‘80s (republican) and ‘90s (democratic) was beneficial only at the
beginning, but later turned out to be detrimental to the power position of the USA in the world economy. It is widely
recognised that India and especially China are the real winners in the game of globalization , hence closing the
gap with the west. Russia is an additional element in this calculation. This new would-be multipolar
system, deprived of the overall western master plan, is left to pure bargaining, pure transactionalism
played with ad hoc games, which is very much in line with Trump’s overall attitude to socio-economic
engagement. And yet, this might have a de-polarizing effect, a de-escalating consequence in terms of the
current world tensions that have grown in the last few years. Here I am thinking especially of the west-Russia split.
Without a hegemonic power pushing for a specific world order, a more balanced system
might emerge. We might end up with a Trump presidency that has polarizing effects
domestically and depolarizing effects internationally. The line of march is clear: either new
competition based on multipolar rivalry which might possibly escalate into conflicts, or the opening of new
channels for dialogue, might lead to a foundational phase in which innovative rules of the
international games are written by western and non-western powers together. It will be up
to Trump and the other leaders to steer the way and to take a decision on which way to go.
 BizCon not Key to Growth
BizCon isn’t key to growth – it’s too vague to explain the economy and only
meaningful when combined with concrete factors
Irwin 7/4
(Neil Irwin is a senior economics correspondent for The New York Times and holds an MBA
from Columbia University, where he was a Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economics and Business
Journalism. “Confidence Boomed After the Election. The Economy Hasn’t.” The Upshot, 4 July
2017)PA
After Donald J. Trump won the presidential election, Americans’ optimism about the economic future
soared. But midway through the year, that optimism has not translated into concrete economic gains. This seeming
contradiction exposes a reality about the role of psychology in economics — or more specifically, how psychology is connected only

loosely to actual growth. It will take more than feelings to fix the sluggishness that has been evident in
the United States and other major economies for years. Confidence isn’t some magic elixir for the economy:
Businesses will hire and invest only when they see concrete evidence of demand for their
products, and consumers intensify their spending only when their incomes justify it. The sharp rise in
economic optimism after the election came through no matter how the question was asked or who answered, whether the survey was intended to capture
consumer confidence or consumer comfort or consumer sentiment. It was true in surveys of small-business owners and of C.E.O.s of some of the biggest companies

the economy is plodding

in the world. And the rise during the winter months in these surveys has mostly been sustained in the months since. But

along at the same modest rate it has for the last eight years nonetheless — at least when you look at “hard” data
around economic activity instead of “soft” data like surveys, as analysts put it. President Trump said on Twitter on Sunday that the stock market was at an “all-time

in
high” and that unemployment was at its lowest level in years, both of which are true (he added that wages would start going up, which is certainly possible). But

overall measures of economic activity, the expansion looks much as it has for years, with steady
growth of around 2 percent. The Trump economy so far looks an awful lot like the Obama
economy. For all of business executives’ apparent enthusiasm, the nation is adding jobs more
slowly in 2017 than it did in 2016, and investment spending by businesses is growing modestly;
new orders for capital goods are up only 0.7 percent so far in 2017. Consumers’ spending was 2.7 percent higher in the first four months this year than in the same
period of 2016, adjusted for inflation — which is slower than the 3.2 percent year-over-year gain at the end of 2016. And while the stock market has been surging

long-term Treasury bond yields remain very low, suggesting

and the Federal Reserve has raised short-term interest rates,

that traders do not buy the idea that growth is poised to accelerate. A falling dollar suggests
currency markets see improving prospects in Europe and elsewhere. There is no sign a
recession is brewing, but neither is there evidence for the kind of boom you might expect if you
believe that confidence is a crucial driver of economic growth. This is less surprising when you look at the historical
record of confidence surveys. When financial commentators talk about the economy, they often use the

elusive concept of confidence as part of their narrative. It’s hard to describe what is happening
in the global economy, with billions of people producing trillions of dollars of goods and
services. Using a vague psychological concept is a tidy way of describing why things happen
when the underlying drivers are uncertain. To say that “the economy is slowing down because people are less confident” sounds a lot
better than “the economy is slowing down for a whole bunch of complex reasons that I’m not really sure about.” Confidence has a kind of

mystical explanatory power thanks to its vagueness. But “confidence” isn’t really some
psychological pixie dust that determines the economic future. Rather, it often reflects
underlying fundamentals — whether consumers see job opportunities readily available, for
example, and whether businesses are seeing strong advance orders. “Confidence generally goes
up when we see strong income growth or big gains in household wealth,” said Karen Dynan, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for
International Economics whose former work for the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve included forecasting consumer spending. “ You’ll typically

see higher consumption spending after that happens. But it’s caused by the rise in income and
wealth, not the rise in confidence.” Sometimes these surveys can pick up on shifts in those fundamentals before they are evident in more
concrete data points. But that doesn’t mean that they do a fantastic job on their own of predicting the economic future. Since 1999, there has been a fairly strong
correlation between the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index and the growth in personal consumption expenditures over the ensuing six months, just as
you might expect. (And if the past relationship holds, spending levels will accelerate.) But that chart looks about the same if you instead look at the relationship
between growth over the preceding six months and the next six months. In fact, that correlation was stronger than confidence. In other words, if you had just
predicted that the immediate future would be similar to the recent past, you would have done a better job projecting consumer spending during the last couple of
decades than if you had relied only on a confidence survey. Confidence surveys can make economic forecasts more accurate, according to some analysis — but only
in certain circumstances, and if used correctly. For example, Michelle L. Barnes and Giovanni P. Olivei of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston found that forecasts
were more accurate when they built in data from the Reuters/University of Michigan survey (now the Bloomberg/Michigan survey) that is also used to calculate
consumer sentiment. And Stéphane Dées and Pedro Soares Brinca of the European Central Bank found that confidence surveys can provide information about the
future that economic fundamentals do not at economic turning points, and may be a factor in how crises spread between countries. Those results suggest that why
confidence shifts matters a great deal. At certain moments, ordinary consumers and businesses may instantly pick up on shifting economic fundamentals that would
take time to show up in the official economic data. For example, from July through November of 2007, consumer sentiment and confidence numbers plummeted,
even as measures of consumer spending and employment were relatively steady. Credit was tightening and the housing crisis was worsening, but consumers
seemed to pick up that the economy was on the verge of a recession (which began in December 2007) before it was at all clear from official data. For every example

measures of confidence fell precipitously in September

like that, though, you can also find the reverse. Those same

2005, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. That disaster ultimately had no major impact on
the overall economy. When confidence rises or falls suddenly, the move will predict a shift in
economic performance only if something happens to the fundamentals to justify it. The early warning
that confidence surveys offered on the 2008 recession was useful, but the downturn happened not because consumer

confidence fell, but because the underlying forces around housing and credit that it reflected
were so damaging. The post-Katrina drop wasn’t matched by any major deterioration in
economic fundamentals, so it was a mere historical blip.
7/7/17
 Perception of Potential → Public Support
The more the public believes everyone has potential, the more likely they are to
support public education.
Jacobs 17 - (Tom Jacobs is the senior staff writer of Pacific Standard, 7-7-17, "The Belief That
Drives Support for Public Education", https://psmag.com/education/the-belief-that-drives-
support-for-public-education, DOA: 7-7-2017) //Snowball
"THE MORE PEOPLE BELIEVED THAT NEARLY EVERYONE HAS HIGH POTENTIAL, THE MORE THEY
VIEWED EDUCATION AS A FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHT." Not surprisingly, liberals were more likely than
conservatives to consider education a right, but beliefs on the universality of intellectual potential shaped
their feelings about the subject above and beyond their political orientation. A second study replicated those
results, and additionally found "the more people viewed education as a right, the more they opposed
reducing the public's investment in education." This remained true even after factoring in "a number of
beliefs and motivations related to people's tendency to legitimize inequality and to support
the existing system." This is important news for policymakers who hope to increase support for
public education—and for the children who would benefit from high-quality public schools. Campaigns to convince
citizens to support school-related bond measures may be more effective if they convincingly
convey the concept that all kids have great potential.
7/11/17
 Midterms DA Link (HSS Bathroom Aff)
The aff gets used by the GOP to win the election- they have no qualms about fear-
mongering against trans people in order to get re-elected since it’s worked for them in
the past
Baume 3/1/17 Matt Baume, contributor, Since 2003, Matt Baume has worked as a writer,
photographer, and video maker, contributing to news outlets that include The Stranger, Vice,
Out, NBC Bay Area, PRI's Marketplace, The Bay Area Reporter, The Advocate and SF Weekly
with a film degree from Emerson College, “The Real Reason Republicans Keep Pushing
Transgender Bathroom Bans” , Huffington Post, March 1, 2017,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-real-reason-republicans-keep-pushing-
transgender_us_58b70c69e4b015675cf65b10, VM
Bathroom bills have been popping up in state after state — you know, the laws that say transgender people can’t
use a bathroom unless it matches their birth certificate. In other words, you can’t pee unless you show your toilet papers. Why are we suddenly
seeing so many of these? The politicians pushing them claim that they just want to protect people. And you know what? They’re right ―
stopping trans people from using the bathroom will protect people. But not the people they
say. Lawmakers claim that their bills will stop predators, and protect children. They’re
devoting a lot of thought to seats ― but not toilet seats, legislative seats. These
discriminatory bills don’t protect citizens, they protect politicians. Here’s how: In 2016, there were
around fifty bills introduced in various states that discriminated against trans people ― not just in
bathrooms, but in housing, education, employment, and more. And when you look at who introduced those bills, a funny pattern starts to
appear. For example, HB 4474 in Illinois, introduced by Tom Morrison. He was up for re-election last year, and won. Or HB 1624, introduced by
Steve Cookson in Missouri. He was up for re-election, and won. Colleen Garry won her re-election in Massachusetts last year after introducing
HB1320. So did Bob McDermott, with HB 2181 in Hawaii. I looked at 197 legislators who wrote, introduced, or co-
sponsored trans discrimination bills in 2016. Of them, three quarters were running for re-
election that year. And of the politicians running for re-election who introduced
discriminatory bills, 96% kept their seat. Let’s be clear: this country does not have a problem with trans people
committing crimes in bathrooms. But what we do have is a lot of politicians in search of some way to
pander to their base. If this was a decade ago, they’d come up with a wedge issue like, oh I don’t know, same-sex marriage. That’s
what they did in 2004, and it worked great ― Republicans put marriage equality on the ballot in 11 states,
and more in state legislatures. And how did they justify those laws? By claiming that banning gay marriage would protect
children. Sound familiar? They’re doing exactly the same thing with bathrooms that they did with marriage. In 2004, the GOP wove
a fantasy about gay marriage being a threat to children , that same-sex couples are dangerous. They can’t
get away with that anymore. So now those same political forces have turned to the next
group they can tell a scary story about: trans people who just want to pee. And let’s be clear: Trans
people have been using facilities consistent with their gender identity for decades, and there are no documented cases of
any trans person using an inclusive bathroom policy to harass, or attack, or commit any kind
of crime in this country. Banning trans people doesn’t make bathrooms safer. In fact, if
anyone’s in danger, it’s trans people themselves. A Williams Institute study showed that 70%
have been been harassed or attacked when trying to use a bathroom. So if politicians really
cared about safety, they’d make bathrooms more inclusive, not less. These bans exist to
benefit one group, and one group alone: politicians ― overwhelmingly Republican ― who are
worried about losing their seats and don’t mind pandering to unfounded fears. That worked
great with gay marriage in 2004. It worked again with bathrooms in 2016. If only those laws could
protect citizens as well as they protect the politicians passing them.
7/12/17
 States CP Solvency deficit- no funds
States can’t solve- can’t pay for the CP since they’re facing revenue declines and huge
spending cuts including to education in the status quo
Frazee 17 Gretchen Frazee, staff writer, PBS Newshour, February 22, 2017, “Nearly half of
states are facing budget shortfalls. Here’s why that matters.”,
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/nearly-half-of-states-are-facing-a-budget-shortfall-
heres-why-that-matters/, VM
“States aren’t starting out in a good place, and things could possibly get much, much worse very quickly,” said Richard Auxier, a researcher at
the Urban Institute, an economic policy research group. Nearly half of all states are projected to have budget
shortfalls for the fiscal year 2018, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers, a nonpartisan research
organization. Alaska, Connecticut, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Oregon all face deficits of around $1 billion. And proposed cuts to
federal spending is making budget planning even more difficult. In the short term, states are
proposing massive cuts to some of their programs. Connecticut, which must address a $1.3 billion deficit, is taking a
two-pronged approach. Democratic Gov. Daniel Malloy’s proposed budget includes about $200 million in new taxes, and would cut back on
state employee labor costs and shift teacher pension costs to cities and towns. Missouri
Gov. Eric Greitens, facing a $460
million budget shortfall, proposed cutting $146 million from the state’s current budget. About $82 million of that
would come from higher education. Greitens’ proposed $27.6 billion budget did not include any tax hikes. At a press conference
outlining his plan earlier this month, Greitens, a Republican, said he was confident the state’s education officials could “tighten their belts, just
like the rest of us, help us focus on excellence, and get back to the basics.” But some fiscal watchdogs said balancing the budget would require
broader changes. “This isn’t simply a matter of ‘we’re running short this year,’” said Traci Gleason, a spokeswoman with the Missouri Budget
Project. “We have made a series of policy decisions over the past several decades that have starved our state of the services that can grow our
economy and create good quality jobs.” Confronting tough choices Many states are still grappling with federal
spending cuts put in place during the recession, which put a major strain on state and local
budgets. As the country emerged from the downturn, many governors cut taxes in hopes of
boosting economic growth. But in many cases the projected growth never materialized, Auxier
said. States also made steep cuts of their own during the recession and kept them in place
afterward, leaving little padding in their budgets. Technology has also exacerbated the
problem. Historically, states have relied on tax revenue from goods purchased within state lines.
But online shopping has upended that model, causing a portion of states’ tax revenue to
evaporate. “States also made steep cuts of their own during the recession and kept them in place afterward, leaving little padding in their
budgets.” And as the country’s population ages, older consumers have also started spending less
money on tangible goods, like homes and cars, and more on services such as health care that bring in less tax revenue. The
federal government and states like Missouri haven’t updated their tax codes to reflect changing consumer
behavior, Gleason said. When it comes to federal spending, Trump has not released his budget proposal yet. But he has promised large
cuts to reduce “tremendous waste.” Congressional Republicans are outlining their own budget proposals
that could drastically change how Congress allocates federal funds. Defense spending, Medicare, Social Security and interest on the national
debt make up more than 80 percent of the federal budget. Given that reality, “the first
thing on the chopping block are
[usually] the funds that trickle down to state and local governments ,” Auxier said. Many of the
plans being floated by Republicans would give states more control over how they spend the
federal dollars, but would provide less funding overall, forcing states that want to make
up the gap to look elsewhere for funding.
 States CP’s with tax planks link to Politics
Tax plank links to politics
AEI 13 American Enterprise Institute (AEI),“Gas Tax Increases Unpopular”, May 7, 2013,
http://www.aei.org/multimedia/gas-tax-increases-unpopular/, VM
Gallup has been polling people how they would vote on a series of issues, and their latest question asks about a gas tax
increase of up to 20 cents a gallon to be used to improve roads and bridges and for more mass transportation in the respondents’ states.
Twenty-nine percent of respondents were in favor, with 66 percent opposed. Majorities of
Democrats, Republicans, and Independents were opposed. In a Gallup poll earlier this year, people were asked
whether a series of things were hurting, helping, or having no effect on their finances. The top response in terms of hurting, cited by 79 percent
of those polled, was fuel and gas prices. Source: The Gallup Organization, April 2013.
7/13/17
 Neolib K Alt
The alternative is to adopt the war mentality and rethink solidarity- only this
overcomes the shortcomings of horizontalist approaches that have failed the left for
the last 2 decades
Fisher 13 Mark Fisher, Programme Leader of the MA in Aural and Visual Cultures at
Goldsmiths, University of London and a lecturer at the University of East London, July 18, 2013,
“How to kill a zombie: strategizing the end of neoliberalism”, OpenDemocracy/University of
York Center for Modern Studies Editorial Partnership, https://www.opendemocracy.net/mark-
fisher/how-to-kill-zombie-strategizing-end-of-neoliberalism, VM
Only the horizontalist left believes the rhetoric about the obsolescence of the state. The danger of
the neo-anarchist critique is that it essentializes the state, parliamentary democracy and “mainstream
media” – but none of these things is forever fixed. They are mutable terrains to be struggled over, and the shape they
now assume is itself the effect of previous struggles. It seems, as times, as if the horizontalists want to occupy
everything except parliament and the mainstream media. But why not occupy the state and the media too? Neo-
anarchism isn’t so much of a challenge to capitalist realism as it is one of its effects. Anarchist fatalism – according to which it is easier
to imagine the end of capitalism than a left-wing Labour Party – is the complement of the capitalist realist insistence
that there is no alternative to capitalism. None of this is to say that occupying mainstream media or politics will be
enough in themselves. If New Labour taught us anything, it was that holding office is by no means the same thing as winning hegemony. Yet
without a parliamentary strategy of some kind, movements will keep foundering and collapsing. The task is to make the links between the
extra-parliamentary energies of the movements and the pragmatism of those within existing institutions. Retrain ourselves to
adopt a war mentality If you want to consider the most telling drawback of horizontalism, though, think about how it looks from the
perspective of the enemy. Capital must be delighted by the popularity of horizontalist discourses in the
anti-capitalist movement. Would you rather face a carefully co-ordinated enemy, or one that
takes decisions via nine-hour “assemblies”? Which isn’t to say that we should fall back into the consoling fantasy that
any kind of return to old school Leninism is either possible or desirable. The fact that we have been left with a choice
between Leninism and anarchism is a measure of current leftist impotence. It’s crucial to
leave behind this sterile binary. The struggle against authoritarianism needn’t entail neo-anarchism, just as effective
organization doesn’t necessarily require a Leninist party. What is required, however, is taking seriously the fact that we are up against an
enemy that has no doubt at all that it is in a class war, and which devotes many of its enormous resources training its people to fight it.
There’s a reason that MBA students read The Art of War and if we are to make progress we
have to rediscover the desire to win and the confidence that we can. We must learn to
overcome certain habits of anti-Stalinist thinking. The danger is not any more, nor has it been
for some time, excessive dogmatic fervor on our side. Instead, the post-68 left has tended to
overvalue the negative capability of remaining in doubt, scepticism and uncertainties - this
may be an aesthetic virtue, but it is a political vice. The self-doubt that has been endemic on
the left since the 60s is little in evidence on the right – one reason that the right has been so
successful in imposing its programme. Many on the left now quail at the thought of
formulating a programme, still less “imposing” one. But we have to give up on the belief that
people will spontaneously turn to the left, or that neoliberalism will collapse without our
actively dismantling it. Rethink solidarity The old solidarity that neoliberalism decomposed has gone, never to return. But this does
not mean that we are consigned to atomized individualism. Our challenge now is to reinvent solidarity . Alex Williams has
come up with the suggestive formulation “post-Fordist plasticity” to describe what this new solidarity might look
like. As Catherine Malabou has shown, plasticity is not the same as elasticity. Elasticity is equivalent to the flexibility which neoliberalism
demands of us, in which we assume a form imposed from outside. But plasticity is something else: it implies
both adaptability
and resilience, a capacity for modification which also retains a ‘memory’ of previous
encounters. Rethinking solidarity in these terms may help us to give up some tired assumptions. This kind of solidarity
doesn't necessarily entail overarching unity or centralized control . But moving beyond unity needn’t lead us
into the flatness of horizontalism, either. Instead of the rigidity of unity – the aspiration for which, ironically, has contributed to
the left’s notorious sectarianism - what we need is the co-ordination of diverse groups, resources and
desires. The right have been better postmodernists than us, building successful coalitions out
of heterogeneous interest groups without the need for an overall unity. We must learn from
them, to start to build a similar patchwork on our side. This is more a logistical problem than
a philosophical one. In addition to the plasticity of organizational form, we need also to pay
attention to the plasticity of desire. Freud said that the libidinal drives are “extraordinarily
plastic”. If desire is not a fixed biological essence, then there is no natural desire for
capitalism. Desire is always composed. Advertisers, branders and PR consultants have always
known this, and the struggle against neoliberalism will require that we construct an
alternative model of desire that can compete with the one pushed by capital’s libidinal
technicians. What’s certain is that we are now in an ideological wasteland in which neoliberalism is
dominant only by default. The terrain is up for grabs, and Friedman’s remark should be our inspiration: it is
now our task to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available
until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.
7/15/17
 STEM is Racist
STEM education is profoundly racist and reflects an ingrained “intelligence hierarchy”
in teachers and professors
Kendi 10 Dr. Ibram X. Kendi (formerly Dr. Ibram H. Rogers), Professor of History and
International Relations and the Founding Director of the Anti-Racist Research and Policy Center
at American University ,“STEM Careers and 21st Century Academic Racism”, March 26, 2010,
Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, http://diverseeducation.com/article/31237/, VM
AALANAs = African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans
This week, I came across a study that found that a significant number of women and AALANAs (African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, and Native
Americans) were discouraged from pursuing their STEM careers. In
“Facts of Science Education XIV,” the research
firm Campos surveyed 1,226 women and AALANA members of the American Chemical
Society—particularly chemists and chemical engineers — and found that 40 percent of them
had been “discouraged by individuals during the course of their successful pursuit of a STEM
career.” Latino women and Black men had the highest levels of discouragement— half in the
sample for both groups. And who were the worst offenders? Their college professors! Almost half of those pointed
to their college professors as the chief source their discouragement, and 60 percent reported
they experienced dissuasion in college. African-American women were dissuaded the most by
their professors — an alarming 65 percent. To me, this is a glaring manifestation of collegiate
sexism and racism in the 21st century. I am not conceiving of the discriminatory aspect of
these “isms.” I am talking about its evil twin — the conception of the natural racial and
gender hierarchy. One of the elements of this hierarchy concerns intellect. There was a time when it was believed by too many men
and too many Whites that women and AALANAs were only intellectually capable of service and supposedly low-skilled work. This idea and
others have retreated from the public sphere and even many minds, as their capability has become obvious. Women and AALANAs
may have forced their way up the ladder, but the hierarchy of intellect still remains. At the
top of the gender and racial hierarchy has tended to be those people in STEM areas. The
smartest people, the idea goes as many people think, are those in science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics. Those areas reside on the Broadway of intelligence. They exist in the penthouse suite of the
hierarchy. In other words, most people, I would assume possibly wrongly, consider those in STEM careers to be the smartest. A large
segment of racist and sexist America also consider, I would assume with more assurance, that
White men are the most intelligent demographic group. When you put the two ideas
together, you have White men being most appropriately suited to STEM careers. We should,
the line of thought goes, encourage White men to pursue STEM and discourage everyone
else, specifically African-American women who are pushed to the basement of the hierarchy.
In effect, the powerful campaign of efforts to encourage women and AALANA to enter STEM
careers is continuously hitting a wall of sexism and racism in higher education. We can not
see the wall, but like sexism and racism more generally in the 21st century, the victims surely
do feel it. Often times when these students are discouraged, the professors that give them
advice are genuinely concerned about the students’ well-being. But they do not recognize
their concern may stem from their ingrained hierarchy of intellectually capability . Also, I think some
women and AALANA faculty in the social sciences may discourage students from STEM not necessarily because of this hierarchy and more
because of their encouragement to pursue their own disciplines. But even though I love producing African-American historians, snatching
students away from STEM continues the cycle of under-representation and the consequent sexist and racist hierarchy. I am starting to realize
that in a larger sense, a college professor should rarely (to never) discourage students away from something they want to pursue. I think it is
better to question rather than all out dissuade and allow the students to dissuade themselves because of the thoughtful questions professors
provide. In STEM or any field, faculty should be those sources of support to women and AALANA students. A professor should be a tour guide,
not a director.
 Fem K link
Education reform is sexist- trying to close gender and racial achievement gaps isn’t
enough
Perry 16 Dr. Andre Perry, dean of urban education at Davenport University, Ph.D. in education
policy and leadership from the University of Maryland-College Park, “How education reform
exacerbates sexism”, The Hechinger Report, Covering Innovation and Inequality in Education,
August 1, 2016, http://hechingerreport.org/how-education-reform-exacerbates-sexism/, VM
Tucked away from the hoopla and ruckus of the Democratic National Convention at a quaint restaurant a few miles away, approximately 200
people gathered at “Rights4Girls at the DNC” to rally around issues ostensibly washed out in the convention hall. Instead of red, white and blue
streamers, the room was festooned with art and info-graphics, which described the state of girls and women in the United States. A picture
inspired by a 12-year-old girl who was trafficked for sex in California was put up for auction. A poster read, “Girls are the fastest growing
segment of the juvenile justice system.” This story also appeared in The Root “One of the priorities that we would add to a platform for
marginalized young women and girls is to dismantle the sexual abuse to prison pipeline that’s criminalizing our girls, in particular our girls of
color, for being victims of sexual abuse,” said Yasmin Vava, executive director of Rights4Girls. The event did more than simply highlight
injustices suffered by school-aged girls, it launched a new campaign that illustrates how school
reform often ends up making
those injustices worse. Our society is so weighted by the gravity of sexism that our laws,
“solutions” and “reforms” contribute to the victimization of those we are supposed to
protect. During the event, Vava and honored guests spoke to the criminalization of victims of child sex trafficking in the United States.
Speakers made clear there should be no difference between abusing a child and paying to abuse a child through prostitution. In many states
trafficked children aren’t always protected by statutory rape laws. There is no such thing as a child prostitute; it’s rape. If
education
reform isn’t specifically trying to replace systems of patriarchy and white supremacy, what
exactly are we doing? “When we fail to recognize there is no difference between these two acts, we’re actually protecting abusers.
We are shielding the men who abuse these children and who essentially pay to rape these children,” Vava added. The topic of child
sex trafficking, and sexism in general is not one that education reformers pay much attention
to, but they must start if we’re really going to uplift communities of color. Are governance
changes through charter schools protecting girls and women? Are curricula teaching boys not
to shame women? Are discipline practices further victimizing marginalized students, including
young women who have suffered abuse? Rigidly focusing on “gap closing” misses underlying
causes and immediate threats of sexism, sexual abuse and poverty that that many young girls
of color face, and how that those factors impact their education and future prospects.
Rights4Girls awarded three champions working to end sex trafficking and gender-based violence. U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, CEO of the
2016 DNC Committee Leah Daughtry and Wake Forest University professor Melissa Harris-Perry received crystal plaques of appreciation, but
their collective work on youth sex trafficking provides example of a local, national and educational strategy to end state-sanctioned sexism,
which injures and kills girls and women in multiple ways. Judge Lori Dumas, activist Michael Skolnik and Philadelphia mayor Jim Kenney also
spoke about their commitments to end sex trafficking. Related: Why more black male teachers should be feminists Researchshows
that black and Latina girls who are suspended are more likely to drop out of school and face
the juvenile justice system. The Rights4Girls website reports 66 percent of incarcerated girls are girls of color despite them
making up only 22 percent of the general youth population. Seventy-three percent of girls in the juvenile justice system report past histories of
physical and sexual abuse and 40 percent are LBGTQ youth. “So let’s put ourselves in the shoes of young black and Latino men and women who
face the effects of systemic racism, and are made to feel like their lives are disposable.” Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton
Changing laws and policies around prostitution and expulsion is only one step toward
changing the systems of oppression that really generated the disparities, just as helping
students of color score higher on standardized tests isn’t sufficient to overturn the systems of
oppression that keep them from reaching their potential. In an era in which “disruption” and
deconstruction of school districts are seen as victories, we seldom see replacements to the
former arrangements that take on patriarchy and white supremacy. The speakers at Rights4Girls reinforced
the notion that dismantling systems of patriarchy requires changing laws like those around prostitution, but it also demands the promotion of
healthy forms of masculinity. Likewise,
ending harsh disciplinary school practices, inequitable funding
structures, and racist curricula demand we replace them with positive models. Protecting
girls also requires unlearning how we insidiously shame and abuse girls and women, including
in schools, and it requires an education reform strategy that is fundamentally different from
what is offered currently. If education reform isn’t specifically trying to replace systems of patriarchy and white supremacy, what
exactly are we doing? At the culminating speech of the DNC, the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton said, “So let’s put ourselves in the shoes of
young black and Latino men and women who face the effects of systemic racism, and are made to feel like their lives are disposable.”
Rights4Girls’ explicit efforts to replace patriarchy should be copied in education. It’s
become clear that “gap closing” isn’t
a substantive goal. From New Orleans to Newark, we’ve learned there are too many
nefarious ways to close an achievement gap. We’ve removed worker protections and fired
majority women teachers, in the name of closing gaps. We expel girls and boys of color,
writing them off as unavoidable casualties in the battle to close the gap. And we’ve funded
and empowered white, paternalistic organizations to implement these approaches.
Addressing the root causes of racism, and, just as important, sexism requires upending
something far more fundamental than school autonomy and test-based accountability. It’s time
we stopped thinking that moving furniture in the same chauvinistic living room is the same as extracting its sexist foundation. Rights4Girls’
example teaches me that education reform can be more a tool of patriarchy and racism than a solution. We have to do more than put ourselves
in the shoes of young black and Latino men and women. We must hold ourselves accountable to ending patriarchy and systemic racism.
7/16/17
 Skepticism K
Vote neg on presumption: senses alone cannot account for knowledge and reason is
incapable of providing justification for any belief- this means we can never truly know
anything, meaning you never conclude the aff is “true” or “solves”
Truncellito 7 David A. Truncellito, B.A Mathematics and Philosophy Yale (1992), M.A. Analytic
Philosophy University of Arizona (1997), Ph.D Analytic Philosophy (1999) University of Arizona,
Internet Encyclopedia of Philsophy (IEP), June 2007, “Epistemology”,
http://www.iep.utm.edu/epistemo/#SH4b, VM
d. Humean Skepticism According to the indistinguishability skeptic, my senses can tell me how things appear, but not how they actually are. We
need to use reason to construct an argument that leads us from beliefs about how things appear to (justified) beliefs about how they are. But
even if we are able to trust our perceptions, so that we know that they are accurate, David Hume
argues that the specter of skepticism remains. Note that we only perceive a very small part of the
universe at any given moment, although we think that we have knowledge of the world beyond that which we are currently
perceiving. It follows, then, that the senses alone cannot account for this knowledge, and that
reason must supplement the senses in some way in order to account for any such knowledge.
However, Hume argues, reason is incapable of providing justification for any belief about the
external world beyond the scope of our current sense perceptions . Let us consider two such possible
arguments and Hume's critique of them. i. Numerical vs. Qualitative Identity We typically believe that the external world is, for the most part,
stable. For instance, I believe that my car is parked where I left it this morning, even though I am not currently looking at it. If I were to go peek
out the window right now and see my car, I might form the belief that my car has been in the same space all day. What is the basis for this
belief? If
asked to make my reasoning explicit, I might proceed as follows: I have had two sense-
experiences of my car: one this morning and one just now. The two sense-experiences were (more or less)
identical. Therefore, it is likely that the objects that caused them are identical. Therefore, a single object – my car – has been in that parking
space all day. Similar reasoning would undergird all of our beliefs about the persistence of the external world and all of the objects we perceive.
But are these beliefs justified? Hume thinks not, since the above argument (and all arguments like it) contains an equivocation. In particular, the
first occurrence of "identical" refers to qualitative identity. The
two sense-experiences are not one and the same,
but are distinct; when we say that they are identical we mean that one is similar to the other
in all of its qualities or properties. But the second occurrence of "identical" refers to
numerical identity. When we say that the objects that caused the two sense-experiences are
identical, we mean that there is one object, rather than two, that is responsible for both of
them. This equivocation, Hume argues, renders the argument fallacious; accordingly, we need
another argument to support our belief that objects persist even when we are not observing
them. ii. Hume's Skepticism about Induction Suppose that a satisfactory argument could be found in
support of our beliefs in the persistence of physical objects. This would provide us with
knowledge that the objects that we have observed have persisted even when we were not
observing them. But in addition to believing that these objects have persisted up until now,
we believe that they will persist in the future; we also believe that objects we have never
observed similarly have persisted and will persist. In other words, we expect the future to be roughly like the past,
and the parts of the universe that we have not observed to be roughly like the parts that we have observed. For example, I believe that my car
will persist into the future. What is the basis for this belief? If asked to make my reasoning explicit, I might proceed as follows: My car has
always persisted in the past. Nature is roughly uniform across time and space (and thus the future will be roughly like the past). Therefore, my
car will persist in the future. Similar reasoning would undergird all of our beliefs about the future and about the unobserved. Are such beliefs
justified? Again, Hume thinks not, since the above argument, and all arguments like it, contain an
unsupported premise, namely the second premise, which might be called the Principle of the
Uniformity of Nature (PUN). Why should we believe this principle to be true? Hume insists that we provide
some reason in support of this belief. Because the above argument is an inductive rather than
a deductive argument, the problem of showing that it is a good argument is typically referred
to as the "problem of induction." We might think that there is a simple and straightforward
solution to the problem of induction, and that we can indeed provide support for our belief
that PUN is true. Such an argument would proceed as follows: PUN has always been true in
the past. Nature is roughly uniform across time and space (and thus the future will be roughly
like the past). Therefore, PUN will be true in the future. This argument, however, is circular;
its second premise is PUN itself! Accordingly, we need another argument to support our
belief that PUN is true, and thus to justify our inductive arguments about the future and the
unobserved.
7/17/17
 Vouchers → Segregation
Contemporary voucher programs exacerbate socio-economic and racial segregation.
Kearns 17 - (Devon Kearns is the Associate Director of Media Relations at American Progress,
7-13-2017, "RELEASE: CAP Releases Issue Brief on the Racist Origins of Private School
Vouchers", https://www.americanprogress.org/press/release/2017/07/13/435702/release-cap-
releases-issue-brief-racist-origins-private-school-vouchers/, DOA: 7-17-2017) //Snowball
Washington, D.C. —(ENEWSPF)–July 14, 2017. On the heels of proposals from Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, and
President Donald Trump to create the first nationwide federal voucher program while slashing
funds for public schools and loosening civil rights protections, a new issue brief from the Center for
American Progress explores the historical link between private school vouchers and segregationist
policies in the United States. The impacts of voucher programs put in place to avoid
desegregation still reverberate in the U.S. education system today. The issue brief centers on the extreme
measures taken by Prince Edward County, Virginia, who shut down their public schools for five years
rather than desegregate the public schools after the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decisions.
County officials provided tuition grants—a private school voucher system—for white students to
attend Prince Edward Academy, a “segregation academy” that served as a model for other
communities in the South. Vouchers supporting these types of schools were eventually ruled
unconstitutional but had a lasting impact on public education in communities that operated dual—
public and private—school systems where research has shown taxpayers are less inclined to fund the
public system. Fast forward to 2017: President Trump and Education Secretary DeVos have championed a plan to
provide federal funding for private school voucher systems nationwide, which would funnel
millions of taxpayer dollars out of public schools and into unaccountable private schools—a
school reform policy that they say would provide better options for low-income students. Their budget proposal would slash
the Education Department’s budget by more than 13 percent—or $9 billion—while providing $1.25 billion for school
choice, including $250 million for private school vouchers. But there is little evidence that Secretary DeVos is considering
this policy’s history and including protections for vulnerable students in a potential new
federal program. In fact, at a congressional hearing in May, Secretary DeVos declined to say whether she would
protect students against discriminatory policies in private schools that receive federal funding
through vouchers. “Policymakers need to acknowledge the historical context of private school
vouchers and protect against potential discriminatory consequences from these programs.
Modern-day voucher programs are nondiscriminatory on their face but can still exacerbate racial
and socio-economic segregation. We should instead be focusing on adequately and equitably
funding public education, protecting the rights of vulnerable students, and reducing racial
and socio-economic segregation,” said Carmel Martin, executive vice president of policy at the Center for American Progress.
“When considering voucher policy, we must confront its history,” said Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA 3), the top
Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. “Choice devoid of controls for diversity and civil
rights protections for vulnerable students tends to further segregate and negatively impact
our most vulnerable students. And in its staunch advocacy in support of vouchers and cuts to
public education funding, this Administration has not only failed to confront that history, but also
failed to answer important questions about its commitment to protect and promote the civil
rights of all students.”
7/18/17
 Schools have been Corporatized
Public schools have been systematically corporatized, creating massive inequalities,
cruel optimism, and academic dishonesty
Mills 12 Nicolaus Mills, professor of American Studies at Sarah Lawrence College. His most
recent book is Winning the Peace: The Marshall Plan and America’s Coming of Age as a
Superpower. Fall 2012, Dissent Magazine, https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/the-
corporatization-of-higher-education, VM
The most visible sign of the corporatization of higher education lies in the commitment that
colleges and universities have made to winning the ratings war perpetuated by the kinds of
ranking U.S. News and World Report now offers in its annual “Best Colleges” guide. Since its relatively modest debut in
1983, the “Best Colleges” guide has grown in influence. For any number of small colleges,
getting traction from the “Best Colleges” guide may be a dream, but for a wide range of
middle-tier and upper-tier colleges and universities, winning a good “Best Colleges” ranking is
considered so essential to success that it shapes internal policies. Robert Morse, who heads the team that
makes up the college and university rankings for U.S. News, says the “Best Colleges” guide never sought to shape higher education policy, but
that claim no longer matters. Colleges and universities continue to do whatever they can to boost their
U.S. News ranking, especially when it comes to whom they admit. It is now a standard practice for many
schools to solicit applications from students who have done well on their SAT tests, even
though they know there is no room for most of these students. Admissions officers don’t mind this waste of
their time. The more students a college or university gets to reject, the higher it is ranked on the
all-important U.S. News selectivity scale. Having a student body with impressive SAT scores is great; having a student body
with impressive SATs and rejecting more applicants than a rival is better still. The closer a college or university comes to
Harvard’s nationwide low of taking just 5.9 percent of its applicants, the happier parents are.
Instead of backfiring, the make-it-as-hard-as-possible-to-get-in strategy has pushed more and
more high school students to go to extremes to win the attention of admissions officers.
Recent cheating scandals at New York City’s elite Stuyvesant High School and the Great Neck
high schools on Long Island’s Gold Coast show how desperate even “gifted” high school
students are these days. Everyone is telling them they need to find an edge. Middle-class families as well as the
rich are as a result spending thousands of dollars to hire private college advisers, SAT tutors,
and sports coaches for their college-age sons and daughters. The students who succeed in
getting into our highest-ranked colleges and universities are thus far wealthier than the
population as a whole. At elite schools, 74 percent of the student body come from the top
quarter of the socioeconomic scale, while just 3 percent come from the bottom quarter. What
follows from this skewed demographic pattern is a second layer of college spending. In the eyes of college administrators,
students, especially those who are not on scholarship, have become customers who need to
feel satisfied with the campus experience bought for them at prices that now top $50,000 per
year at many elite schools.
 Schools are Militarized
Public schools are symbolic of the military-prison complex of America- they are
completely securitized and militarized, which causes lots of bad impacts- only local
resistance can solve and creates a great coalitional starting point against oppressions
Saltman 7 Kenneth J. Saltman is an assistant professor in Social and Cultural Foundations in
Education at DePaul University. He is the author of Collateral Damage: Corporatizing Public
Schools—A Threat to Democracy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001) and Capitalizing on Disaster:
Taking and Breaking Schools (Paradigm Publishers, 2007).” Education as Enforcement:
Militarization and Corporatization of Schools”, Educating for Equity | Vol. 14 No. 2 | Fall 2007,
http://www.reimaginerpe.org/node/1177, VM
Public schools in the United States have increasingly come to resemble the military and
prison systems with their hiring of military generals as school administrators and heavy
investment in security apparatus—metal detectors, high-tech dog tag IDs, chainlink fences,
and real-time Internet-based or hidden mobile surveillance cameras—plus, their school
uniforms, security consultants, surprise searches, and the presence of police on campuses .1 But
it would be a mistake to understand the preoccupation with security as merely a mass media-driven hysteria in the wake of Virginia Tech and
other high-profile shootings, and myopic to ignore the history of public school militarization prior to September 11. Militarized
education in the United States needs to be understood in relation to the enforcement of
global corporate imperatives as they expand markets through the real and symbolic violence
of war. Militarism and the promotion of violence as virtue pervade foreign and domestic
policy, popular culture, educational discourse, and language. A high level of comfort with
rising militarism in all areas of life, particularly schooling, set the stage for the radically
militarized reactions to September 11—including the institutionalization of permanent war,
the suspension of civil liberties, and an active hostility from the state and mass media
towards any attempt to address the underlying causes for the unprecedented attack on the
United States. I believe that militarized schooling in America encompasses two broad trends—
“military education” and what may be called “education as enforcement .” Junior Reserve Officer Training
Corps—Two Agendas Military education refers to explicit efforts to expand and legitimate military
training in public schools and is exemplified by the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps
(JROTC), the Troops to Teachers program (which places retired soldiers in schools), the trend
towards hiring military generals as school superintendents or CEOs, the school uniform
movement, the Lockheed Martin corporation’s public school in Georgia, and the army’s
development of the biggest online education program in the world as a recruiting tool. A large
number of private military schools, such as the notorious Virginia Military Institute (VMI), service the public military academies and the military
itself and are considered ideals that public school militarization should strive towards. Like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, military
education turns hierarchical organization, competition, group cohesion, and weaponry into
fun and games. The focus on adventure activities has made these programs extremely successful at recruitment and nearly half (47
percent) of the 200,000 students in the 1,420 JROTC army programs nationwide enter military service. In addition to promoting
recruitment, military education plays a central role in fostering a social focus on discipline
exemplified by the rise of militarized policing, increased powers for search and seizure, the
laws against public gathering, “zero tolerance” policies, and the transformation of welfare
into punishing workfare programs. This militarization of civil society has been further intensified since September 11, as
conservatives and liberals alike have seized upon the “terrorist threat” to justify the passage of the USA Patriot Act. The “education as
enforcement” trend understands militarized public schooling to be part of the militarization
of civil society, which in turn has to be understood as being part of the broader social,
cultural, and economic movements for state-backed corporate globalization seeking to erode
democratic power while expanding and enforcing corporate power at local, national, and
global levels. Neoliberalism’s Role In Education Corporate globalization, which should be viewed as a
doctrine rather than as an inevitable phenomenon, is driven by the philosophy of
neoliberalism whose economic and political doctrine insists upon the virtues of privatization
and liberalization of trade, while concomitantly placing its faith in the discipline of the market
for the resolution of all social and individual problems . Within the United States, neoliberal policies have been
characterized by supporters as “free market policies that encourage private enterprise and consumer choice, reward personal responsibility
and entrepreneurial initiative, and undermine the dead hand of the incompetent, bureaucratic, and parasitic government that can never do
good even if well intended, which it rarely is.”2 Within
the neoliberal view, the public sphere—schools, parks,
social security, and healthcare included—should either be privatized or put into service for
the private sphere, as in the case of federal subsidies for corporate agriculture,
entertainment, and defense. Ronald Reagan entered office with plans to dismantle the United States Department of Education
and implement market-based voucher schemes. Both initiatives failed largely because of the teachers’ unions and the fact that public opinion
was yet to be influenced by corporate-financed public relations campaigns that make neoliberal ideals appear commonsensical.3 However,
during his second term as president, Reagan successfully appropriated the racial, equity-based, magnet school voucher model developed by
liberals to declare that the market model (rather than authoritative federal action against racism) was responsible for the high quality of these
schools.4 The
real triumph of the market-based rhetoric was to shift discussion away from
political concerns about the role of public education in preparing citizens for democratic
participation and to redefine public schooling as a good or service, like toilet paper or soap,
which students and parents consume. Educating to Enforce Globalization Despite a history of racial and class oppression—
owing in no small part to the fact that public schooling has been tied to local property wealth and hence, unequally distributed as a resource—
and the material and ideological constraints often faced by teachers and administrators,
public schooling has always been a
forum for democratic deliberation where communities could convene to struggle over values
or envision a future far broader than the one imagined by multinational corporations. Hence, in
speaking of militarized public schooling in the United States, it is not enough to identify the extent to which certain schools (particularly urban,
non-white schools) increasingly resemble prisons or serve as prime recruitment grounds for the military. Instead,
militarized
public schooling needs to be understood in terms of the enforcement of globalization through
implementation of all the policies and reforms that are guided by neoliberal ideals.
Globalization gets enforced through: (a) privatization schemes, such as vouchers, charters,
performance contracting, and commercialization; (b) standards and accountability schemes
that seek to enforce a uniform curriculum with emphasis on testing and quantifiable
performance; and (c) assessment, accreditation (in higher education), and curricula that
celebrate market values and the culture of those in power, rather than human and
democratic values. The curricula are designed to avoid critical questions about the
relationship between the production of knowledge and power, authority, politics, history,
and ethics. Some multinational corporations, such as Disney with their Celebration School,
and BP Amoco with their middle-level science curriculum, have appropriated progressive
pedagogical methods that strive to promote a vision of a world best served under a
benevolent corporate management. Education as a National Security Issue The Hart-Rudman commission
in 2000 called for education to be classified as an issue of national security, hence requiring
increased federal funding for school security at the cost of community policing, and the
continuation of the Troops to Teachers program. This kind of thinking is characteristic of the
antifederalist aspect of neoliberalism—a politics of containment rather than investment—
and efficacious in keeping large segments of the population uneducated or undereducated,
and encouraging the flow of funds to the defense and high-tech sectors and away from
populations deemed to be of little use to capital. Most importantly, those employed in low-skill, low-paying service
sector jobs, would likely complain or even organize if they were encouraged to question and think too much. Education and literacy are tied to
political participation. Participation might mean educated elites demanding social investment in public projects, or at least projects that might
benefit most people. That is the real reason why the federal government wants soldiers rather than unemployed Ph.Ds in the classrooms.
Additionally, corporate globalization initiatives, such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), seek to allow corporate competition in the
public sector at an unprecedented level. In
theory, public schools would have to compete with for-profit
schooling initiatives from any corporation in the world . But by redefining public schooling as a
national security issue, it can be exempt from the purview that agreements, such as the
FTAA, impose on nations. Consistent with the trend, education as national security defines
the public interest through reforms that inhibit teaching as a critical and intellectual endeavor
that aims to make a participatory citizenry capable of building the public sphere . Transforming the
War Economy In his book, After Capitalism, Seymour Melman argues that a central task of the future is the transformation of a war economy
into a civilian one—not only for former Soviet states but also for the United States. Considering
the ways that the global
financial system maintains poverty and the military system produces war, a key task for
educators is to imagine education as a means of mobilizing citizens to understand these
systems and steer them toward a goal of global democracy and justice. Militarized schooling
can be resisted at the local level. Kevin Ramirez, for example, started and runs the “Military
Out of our Schools” campaign that seeks to eject JROTC programs from public schools.
Ramirez points out to parents, teachers, administrators, and newspaper reporters that school
violence is an extension of social violence, which is taught through programs like the JROTC . I
have argued that militarized education in the United States needs to be understood in relation to
the enforcement of corporate economic imperatives and a rising trend towards “law and
order” that pervades popular culture, educational discourse, foreign policy, and language.
Therefore, the movement against militarism in education must go beyond the schools and
challenge the many ways that militarism as a cultural logic enforces the expansion of
corporate power and decimates public power. Such a movement must include the practice of
critical pedagogy and ideally, also link with other movements against oppression, such as the
antiglobalization, feminist, labor, environmental, and antiracism movements. Together, we can form
the basis for imagining and implementing a just future.
7/19/17
 Trump Wrecks Hegemony
Trump guarantees global destruction and the end of hegemony.
McCoy 17 - (Alfred W. McCoy is the Harrington professor of history at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, 7-19-2017, "The Demolition of U.S. Global Power. The Accelerated Collapse
of American Global Hegemony", http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-demolition-of-u-s-global-
power-the-accelerated-collapse-of-american-global-hegemony/5600078, DOA: 7-19-2017)
//Snowball
The superhighway to disaster is already being paved. From Donald Trump’s first days in office, news of
the damage to America’s international stature has come hard and fast. As if guided by some malign design,
the new president seemed to identify the key pillars that have supported U.S. global power for the
past 70 years and set out to topple each of them in turn. By degrading NATO, alienating Asian allies,
cancelling trade treaties, and slashing critical scientific research, the Trump White House is already in the
process of demolishing the delicately balanced architecture that has sustained Washington’s world
leadership since the end of World War II. However unwittingly, Trump is ensuring the accelerated
collapse of American global hegemony. Stunned by his succession of foreign policy blunders, commentators — left
and right, domestic and foreign — have raised their voices in a veritable chorus of criticism . A Los Angeles Times
editorial typically called him “so unpredictable, so reckless, so petulant, so full of blind self-regard, so
untethered to reality” that he threatened to “weaken this country’s moral standing in the
world” and “imperil the planet” through his “appalling” policy choices. “He’s a sucker who’s
shrinking U.S. influence in [Asia] and helping make China great again,” wrote New York Times
columnist Thomas Friedman after surveying the damage to the country’s Asian alliances from the president’s “decision to
tear up the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade deal in his first week in office.” The international press has been no less
harsh. Reeling from Trump’s denunciation of South Korea’s free-trade agreement as “horrible”
and his bizarre claim that the country had once been “a part of China,” Seoul’s leading newspaper,
Chosun Ilbo, expressed the “shock, betrayal, and anger many South Koreans have felt.” Assessing his
first 100 days in office, Britain’s venerable Observer commented: “Trump’s crudely intimidatory, violent,
know-nothing approach to sensitive international issues has encircled the globe from
Moscow to the Middle East to Beijing, plunging foes and allies alike into a dark vortex of
expanding strategic instability.” For an American president to virtually walk out of his grand inaugural celebrations into such a
hailstorm of criticism is beyond extraordinary. Having more or less exhausted their lexicon of condemnatory rhetoric, the usual crew of
commentators is now struggling to understand how an American president could be quite so
willfully self-destructive.
7-20-17
 50 states Carbon Tax Funding Plank
Text: The 50 state governments should institute a carbon tax of $20 per ton of CO2
emitted, indexed for inflation annually.
Solves funding issues: it’s less volatile than other revenue sources and it raises
revenue equivalent to 1% of their state GDP on average- allows funding for school and
social welfare to be less volatile
Bauman et al 16 ADELE C. MORRIS, The Brookings Institution, YORAM BAUMAN, Carbon
Washington, DAVID BOOKBINDER, Niskanen Center, “STATE-LEVEL CARBON TAXES: OPTIONS
AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR POLICYMAKERS”, Brookings Institution, July 28, 2016,
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/State-level-carbon-taxes-Options-
and-opportunities-for-policymakers.pdf, VM
The states that have begun pricing carbon through cap-and-trade programs have so far used allowance auction revenue primarily for
environmental goals. For example, California’s aforementioned AB 32 and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) for power sector
emissions in nine northeastern states both earmark allowance auction revenue for environment-related purposes.11 A study of the cumulative
$1.4 billion in RGGI auction proceeds from 2008 to 2013 reports that the large majority of the revenue went to energy efficiency programs,
energy bill assistance, and other GHG abatement activities.12 However, some RGGI states have shown interest in using the revenue for non-
environmental purposes. For example, in 2010, New York used half of its revenue and New Jersey used all of its RGGI funds (prior to departing
from the program the following year) to balance their budgets. A
state-level carbon tax, particularly if set above the
price signals operating in existing cap-and trade programs and applied economy-wide, could
raise enough revenue in many states to play a substantial fiscal role.13 How much revenue? Table 1 below
shows the 2013 energy-related CO2 emissions by state in tons as reported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information
Administration (EIA). 14 The table provides an illustrative estimate of the potential revenue in each state, both in millions of dollars and as a
share of state GDP in 2013, by multiplying each state’s fossil fuel CO2 emissions inventory by a hypothetical tax of $20 per ton
of CO2. 15 Of course, the actual revenue in any state would depend on details of the tax base, the tax rate, how emissions respond to the
price signal, and the policy and macroeconomic shifts that could lower revenues from other tax instruments. But this estimate at least indicates
the order of magnitude of revenues available should policymakers wish to consider a carbon tax option.

[table omitted]
Table 1 shows that some jurisdictions, such as the District of Columbia and Vermont, would raise relatively little
revenue from a carbon tax. That is generally because they either have no power plants within their
borders or because they already have low-carbon electricity sectors, for example by relying mainly on
hydropower. Other states, such as Wyoming and West Virginia, could raise over two percent of their state GDP
from a $20 per ton tax on fossil energy-related CO2 emissions.17 Two percent of GDP is
significant for a state tax; nationally, on average states collect only about five percent of GDP
from their own revenue instruments, including sales, property, income, and business taxes (not
counting transfers from the federal government).18 Forecasting revenue from the carbon fee involves
multiplying the scheduled tax rates by a forecast of emissions subject to the tax. Revenues will
depend on fluctuating demand for fossil energy, for example owing to weather and economic conditions, along with the responsiveness of
fossil energy demand to the carbon price. These factors will vary significantly by state, depending on the existing energy mix, emissions
patterns, and economic activity. Despite
the uncertainties in forecasting carbon tax revenues, states may
find that carbon fees are less volatile than other state revenue sources .19 For example, one
major challenge that California faces is the pro-cyclical nature of its revenue stream; revenues
fall just as economic activity falls and demands on social safety net programs rise . A recent
study concluded that there are several factors behind California's relatively high degree of
revenue volatility, notably “the extraordinary boom and bust in stock market-related
revenues from stock options and capital gains.”20 Replacing or supplementing volatile sources
of revenue (such as taxes on capital gains and corporate income) with a carbon tax would
help stabilize state finances and avoid a boom-and-bust cycle of funding for programs like
schools and social welfare programs. We return to the issue of revenue use in Section 4 below. The revenues from
a carbon tax are subject to a (desirable) erosion of the tax base, particularly over the long run
as capital in long-lived power plants and other industrial facilities turns over. States with relatively high
coal use in their electricity sectors are likely to experience more emissions abatement than states in which relatively more emissions reductions
need to come from transportation. If
states adopt tax rates that rise in real terms, the rising rate can more
than counteract the decline in the tax base. In that case, it could take decades before states
need worry about declining carbon tax revenues.
 Jeff Sessions DA to 50 states marijuana plank

Legal weed plank causes Jeff Sessions to crack down and turn the feds lose on the
states- restarts the war on drugs
Chilkoti 7/15 Avantika Chilkoti, staff writer, New York Times, July 15, 2017, “States Keep
Saying Yes to Marijuana Use. Now Comes the Federal No.”,
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/15/us/politics/marijuana-laws-state-federal.html, VM
In a national vote widely viewed as a victory for conservatives, last year’s elections also yielded a win for liberals in eight states that legalized
marijuana for medical or recreational use. But the growing industry is facing a federal crackdown under
Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has compared cannabis to heroin. A task force Mr. Sessions appointed
to, in part, review links between violent crimes and marijuana is scheduled to release its findings by the end of the month. But he has
already asked Senate leaders to roll back rules that block the Justice Department from
bypassing state laws to enforce a federal ban on medical marijuana. That has pitted the attorney general
against members of Congress across the political spectrum — from Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, to Senator Cory Booker,
Democrat of New Jersey — who are determined to defend states’ rights and provide some certainty for the multibillion-dollar pot industry.
“Our attorney general is giving everyone whiplash by trying to take us back to the 1960s,” said Representative Jared Huffman, Democrat of
California, whose district includes the so-called Emerald Triangle that produces much of America’s marijuana. “Prosecutorial discretion is
everything given the current conflict between the federal law and the law of many states,” he said in an interview last month. In February, Sean
Spicer, the White House press secretary, said the
Trump administration would look into enforcing federal law
against recreational marijuana businesses. Some states are considering tougher stands: In Massachusetts, for example,
the Legislature is trying to rewrite a law to legalize recreational marijuana that voters passed in November. Around one-fifth of Americans now
live in states where marijuana is legal for adult use, according to the Brookings Institution, and an estimated 200 million live in places where
medicinal marijuana is legal. Cannabis retailing has moved from street corners to state-of-the-art dispensaries and stores, with California
entrepreneurs producing rose gold vaporizers and businesses in Colorado selling infused drinks. Mr. Sessions is backed by a minority of
Americans who view cannabis as a “gateway” drug that drives social problems, like the recent rise in opioid addiction. “We love Jeff Sessions’s
position on marijuana because he is thinking about it clearly,” said Scott Chipman, Southern California chairman for Citizens Against Legalizing
Marijuana. He dismissed the idea of recreational drug use. “‘Recreational’ is a bike ride, a swim, going to the beach,” he said. “Using a drug to
put your brain in an altered state is not recreation. That is self-destructive behavior and escapism.” Marijuana
merchants are
protected by a provision in the federal budget that prohibits the Justice Department from
spending money to block state laws that allow medicinal cannabis. Under the Obama
administration, the Justice Department did not interfere with state laws that legalize
marijuana and instead focused on prosecuting drug cartels and the transport of pot across
state lines. In March, a group of senators that included Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Lisa Murkowski, Republican of
Alaska, asked Mr. Sessions to stick with existing policies. Some lawmakers also want to allow banks to work with the marijuana industry and to
allow tax deductions for business expenses. Lawmakers who support legalizing marijuana contend that it leads to greater regulation, curbs the
black market and stops money laundering. They point to studies showing that the
war on drugs, which began under President Richard
M. Nixon, had disastrous impacts on national incarceration rates and racial divides . In a statement, Mr.
Booker said the Trump administration’s crackdown against marijuana “will not make our
communities safer or reduce the use of illegal drugs.”
Crackdown is racist and takes billions out of the economy
Ludwig 17 Mike Ludwig, staff reporter, Truthout, “Why Jeff Sessions Is Threatening to Crack
Down on Marijuana”, March 22, 2017, http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/39943-why-jeff-
sessions-is-threatening-to-crack-down-on-marijuana, VM
It's no surprise that the legal cannabis industry, which is projected to bring in more than $21 billion
in revenue by 2021, has been anxious since President Trump nominated Sessions to be
attorney general. Marijuana is still illegal under federal law, although the federal government
has generally refrained from enforcing those laws in the 29 states that have legalized
marijuana in some form. The cannabis industry's anxiety shot through the roof a couple weeks ago when White House Press
Secretary Sean Spicer suggested that there could be "greater enforcement" under the Trump
administration. A Congressional budget rider currently blocks federal interference with state medical programs, so New Mexico's move
to treat opiate disorders with cannabis is probably safe for now, but Spicer's comments suggested that the Justice
Department may crack down on recreational marijuana in the eight states where it's legal. He
also suggested that marijuana could contribute to the "opiate addiction crisis," a statement that flies in the face of the latest science, as critics
quickly pointed out. Sessions allayed some of these fears last week, telling reporters that the Justice Department does not have the resources
to do local police work on marijuana. He also said the so-called "Cole memo" that clarified the Obama administration's priorities on marijuana
enforcement in 2013 is "valid." The memo directs federal law enforcement away from marijuana businesses that comply with state laws and to
focus instead on "criminal gangs," distribution to minors, violence and growing operations on federal land. Sessions did say he has "some
different ideas" in addition to the memo but has not elaborated. Justin Strekal, the policy director at the National Organization for the Reform
of Marijuana Laws (NORML), agreed that the Cole memo leaves plenty of room for federal interference and enforcement at the state level. He
pointed to Gov. Butch Otter of Idaho, a prohibition state bordered by states with legal weed. Otter, a Republican, recently called on President
Trump to crack down on marijuana and correct the "utter lack of consistency displayed by the Obama administration." Plus,
there's
nothing stopping the Justice Department from scrapping the Cole memo altogether and
sending threatening letters to state attorneys general, which could freeze the legal market in
place. "Even under the guidelines of the Cole Memo, there is sufficient enough leeway for the
Department of Justice under Jeff Sessions to broadly interpret its intent and chill the nascent
medical and adult use marijuana markets," Strekal told Truthout. "While there is no enforceable mechanism for the
Justice Department to re-criminalize state-by-state policy, their ability to stymie the progress made and use fear-mongering to discourage
future victories is real." So what would a marijuana crackdown look like under Sessions? The short answer from
marijuana advocates is that we just don’t know yet. Although Sessions has a dismal track record when it comes to criminal legal reforms and
racial justice, his Justice Department has not signaled that it will stray too far from policies put forth by the Obama administration, at least
when it comes to legalized weed. Under Obama, the feds generally left legitimate businesses in legal states alone, but continued an aggressive
campaign to disrupt the black market. "The question is not whether or not an attorney general likes marijuana … it’s a question of what his
policy will be with regard to enforcing federal law in states that have adopted laws regulating marijuana," said Mason Tvert, a spokesman for
the Marijuana Policy Project. He added that sensational headlines declaring an oncoming crackdown could have a chilling effect
on legal businesses and states considering reforms. However, advocates aren't only concerned about legal marijuana
businesses; they're concerned about all the people who are criminalized because of prohibition. More than
600,000 people were arrested for marijuana violations in 2015, more than any other illicit
drug. Marijuana use is roughly the same among Black and white people, but Black people are
nearly four times as likely to be arrested, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Even in states where marijuana is legal for adults, Black and brown youth under the legal age
are being arrested at higher rates than their white counterparts. Moreover, the Trump
administration could leverage marijuana prohibition in its push to expand the police state
and target undocumented immigrants. The administration has already initiated a brutal
immigration crackdown, and Strekal said that Latino communities could become targets for
marijuana enforcement and racist police tactics such as "stop and frisk" as part of broader
efforts to increase deportations of undocumented immigrants. Latinos made up an alarming
77 percent of those sentenced for federal marijuana offenses last year, mostly for trafficking,
and 56 percent of those sentenced were non-citizens, according toNORML. Under Trump's
recent executive orders, any undocumented person charged with or even suspected of
committing a crime is a priority for deportation. Kaltenbach pointed to other orders that Trump has issued, including
one calling on federal authorities to dismantle international cartels and put a stop to drug and human trafficking. Sessions has vowed to do just
that, and he indicated that low-level drug distributers could be targeted in the process. Sessions'
calls to ramp up criminal
enforcement of drug laws comes as local police forces are becoming increasingly militarized
and engaging in violent drug raids. "How does he define sellers and trafficking? There are a lot of subsistence dealers in our
country that may fall into that category, and they may have addiction issues themselves or are just trying to support their families," Kaltenback
said. "I am very concerned about that group of people, and how they will be folded into his policies." Strekal said that 71 percent of voters now
support a state's right to legalize, so the Trump administration is not expected to raid law-abiding marijuana dispensaries in Colorado or
Washington at the risk of provoking public backlash. But there
are plenty of ways the Justice Department can use
federal and state laws criminalizing marijuana to target individuals and neighborhoods,
especially communities of color, which have long suffered the most casualties in the war on
drugs. As long as marijuana prohibition is on the books, Strekal said, it provides a vehicle to
treat certain people as "second-class citizens." "A 25-year-old can [legally] buy a joint in Colorado, but that does nothing
for the 25-year-old caught with a joint in Georgia and the felony charge that comes with it," Strekal said.
7/21/17
 Abandon Politics
We should abandon politics- its really bad and unvirtuous
Powell and Burrus 12 Aaron Ross Powell is Director and Editor of Libertarianism.org, a project
of the Cato Institute. Libertarianism.org presents introductory material as well as new
scholarship related to libertarian philosophy, theory, and history. He is also co-host of
Libertarianism.org’s popular podcast, Free Thoughts. His writing has appeared in Liberty and
The Cato Journal. He earned a JD from the University of Denver. Trevor Burrus is a research
fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies. His research interests include
constitutional law, civil and criminal law, legal and political philosophy, and legal history. His
work has appeared in the Vermont Law Review, the Syracuse Law Review, and the Jurist, as
well as the Washington Times, Huffington Post, and the Daily Caller. He holds a BA in
Philosophy from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a JD from the University of Denver
Sturm College of Law. “Politics Makes Us Worse”, September 14, 2012, libertarianism.org,
https://www.libertarianism.org/publications/essays/politics-makes-us-worse, VM
Even if we try to ignore it, politics influences much of our world. For those who do pay attention, politics
invariably leads in newspapers and on TV news and gets discussed, or shouted about, everywhere people gather. Politics can weigh
heavily in forging friendships, choosing enemies, and coloring who we respect. It’s not
difficult to understand why politics plays such a central role in our lives: political decision-
making increasingly determines so much of what we do and how we’re permitted to do it. We
vote on what our children will learn in school and how they will be taught. We vote on what people are allowed to drink, smoke, and eat. We
vote on which people are allowed to marry those they love. In such crucial life decisions, as well as countless others, we have given politics a
substantial impact on the direction of our lives. No wonder it’s so important to so many people. But do we really want to live in a world where
politics is so important to our lives that we cannot help but be politically involved? Many, both on the left and the right, answer yes. A politically
engaged citizenry will not only make more decisions democratically but also be better people for it. From communitarians to neoconservatives,
there’s a sense that civic virtue is virtue—or at least that individually we cannot be fully virtuous without exercising a robust political
participation. Politics, when sufficiently unconstrained by crude individualism and sufficiently embraced by an actively democratic polity, makes
us better people. Yet the increasing scope of politics and political decisionmaking in America and
other Western nations has precisely the opposite effect. It’s bad for our policies and, just as
important, it’s bad for our souls. The solution is simple: when questions arise about whether
the scope of politics should be broadened, we must realistically look at the effects that
politics itself has on the quality of those decisions and on our own virtue. Politics takes a
continuum of possibilities and turns it into a small group of discrete outcomes, often just two.
Either this guy gets elected, or that guy does. Either a given policy becomes law or it doesn’t. As a result, political
choices matter greatly to those most affected. An electoral loss is the loss of a possibility. These black and white choices
mean politics will often manufacture problems that previously didn’t exist, such as the
“problem” of whether we—as a community, as a nation—will teach children creation or
evolution. Oddly, many believe that political decisionmaking is an egalitarian way of allowing all voices to be heard. Nearly everyone can
vote, after all, and because no one has more than one vote, the outcome seems fair. But outcomes in politics are hardly ever fair. Once
decisions are given over to the political process, the only citizens who can affect the outcome
are those with sufficient political power. The most disenfranchised minorities become those whose opinions are too rare
to register on the political radar. In an election with thousands of voters, a politician is wise to ignore the grievances of 100 people whose rights
are trampled given how unlikely those 100 are to determine the outcome. The black-and-white aspect of politics also
encourages people to think in black-and-white terms. Not only do political parties emerge, but their supporters
become akin to sports fans, feuding families, or students at rival high schools. Nuances of differences in opinions are
traded for stark dichotomies that are largely fabrications. Thus, we get the “no regulation, hate the environment,
hate poor people” party and the “socialist, nanny-state, hate the rich” party—and the discussions rarely go deeper than this. Politics like
this is no better than arguments between rival sports fans, and often worse because politics
is more morally charged. Most Americans find themselves committed to either the red team (Republicans) or the blue (Democrats)
and those on the other team are not merely rivals, but represent much that is evil in the world. Politics often forces its
participants into pointless internecine conflict, as they struggle with the other guy not over
legitimate differences in policy opinion but in an apocalyptic battle between virtue and vice.
How can this be? Republicans and Democrats hold opinions fully within the realm of acceptable political discourse, with each side’s positions
having the support of roughly half our fellow citizens. If we can see around partisanship’s Manichean blinders, both sides have views about
government and human nature that are at least understandable to normal people of normal disposition—understandable, that is, in the sense
of “I can appreciate how someone would think that.” But, when you add politics to the mix, simple
and modest differences of
opinion become instead the difference between those who want to save America and those
who seek to destroy it. This behavior, while appalling, shouldn’t surprise us. Psychologists have shown for decades how people will
gravitate to group mentalities that can make them downright hostile. They’ve shown how strong group identification creates systematic errors
in thinking. Your “teammates” are held to less exacting standards of competence, while those on the other team are often presumed to be
mendacious and acting from ignoble motives. This is yet another way in which politics makes us worse: it cripples our thinking critically about
the choices before us. What’s troubling about politics from a moral perspective is not that it encourages group mentalities, for a great many
other activities encourage similar group thinking without raising significant moral concerns. Rather,
it’s the way politics
interacts with group mentalities, creating negative feedback leading directly to viciousness.
Politics, all too often, makes us hate each other. Politics encourages us to behave toward
each other in ways that, were they to occur in a different context, would repel us. No truly
virtuous person ought to behave as politics so often makes us act. While we may be able to
slightly alter how political decisions are made, we cannot change the essential nature of
politics. We cannot conform it to the utopian vision of good policies and virtuous citizens. The
problem is not bugs in the system but the nature of political decision-making itself. The only
way to better both our world and ourselves—to promote good policies and virtue—is to
abandon, to the greatest extent possible, politics itself.
7/22/17
 Being Vs Becoming
There was only ever one debate to be had, that of being versus becoming. This card is
extremely complicated and if you even try to answer it you will lose.
Bataille 1985. (Georges. "The labyrinth." trans. Allan Stoekl, Visions of Excess, ed. Allan Stoekl
(Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1985) 5 (1985). The Labyrinth (1930))/Ammir-Christ
**This evidence is gender-modified – pronouns are replaced in brackets -
Negativity, in other words, the integrity of determination - Hegel
I. THE INSUFFICIENCY OF BEINGS
[Humans] act in order to be. This must not be understood in the negative sense of
conservation (conserving in order not to be thrown out of existence by death), but in the
positive sense of a tragic and incessant combat for a satisfaction that is almost beyond reach.
From incoherent agitation to crushing sleep, from chatter to turning inward, from
overwhelming love to hardening hate, existence sometimes weakens and sometimes
accomplishes "being". And not only do states have a variable intensity, but different beings
"are" unequally. A dog that runs and barks seems "to be" more than a mute and clinging
sponge, the sponge more than the water in which it lives, an influential [human] more than a
vacant passerby.
In the first movement, where the force that the master has at [their] disposal puts the slave at
[their] mercy, the master deprives the slave of a part of [their] being. Much later, in return, the
"existence" of the master is impoverished to such an extent that it distances itself from the
material elements of life. The slave enriches [their] being to the extent that [they] enslaves
these elements by the work to which [their] impotence condemns him.
The contradictory movements of degradation and growth attain, in the diffuse development
of human existence, a bewildering complexity. The fundamental separation of [humans] into
masters and slaves is only the crossed threshold, the entry into the world of specialized
functions where personal "existence" empties itself of its contents; a [human] is no longer
anything but a part of being, and [their] life, engaged in the game of creation and destruction
that goes beyond it, appears as a degraded particle lacking reality. The very fact of assuming
that knowledge is a function throws the philosopher back into the world of petty
inconsistencies and dissections of lifeless organs. Isolated as much from action as from the
dreams that turn action away and echo it in the strange depths of animated life, [they] led
astray the very being that [they] chose as the object of [their] uneasy comprehension.
"Being" increases in the tumultuous agitation of a life that knows no limits; it wastes away
and disappears if [they] who is at the same "being" and knowledge mutilates himself by
reducing himself to knowledge. This deficiency can grow even greater if the object of
knowledge is no longer being in general but a narrow domain, such as an organ, a
mathematical question, a juridical form. Action and dreams do not escape this poverty (each
time they are confused with the totality of being), and, in the multicolored immensity of
human lives, a limitless insufficiency is revealed; life, finding its endpoint in the happiness of a
bugle blower or the snickering of a village chair-renter, is no longer the fulfillment of itself, but
is its own ludicrous degradation - its fall is comparable to that of a king onto the floor.
At the basis of human life there exists a principle of insufficiency. In isolation, each [human]
sees the majority of others as incapable or unworthy of "being". There is found, in all free and
slanderous conversation, as an animating theme, the awareness of the vanity and the
emptiness of our fellowmen; an apparent stagnant conversation betrays the blind and
impotent flight of all life toward an indefinable summit.
The sufficiency of each being is endlessly contested by every other. Even the look that
expresses love and admiration comes to me as a doubt concerning my reality. A burst of
laughter or the expression of repugnance greets each gesture, each sentence or each oversight
through which my profound insufficiency is betrayed - just as sobs would be the response to my
sudden death, to a total and irremediable omission.
This uneasiness on the part of everyone grows and reverberates, since at each detour, with a
kind of nausea, [humans] discover their solitude in empty night. The universal night in which
everything finds itself - and soon loses itself - would appear to be the existence for nothing,
without influence, equivalent to the absence of being, were it not for human nature that
emerges within it to give a dramatic importance to being and life. But this absurd night
manages to empty itself of "being" and meaning each time a [human] discovers within it human
destiny, itself locked in turn in a comic impasse, like a hideous and discordant trumpet blast.
That which, in me, demands that there be "being" in the world, "being" and not just the
manifest insufficiency of human or nonhuman nature, necessarily projects (at one time or
another and in reply to human chatter) divine sufficiency across space, like the reflection of
an impotence, of a servilely accepted malady of being.
II. THE COMPOSITE CHARACTER OF BEINGS AND THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF FIXING EXISTENCE IN
ANY GIVEN Ipse
Being in the world is so uncertain that I can project it where I want - outside of me. It is a
clumsy man, still incapable of eluding the intrigues of nature, who locks being in the me. Being
in fact is found NOWHERE and it was an easy game for a sickly malice to discover it to be
divine, at the summit of a pyramid formed by the multitude of beings, which has at its base
the immensity of the simplest matter.
Being could be confined to the electron if ipseity were precisely not lacking in this simple
element. The atom itself has a complexity that is too elementary to be determined ipsely. The
number of particles that make up a being intervene in a sufficiently heavy and clear way in
the constitution of its ipseity; if a knife has its handle and blade indefinitely replaced, it loses
even the shadow of its ipseity; it is not the same for a machine which, after six or five years,
loses each of the numerous elements that constituted it when new. But the ipseity that is
finally apprehended with difficulty in the machine is still only shadowlike.
Starting from an extreme complexity, being imposes on reflection more than the
precariousness of a fugitive appearance, but this complexity - displaced little by little
becomes in turn the labyrinth where what had suddenly come forward strangely loses its
way.
A sponge is reduced by pounding to a dust of cells; this living dust is formed by a multitude of
isolated beings, and is lost in the new sponge that it reconstitutes. A siphonophore fragment
is by itself an autonomous being, yet the whole siphonophore, to which this fragment belongs,
is itself hardly different from a being possessing unity. Only with linear animals (worms,
insects, fish, reptiles, birds and mammals) do the living individual forms definitively lose the
faculty of constituting aggregates bound together in a single body. But while societies of
nonlinear animals do not exist, superior animals form aggregates without ever giving rise to
corporeal links; [humans] as well as beavers or ants form societies of individuals whose bodies
are autonomous. But in regard to being, is this autonomy the final appearance, or is it simply
error?
In men, all existence is tied in particular to language, whose terms determine its modes of
appearance within each person. Each person can only represent [their] total existence, if only
in [their] own eyes, through the medium of words. Words spring forth in [their] head, laden
with a host of human or superhuman lives in relation to which [they] privately exists. Being
depends on the mediation of words, which cannot merely present it arbitrarily as
"autonomous being," but which must present it profoundly as "being in relation". One need
only follow, for a short time, the traces of the repeated circuits of words to discover, in a
disconcerting vision, the labyrinthine structure of the human being. What is commonly called
knowing - when a [human] knows [their] neighbour - is never anything but existence
composed for an instant (in the sense that all existence composes itself - thus the atom
composes its unity from variable electrons), which once made of these two beings a whole
every bit as real as its parts. A limited number of exchanged phrases, no matter how
conventional, sufficed to create the banal interpenetration of two existing juxtaposed regions.
The fact that after this short exchange the [human] is aware of knowing [their] neighbour is
opposed to a meeting without recognition in the street, as well as to the ignorance of the
multitude of beings that one never meets, in the same way that life is opposed to death. The
knowledge of human beings thus appears as a mode of biological connection, unstable but
just as real as the connections between cells in tissue. The exchange between two human
particles in fact possesses the faculty of surviving momentary separation.
A [human] is only a particle inserted in unstable and entangled wholes. These wholes are
composed in personal life in the form of multiple possibilities, starting with a knowledge that
is crossed like a threshold - and the existence of the particle can in no way be isolated from
this composition, which agitates it in the midst of a whirlwind of ephemerids. This extreme
instability of connections alone permits one to introduce, as a puerile but convenient illusion,
a representation of isolated existence turning in on itself.
In the most general way, every isolable element of the universe always appears as a particle
that can enter into composition with a whole that transcends it. Being is only found as a
whole composed of particles whose relative autonomy is maintained. These two principles
dominate the uncertain presence of an ipse being across a distance that never ceases to put
everything in question. Emerging in universal play as unforeseeable chance, with extreme
dread imperatively becoming the demand for universality, carried away to vertigo by the
movement that composes it, the ipse being that presents itself as a universal is only a
challenge to the diffuse immensity that escapes its precarious violence, the tragic negation of
all that is not its own bewildered phantom's chance. But, as a man, this being falls into the
meanders of the knowledge of [their] fellowmen, which absorbs [their] substance in order to
reduce it to a component of what goes beyond the virulent madness of [their] autonomy in the
total night of the world.
Abdication and inevitable fatigue - due to the fact that "being" is, par excellence, that which,
desired to the point of dread, cannot be endured - plunge human beings into a foggy labyrinth
formed by the multitude of "acquaintances" with which signs of life and phrases can be
exchanged. But when [they] escapes the dread of "being" through this flight - a "being" that is
autonomous and isolated in night - a [human] is thrown back into insufficiency, at least if
[they] cannot find outside of himself the blinding flash that [they] had been unable to endure
within himself, without whose intensity [their] life is but an impoverishment, of which [they]
feels obscurely ashamed.
III. THE STRUCTURE OF THE LABYRINTH
Emerging out of an inconeivable void into the play of beings, as a lost satellite of two phantoms
(one with a bristly beard, the other softer, her head decorated with a bun), it is in the father
and mother who transcend [them] that the miniscule human being first encountered the
illusion of sufficiency. In the complexity and entanglement of wholes, to which the human
particle belongs, this satellite-like mode of existence never entirely disappears. A particular
being not only acts as an element of a shapeless and structureless whole (a part of the world
of unimportant "acquaintances" and chatter), but also as a peripheral element orbiting around
a nucleus where being hardens. What the lost child had found in the self-assured existence of
the all-powerful beings who took care of [them] is now sought by the abadoned [human]
wherever knots and concentrations are formed throughout a vast incoherence. Each particular
being delegates to the group of those situated at the centre of the multitudes the task of
realizing the inherent totality of "being". [they] is content to be a part of a total existence,
which even in the simplest cases retains a diffuse character. Thus relatively stable wholes are
produced, whose centre is a city, in its early form a corolla that encloses a double pistil of
sovereign and god. In the case where many cities abdicate their central function in favour of a
single city, an empire forms around a capital where sovereignity and the gods are
concentrated; the gravitation around a centre then degrades the existence of peripheral cities,
where the organs that constituted the totality of being wilt. By degrees, a more and more
complex movement of group composition raises to the point of universality the human race,
but it seems that universality, at the summit, causes all existence to explode and decomposes
it with violence. The universal god destroys rather than supports the human aggregates that
raise [their] ghost. [they] himself is only dead, whether a mythical delirium set [them] up to be
adored as a cadaver covered with wounds, or whether through [their] very universality [they]
becomes, more than any other, incapable of stopping the loss of being with the cracked
partitions of ipseity.
IV. THE MODALITIES OF COMPOSITION AND DECOMPOSITION OF BEING
The city that little by little empties itself of life, in favour of a more brilliant and attractive
city, is the expressive image of the play of existence engaged in composition. Because of the
composing attraction, composition empties elements of the greatest part of their being, and
this benefits the centre - in other words, it benefits composite being. There is the added fact
that, in a given domain, if the attraction of a certain centre is stronger than that of a
neighbouring centre, the second centre then goes into decline. The action of powerful poles of
attraction across the human world thus reduces, depending on their force of resistance, a
multitude of personal beings to the state of empty shadows, especially when the pole of
attraction on which they depend itself declines, due to the action of another more powerful
pole. Thus if one imagines the effects of an influential current of attraction on a more or less
arbitrarily isolated form of activity, a style of clothing created in a certain city devalues the
clothes worn up to that time and, consequently, it devalues those who wear them within the
limits of the influence of this city. This devaluation is stronger if, in a neighbouring country, the
fashions of a more brilliant city have already outclassed those of the first city. The objective
character of these relations is registered in reality when the contempt and laughter manifested
in a given centre are not compensated for by anything elsewhere, and when they exert an
effective fascination. The effort made on the periphery to "keep up with fashion"
demonstrates the inability of the peripheral particles to exist by themselves.
Laughter intervenes in these value determinations of being as the expression of the circuit of
movements of attraction across a human field. It manifests itself each time a change in level
suddenly occurs: it characterizes all vacant lives as ridiculous. A kind of incandescent joy - the
explosive and sudden revelation of the presence of being - is liberated each time a striking
appearance is contrasted with its absence, with the human void. Laughter casts a glance,
charged with the mortal violence of being, into the void of being, into the void of life.
But laughter is not only the composition of those it assembles into a unique convulsion; it most
often decomposes without consequence, and sometimes with a virulence that is so pernicious
that it even puts in question composition itself, and the wholes across which it functions.
Laughter attains not only the peripheral regions of existence, and its object is not only the
existence of fools and children (of those who remain vacant); through a necessary reversal, it is
sent back from the child to its father and from the periphery to the centre, each time the father
or the centre in turn reveals an insufficiency comparable to that of the particles that orbit
around it. Such a central insufficiency can be ritually revealed (in saturnalia or in a festival of
the ass as well as in the puerile grimaces of the father amusing [their] child). It can be revealed
by the very action of children or the "poor" each time exhaustion withers and weakens
authority, allowing its precarious character to be seen. In both cases, a dominant necessity
manifests itself, and the profound nature of being is disclosed. Being can complete itself and
attain the menacing grandeur of imperative totality; this accomplishment only serves to
project it with a greater violence into the vacant night. The relative insufficiency of peripheral
existences is absolute insufficiency in total existence. Above knowable existences, laughter
traverses the human pyramid like a network of endless waves that renew themselves in all
directions. This reverberation convulsion chokes, from one end to the other, the innumerable
being of [human] - opened at the summit by the agony of God in a black night.
V. THE MONSTER IN THE NIGHT OF THE LABYRINTH
Being attains the blinding flash in tragic annihilation. Laughter only assumes its fullest impact
on being at the moment when, in the fall that it unleashes, a representation of death is
cynically recognised. It is not only the composition of elements that constitutes the
incandescence of being, but its decomposition in its mortal form. The difference in levels that
provokes common laughter - which opposes the lack of an absurd life to the plenitude of
successful being - can be replaced by that which opposes the summit of imperative elevation
to the dark abyss that obliterates all existence. Laughter is thus assumed by the totality of
being. Renouncing the avaricious malice of the scapegoat, being itself, to the extent that it is
the sum of existences at the limits of the night, is spasmodically shaken by the idea of the
ground giving way beneath its feet. It is in universality (where, due to solitude, the possibility
of facing death through war appears) that the necessity of engaging in a struggle, no longer
with an equal group but with nothingness, becomes clear. THE UNIVERSAL resembles a bull,
sometimes absorbed in the nonchalance of animality and abandoned to the secret paleness of
death, and sometimes hurled by the rage of ruin into the void ceaselessly opened before it by a
skeletal torero. But the void it meets is also the nudity it espouses TO THE EXTENT THAT IT IS A
MONSTER lightly assuming many crimes, and it is no longer, like the bull, the plaything of
nothingness, because nothingness itself is its plaything; it only throws itself into nothingness in
order to tear it apart and to illuminate the night for an instant, with an immense laugh - a laugh
it never would have attained if this nothingness had not totally opened beneath its
feet.<b>Georges Bataille</b>
7-24-17
 Neolib K Link
“Competitiveness” is another link to neolib
Davies 14 William Davies is a Senior Lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he is
leading the development of a new PPE Degree. “How ‘competitiveness’ became one of the
great unquestioned virtues of contemporary culture”, May 19th 2014, London School of
Economics, British Politics and Policy, http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/the-cult-of-
competitiveness/, VM
The years since the banking meltdown of 2008 have witnessed a dawning awareness, that our model of capitalism is not simply
producing widening inequality, but is apparently governed by the interests of a tiny minority of
the population. The post-crisis period has spawned its own sociological category – ‘the 1%’ – and recently delivered its first work of
grand economic theory, in Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-first Century, a book dedicated to understanding why inequality keeps on
growing. What seems to be provoking the most outrage right now is not inequality as such, which has, after all, been rising in the UK (give or
take Tony Blair’s second term) since 1979, but the sense that the economic game is now being rigged. If we can put our outrage to one side for
a second, this poses a couple of questions, for those interested in the sociology of legitimation. Firstly, how did mounting inequality succeed in
proving culturally and politically attractive for as long as it did? And secondly, how and why has that model of justification now broken down? In
some ways, the concept of inequality is unhelpful here. There has rarely been a political or business leader who has stood up and publicly said,
“society needs more inequality”. And yet, most of the policies and regulations which have driven inequality since the 1970s have been publicly
known. Although it is tempting to look back and feel duped by the pre-2008 era, it was relatively clear what was going on, and how it was being
justified. But rather than speak in terms of generating more inequality, policy-makers have always
favoured another term, which effectively comes to the same thing: competitiveness. My new book,
The Limits of Neoliberalism: Sovereignty, Authority & The Logic of Competition, is an attempt to understand the ways in which
political authority has been reconfigured in terms of the promotion of competitiveness.
Competitiveness is an interesting concept, and an interesting principle on which to base
social and economic institutions. When we view situations as ‘competitions’, we are assuming
that participants have some vaguely equal opportunity at the outset. But we are also
assuming that they are striving for maximum inequality at the conclusion. To demand
‘competitiveness’ is to demand that people prove themselves relative to one other . It struck me,
when I began my Sociology PhD on which the book is based, that competitiveness had become one of the great unquestioned virtues of
contemporary culture, especially in the UK. We celebrate London because it is a competitive world city; we worship sportsmen for having won;
we turn on our televisions and watch contestants competitively cooking against each other. In
TV shows such as the Dragons
Den or sporting contests such as the Premier League, the division between competitive
entertainment and capitalism dissolves altogether. Why would it be remotely surprising, to
discover that a society in which competitiveness was a supreme moral and cultural virtue,
should also be one which generates increasing levels of inequality ? Unless one wants to descend into
biological reductionism, the question then has to be posed: how did this state of affairs come about? To answer this, we need to turn firstly to
the roots of neoliberal thinking in the 1930s. For Friedrich Hayek in London, the ordoliberals in Freiburg and Henry Simons in Chicago,
competition wasn’t just one feature of a market amongst many. It was the fundamental reason why markets were politically desirable, because
it conserved the uncertainty of the future. What
united all forms of totalitarianism and planning, according
to Hayek, was that they refused to tolerate competition. And hence a neoliberal state would
be defined first and foremost as one which used its sovereign powers to defend competitive
processes, using anti-trust law and other instruments. One way of understanding
neoliberalism, as Foucault has best highlighted, is as the extension of competitive principles
into all walks of life, with the force of the state behind them. Sovereign power does not
recede, and nor is it replaced by ‘governance’; it is reconfigured in such a way that society
becomes a form of ‘game’, which produces winners and losers. My aim in The Limits of Neoliberalism is to
understand some of the ways in which this comes about. In particular, I examine how the Chicago School Law and Economics tradition achieved
an overhaul (and drastic shrinkage) in the role of market regulation. And I look at how Michael Porter’s theory of ‘national competitiveness’ led
to a new form of policy orientation, as the search for competitive advantage. Both of these processes have their intellectual roots in the post-
War period, but achieved significant political influence from the late 1970s onwards. They are, if you like, major components of neoliberalism.
By studying these intellectual traditions, it becomes possible to see how an entire moral and
philosophical worldview has developed, which assumes that inequalities are both a fair and
an exciting outcome of a capitalist process which is overseen by political authorities. In that
respect, the state is a constant accomplice of rising inequality, although corporations, their
managers and shareholders, were the obvious beneficiaries . Drawing on the work of Luc Boltanski, I suggest
that we need to understand how competition, competitiveness and, ultimately, inequality are
rendered justifiable and acceptable – otherwise their sustained presence in public and private
life appears simply inexplicable. And yet, this approach also helps us to understand what exactly has broken down over recent
years, which I would argue is the following: At a key moment in the history of neoliberal thought, its
advocates shifted from defending markets as competitive arenas amongst many, to viewing
society-as-a-whole as one big competitive arena. Under the latter model, there is no distinction between arenas of
politics, economics and society. To convert money into political power, or into legal muscle, or into media influence, or into educational
advantage, is justifiable, within this more brutal, capitalist model of neoliberalism. The problem that we now know as the ‘1%’ is, as has been
argued of America recently, a problem of oligarchy. Underlying
it is the problem that there are no longer any
external, separate or higher principles to appeal to, through which oligarchs might be
challenged. Legitimate powers need other powers through which their legitimacy can be tested; this is the basic principle on which the
separation of executive, legislature and judiciary is based. The same thing holds true with respect to economic power, but this is what has been
lost. Regulators,
accountants, tax collectors, lawyers, public institutions, have been drawn into
the economic contest, and become available to buy. To use the sort of sporting metaphor much-loved by business
leaders; it’s as if the top football team has bought not only the best coaches, physios and facilities, but also bought the referee and the
journalists as well. The
bodies responsible for judging economic competition have lost all authority,
which leaves the dream of ‘meritocracy’ or a ‘level playing field’ (crucial ideals within the
neoliberal imaginary) in tatters. Politically speaking, this is as much a failure of legitimation as it is a problem of spiralling
material inequality. The result is a condition that I term ‘contingent neoliberalism’, contingent in the sense that it no longer operates with any
spirit of fairness or inclusiveness. The priority is simply to prop it up at all costs. If people are irrational, then nudge them. If banks don’t lend
money, then inflate their balance sheets through artificial means. If a currency is no longer taken seriously, political leaders must repeatedly
guarantee it as a sovereign priority. If people protest, buy a water canon. This is a system whose own conditions are constantly falling apart,
and which governments must do constant repair work on. The outrage with the ‘1%’ (and, more accurately, with the 0.1%), the sense that even
the rich are scarcely benefiting, is to be welcomed. It is also overdue. For
several years, we have operated with a
cultural and moral worldview which finds value only in ‘winners’. Our cities must be ‘world-
leading’ to matter. Universities must be ‘excellent’, or else they dwindle. This is a philosophy
which condemns the majority of spaces, people and organizations to the status of ‘losers’. It
also seems entirely unable to live up to its own meritocratic ideal any longer. The discovery
that, if you cut a ‘winner’ enough slack, eventually they’ll try to close down the game once
and for all, should throw our obsession with competitiveness into question. And then we can
consider how else to find value in things, other than their being ‘better’ than something else.
7/25/17
 Genealogy
Genealogical critique is a method of calling into question dogmatic truths through an
understanding of history that does not view existing structures as having been natural
or inevitable – it’s useful for deconstructing educational assumptions.
Usher and Phelan 14 - (Robin Usher was Professor of Research Education and Director of
Research Training at RMIT University, Anne M. Phelan is a professor in the Department of
Curriculum and Pedagogy, 2014, "Educational theory and the practice of critique", DOA: 4-27-
2017) //Snowball //modified for gendered language
The advantage of genealogy as a method of critique is that it produces strategic knowledge,
so that we can ask the question: do we want to govern, or want to be governed, like that? It has a strategic
usefulness in providing historical analyses into the mechanisms of power, forms of rationality and
discourse that dominate the present field of education. The political usefulness of a genealogical
analysis derives from its capacity to disrupt or discomfort and destabilise the fixedness, inevitability
and necessity of these contemporary ways of thinking and acting by showing their fragility and
contingency. When Foucault deployed the term ‘genealogy’ he had in mind Nietzsche’s
genealogy of morals where history is characterised as both complex and mundane. One of the
points of a genealogical analysis is to show that theories are the contingent turns of history
rather than the outcome of rationally inevitable trends. History is a matter of complex
processes which can only be understood in their specificity and their potential to have been
otherwise. Genealogy is however, not simply a method but a particular way of conceptualising
and approaching the practice of critique. Through the concept of genealogy, the practice of critique is re-defined as
‘…the movement by which the subject gives himself [their self] the right to question truth on
its effects of power and question power on its discourses of truth .’ (Foucault 1997: 47) Genealogies
are thus characterised by an attitude of scepticism with respect to what is held most revered,
questioning all scientific and humanitarian motives for reform as well as notions of progress (Oksala 2007) and unitary origins. As such,
genealogy uses history to show that many of the things we take for granted or conceive as
‘natural’ or ‘true’ have a history, a genealogy or lineage, and therefore are artefacts of previous
events, discourses, rationalities and practices (Dean 1998). One of the features of genealogy which
makes it into the opposite of critical theory’s critique of ideology is the central concern with
analysing the intrinsic and historically specific links between knowledge and power. This transforms the
task of critique ‘...from that of the practice of a legislating subject passing judgement on a
deficient reality to an analysis of the assumptions on which taken-for-granted practice rests’
(Dean 1994: 119). The concept of power-knowledge functions to make visible and intelligible how
the knowledges (theories) of the human sciences make possible and play a role in the practices (relations of
power) used in the regulation, including the education, of people. The object is to study the
different and historically specific relations between forms by which subjects are known and
technologies of power (the acting upon of subjects), so that it is possible to understand how
technologies of power constitute a field of truth and the types of subjectivities formed and re-
formed on the basis of these knowledge-power relations. This makes it possible to analyse how we
have come to govern both ourselves and others through the truths produced about what we are, and then how
these practices of governing change with changes in what is accepted as truth and vice versa.
Genealogy is thus a form of critique carried out within a framework that pays attention to the
positive, productive effects of modern forms of power and contends that their effectiveness
rests on the installation of a discourse or regime of truth (Gordon 1980).
7/26/17
 School Violence Down
Statistically, school violence is declining.
KWQC 17 (KWQC News, "Report: School violence, bullying down in US public schools", KWQC,
7-27-2017, http://www.kwqc.com/content/news/Report-School-violence-bullying-down-in-US-
public-schools-437048903.html, DOA: 7-27-2017) //Snowball
WASHINGTON (AP) - The number of violent attacks in American public schools has gone down in
recent years and bullying has also become less frequent. The findings were published Thursday in a
report by the Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics. The rate of violent incidents and bullying was
higher in middle schools than in high schools or elementary schools. The report says the rate of violent incidents in middle
schools dropped from 40 incidents per 1,000 students in the 2009-2010 school year to 27 incidents in 2015-
2016. Bullying in middle schools went down from 39 percent to 22 percent. The survey was based on a random
sample of some 3,500 schools. It did not provide an explanation for the trends.
7/27/17
 Non-Teacher Staff Surge
There’s been a massive surge in hiring educational staff that has hindered
effectiveness – we need fewer, not more.
Scafidi 17 (Benjamin, professor at the Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University,
"Stop the School Staffing Surge", US News &amp; World Report, 7-3-2017,
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/knowledge-bank/articles/2017-07-03/the-public-school-
staffing-surge-hasnt-benefited-teachers-or-students, DOA: 7-27-2017) //Snowball
Yet, for decades, we have consistently failed to spend public school money in a way that rewards teachers and benefits students. In studying
publicly available data on school staffing levels from 1950 to 2015, I found that American
public schools have added
personnel at a rate almost four times that of student enrollment growth. On the surface, that staffing
surge might sound good, but in reality, these additional hires were disproportionately non-teachers.
While the number of teachers increased almost two and a half times as fast as the increase in students – resulting in significantly smaller class
sizes – the
number of non-teachers or "all other staff" increased more than seven times the increase in
students. From the 1950s until 1992, the staffing surge was much larger than in later years. Over those earlier decades, public schools saw
racial integration and more developed special education programs. While the pre-1992 staffing surge was extremely large, perhaps it was
necessary. But the
modern staffing surge that began in 1992 has been expensive for taxpayers and has
posed a tremendous opportunity cost on teachers and parents. Between 1992 and 2014, when inflation-
adjusted per-student spending increased by 27 percent, inflation-adjusted average salaries for public school teachers actually fell by 2 percent.
In other words, taxpayers
allocated more money to public school students, but teachers effectively
saw money taken out of their pockets. Instead of increasing teacher salaries over and above
the cost of living, the American public education system dramatically expanded the number
of non-teachers it hired – a 45 percent increase in the post-1992 period, or more than double the increase in student population.
Had the increase in non-teacher staff simply matched the 19 percent increase in student enrollment since 1992, American public schools could
have saved at least $35 billion per year, or $805 billion between 1992 and 2014. What could public schools have done
with that money? Start by giving every teacher a permanent $11,100 pay raise. Other
potential uses include giving more than 4 million students $8,000 education savings accounts that could be used to
pay for tuition at private schools and other educational services like tutoring – or even saved for college. Simply put, dollars used to
pay for a surge in non-teachers precluded raises for teachers or school choice opportunities
for students – the two constituencies with the most to gain from better educational opportunities and smarter spending.
7/28/17
 Model Minority Myth
The education system reinforces the image of the Asian student: industrious,
obedient, and successful – rendering invisible the crisis of Asian students to whom the
system does not cater.
Li 5 (Guofang, "Other People’s Success: Impact of the “Model Minority” Myth on
Underachieving Asian Students in North America", KEDI Journal of Educational Policy Vol.2 No.1
2005, https://msu.edu/~liguo/file/KEDI%20Journal-Guofang%20Li%202005[1].pdf, DOA: 7-28-
2017) //Snowball
Contemporary public perceptions of Asian students in North America have been associated with the
label “model minorities” (Lee, 1996; Suzuki, 1989, 2002). Asian students are described as intelligent,
industrious, enduring, obedient, and highly successful, and have been constructed as “academic
nerds,” “high achievers” who are “joyfully” initiated into North American life and English literacy
practices (Lee, 1996; Townsend and Fu, 1998). These model minority images are based on reports of Asian
students’ high test scores in mathematics and SAT, and higher grade point average in high school in comparison
with other minority groups such as African and Hispanic students in the U.S., and Aboriginal students in Canada (Hsia, 1988; Kim & Chun, 1994;
Sue & Okazaki, 1991). In recent years, there are also reports that Asians are outdoing whites in test scores, educational attainment, and family
income (Min, 2004). These
images are further reinforced by reports of only success stories in research
literature and in the media. According to the U.S. Census Bureau 2001 population survey, in 2050, one of the greatest increases in
the U. S. population will be Asian American/Pacific Islanders (from 3.7% in 2000 to 8.9% in 2050). In Canada, Asia/Pacific has become the
leading source of immigrants since the 1990s (53.01% in 2001), with China (including Hong Kong) being the No. 1 source country (Citizenship
and Immigration Canada, 2002). In the Province of British Columbia (B.C.) alone, Asian immigrants accounted for 87.2% of its population growth
during 1993-2000. With
the increase of Asian population in North America, the number of school age
Asian Pacific children also increased tremendously. For example, between 1960 and 1990, it grew about six-fold and it
continues to grow at a high rate in the U.S. and Canada. Are the “model minority” images true to all Asian students? Are the Asian students
destined to excel as “model minorities”? The fast growing Asian Pacific population has posed
unprecedented challenges to schools that are under prepared for educating students who do
not speak English as their first language and who come from a wide range of cultural, political and
economic backgrounds. With the increasing number of Asian children in today’s schools, researchers began to see the
other side of the “model minority myth.” Contrary to the widely reported success stories, research on recent Asian
immigrants began to draw public attention to “an invisible crisis” that many Asian Pacific children
face in today’s schools (AAPIP, 1997). More and more Asian children are reported to experience difficulty not
only in learning English, but also in achieving academic success. For example, the 2001 results of the British
Columbia Foundations Skills Assessment indicated that nearly 37% of the 4th graders (in addition to 21% of whom were excused from taking
the test due to their limited English proficiency) in the school had not yet reached the provincial standards in reading comprehension (B. C.
Ministry of Education, 2001). In
many districts with high Asian concentration (e.g., California, New York, and Chicago),
Asian drop out rates are also reported to be increasing (NECS, 2004).
7/29/17
 Circumvention
Federal education policy gets circumvented.
Hess and Eden 16 (Frederick M., Resident Scholar and Director of Education Policy Studies,
and Max, program manager of the education policy studies department at AEI, "What to Do:
Policy Recommendations for K-12 Education, Agendas for the Next President", AEI, 9-19-2016,
https://www.aei.org/publication/a-conservative-k-12-agenda-ideas-for-the-next-president/,
DOA: 7-24-2017) //Snowball
Policy is a blunt tool. Federal policy can make states and districts do things, but it can’t make them
do them well. When doing things is enough, like with mailing Social Security checks or setting noise ordinances, policy can work well. But
policy is far less effective when it comes to complex endeavors where how things are done
matters more than whether they’re done. And, in education, where human relationships are key, how
things are done is usually what matters.
What’s worse, federal policy unspools like a game of telephone. In Washington, the U.S. Department of
Education issues guidance. When officials in 50 states read that guidance, they won’t all
understand it the same way. Those officials then explain it to thousands of district
coordinators, who provide direction to school leaders and teachers. By that point, there’s a
lot of confusion, fear, and half-hearted compliance. Now, multiply that a hundredfold for the deluge
of directives that rain down. This kind of bureaucratic malaise isn’t anyone’s recipe for good
schools.
Trump or Clinton might not grasp any of this, but 16 years of Bush-Obama education policy have offered Americans an
intensive course of study. The Every Student Succeeds Act sought to correct for some of the Rube Goldberg-esque overreach of No Child Left
Behind, the previous version of the law, while retaining the law’s healthy commitment to transparency. In 2017 and beyond, the
conservative mission, in part, will be to protect families, educators, communities, and states from being
whipsawed by the whims of excitable federal bureaucrats and their attorneys.
7-30-17
 Midterms UQ
GOP loses 2018 midterms now- time is running out to change course after healthcare
debacle- even Breitbart concedes
Pollak 7/28 Joel Pollak, Senior Editor-at-Large, July 28, 2017, Breitbart News, “Republicans on
the Path to Surrender in 2018 Midterm Elections” http://www.breitbart.com/big-
government/2017/07/28/republicans-path-surrender-2018-midterm-elections/, VM
*this card is from breitbart- beware
The Republican Party is already behaving as if it is no longer a governing party, and merely
awaits the verdict of the voters in 2018 to seal its fate. Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell (R-KY) virtually handed control to Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in his
speech bemoaning Republicans’ latest — and last? — failure to pass any kind of repeal of
Obamacare in the wee hours of Friday morning. “Now, I think it’s appropriate to ask, what are their ideas? It’s time for
our friends on the other side to tell us what they have in mind and we’ll see how the American people feel about their ideas,” he said. It was
a stunning abdication of governing responsibility to the minority party. There is no way
Democrats are going to propose any new ideas to “fix” Obamacare in the near future.
Instead, they will save their ideas for the 2018 midterm elections, when they will run on the
promise to lead the effort to repair what Republicans lacked the courage to repeal . They will
tell McConnell what they have in mind for Obamacare — once he is out of power and control
the Senate — and perhaps the House as well. President Donald Trump, no doubt, sees the
writing on the wall. He is again talking about dealing with Democrats once Obamacare
implodes. That implies that Democrats will be in a position to negotiate — and Republicans,
who have failed, will largely be spectators to the process . Speaker of the House Paul Ryan deserves credit, at
least, for moving some kind of legislation through the lower chamber. Yet he did not have a clear plan ready on day one — not even a simple
bill of the sort proposed by Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), who suggested that Republicans repeal Obamacare effective at some future date, by which
a replacement could be negotiated (with Democrats if necessary). In November, I wrote that Paul Ryan had a chance to make history merely by
putting his best ideas on President Trump’s desk. Inexplicably, he failed to do that. It may be that the failure of Republicans’ efforts on Friday
opens opportunities for new health care policy proposals, such as the “Trump Option” of basic health care for all, plus private insurance for
everything else. And
Trump can still make a deal to replace Obamacare. As Breitbart News
predicted earlier this year, he would exhaust all of the factions in Congress before introducing
his own plan, which might then be agreed to as the only workable option. But it is possible
that by the time that deal becomes ripe, Republicans will no longer be running Congress.
They are on a path to surrender in 2018 unless they change course, and time is running out —
if it is not already too late.

Democrats will win now- large recruiting efforts and Republican lethargy
Kilgore 7/29 Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine, July 29, 2017, “Surge in House Democratic
Candidates Could Fuel a 2018 Wave Election”,
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/surge-in-house-democratic-candidates-could-
fuel-2018-wave.html, VM
The slowly approaching 2018 midterm elections are the first test of the political durability of
the GOP’s control of Washington, and Democrats are anxiously scanning the horizon for signs
of a gathering wave. “Wave” elections — those that produce a large swing in votes and
congressional seats for one party — tend to develop slowly. There are a few factors that tell us if the weather is
right for a wave election: They most often occur during midterm elections under unpopular presidents, when previous waves have given his
party an unnaturally large number of seats. While conditions are right at the moment, it’s hard to forecast
whether they’ll still be favorable in November 2018. One important factor, however, can be seen from a
considerable distance: Are Democrats running in enough places to make broad gains possible if
conditions are ripe? A new study of campaign-finance filings from the Brookings Institution
suggests Democrats are running for the House in unprecedented numbers: There were 78
early Republican challengers who had raised at least $5,000, which presaged the wave
election that gave the GOP majority control in 2010. Democrats have 209. And these
candidates are spread across the map, too: In 2009, the Republicans had mustered 50
legitimate candidates to challenge Democratic incumbents. The Democrats have doubled
that. Contesting a wide swath of House districts does not itself produce a “wave election.”
But it does mean Democrats will likely be in a position to take full advantage of the
opportunities that may exist. In a discussion of this data, Kyle Kondik notes that at present there are probably not enough highly
vulnerable GOP House seats to produce a Democratic takeover, using the House ratings published by Larry Sabato’s
Crystal Ball: [T]here are now 26 Republican districts in the competitive Toss-up and Leans
categories … So Democrats can look at that list and say that if they can win the Toss-ups and
Leaners, they will win the House because they need to net just 24 seats to take control. That’s
technically true, but, as argued above, it’s not really realistic: Even in a horrible GOP year, Democrats won’t sweep all of the top-tier races.
But while there’s probably a ceiling on the share of competitive races the Democrats can win,
if a wave is really developing, more and more races will become competitive. Crystal Ball
rates 28 additional GOP-held House seats as “Likely Republican.” It will not take too many of
those moving into the “Lean Republican” or “Toss-Up” categories to make a Democratic
House a much better bet. And that, in fact, is how waves usually develop: Relatively safe incumbents suddenly
are in trouble, and others retire rather than face the ignominy of defeat. In looking at House
race ratings from Crystal Ball, the Cook Political Report, or other credible handicappers , the
thing to watch may be how many vulnerable seats are held by each party (at the moment,
only nine Democrats join the 26 Republicans in Crystal Ball’s list of toss-up or lean contests). If
they are overwhelmingly Republicans, a wave could be on the way, particularly if, as seems to
be the case, Democrats are conceding less ground and running more candidates than ever.

Voters want democrats now to control congress, even as trump supporters are more
likely to vote
DeBonis and Guskin 7/19 Mike DeBonis covers Congress and national politics for The
Washington Post. Emily Guskin is the polling analyst at The Washington Post, specializing in
public opinion about politics, election campaigns and public policy. “Ahead of midterms, voters
prefer Democrats even as Republicans appear more motivated to vote”, Washington Post, July
19th 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ahead-of-midterms-voters-prefer-
democrats-even-as-republicans-appear-more-motivated-to-vote/2017/07/19/470441d6-6c01-
11e7-96ab-5f38140b38cc_story.html, VM
A Washington Post-ABC News poll offers conflicting forecasts for the 2018 midterm elections,
with voters clearly preferring Democrats in control of Congress to check President Trump
even as Republicans appear more motivated to show up at the polls. A slight majority of
registered voters — 52 percent — say they want Democrats to control the next Congress,
while 38 percent favor Republican control to promote the president’s agenda, according to
the poll. Yet a surge in anti-Trump protests does not appear to have translated into heightened Democratic voter enthusiasm — a signal
that could temper Democrats’ hopes for retaking the House majority next year. Trump’s low approval rating, which
dropped to 36 percent from 42 percent in April, could also be significant if it fails to improve
in the next year. The survey also suggests that a shifting electorate could end up propelling
Democrats to major gains if voters who have skipped previous midterm elections show up to
cast ballots in 2018. The snapshot emerges just as Congress has hit a major stumbling block in its effort
to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, with Republican leaders in the Senate falling
short this week of the votes they need to advance their deeply unpopular bill. Although the
poll was conducted before the collapse of the health-care push, the results suggest fresh
uncertainty as to whether Democrats can recruit strong candidates and mobilize voters
despite negative views of the Republican agenda. Republicans hold a 24-seat advantage in the
House, and Democrats have pointed to the spike in activism, Trump’s unpopularity and
voters’ general preference for Democratic congressional candidates as evidence that the
majority could be in play. The Post-ABC poll shows that Republicans hold the advantage in enthusiasm this early in the campaign
cycle. A 65 percent majority of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents say they are certain they will vote next year, vs. 57 percent of
Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. Among Americans who did not cast ballots in the last
midterm elections, in 2014, Democrats and Republicans are about equally as likely to say they
plan to vote in 2018 — suggesting there is not a disproportionate number of newly motivated
Democrats ready to come off the sidelines next year. Independents, meanwhile, prefer
Democratic control as a bulwark against Trump’s agenda by the same 14-point margin as
Democrats. And then there is history: The party holding the White House, with few exceptions in the modern era, has tended to lose
congressional seats in midterm elections. “We have a unique opportunity to flip control of the House of Representatives in 2018,” Rep. Ben Ray
Luján (D-N.M.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, wrote in a memo last month. “This is about much more than
one race: the national environment, unprecedented grass roots energy and impressive Democratic candidates stepping up to run deep into the
battlefield leave no doubt that Democrats can take back the House next fall.” Democrats, however, already this year have suffered a series of
losses in special elections for open House seats — none more crushing than their failure to win a suburban Atlanta race that drew more
campaign and outside committee spending than any other House contest in U.S. history. While Democrats came closer to winning these heavily
Republican districts than in the past, the losses have spurred infighting and questions about how Democrats can best hone their strategy going
into 2018. The survey results suggest some reasons that Democrats have not been able to capitalize yet on voter antipathy toward Trump. For
one thing, Americans who strongly disapprove of Trump do not appear to be any more motivated to vote than the average American. Just over
6 in 10 of those who “strongly” disapprove of Trump’s job performance say they are also certain to vote in 2018 midterm elections. Overall, 58
percent of voters say they are certain to vote next year, while 72 percent of strong Trump backers are certain they will vote. That result
contrasts with a Post poll taken soon after the presidential election and the post-inauguration Women’s March that found Democrats more
interested in increasing their involvement in politics. Thirty-five percent of Democrats said then that they were more likely to become involved
in political causes in the next year, compared with 21 percent of Republicans and independents. Nearly half of liberal Democrats and 4 in 10
Democratic women said they would become more engaged. Now, it seems, the potential for a Democratic wave rides on whether the party can
turn out voters who have tended to skip past midterm elections. Democrats were more likely than Republicans to skip the 2014 congressional
elections, and the poll finds that among those who sat out 2014 and now say they are certain to
vote in 2018, Democrats have a major advantage. By 64 percent to 30 percent, more prefer
Democrats as a check against Trump than Republicans who will support Trump’s agenda. On the
other hand, there is evidence that Trump’s struggle to pass major legislation has not sapped Republicans’ motivation to turn out. There’s no
significant difference between Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who say Trump is making significant progress toward his goals
as president and those leaning Republicans who say he is not. About two-thirds of each say they are certain to vote in midterm elections. And
despite Trump’s dismal approval ratings, only slightly more voters say their congressional vote will be to “oppose Trump” — 24 percent —
versus the 20 percent who say they will vote to support him. Just over half of voters say Trump will not be a factor in their votes. The poll
did not ask a generic congressional ballot question — an indicator often cited by party
strategists — but recent polls show that voters favor Democrats over Republicans for
Congress by between six and 10 percentage points when asked whom they would rather vote
for. A report by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics last month suggested that if
Democrats maintain at least a six-point advantage on this question, they would be predicted
to win enough congressional races to take control of the House in 2019. While Democrats are heavily
targeting the House in 2018, the Senate is seen as a tougher prize. Of the 33 seats in that chamber being contested, 25 belong to Democrats or
independents who caucus with them. Of the eight GOP seats, forecasters and party campaign committees consider only two to be genuinely
competitive. The
Post-ABC poll was conducted July 10-13 among a random national sample of
1,001 adults reached on cellular and landline phones. The margin of sampling error for overall
results is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points and four points among the sample of 859
registered voters.

Republicans will lose the house- trump is historically unpopular, they don’t have the
Hillary card to play, and historical data votes neg
Enten 7/24 Harry Enten is a senior political writer and analyst for FiveThirtyEight., “Bad News
For House Republicans: Clinton Won’t Be On The Ballot In 2018”, FiveThirtyEight, July 24 th,
2017, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bad-news-for-house-republicans-clinton-wont-be-
on-the-ballot-in-2018/, VM
Since modern polling began, no president has been as unpopular at this point in his first term as Donald Trump is today. So
should
Republicans worry that Trump will hurt their prospects of keeping control of the House in the
2018 midterm elections? In a word, “yes” — if Trump remains as unpopular on Election Day
2018 as he is now. It might seem like Republican congressional candidates should be able to
escape Trump’s unpopularity. Trump, after all, was the least liked major-party presidential
candidate on record. Yet Republicans in 2016 won the national House vote by a percentage point and took 241 out of the chamber’s
435 seats for a net loss of only six seats. And even though Trump is historically unpopular as a president, he was even more unpopular as a
candidate: Trump’s current disapproval rating in the FiveThirtyEight aggregate is 56 percent, while 2016 general election exit polls put his
unfavorable rating at 60 percent. No wonder some Republican House members might be reluctant to distance themselves from Trump, no
matter how unpopular he might appear in polls. That logic, however, misses a key distinction: Midterm elections are different from those that
take place in presidential election years. And midterm elections that take place with an unpopular president in office are very different from
presidential election years that have two historically unpopular candidates at the top of the major-party tickets. Republican
congressional candidates in 2016 may not have gotten much help from Trump, but they got a
big boost from someone else: Hillary Clinton. Clinton, it’s easy to forget, was only modestly
more popular than Trump. According to Gallup, Clinton had the second-worst unfavorable
rating of any major-party presidential candidate in modern history, behind only Trump. In the
2016 exit polls, 55 percent of voters had an unfavorable view of Clinton. Clinton’s
unpopularity turned out to be a key factor in 2016 congressional races. Unsurprisingly, people who had a
favorable view of Clinton primarily voted for Democrats in House races, while people with a favorable view of Trump primarily voted for
Republican candidates. But among the 19 percent of voters who had an unfavorable view of both
presidential candidates, House Republican candidates won by a margin of 30 percentage
points. (Some voters may have cast a ballot for a Republican House candidate in the belief
that a House controlled by the GOP would balance Clinton’s power after what most
Americans thought would be a Clinton win.) Next year, though, Clinton won’t be on the ballot
(although Trump continues to tweet about her). That could be a big problem for House Republican candidates,
especially if Trump remains unpopular. That’s because realistically, the only way for
Democrats to take back the House is to run up huge margins among voters who don’t like
Trump. In part because of Clinton’s unpopularity, Democrats in 2016 won among voters who
had an unfavorable view of Trump by only 50 percentage points. That may seem like a lot,
but Democrats will need to do much better if they want to take back the House. Based on
Trump’s current approval rating, House Democratic candidates probably need to win Trump
disapprovers by something close to a 70- or 75-point margin in 2018.1 Two surveys conducted
this spring by SurveyMonkey for FiveThirtyEight suggest that Democrats may get the margin
they need among Trump disapprovers to take back the House. In these polls, SurveyMonkey
asked voters (among other questions) whether they approved of the job Trump was doing as
president and whether they planned to vote for the Democratic or Republican candidate for
Congress in their district in 2018. On average, the surveys found that Democratic House
candidates would win 82 percent to 7 percent (a 75-point margin) among respondents who
disapproved of the job that Trump was doing. (The two surveys found very similar results.) Meanwhile, House
Republican candidates won by an average of 78 points among respondents who approved of the job Trump was doing. That’s slightly worse
than Republicans did among those who had a favorable view of Trump in 2016, according to the exit polls. Overall,
the
SurveyMonkey polls gave Democrats a 9-point lead on the congressional ballot. That’s very
close to their average 10-point edge in the FiveThirtyEight congressional ballot tracker. It’s
also much better than the 1-point margin Democrats lost the House by in 2016 and the 1-
point lead they had in the final national congressional ballot polls before the election. And
although we can’t be sure of how exactly the vote share margin will translate to a seat margin
in 2018, a 9- or 10-point win for the Democrats in the national House vote would put
Democrats in a good position to take back the House. The Democrats’ momentum shouldn’t
come as a big surprise. Midterms are usually more about a referendum on the president than
a choice between the two parties. Since exit polls first started asking voters about their
opinion of the president in 1982, those who disapprove of the president’s job performance
going into a midterm election have overwhelmingly voted for the party that is not in control
of the White House. On average, the party out of the White House has won by 67 percentage
points among those who disapprove of the president’s job performance. In the past five
midterm elections, the opposition party has won that group by an average of 71 points.
That’s close to the margin that the average SurveyMonkey poll has the Democrats winning by
among those who disapprove of the job that Trump is doing. In other words, the
SurveyMonkey poll suggests a 2018 midterm election that is in line with history. Of course, Trump
has well over a year to increase his approval rating before Election Day. And it’s not as though the Democrats are exactly popular: A May Gallup
poll, for example, shows the Democratic Party with just a 40 percent favorable rating and a 53 percent unfavorable rating, both of which are on
par with the president’s and the Republican Party’s ratings. Then again, the Republican Party’s low favorability ratings didn’t help the
Democrats hold the House in 2010 or win it back in 2014, both years when Republicans were about as unpopular as then-President Barack
Obama and the Democratic Party. Republicans still might not choose to distance themselves from Trump. The 2016 election taught us that the
lessons of history don’t always apply to modern politics. Maybe the Democratic Party’s unpopularity will be a difference-maker in 2018 like
Clinton’s unpopularity was in 2016. Maybe Democrats won’t turn out to vote in 2018. Still, these are risky bets to place with a House majority
on the line. Trump
is more likely to be a liability than an asset in the 2018 general election.
Presidents tend to get more unpopular in the lead-up to midterms, and people who don’t like
the president tend to vote against the president’s party.
August
8/1/17
 Aff FW- Dialogue
Our interp is best for the topic- dialogue controls the internal link to education
through how we think, speak, and listen- but in order for critical thinking and learning
to take place, we must stop speaking for others and start affecting the sociopolitical
realities that shape our lives in addition to asking questions and problem-solving- also
proves multiple DA’s to their model- low cognitive function, poor flexibility, low
agency, and fails for minority students
Arreguin-Anderson et al 11 María Guadalupe Arreguín-Anderson, University of Texas at San
Antonio, Roberto Torres, Texas A&M University-Kingsville, José Agustín Ruiz-Escalante,
University of Texas-Pan American, “Critical dialogue: Perspectives and Practices of Three
bilingual Elementary Science Teachers.”, Journal of Border Educational Research, Volume 10,
Fall 2011, https://journals.tdl.org/jber/index.php/jber/article/viewFile/7192/6437, VM
One lesson learned from these case studies was that, consistent with Ruiz and Fernandez
Balboa’s (2005) research on physical education teachers’ perspectives on critical pedagogy,
the participants’ interpretation of critical dialogue was personal, not academic. These
bilingual educators defined critical dialogue by relating it to their own practices and reverting
to the types of pedagogies or instructional practices that they know best. That is, they
emphasized cooperative learning strategies, specifically the use of peer learning or ‘bilingual
pairs”, and the use of critical thinking skills. We also learned that, in practice, critical thinking was an elusive component
of all science lessons observed. Although Rogelio adopted a problem posing approach when introducing the lesson on the use of natural
resources by asking: ‘What can happen if non-renewable resources are consumed rapidly?’ and Alma challenged her students to brainstorm
what they already knew about living things, questions seemed to follow a vertical flow (from teachers down to the students unidirectionally).
Critical scholars stress the need to formulate open ended questions throughout instruction
(Shor,1992), however, open-ended tasks and questions must move beyond the capacity to
function at high levels of complex thinking to include an ability to affect and effect the
sociopolitical and economic realities that shape students’ lives, (Leistyna, 1999 p. 218). Given the
emphasis that two of the participants of this study placed on formulating complex questions connected to real-life issues, it was clear that the
seeds of genuine dialogic conversations had been planted. Faced with such a scenario, one must ask, ‘How does one evolve from a positive
predisposition for dialogue to a conscious implementation of dialogic pedagogy?, How can students engage in meaningful conversations when
wait-time after posing a questions in the classrooms observed averaged less than 2 seconds? Asking questions or adopting a
problem posing-approach are key ingredients of a participatory or inviting beginning of any
lesson (Freire, 2003; Shor, 1993) but the crucial follow-up step, must be to start listening and
to stop speaking for others (Delpit, 1988; Cook-Sather, 2002), especially when those ‘others’
are culturally and linguistically diverse students whose voices are marginalized by excessive
teacher talk. Such marginalization includes the inability to acquire content knowledge, practice all language skills, and engage actively in
science instruction as proposed by national science reform movements (AAAS, 1990). Empirical studies focusing on the disconnect between
teachers’ stated beliefs and their beliefs in practice propose that researchers may have to take steps to “strongly encourage and at times di-
rectly prompt for transformative practices to take place” (Rodriguez, Zozakiewicz,& Yerrick, 2005). From
this perspective,
equipping teachers with more democratic pedagogies must become a priority at the level of
teacher preparation programs. Specifically, science approaches courses must be redesigned to emphasize scientific literacy as a
capacity or ability to engage in critical conversations (NRC, 1996). Third, we learned that participants did not make a clear distinction between
dialogic conversations and cooperative learning strategies. Whether they implemented cooperative learning
strategies or not, all participants seemed to endorse interactive approaches to learning and
teaching. Alma and Rogelio for example, favored the use of paired learning or ‘bilingual pairs”. Troubling, however, is the
persistence of turn-taking behaviors in which students answer (individually or in dyads)
questions at low cognitive levels. The counter-agenda for dialogic discourse proposed by Shor
(1992) requires, among other things, that teachers ask thought-provoking questions; be
patient and listen to students and in giving them time to think on their feet, to think in
groups, to write, and to read with understanding; and seek equal participation for minority
students. (p. 86) Finally, although the participants of this study perceived dialogue as a
teacher-directed endeavor, few spaces were opened for student agency in drawing
conclusions or questioning information discussed. Given the participants’ perceptions of
dialogue as a teacher-directed and student-centered endeavor, a challenge for teacher
educators is to expand prospective teachers’ view of dialogue to include the possibility of
student↔teacher dialogue. Critical dialogue, as a problem-posing approach to science
education is particularly beneficial to linguistic and culturally diverse students whose views of
the world, language, and culture occupy a subordinate status in mainstream society
(Rodriguez, 2005; Wallerstein, 1987). By opening spaces for dialogic conversations in our own classrooms, teacher
educators will have taken the first step toward a genuinely democratic perspective of science for all.
8/4/17
 AT: Charters Hurt Public
Charter schools force nearby public schools to improve because they have
competition.
Malkus and Bell 8/4/17 (Nat, research fellow in education policy studies, Brendan, research
assistant at the American Enterprise Institute, "Everybody's a Winner Stop debating charters
versus traditional public schools as a zero-sum game", US News and World Report, 8-4-2017,
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/knowledge-bank/articles/2017-08-04/challenge-the-false-
dichotomy-of-charter-versus-traditional-public-schools, DOA: 8-4-2017) //Snowball
Does the charter versus traditional public school debate need to be a zero-sum game? If charter schools
do well, does that have to be at the expense of traditional public schools? Some think so. Last summer, for instance, the NAACP passed
a resolution calling for a moratorium on charter school expansion. They doubled down on their opposition last week in a task force report
urging states to restrict charter growth and focus instead on improving traditional public schools. The nation's largest teachers unions, the
American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, take a similar view, claiming that charter growth undermines the
traditional public schools that serve the vast majority of students. Even New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, whose city has a vibrant charter sector,
has withheld support for charters because he would rather focus on improving the city's traditional public schools.

However, that need not be the way we frame this debate. Findings from a new paper by Sarah Cordes
of Temple University challenge the notion of a winner-take-all system pitting charters against
traditional public schools. Cordes looked at traditional public schools in New York City from 1996 to 2010 to see if they were
harmed or helped by charters opening nearby. By comparing school performance before and after nearby charters opened,
she found strong evidence that charters opening resulted in improvements on a number of measures.
What's more, Cordes found that proximity matters. Traditional public schools located a mile or more from a new charter, a significant distance
in New York City, showed no effects. Within a mile, improvements are identifiable, and they were stronger in schools located closer to charters.
What is striking about this charter study is that these findings were positive gains for traditional public
schools, not charters.
What might cause these improvements? Cordes' results were consistent with the argument that charters might push
traditional public schools to improve through competition or by exhibiting effective and
efficient practices that they might emulate. That gains were larger in traditional public schools with more charter
competition nearby or facing higher-quality competition supports this theory. In addition, there appears to be something
special about competition from charters, as the changes in traditional public schools co-located with charters were not
evident in those co-located with other traditional public schools.
8/5/17
 AT: School Choice = Racist
School choice isn’t racist and public schools are worse.
Izard 8/4/17 (Ross, senior education policy analyst at the Independence Institute, "No, private
school vouchers aren’t racist", Denver Post, 8-4-2017,
http://www.denverpost.com/2017/08/04/no-private-school-vouchers-arent-racist/, DOA: 8-5-
2017) //Snowball
The rhetoric of parental choice opponents has reached a new low following the release of an
incendiary Center for American Progress report titled “The Racist Origins of Private School Vouchers.”
American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten recently used the report to argue that supporters of
parental choice are racists guilty of supporting programs that are “only slightly more polite cousins
of segregation.” This outrageous claim deserves a response.
The CAP report covers the disturbing history of institutionalized racism in Prince Edward County,
Virginia, where government officials went to great lengths to resist public school desegregation following the U.S. Supreme Court’s
landmark decision in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka (1954). These officials shuttered the county’s public schools to prevent
integration while white students made use of state tuition grants to attend a whites-only private school. Some other communities in the
southern United States adopted similar approaches.

Let’s not mince words. The

actions of these leaders were hideously unjust and morally reprehensible, and the
fact that some voucher-like programs were used to support such behavior is shameful .
Even so, framing desegregation in the South as the “origin” of private school choice is
disingenuous. In 1791, Thomas Paine argued for a decentralized system of education in which poor families could use education
allowances to access options otherwise unavailable to them. In the mid-1800s, political wars raged between Protestants operating deeply
religious public schools and Catholic immigrants who sought funding for parochial schools that did not demonize their faith.

In 1859, John Stuart Mill argued that the government “might leave it to parents to obtain the
education where and how they pleased, and content itself with helping to pay the school fees of the poorer classes of
children, and defraying the entire school expenses of those who have no one else to pay for them.” And in 1869, Vermont launched
the nation’s first private school choice program — not to pursue segregation, but to provide
an education to students in rural areas without access to public schools.
Milton Friedmanmay have refined and popularized the argument for private school choice in
1955, but he did not invent it. Neither did the bigoted leaders of Prince Edward County.
Unfairly ascribing pernicious motives to modern parental choice advocates is a double-edged
sword. The CAP report dances around the historically obvious yet uncomfortable fact that
institutionalized racism in education originated not in private school choice programs, but in
public school systems themselves. Importantly, leaders in Prince Edward County sought not to create school segregation
using vouchers, but to perpetuate segregation already institutionalized in the public schools.

Given this troubling history, why

have anti-choice leaders not leveled accusations of racism against
contemporary public education advocates? Perhaps because they recognize that doing so would be
obviously wrongheaded and unfair in the modern context, just as it is obviously wrongheaded and
unfair to level those accusations against modern parental choice advocates. Or perhaps they simply realize
that a
paper entitled “The Racist History of American Public Education Systems” would not
advance their agenda.
This ugliness might be excusable if it had some basis in modern reality, but it does not. As the CAP report notes in passing, “almost all” private
school choice programs use income thresholds to determine eligibility, which means they tend to draw disproportionately from disadvantaged
populations. And while
CAP cites a study finding that “voucher programs tend to benefit the most
advantaged students eligible for the programs,” we should note that despite the clever
wordplay, the most advantaged disadvantaged students are still disadvantaged students.
Notwithstanding questionably relevant evidence from other nations — CAP cites research in Chile and
Sweden — there is a decided lack of empirical evidence that private school choice programs
promote segregation in the United States. In fact, the bulk of the strongest research finds that these
programs tend to move students from more segregated schools to less segregated schools.
Meanwhile, numerous studies and reports have noted ongoing segregation issues in public school systems. These findings should not come as a
surprise; nothing
breeds segregation like confining students to schools on the basis of the
neighborhoods in which they live.
To ascribe racism to the modern parental choice movement dishonors the many minority
leaders who have worked in support of educational choice programs across the country , implies
that the tens of thousands of minority parents participating in these programs nationwide are ignorantly complicit partners in their own
children’s oppression, and wrongly assaults the character of a great many passionate advocates for choice on both sides of the political aisle.
Most importantly, it
obscures and distracts from real, pressing problems in many communities that
well-designed parental choice programs could help alleviate.
The sooner we put this unproductive and deeply offensive line of argumentation behind us,
the better.
8/7/17
 Free-Market Anti-Capitalism Alternative
The alternative is free-market anti-capitalism – it preserves the benefits of free
markets, but risks neither the humanitarian catastrophe of socialism nor the
inequality and destruction of the Affirmative’s corporate capitalism.
Ridley 7/12/17 (Matt, journalist and author, "The case for free-market anticapitalism", CapX,
7-12-2017, https://capx.co/the-case-for-free-market-anticapitalism/, DOA: 8-6-2017)
//Snowball
My title is free-market anticapitalism. I want to argue that the champions of markets and enterprise need
to recapture their radicalism, to reassert the right to be a disruptive, even subversive, not a reactionary, force in the
world.
They need to distinguish between free markets serving consumers, on the one hand, and crony
capitalism addicted to corporate welfare on the other, because it is the corporatism that people
dislike, but it leads them to distrust free markets because they do not perceive the difference .
“Capitalism” and “markets” mean the same thing to most people. And that is very misleading.
Commerce, enterprise and markets are – to me – the very opposite of corporatism and even of
“capitalism”, if by that word you mean capital-intensive organisations with monopolistic
ambitions.
Markets and innovation are the creative-destructive forces that undermine, challenge and reshape
corporations and public bureaucracies on behalf of consumers. So big business is just as much the enemy as
big government, and big business in hock to big government is sometimes the worst of all.

In Sir Keith Joseph’s day, the problem was in plain sight, because so much of big business was actually nationalised.
In the 1970s, car-making, gas, electricity, water, telephones, television stations, airlines, trains, buses, power stations, coal mines, oil
wells and many other things belonged directly to the state.

Today, the problem is less visible, but it is just as acute. The percentage of jobs that are literally
in the public sector is now down to a level (17 per cent) not seen since 1946. Yet banks and energy
companies, airlines and car makers, farms and charities, to name the most prominent examples, may be ostensibly private,
but are directly dependent on favours from government to bring subsidies, enforce regulations that raise barriers
to entry for their competitors, and allow cartels that fix prices.

We are hemmed in on all sides by corporations that are as crony as the East India Company, the Virginia company or
the South Sea company. They are called private companies, or public-private partnerships, or quangos, or
arms-length agencies, or universities, or NGOs, or charities, but they all share the same feature: they thrive
on some form of financial or regulatory favouritism and dependency from government.
And they serve the producer interests much more eagerly than the consumer interests.

In my own county of Northumberland, the county council, until this spring controlled by Labour, set up a private property development
company, which borrowed hundreds of millions of pounds at favourable government rates to invest in buying up or developing commercial and
residential property, sometimes subject to planning permission granted by the council, whose leading members sat on the board of the
company.
The solution to crony capitalism is not to make it worse with an industrial strategy or with full
socialism, but to break it up and let fresh competition into our cosseted corporatist
conspiracy.
It’s 2017. A hundred years since the world embarked on a horrible experiment , which failed again and
again, directly killing north of a million people a year , on average, and wrecking even more lives than it killed.

Remember that we have run two very careful randomised controlled trials to see if full-blown socialism or half-hearted free enterprise works
better. One in the Korean peninsula, the other in Germany. And the results were unambiguous. Socialism was a humanitarian
catastrophe.
Communism was not really a new or radical idea, even in 1917. It was simply a clever repackaging of the old, old story that
the king knows best. That the state should decide how to plan and run society. It matters not whether his name is Rameses or Augustus or
Suleiman or Henry or Napoleon or Adolf or Vladimir or Josef or Mao or Fidel or Kim or Hugo. It’s the same recipe.

The truly radical idea was and is the one in which we say, hang on a minute, maybe society does not
need to be told what to do. Maybe the economy should be bottom-up, not top-down. Maybe
order can be surprisingly spontaneous. Maybe we don’t need training wheels to stay upright on this bicycle. Maybe
society can evolve.
This year sees two other significant anniversaries. The first is that in 1767, 250 years ago, Adam Ferguson published his essay on the history of
civil society. It’s not in my view a very significant document, but it does contain one vital idea: that there
are things, which are
“the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design” .
Things like the English language, made by humankind, but not planned, ordered, constructed or ruled. There is no government,
supreme court or police force of the English language yet we all obey its laws of vocabulary, grammar and
syntax. Likewise, the internet is something that evolves; it is not and was not designed, planned or
managed.
It is my contention that this
concept of spontaneous order is the central idea of the enlightenment,
brought to a pinnacle nine years later by Adam Smith with his invisible hand and applied to life itself by Charles
Darwin some decades later. If the English language can get along without a government, why do we so quickly assume that English society
cannot organise itself?

To labour the point, today in London roughly 10 million people ate lunch. Working out just how much of each type of food to have available in
the right places at the right time to ensure that this happened was a problem of mind-boggling complexity, made all the harder by the fact
people made up their mind what to eat mostly at the last minute.

Who was in charge of this astonishing feat? Who is London’s lunch commissioner and why does he get so little credit? Why is this system not
subsidised? How can it be so lightly regulated?

The protesters who gather to criticise free enterprise from time to time use Facebook and
iPhones to arrange their protest, drink Starbucks and eat Pret, wear shirts and shoes, in some cases even use toothpaste and
shampoo before setting out. They swim where they wish to in a sea of possibilities provided by free
enterprise.
One more anniversary. 200
years ago, 1817, saw the publication of David Ricardo’s Principles of Political
Economy, which contains the first exposition of the principle of comparative advantage , a
thoroughly counterintuitive idea that was once described by Paul Samuelson as the only proposition in the whole of social science that is both
true and surprising.
Comparative advantage takes Adam Smith’s division of labour one step further and explains why free trade
benefits everybody, even countries that are the worst at making things, even countries that
are the best at making things. But it also, in my view, explains prosperity – what it is and why it
happens to us and not to rabbits or rocks.
When I raised Ricardo’s law of comparative advantage in the Lords a few months ago, a Lib Dem peer got a laugh by saying she had never heard
of it. What are our teachers up to? How come nobody seems to know that trade is not a zero sum game?
How come both Brussels and Washington are entirely in thrall to the kind of mercantilism that was disproved 200 years ago? Do they believe in
phlogiston and blood-letting too?

Ricardo proves that if

you specialise, then it makes sense to exchange, and vice versa. Working for
each other is the grand theme of human history, one that has waxed and waned, but mostly waxed, over
tens of thousands of years, with an incredible acceleration in the last 50 years thanks to free
trade.
In that half century we have gone from 75 per cent of the world living in extreme poverty, to
just 9 per cent. We have increased human productivity by some 3,000 per cent.
Nobody seems to know this. The late Hans Rosling conducted a poll in which he asked people if the
proportion of the world
living in extreme poverty had doubled, halved or stayed the same in the past 20 years. Just 5 per cent of people
thought it had halved – which is the right answer.

Rosling pointed out that if he wrote the three answers on three bananas and threw them into a cage full of monkeys, then measured which
banana was picked up first, the monkeys would get the right answer 33 per cent of the time – nearly seven times better than people.

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge ,” said Daniel
Boorstin.

The essence of free enterprise is that people become more prosperous by working for each
other. The more they abandon self sufficiency for interdependence, the better off they are. The more they specialise as
producers, the more they can diversify as consumers. And what this means of course is that networks of
exchange and specialisation create cooperation, collaboration and community on an epic
scale.
By collaborating through commerce we can do things that are far beyond the capacity of the
human mind to comprehend. Human intelligence is a collective phenomenon, a distributed brain, a cloud. As Leonard Reed
famously pointed out, among the thousands of people who contribute to making a simple pencil, not
one of them knows how to make a pencil.
You can see where I am going here, can you not? That
true communism, true collectivism, is created by the
market, not the state. That the deepest cooperation is what we achieve by buying and selling .
It’s time we told the young this. They will never have heard it.

When the Conservative manifesto last month said: “We do not believe in untrammelled free markets. We reject the cult of selfish
individualism”, it was a massive non-sequitur. Or when Pope Francis recently criticised what he called “libertarian individualism”, saying: “A
common feature of this fallacious paradigm is that it minimises the common good.” he was talking through his mitre.

What is more common good than the collaboration of millions of people to make, sell and buy a pencil, or provide 10 million people with their
preferred lunch?
Free markets reject, demolish even, the cult of selfish individualism. They make us pro-social.
The evidence for this proposition is overwhelming: from experiments, mathematical models,
historical episodes, geographical patterns.
Experiments support it. The ultimatum bargaining game, in which one player is asked to share a windfall with another player,
at the risk of having it cancelled if the second player rejects the offer, finds that among non-state societies, the more
commercial a society is the more generous people are in their offers .
Machiguenga slash-and-burn farmers from Brazil and Hadza hunter-gatherers from Tanzania usually make very small offers and yet experience
few rejections. Players from societies that are most integrated into modern markets, such as the Orma nomads of Kenya or the Achuar
subsistence gardeners of Ecuador, usually offer half the money. The whale-hunting Lamalera of the island of Lembata in Indonesia, who need to
coordinate large teams of strangers on hunts, offer on average 58 per cent – as if investing the windfall in acquiring new obligations.

Is his Holiness aware of these studies?

As the economist Herb Gintis puts it, “societies

that use markets extensively develop a culture of co-
operation, fairness and respect for the individual”. Mathematical models support the proposition that markets make
us nice too. Game theory finds that the most successful strategy in iterated prisoner’s dilemmas is
“generous tit-for-tat”: to offer cooperation first and then do what the other player did .
History supports the same conclusion. Commercial societies have always been the most
peaceful and tolerant, from the Phoenicians to the Dutch to modern Hong Kong. Montesquieu called it doux commerce, sweet
commerce.

In exile in London Voltaire found that the English “lived happily together” because of commerce. He said

“Go into the Exchange in London…and you will see representatives of all the nations assembled there for the profit of mankind.
There the Jew, the Mahometan, and the Christian deal with one another as if they were of the same religion, and reserve the name
of infidel for those who go bankrupt. Here the Presbyterian trusts the Anabaptist and the Anglican accepts a promise from the
Quaker. On leaving these peaceful and free assemblies some go to the Synagogue and others for a drink.”

The geography of war and peace also supports the proposition that markets make us pro-
social. The strongest predictor that two countries will not go to war is not – as conventional wisdom has
it – if both are democracies, but if both are market economies.

Erik Gartzke has studied this issue and concludes:

“Democracy does not have a measurable impact, while nations

with very low levels of economic freedom
are 14 times more prone to conflict than those with very high levels.”
A more recent study confirms this: “within
the developing world, economic development leads to
interstate peace, whereas democracy does not.”
In short, the evidence is overwhelming that markets do not just make people richer, they
make people nicer too, less likely to fight and more likely to help each other. It’s obvious
really: if you want to sell somebody something, or buy something from somebody, it pays not to kill them,
or annoy them.

Free markets vastly increase social mobility and make us more equal too. In an advanced economy,
competition ensures that roughly 85 to 90 per cent of the returns from production go to the
workers. Markets drive down margins. Today in the UK, the richest 1 per cent pay as much tax as the poorest 50 per cent, contributing the
most to welfare, as indeed they should.
Milton Friedman said: “Societies
that put equality before freedom get neither. Societies that put
freedom before equality get a measure of both.”
Today, thanksto commerce and the innovation it causes, global inequality is plummeting,
because people in poor countries are getting rich quicker than people in rich countries. There
is a great convergence towards higher living standards. The countries left out are the ones least reliant on markets.
North Korea, for example.

Critics of commerce focus on the role of competition between firms, but forget the cooperation between producer and consumer, and between
co-workers.

I once gave a talk in Oxford and an academic approached me afterwards and said that he was troubled by what I had said, for was
it not
obvious that the most evil people in the twentieth century were all, without exception, capitalists?
Surely I could see that. I looked at him, wondering if this was a trick question. Er, what about Stalin, I said? And Hitler?
Mao? Pol Pot?
OK, apart from them, he said.

Is it not bizarre, after the 20th century, that people are so forgiving of the state and so mistrustful of the
market?
Visiting Auschwitz a few years ago I was struck not by what some have called the “industrialisation” of
death – after all, it is a surprisingly low-tech place, even for the time. But by the “nationalisation” of death: the
bureaucratic central planning and meticulous hierarchical organisation of mass murder, backed
by state coercion not just of its victims but of its perpetrators too; to paraphrase Hillary Clinton, it takes a government to do a
death camp.
Are the plights of North Korea, Afghanistan, Somalia, Congo, Venezeula or Syria caused by
too much free enterprise? I don’t think so.
The dreadful Grenfell Tower fire was not caused by an excess of free enterprise; it was caused by terrible miscalculations or misregulations in
the public sector. This was in a building that was planned, built, owned and managed by the public sector and refurbished by a contractor
chosen and commissioned by the public sector according to regulations and guidelines devised in the public sector and in pursuit of a policy of
retrofitting buildings with insulation that came from the public sector.

Whatever mistakes were made in the recladding of the building, or in the fire regulations, or in housing people in tower blocks in the first place
– they did not come from too much free enterprise.

Nor was the crash of 2008 caused by too much free enterprise – not if you understand the role
played by the Chinese government in driving down its exchange rate, the role played by the
Federal Reserve in keeping down the cost of debt, and above all the role of government
regulations in forcing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into the sub-prime lending business, where they could fuel a sub-prime boom on the
back of government interest rates.

The lie that the crisis was a crisis of free markets, as opposed to crony corporatism, has long
been exploded among serious scholars.
Oh and by the way, we should agree with the young on the subject of imperialism. Read Shashi Tharoor’s book
Inglorious Empire to remind yourself that Britain did not really enlighten, enrich and democratise India; it
did the very opposite, destroying the Indian textile, ship-building and even locomotive industries at the behest of crony capitalism
back home.

In my book, The Evolution of Everything, I pointed out that of

the six most basic needs of a human being – food,
clothing, health, education, shelter, and transport – roughly speaking, the market provides food and
clothing, the state provides healthcare and education, while shelter and transport are
provided by private firms with semi-monopolistic privileges supplied by government.
The cost of food and clothing has gone down in recent decades, the
cost of healthcare and education has gone up, as
a percentage of household income. As for transport and shelter, broadly speaking the parts that the
market supplies – budget airlines, house-building – have got cheaper and better; while the parts that the
state supplies – infrastructure and land planning – have got more expensive and slower.
It is a clear pattern: the market makes things more affordable.
As Deirdre McCloskey put it:

“Anyone who after the 20th century still thinks that thoroughgoing socialism, nationalism,
imperialism, mobilization, central planning, regulation, zoning, price controls, tax
policy, labor unions, business cartels, government spending, intrusive policing,
adventurism in foreign policy, faith in entangling religion and politics, or most of the
other thoroughgoing 19th-century proposals for governmental action are still neat,
harmless ideas for improving our lives… is not paying attention.”
Yet to the average student today, indoctrinated by statism, “market fundamentalism” is more dangerous
than any of these isms. How can this be?
Commerce is greener than statism too. The environmental movement has been telling a great
lie for decades now. Ever since the fall of the Soviet Union, we have known that socialism is far worse for the
environment than free enterprise.
By the time the Berlin wall came down in 1989, the
West had largely cleaned up its rivers and its air, expanded
its protections of species and habitats and drastically reduced its demand for land to support
a given human life, through improvements in farm yields.
Soviet rivers were still treated as sewers, with frequent fish kills; the Volga had so much oil in it that ferry passengers were warned not to throw
cigarettes overboard; the Aral sea was turned into a desert; Lake Baikal was horribly polluted. The
United Nations said of
Eastern Europe that “pollution in that region is among the worst on the Earth’s surface”.
North Korea is an ecological disaster zone to this day.
As for climate change, the country that has done most to cut its carbon dioxide emissions in
recent years has been the United States. It has achieved this by replacing coal-fired power
with gas-fired power stations on a massive scale. This switch was driven by commercial
imperatives and innovations, principally the shale gas revolution, not government policy.
The idea that all environmental problems stem from “market failure” is still popular among
environmental lobbyists, but has long been exploded among economists. Many of them stem from government failure instead.
But my point is not just that commerce is kinder, more communal and greener than people realise, but
that it is less conservative.
Somewhere along the line, we have let the market, that most egalitarian, liberal, disruptive, distributed and co-
operative of phenomena, become known as a reactionary thing. It’s not. It is the most radical and liberating idea ever
conceived: that people should be free to exchange goods and services with each other as they
please, and thereby work for each other to improve each other’s lives.
8/8/17
 Secondary Education PIC [needs text]
Counterplan: The United States federal government should eliminate public secondary
education in the United States. The United States federal government should <do the
plan at the level of elementary education>.

U.S. public secondary education is irredeemable and exclusively serves an agenda of

undemocratic pseudo-scientific rich white male supremacy, imperialist hegemony,
genocidal eugenics, and violent commodification.
Scott 8/8/17 (Tim, Educator, Critical Theorist, Social Worker, "The Despotic Origins of U.S.
Public Secondary Education", DissidentVoice, 8-8-2017, http://dissidentvoice.org/2017/08/the-
despotic-origins-of-u-s-public-secondary-education/, DOA: 8-8-2017) //Snowball
By 1890, as public secondary education was slowly evolving as an alternative to private academies and seminaries and was
being scrutinized, portrayed as too disorganized, pluralistic, inefficient and in need of being aligned
with the new economy and emerging national interests. These rumblings were the beginnings of
what many establishment historians, along with Harvard University economist Claudia Goldin, refer to as the “high school
movement” within the “human capital century.” According to Goldin, this framing describes how a “set of republican institutions”
established a “host of changes” that allowed “the United States to respond to the increased demand for skill…with a set of New World
preconditions.” Following a nationalistic script, Goldin explains how “By the early 20th century the United States began
to endow a large fraction of its youth with skills in formal , school-based, academic settings, using a system
termed here the U.S. template. The United States achieved mass secondary (and later mass higher) education because of
a set of virtues. The virtues enabled the supply-side institutions to respond to the demand-side shift.”

The “republican institutions” that were steering this virtuous agenda included federal and state officials,
capitalists, scholars and religious-based charity organizations. These influential groups – as agents of the founders original cultural political and
economic aspirations – were debating the social aim of secondary education as a means to buttress
domestic instability due to mass inequality while simultaneously expanding U.S. hegemony internationally.
For these purposes, new scientific reasoning was being attached to long held cultural scripts that justified
systems of domination as means to rationalize new or improved instruments of social control. At the
time social control theories were being applied to new scientific concepts of efficiency in
support of white supremacy and class domination and rationalized through the “science” of
Social Darwinism and eugenics.
These reform efforts to expand infrastructural power as a means to strengthen social cohesion
were tied to what is known as the Progressive Era. According to education professor Ann Gibson Winfield, many of these
Progressive Era reformers, “were consumed by a defensive strategy that called for the eradication
of the socially inferior and the preservation of ‘old stock’ American values and genetic
material.” Others, according to the Social Welfare History Project, were motivated by “democratic ideals and social justice” and “made
themselves the arbiters of a ‘new’ America in which the origin story myths of the founding fathers (liberty, equality, justice) could find a place
within the nation’s changing landscape.” Of course, the actual “ideals” of the founding fathers were already well in place and working quite
efficiently.
A group of white male scholars and leading college presidents, who were focused on the social aims of education based on the
ideals of “American Democracy,” began to meet in the early 1890s, taking a more custodial and opportunity-based stance on schooling. They
believed that all (white) students – regardless of their class positions – should receive
intellectually stimulating curriculum that equally prepares them for college and/or work. They
articulated their position in 1893 as the National Education Association’s Committee on Secondary School Studies (Committee of Ten). Aiming
to establish a standardized curriculum, the Committee of Ten recommended that all public high schools should follow a predetermined college
preparatory, liberal arts curriculum that did not differentiate between students heading for college or work.

As education reformers made concerted efforts to design the twentieth century high school,
so did big business, positioned to further consolidate power and influence in government and
public opinion. Beginning in 1860, capitalists began to organize themselves nationally, and between 1890
and 1920, various commercial and trade associations flourished; and setting the agenda for
secondary education was a major priority. One such group was the National Associations of
Manufacturers (NAM), which formed in 1896 and was highly influential in shaping education policy with a focus on vocational
secondary education based on the differentiated German system. NAM members were concerned that the efficient skills-
based German model of schooling disadvantaged American manufactures in world markets.
According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, this was a period when the “need for a closer
relationship between government and business” became more “obvious” since organized labor was
presenting a clear and present threat to the progress of the nation. This concern led President Taft to recommend to Congress in 1911 that a
centralized business organization be created to be “in touch with associations and chambers of commerce throughout the country and able to
keep purely American interests in a closer touch with commercial affairs.” In 1912, Taft called “for a conference in Washington of commercial
and trade organizations” which resulted in the establishment of the “Chamber of Commerce of the United States” whereby “Business had
found its voice.”

Educators, businessmen, social workers, clergy, charity groups, large labor unions – most Progressive Era reformers were either beneficiaries or
agents of, or skeptical participants in, the all encompassing free-market
based Efficiency Movement, which
considered all aspects of society to be riddled with waste and inefficiency. The “progressive”
remedy required expertise within the fields of science, engineering, technology and the new social sciences to develop
quantifiable methodologies and road maps that would guarantee a less wasteful and more cohesive,
productive and predictable industrial society. For this to happen, government, business and civil society were
largely aligned in a common nationalistic aim of designing a model capitalist “democracy.”
Theirs was the founders “democracy,” yet now it would be more firmly anchored by a comprehensive public secondary education system.

In 1894 British writer and Social Darwinist Benjamin Kidd popularized the term social efficiency in his
internationally celebrated publication Social Evolution. Kidd postulated that social efficiency entitles “superior”
races to control the raw materials of the world because, “the last thing our civilization is likely to permanently tolerate
is the wasting of the resources of the richest regions of the earth through the lack of the elementary qualities of social efficiency in the races
possessing them.”

According to Jennifer Karns Alexander, the author of the 2008 The Mantra of Efficiency: From Waterwheel to Social Control, the ideology of
efficiency when applied to society was conceptualized from the merging of two prevailing schools of thought during the 19th century –
Darwin’s theory of evolution and the theories of celebrated microeconomist Alfred Marshall. Speaking to this idea, technology historian Peter
Sutton explains how their commonality was based on:

…the insight that within large-scale dynamic systems (ecological and economical respectively), measurable differences in individual
efficiency could make the difference between success and failure over the long-term. In business, as in nature, success in the
competition for limited resources was determined by the extent to which methods that minimized waste and maximized output
could be perfected…these lines of thinking increasingly permeated a wide range of intellectual matters by mid-19th century, linking
efficiency with ideas of social progress and commercial growth.
Alexander goes on to claim that for both Darwin and Marshall “efficiency
meant increasing and sophisticated
organization necessarily accompanied by sacrifice: the death and extinction of less-adapted
and less-specialized organic beings and the loss of autonomy by those engaged in all but the
most mentally demanding forms of labor.”
The rulers and beneficiaries of the industrialized society, who saw themselves as the most adapted
and most specialized (hence genetically superior), believed that efficiency served a conservationist
function of preserving the natural order of a hierarchical society and world. Of course, from the perspective
of those at the bottom of this “food chain,” this conceptualization is antithetical to the promise of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” a
promise intended for the nation’s opulent. This
notion of efficiency therefore authorizes the “less-adapted”
and “less-specialized” human beings to be treated as disposable economic maximizers, whose
only value is judged by their level of productivity as disciplined instruments within highly
controlled profit seeking systems.
The instrument of social efficiency zeroed in on education while consensus was
simultaneously building amongst the elite that, in the same vein as common schools, public secondary
education should be established as a foundational institution for social control as a means to
ensure adherence to the social aims of industrial capitalism. Drawing on Social Darwinism the
social and scientific movement of eugenics quickly emerged within the new science of human
genetics, providing the foundation for social efficiency in establishing science-based rationales for race
and class hierarchies. Eugenicists advocated putting limitations on political participation
based on race and class, arguing the U.S. ruling class was in grave danger of “committing
racial suicide” resulting from the precipitous reproduction of the genetically inferior, combined with the steady decline in the birthrate
of the genetically superior. To address this social crisis, eugenicists advocated for a range of
prescriptions, including mandatory segregation, sterilization, immigration restriction, and
legal prohibition of interracial marriage. Newly developed Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tests soon became an
instrument to reinforce the hegemony of eugenics and social efficiency, and over time
became the basis for standardized tests generally, as a means to efficiently sort and rank
students according to race, gender, class and ability.
U.S. sociologist, eugenicist and renowned social control theorist Edward Ross is recognized as conceptualizing social efficiency to serve as a
means for social control. In his 1901 book titled Social Control, Ross was primarily concerned with how democratic societies can be structured
to reinforce dominant social orders. With regard to education, Ross’s ideas centered on how the state, its
schools, along with its disciplined agents (teachers), can serve as a far superior socializer (compared to
genetically inferior parents) and the most powerful instrument of social control by instilling “the habit of obedience to an
external law which are given by a good school discipline.”
Some social efficiency educators recognized mass public education’s potential as a remedy to
the moral and social ills associated with new immigrants. In line with Horace Mann’s views, Ellwood P.
Cubberley promoted public schooling’s role in civilizing the “illiterate” and “docile”
immigrants flooding in from southern and eastern Europe who lacked “in self reliance and
initiative” and did not “possess the Anglo Teutonic [German] conceptions of law, order, and
government” and therefore diluted “our national stock” and corrupted “our civic life.” According
to Cubberley, the aim was “to break up these groups or settlements, to assimilate and
amalgamate these people as a part of our American race, and to implant in their children, so far as can be done,
the Anglo Saxon conception of righteousness, law and order, and popular government, and to
awaken in them a reverence for our democratic institutions and for those things in our national life which we as
a people hold to be of abiding worth.” In Cubberley’s 1922 book titled A Brief History of Education (a widely used textbook in teacher education
programs), one section was labeled “The Education of Defectives,” and another “The Education of Superiors.” In the latter section, Cubberley
complained that:

All the work…relating to the work of defectives, delinquents, and children for some reason in need of special attention and care has
been for those who represent the less capable and on the whole less useful members of society – the ones from whom society may
expect the least.

Within this worldview, public education needed to be standardized and made more efficient.
Instead of an academically grounded curriculum and student-centered instruction, public schooling was to serve a larger
“social mission” with a curricular focus on practical vocational knowledge and future “life experiences.”
Beginning in 1903, Frederick Winslow Taylor was rapidly gaining attention by industrialists with his Scientific Management model of industrial
production, which went on to gain prominence within the social efficiency movement, when he published “Principles of Scientific
Management” in 1911. Scientific Management rapidly replaced older, craft-based, manufacturing
methods with what became the prevailing principles of large-scale industrial manufacturing within assembly-line factories.
The development of this model was partially in response to factory managers concerns about workers’ motivational problems, also called
“soldiering,” which is when workers attempt to do a minimum amount of work in the longest amount of time. As a remedy, Taylor’s model
(Taylorism) emphasized the standardization of work, through a division of labor, where
factory managers constantly monitored and scientifically measured worker productivity . He
suggested they do this by conducting time and motion studies on shop floors, monitoring workers with stopwatches and documenting their
level of efficiency and productively at every step of production. Individual worker’s pay was then to be tied directly to output through piece-
rate wages. Of course, this
method was ultimately about maximizing profits through the application
of soul crushing and body battering methods, which played a major role in the unionization of factories over the
proceeding decades.

Educating the “worm eaten stock”

John Franklin Bobbitt, a leading curriculum scholar, ardent follower of Taylor and head of the Department of Education at the University of
Chicago published “The Elimination of Waste in Education” in 1912. In it, Bobbitt
likened schools to factories, referring
to them as “plants,” claiming that each “plant” should be operated “according to recently
developed principles of scientific management, so as to get a maximum of service from a
school plant and teaching staff of minimum size.” Bobbitt’s contributions went well beyond the hierarchical and
standardized physical organization of schools and their curriculum. His conceptualization of education for the future labor force was one of
dehumanization and commodification. Bobbitt
viewed students as “raw material” and schools as factories
and classes as the assembly line that manufactured “a uniform, standardized product”
designed with the singular intent of reproducing and maintaining existing social orders.
Teachers were disciplined factory workers who utilized the most efficient means to ensure
that students (as raw material) were molded and sorted according to the narrow vocational
standards, cultural scripts and mental dispositions that served private industry and other nationalistic aims. School
administrators were the factory managers who monitored, directed and disciplined teachers – as assembly line workers – throughout the
production process.

Bobbitt’s model of schooling was highly influential and shaped public education for decades to come, on
many levels. His views, like many of his contemporaries, were also explicitly infused with the ideologies of white supremacy and class
superiority propagated by eugenics. In his 1909 article titled “Practical Eugenics,” Bobbitt declared, “If a
child is well-born” of Anglo-Saxon “stock” and is thus genetically superior, “he possesses high
endowment potential” and is “protected from adverse influences…and abundantly
responsive to the positive influences of education.” Bobbitt went on to explain:
…if, on the other hand, the child…springs from a worm-eaten stock, if the foundation
plan of his being is distorted and confused in heredity before his unfolding begins,
then the problem of healthy normal development is rendered insoluble before it is
presented. Such a child is difficult to protect against adverse influences, and he remains to the end stupidly unresponsive to the
delicate growth factors of education.

Bobbitt continued, in this piece, with a warning to his colleagues concerning the sinister processes that were unfolding in 20th century America.
He went on to express distress about the decreasing birthrate of the Anglo-Saxon “stock” and
how this would result in a “drying up of the highest, purest tributaries to the stream of
heredity.” He proceeded to diagnose the problem as being the increasing birthrates and immigration of those who are not from the
“strains of our imperial race,” which are causing a “rising flood in the muddy, undesirable streams” into society. Bobbitt also
pondered the problems facing eugenics, which in his words is “the newly-arising science
which seeks to improve the inborn qualities of our race” and while “it is easy to see the practical advantages to
result from an application of its principles…it is not at all easy to see how it is to be done.” Apparently he found the solution to
this “problem” when he published “Elimination of Waste in Education” two years later .
Expanding on the broader impacts of eugenics on U.S. education, Rethinking Schools noted in 2014:

The United States has a long history of using intelligence tests to support white supremacy
and class stratification. Standardized tests first entered the public schools in the 1920s,
pushed by eugenicists whose pseudoscience promoted the “natural superiority” of
wealthy, white, U.S.-born males. High-stakes standardized tests have disguised class and
race privilege as merit ever since. The consistent use of test scores to demonstrate
first a “mental ability” gap and now an “achievement” gap exposes the intrinsic nature
of these tests: They are built to maintain inequality, not to serve as an antidote to
educational disparities.
In his book, Unequal by Design, Wayne Au writes:

It is important to recognize that the technology of standardized testing, beyond its role in I.Q. and eugenics,
proved to be a pivotal technical, conceptual, and ideological apparatus in the ascendancy of the
application of scientific management and models of capitalist production to education .
Tests as a technological instrument enable education to operate in several ways. They determine universal norms
and standards through which to classify, construct comparisons, mark deviance and
sort human populations under the pretext of scientific objectivity. Through the
establishment of universal objectivity, standardized tests also commodify those who
are being measured by the tests, allowing for students to be viewed and treated as
products. Commodification therefore permits learners to be categorized and sorted as
‘things’ and creating conditions for systems of production to be monitored, surveilled, and ultimately disciplined.

Standardized testing, with its foundational concepts of scientific objectivity and students as commodities, is designed to
serve as a crucial apparatus in the maintenance of the American cultural myth of meritocracy,
which posits that everyone has the chance to work hard and compete freely to attain
educational, social and economic success.
Because of this fact, any historical examination of the establishment of universal public education
must expose its social engineering aims through the intersection of scientific management
and eugenics. It is hard to imagine how an institution with these designs – while constructed to serve the
cultural, political and economic power structures of an inherently unequal, undemocratic and violently racist nation state – could ever
be reformed to serve any emancipatory purpose.
8/9/17
 Minority Students Unlikely to Receive Speech Services
Minority students are less likely to receive speech and language services.
Samuels 8/8/17 (Christina, Reporter, "Minority Students Missing Out on Speech and Language
Services, Study Finds", Education Week - On Special Education, 8-8-2017,
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/speced/2017/08/minority_students_miss_speech_services.ht
ml, DOA: 8-9-2017) //Snowball
Black children, Hispanic children, and children who come from non-English speaking
households are less likely to receive speech and language services in kindergarten than white
children who are otherwise similar to them, says a new study published in the journal Exceptional Children.
About 18 percent of school-aged children with disabilities are identified as having a speech or
language impairment, making it the second-largest disability category recognized under the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. (Children with "specific learning disabilities" are the most prevalent, at about
40 percent.)

There are good reasons for trying to identify and treat the disorder early. Some studies have shown that a
child with a speech or
language impairment has a higher risk of reading and behavioral problems compared to
typically developing peers, and later on, a higher risk of unemployment or underemployment.
This study was produced by the same research team that in 2015 said that minority
students overall were less likely
than similar white peers to be identified for special education. That finding was controversial in special
education circles, since other research has held that minorities are overrepresented in some disability categories.

Federal policy has also been built around the idea of rooting out overrepresentation . In the waning
days of the Obama administration, the U.S. Department of Education released a rule that will require states to use a standard approach to
calculating whether their districts were overenrolling minority students in special education compared to their white peers. Overall, the
standard rule is expected to flag more districts for overrepresentation.

But other reporting has shown that minorities are less likely to get special education services. A series published
in 2016 by the Houston Chronicle, for example, showed that Texas districts were under state pressure to keep
their special education population low—teachers reported being told to assume that
academic problems among English learners were due to language problems, not disabilities.
8/10/17
 Residential Equality K2 Education Equality
You can’t fix educational inequality without addressing residential income
segregation.
Friedman 8/9/17 (Daniel Friedman, Harvard Political Review, "The Rise of Income Segregation
in Post-Recession America", Harvard Political Review, 8-9-2017,
http://harvardpolitics.com/united-states/the-rise-of-income-segregation-in-post-recession-
america/, DOA: 8-10-2017) //Snowball
Residential income segregation—the separation of residents by income and the isolation of neighborhoods both very rich and
very poor—perpetuates income inequality. And it’s on the rise in the United States.

Income segregation is both a cause and a consequence of income inequality. It’s a consequence in that
economic inequality divides Americans into groups which then file into homogenous neighborhoods. But it’s also a
cause because this segregation multiplies the fortunes of those who can afford high-quality
neighborhoods while exacerbating the economic disadvantage of those who cannot.
For a number of reasons, the
neighborhood in which individuals live influences their economic status .
Most simply, important resources are better and more available in wealthier neighborhoods. Wealthier
areas have more
money to attract high-quality teachers, afford a low teacher-student ratio, and purchase high-
quality books. Subsequently, a child in a wealthier area will most likely get a better public
education. Beyond schools, wealthier neighborhoods are also more likely to have quality
transportation systems, well-paying jobs, robust police forces, and public facilities like gyms
and parks, all of which contribute to socioeconomic status.
Neighborhoods also exert a subtler influence on their residents. Individuals, particularly children, develop their expectations and norms from
their immediate environment. Kids
in low-income neighborhoods, for instance, face less exposure to highly-
educated adults but greater exposure to crime and unemployment. These children thus lack role-models to
demonstrate the possibility of college graduation and high earnings.

Combined, these neighborhood influences

seriously inhibit the ability of those from poorer
backgrounds to climb the economic ladder.
8/11/17
 AT: Virtual Schools
Virtual schools are ineffective – studies and examples prove.
Hess 8/2/17 (Rick, Education Policy Expert, "Education Technology, Personalized Learning, and
Virtual Schooling: Opportunities and Dangers", Education Week, 8-2-2017,
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2017/08/education_technology_perso
nalized_learning_and_virtual_schooling_opportunities_and_dangers.html, DOA: 8-11-2017)
//Snowball
To date, multiple studies of student performance in virtual schools suggest they are ineffective at
improving student performance or learning. The Walton Family Foundation commissioned three studies of virtual charter
schools. The results were dismal: students enrolled in online charter schools demonstrated weaker
growth in reading and math compared to their peers in traditional brick-and-mortar charter schools.
Over the course of a school year, students enrolled fulltime in online charter schools learned the
equivalent of 72 fewer days in reading and fell behind a full year in math (180 days)—essentially demonstrating no
growth in math over the course of a year. In one of the studies, conducted by Mathematica, researchers found that students
spent less synchronous instructional time in a week than students in traditional brick-and-mortar schools spent in a
day and that class size and student-teacher ratios were higher in online charter schools than in brick-and-mortar charter schools.

A recent report of the findings of five case studies by Michael Barbour, Gary Miron, and Luis Huerta for the Michigan Virtual Learning Research
Institute revealed that for-profit Education Management Organizations—which account for 71% of students enrolled
in virtual schools in Ohio, Wisconsin, Idaho, Washington, and Michigan—enroll a lower percentage of minority
students and English language learners compared to state averages. Virtual schools in these states have
high student-teacher ratios—roughly double state averages. Studies have found student-teacher ratios to be 2-3 times
larger in virtual schools than in traditional public schools, with the largest ratios found in virtual schools operated
by for-profit EMOs.

To date, research
indicates that virtual schools often have high dropout rates, low graduation
rates, and nearly a quarter of students enrolled in fulltime virtual schools return to traditional
public schools. Marc Sternberg and Marc Holley of the Walton Family Foundation noted that if virtual charter schools
were grouped together into a single school district, it would be the ninth-largest and among
the worst-performing in the country.
 Deleuzian Thought link
Their form of “rational” thought and cognitive thinking models they teach to students
are not actually thoughts at all- only thought as difference through a Deleuzian
approach solves- also lots of bad ontological impacts from the aff
Bryant 17 Levi Bryant, Discipline Lead for the Department of Philosophy at Collin College, a
Lacanian psychoanalyst, and Chair of the Critical Philosophy program at the New Centre for
Research and Practice, Larval Subjects, March 20, 2017, “Deleuze: What is Called Thinking?”,
https://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2017/03/20/deleuze-what-is-called-thinking/, VM
In chapter 3 of Difference and Repetition Deleuze will present what might be called a sort of
“anti-phenomenology” that authorizes an appeal to difference in itself . He will claim that
there is an experience in which we do, in fact, encounter difference in itself. Where so much of
phenomenology– and I know I’m not here being fair –sets out to demonstrate how we recognize things or how we always encounter them
within a horizon of meaning (again a system of recognition), Deleuze will look at the dark side of experience, pointing to those moments where
the system of meaning and recognition fails. Thought,
Deleuze will argue, only occurs under the force of an
encounter. …there is only involuntary thought, aroused but constrained within thought, and
all the more absolutely necessary for being born, illegitimately, of fortuitousness in the world .
Thought is primarily trespass and violence, the enemy, and nothing presupposes philosophy: everything begins with misoophy. Do not count
upon thought to ensure the relative necessity of what it thinks. Rather,
count upon the contingency of an encounter
with that which forces thought to raise up and educate the absolute necessity of an act of
thought or a passion to think… Something in the world forces us to think. This something is an
object not of recognition but of a fundamental encounter. What is encountered may be Socrates, a temple or a
demon. It may be grasped in a range of affective tones: wonder, love, hatred, suffering. In which tone, its primary characteristic is that it can
only be sensed. (DR, 139) Everything goes wrong from the outset if we assimilate thought to simple
cognition. This is Deleuze’s primary reproach against so much of the history of philosophy,
and would no doubt be his criticism of cognitive science which takes itself to study thought:
they assimilate thought to simple recognition. Yet for Deleuze, thought is essentially rare. We cognize and recognize all
the time as creatures of habit (the first synthesis of repetition in Chapter 2), but we do not yet think. It is only as a shock to our
system that we begin to think. There can thus be no method of thought, nor a willing of
thought, because in its initial phase, it is entirely passive. We can only undergo the force of a fortuitous
encounter that involuntarily instigates thought within us (and clearly this is often a very unpleasant thing). In Lacanian terms, we could say that
thought is the result of trauma, of the missed encounter, of that that evades the symbolic net we throw over the world to render it re-
cognizable. read on! For
Deleuze, thought is an encounter with the different that produces
difference. If it can only be sensed, this is because it cannot be perceived. Here we should think of
Hussar’s accounts of perception or even Heidegger’s account of alethetheia. Perception implies recognition. “That is a glass.” “That is a book.”
“There goes my wife.” Recognition
is re-cognition. It is that which can be remembered or subsumed
under an extant concept. But thought is the un-re-cognizable, and therefore an encounter
with something that can’t be subsumed under any pre-existing concept, meaning, or
memory. If it can only be sensed– what Deleuze calls the “sentiendum”; and his book is
designed to be a sort of sentiendum –then that is because we’ve encountered something that
can’t be perceived or recognized; something that departs from all “conceptual schemes”.
“Something is different here, yet I have no idea what it might be precisely because there isn’t
yet any concept or meaning for it. This is why Deleuze claims that thought instigates a
discordant functioning of the faculties. Where, in perception, memory functions to show how the current experience
resembles other past experiences, in the encounter thought is in discord with memory. No wonder Deleuze was fascinated with Klossowski’s
Roberte novels! In the encounter we discover the immemorial precisely because there is no recollection, no “system of anticipations” as in
Husserl, that could converge in a synthesis on this thing that can only be sensed. And this is why the encounter generates the cogitandum, or
that which can only be thought: the unprecedented. Thought is not the syllogism, nor subsumption under an established concept, but the
invention of that for which there is yet no concept. If
thought is rare, then this is because thought for Deleuze is
essentially invention and discovery. He restricts thought to these adventures of discovery and
invention in the arts, mathematics, and the sciences. Here Kuhn is helpful. Kuhn draws the distinction between
normal science and revolutionary science. Normal science solves problems within an existing model or paradigm. Revolutionary science is what
takes place when the paradigm itself is transformed. Deleuze would reserve the name of thought for the latter. We can see how this might
work in a variety of scientific and mathematical contexts. The irregular orbit of the planet Mercury is a sentiendum in the sciences. It is
something that doesn’t fit with the established Newtonian models. The Newtonians attempt to assimilate this orbit to the Newtonian models.
“There must be a hidden variable, a moon that we haven’t explored or perhaps even a planet we haven’t yet observed!” There
is
something that preserves the model (Newtonianism) that we haven’t yet observed. Thought
is what takes place with Einstein. It is not that we haven’t yet observed the missing mass, but
rather that we’ve gotten the theory of gravity wrong. We must entirely rethink gravity in light
of this exception (cogitandum). Or again we might think of the Pythagoreans that discovered
irrational numbers. Here we have a cautionary tail of when thought does not take place and
where re-cognition takes precedence. They repress the discover of irrational numbers when
trying to find the diagonal of certain squares and even club one of their followers to death
when he tries to discuss irrational numbers publicly. Everything, they contend, must consist
of harmonious ratios. Here is the active suppression of thought or an attempt to domesticate
the encounter or that which forces thought. Where the discovery of irrational numbers
should have opened an entirely new field of mathematics, it’s instead brutally repressed. And
should this be how we think of the trans person? Not as the person to be assimilated to one sexual position or the other, but as the person that
calls us to rethink our entire concept of gender and sexuality? And
this, for Deleuze, is what it ultimately comes
down to: all genuine thought is poietic or inventive and it is only those moments that send us
on these adventures that deserve to be called thought.
8/12/17
 Substantial
A “substantial increase” in the federal educational role necessitates a structural
change in a wide variety of educational activities.
Ascik 79 (Thomas, Policy Analyst, "Department of Education", Heritage Foundation, 4-23-1979,
http://www.heritage.org/education/report/department-education, DOA: 8-11-2017)
//Snowball
The federal government's next major step into education was taken in 1958 with passage of the
National Defense Education Act. This legislation followed in the wake of public reaction to the 1957 launching of Sputnik, the
Soviet space success that caught the American public by surprise. The NDEA authorized federal funds for a wide
variety of educational activities, most of them in mathematics and the sciences.
The NDEA opened the door for a substantial increase in the federal educational role. Since its
passage, Congress has approved a plethora of education legislation . The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964
authorized unusual educational programs, several bypassing conventional educational channels. The Office of Economic opportunity was
established as a separate agency within the executive branch. With its demise in 1972, all OEO programs were either terminated or transferred
to other departments. For example, Headstart and Upward Bound were transferred to the Office of Education.
 Block Grants
“Funding” is money provided for a specific purpose.
Macmillan Dictionary ("Funding (noun) American English definition and synonyms",
Macmillan Dictionary, http://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/funding,
DOA: 8-9-2017) //Snowball
money that a government or organization provides for a specific purpose

Block grants do not have a specific purpose.

Dictionary.com ("The definition of block grant", Dictionary,
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/block-grant, DOA: 8-9-2017) //Snowball
noun 1. a
consolidated grant of federal funds, formerly allocated for specific programs, that a
state or local government may use at its discretion for such programs as education or urban
development.

The topical version of the Affirmative is categorical grants – it solves the content of
the Affirmative, but fixes the form.
LegalDictionary.net (Legal Dictionary, "Categorical Grants",
https://legaldictionary.net/categorical-grants/, DOA: 8-9-2017) //Snowball
Categorical grants are the primary source of federal assistance to local and state
governments, and other entities. These grants are issued for a specific purpose, and can only be used
for that explicitly defined objective. The government may issue categorical grants on a per-project basis, or based on a
formula of purpose and financial need. States are never required to accept a categorical grant, but if they do, they must adhere to the rules and
regulations of that grant or it will be withdrawn. To explore this concept, consider the following categorical grants definition.
 Virtual Education
The term “education” refers to formal instruction within a school building.
Kumar 17 – Satish Kumar, Deputy Dean at the University Information Centre, et al.,
“MEANING, AIMS AND PROCESS OF EDUCATION”,
https://sol.du.ac.in/mod/book/view.php?id=1448&chapterid=1321
Education, in the narrower sense, is regarded as equivalent to instruction. It consists of the “specific
influences” consciously designed in a school or in a college or in an institution to bring in the development and
growth of the child. The word school includes the whole machinery of education from Kindergarten to the University. The education of
the child begins with his admission in the school and ends with his departure from the University. The amount of education received by the
child is measured in terms of degrees and diplomas awarded to him. The school represents formal education as it
imparts education directly and systematically. There is deliberate effort on the part of the educator to inculcate certain
habits, skills, attitudes or influences in the learner, which are considered to be essential and useful to him. According to John Dewey: “The
school exists to provide a special environment for the formative period of human life. School
is a consciously designed institution, the sole concern of which is to educate the child. This special
environment is essential to explain our complex society and civilization”.

Virtual education is distinct from that model of education.

Lips 10 (Dan, Senior Policy Analyst, "How Online Learning Is Revolutionizing K-12 Education and
Benefiting Students", Heritage Foundation, 2-12-2010,
http://www.heritage.org/technology/report/how-online-learning-revolutionizing-k-12-
education-and-benefiting-students, DOA: 8-12-2017) //Snowball
Online learning is quite different from the traditional concept of education, which involves a school
building, a classroom with rows of desks, and a teacher standing next to a chalkboard. What does it mean to say that a child is
being taught through an online or virtual education program? How would a child interact with a teacher online, and how would such an online
program be funded or governed?

Virtual schooling isn’t the same as formal education – it doesn’t refer to the same
infrastructure.
National Forum on Education Statistics 6 (National Forum on Education Statistics. (2006).
Forum Guide to Elementary/Secondary Virtual Education (NFES 2006–803). U.S. Department of
Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, DOA: 8-12-2017)
//Snowball
The term “virtual education” is often used interchangeably with “distance education,” “distributed learning,” “open
learning,” “networked learning,” “web-based education.” “online learning,” “cyber education,” “net education,” “computer learning,”
and other similar terms. Some of these phrases focus on the concept of overcoming the
physical boundaries of traditional face-to-face, teacher-student learning environments. Others emphasize the use of technology as a
tool for accessing information unavailable locally. The bottom line, however, is that virtual education uses information
and communications technologies to offer educational opportunities in a manner that
transcends traditional limitations of time and space with respect to students’ relationships
with teachers, peers, and instructional materials.
 Homeschooling Violation
The term “increase” implies pre-existence.
Brown 2003 (distrcit judge, decision in "Elena MARK and Paul Gustafson, Plaintiffs, v. VALLEY
INSURANCE COMPANY and Valley Property and Casualty, Defendants.", Justia Law, July 17
2003, law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/275/1307/2463173/, mmv)
FCRA does not define the term "increase." The
plain and ordinary meaning of the verb "to increase" is to
make something greater or larger.[4]Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 589 (10th ed.1998). The "something" that is
increased in the statute is the "charge for any insurance." The plain and common meaning of the noun "charge" is "the price demanded for
something." Id. at 192. Thus,
the statute plainly means an insurer takes adverse action if the insurer
makes greater (i.e., larger) the price demanded for insurance.
An insurer cannot "make greater" something that did not exist previously. The statutory
definition of adverse action, therefore, clearly anticipates an insurer must have made an
initial charge or demand for payment before the insurer can increase that charge. In other words, an
insurer cannot increase the charge for insurance unless the insurer previously set and demanded payment of the premium for that insured's
insurance coverage at a lower price.

Homeschooling does not receive federal funding or regulation.

Densing 12 (Jen, "Homeschooling State and Federal Requirements: What You Should Know",
Bright Hub Education, 6-6-2012, http://www.brighthubeducation.com/homeschool-rules-
regulations/103879-state-and-federal-homeschooling-requirements/, DOA: 8-12-2017)
//Snowball
When you choose to homeschool your children, there
are no homeschooling federal requirements that you need to
fulfill. There are no federal laws or regulations that affect homeschools. This may come as a surprise in this era of
increasing federal oversight in so many areas of our daily lives. In fact, homeschooling in the United States is actually protected from federal
regulation by the US Constitution. Additionally many people believe that the power of parents to direct their children's education is protected
as a fundamental right.

According to the 10th Amendment of the Constitution the power to regulate all forms of education belongs to the states. As a recognized form
of education, homeschooling is included in this protection. The Constitution states that the federal government is not allowed to interfere with
or control public or private forms of education.

In spite of this, it's well known that the federal government interferes in education on a frequent basis. This is
done by exercising a federal power included in the Constitution to regulate commerce and to collect and distribute money among the
states, often referred to as the "power of the purse." The federal government uses this as a loophole to control education by
offering the states money if they enact specific laws. Typically these laws only affect educational institutions that
accept federal funds. Since homeschoolers do not accept any federal money, none of these
federal rules apply to them.
8/13/17
 AT: Trump Destroys International Order
Trump won’t wreck the international order – it’ll just re-make itself without the U.S.
Gibney 8/11/17 (James, writes editorials on international affairs for Bloomberg View "The
New World Order Is Leaving the U.S. Behind", Bloomberg, 8-11-2017,
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-11/the-new-world-order-is-leaving-the-u-
s-behind, DOA: 8-14-2017) //Snowball
But a funny thing happened on the way to the disintegration of the international liberal order.
It’s started to reconstitute itself -- only not with the U.S. at its center. Unfortunately, that has less
to do with a realization among our allies and partners that the burden must be more equitably shared
than with the increasing recognition that Trump is not, as some U.S. diplomats liked to say about third world
dictators during the Cold War, “someone we can do business with.”

That sentiment found its most trenchant expression in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s declaration,
following Trump’s May trip to Europe, that the continent “must really take our fate into our own hands.”
The net result of the Trump administration’s antipathy to free trade and cooperation on
climate change and refugee resettlement was a united front against the U.S. at both the Group of
Seven and Group of 20 meetings.

Jilted by the U.S., the

other 11 members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership are moving ahead on their
own. Canada and Mexico are working together more closely than ever to save Nafta. Asian nations are
hedging their bets between the U.S. and China. Trump’s tough talk on Mexico has prompted
it to reach out to its hemispheric rival Brazil on defense cooperation.
8/14/17
 Adv CP – Automation Crisis
Counterplan: the United States federal government should guarantees all citizens an
income sufficient for a decent standard of living.

A Universal Basic Income would prevent the collapse of capitalist economics without
requiring continual adaptation to automation.
Wells 8/10/17 (Thomas, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tilburg, "The
Robot Economy and the Crisis of Capitalism: The Case for a Universal Basic Income,” Australian
Broadcasting Corporation, 8-10-2017,
http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2017/08/10/4716320.htm, DOA: 8-14-2017)
//Snowball
We are now living through a second industrial revolution that is replacing puny human brains
with machine intelligence. Any kind of work that can be routinised can be translated into
instructions for computers to do, generally more cheaply and reliably than human employees can.
That includes increasingly sophisticated cognitive labour like driving, law, medicine and document translation.
Even university lecturers are at risk of being replaced by technology, in the form of massive open online courses,
while the digital cloning of actors promises to allow film-makers to cheaply manufacture whatever cast they please.

Just like the original industrial revolution, this

is creating large numbers of losers whose skills are no longer
valued by the market. But this time it is not clear that new jobs will appear for these people to move into, for
this time the machines can follow us nearly anywhere we try to go. This time technological unemployment may become
a permanent fact that we have to deal with by changing how capitalism works. Our birthright as humans -
the ability to produce things by our labour that others find valuable - may become
economically worthless.
According to some economists, automation is already erasing white collar jobs from the economy, a process that
accelerates in recessions like this one leading to jobless recoveries and an ever-widening hole in the middle of the labour market. At the
bottom, increasing numbers of people will compete for low-status, low-paid jobs like cleaning and
fast-food preparation - things that machines are not yet able to do, or not able to do cheaply enough. At the
top will be a new creative class of knowledge workers who develop and service the machines on behalf of the
capitalists who own them. In between, the jobs will be most cost-effectively done by robots.

Thus, on the output side of our new robot economy, we could have material abundance undreamt-of by earlier
generations. But on the input side, we would have an economy increasingly independent of human labour and so
unwilling to pay for it. Hence the crisis. For under capitalism as we know it, the labour market is the central mechanism for
distributing claims on the economy's productivity. The welfare systems we have developed are mainly designed to complement it - for example,
by providing education to improve children's employability as adults; or social insurance "safety nets" for the disabled and temporarily
unemployed.

Employment is also highly moralised - people are understood to have a moral duty to seek paid
work and are held responsible for their failure to get it. (Indeed, cultivating this norm was essential to the global
institutionalisation of capitalism, along with legal innovations like limited liability corporations. The nineteenth-century
colonialists deliberately set out to convert subsistence economies into profitable ones by coercing peasants into waged labour.)
None of this is sustainable in a robot economy. Capitalism as we know it is going to have to
change.
Universal Basic Income

Universal basic income is the idea that governments should guarantee all their citizens an
income sufficient for a decent standard of living. It is not a new idea - versions of it can be found in
Thomas More's Utopia and Thomas Paine's pamphlet on Agrarian Justice. In the idealistic 1960s and 70s the idea
enjoyed some political support and experiments were even carried out to see how it might work in practise.

Yet thegrip of the moral ideology of work on the public's imagination made basic income politically
unfeasible. What government could win votes with a policy of raising taxes to pay people to sit around doing nothing? Even hard-
nosed economists worried that it would undermine the work ethic on which the economy
depends, including the taxes needed to pay for the basic income itself. Not that anyone really knew what the effects would be. The
data from the largest experiment, Canada's Mincome, were judged politically inconvenient and filed away
without even being analysed.
However, the idea of basic income has recently been enjoying a revival. It has appeal across the
traditional political divide between those who want the state to fix more things and those who want
the state to fix less. Some on the left see it not only as a just return of excess profits from capitalists to workers, but as a
means of returning dignity to work - giving people the freedom not to have to take demeaning and low paid jobs merely to
survive. Some on the right focus on the efficiency and liberty gains of abolishing the intrusive and
paternalistic bureaucracy of the present welfare system. New experiments in Finland and the Netherlands have generated a
wealth of journalistic and op-ed coverage, much of it positive.

In the context of the robot economy, the case for a universal basic income becomes still more
compelling. For now it also has appeal across the other central political divide of modern societies -
between those who are optimistic about the future and want to seize its possibilities and those who fear
what is coming and seek protection against its dangers. The optimists see the robot economy and dream of
escaping history, the miraculous transformation of the capitalist economy into some Star Trek-style fantasy of abundance and
personal fulfilment. The pessimists fear that history will run backwards, that the brutal economic
logic of robots will return us to a Dickensian or even feudal nightmare.
Basic income is a radical change to our social institutions, but radical change is coming anyway thanks
to the robots. Even the risk-averse and the hard-nosed realists are now coming around to the
idea as they note the shifting ground beneath their feet and recalculate the balance of their fears.
Whether one seeks to transcend capitalism or merely to save it, the path lies through something like
basic income.
8/15/17
 AT: World Getting Better
Structural improvements are not a reason to reject catastrophic predictions –
optimists only need to be wrong once.
Burkeman 7/28/17 (Oliver, Journalist and Author, "Is the world really better than ever?",
Guardian, 7-28-2017, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/jul/28/is-the-world-really-
better-than-ever-the-new-optimists, DOA: 8-15-2017) //Snowball
But the real concern here is not that the steady progress of the last two centuries will gradually swing into
reverse, plunging us back to the conditions of the past; it’s that the world we have created – the very engine of all
that progress – is so complex, volatile and unpredictable that catastrophe might befall us at any moment. Steven
Pinker may be absolutely correct that fewer and fewer people are resorting to violence to settle their
disagreements, but (as he would concede) it only takes a single angry narcissist in possession of the
nuclear codes to spark a global disaster. Digital technology has unquestionably helped fuel a worldwide
surge in economic growth, but if cyberterrorists use it to bring down the planet’s financial
infrastructure next month, that growth might rather swiftly become moot.
“The point is that if something does go seriously wrong in our societies, it’s really hard to see where it stops,” says
David Runciman, professor of politics at Cambridge University, who takes a less sanguine view of the future, and who has debated New
Optimists such as Ridley and Norberg. “The
thought that, say, the next financial crisis, in a world as
interconnected and algorithmically driven as our world, could simply spiral out of control – that is not an
irrational thought. Which makes it quite hard to be blithely optimistic.” When you live in a world where everything seems to
be getting better, yet it could all collapse tomorrow, “it’s perfectly rational to be freaked out.”
Runciman raises a related and equally troubling thought about modern politics, in his book The Confidence Trap. Democracy seems to be doing
well: the New Optimists note that there are now about 120 democracies among the world’s 193
countries, up from just 40 in 1972. But what if it’s the very strength of democracy – and our complacency
about its capacity to withstand almost anything – that augurs its eventual collapse? Could it be that
our real problem is not an excess of pessimism, as the New Optimists maintain, but a dangerous degree of
overconfidence?
According to this argument, the people who voted for Trump and Brexit didn’t really do so because they had
concluded their system was broken, and needed to be replaced. On the contrary: they voted as they did precisely
because they had grown too confident that the essential security provided by government would
always be there for them, whatever incendiary choice they made at the ballot-box. People voted for Trump
“because they didn’t believe him”, Runciman has written. They “wanted Trump to shake up a system that they also
expected to shield them from the recklessness of a man like Trump”. The problem with this pattern – delivering
electoral shocks because you’re confident the system can withstand them – is that there’s no reason to assume it can
continue indefinitely: at some point, the damage may not be repairable. The New Optimists “describe a world
in which human agency doesn’t seem to matter, because there are these evolved forces that are
moving us in the right direction,” Runciman says. “But human agency does still matter … human beings
still have the capacity to mess it all up. And it may be that our capacity to mess it up is growing.”
The optimists aren’t unaware of such risks – but it
is a reliable feature of the optimistic mindset that one can
usually find an upbeat interpretation of the same seemingly scary facts. “You’re asking, ‘Am I the man who falls out of a
skyscraper, and as he passes the second storey, says, ‘So far, so good?’” Matt Ridley says. “And the answer is, well, actually, in the past,
people have foreseen catastrophe just around the corner and been wrong about it so often that this a
relevant fact to take into account.” History does seem to bear Ridley out. Then again, of course it does: if a civilisation-ending catastrophe had
in fact occurred, you presumably wouldn’t be reading this now. People
who predict imminent catastrophes are
usually wrong. On the other hand, they need only be right once .
8/16/17
 Trump PC K2 Fight IS
Trump is winning the war on the Islamic State, but sustained spending and political
commitment is key.
McManus 3/29/17 (Doyle, Journalist, "Trump may actually win the war against Islamic State",
LA Times, 3-29-2017, http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-mcmanus-syria-isis-trump-
20170329-story.html, DOA: 8-16-2017) //Snowball
While Washington has been absorbed in battles over healthcare and incipient scandals, a real war
is escalating sharply in Syria and Iraq: the one against Islamic State.
Without much public notice, thousands of U.S. combat troops are back on the ground in the Middle
East: roughly 7000 in Iraq, almost 1000 in Syria, another 2500 in Kuwait.
Those troops aren’t only special operations forces; they include artillery teams fighting in Iraq and a helicopter unit that has
flown behind Islamic State lines in Syria.

U.S. airstrikes have intensified, too, and civilian casualties have spiked dramatically since the beginning of the year. As many as
200 civilians may have been killed in Mosul last week; the Pentagon says it’s investigating.

The death toll is a tragedy. But it’s also a grim sign that the long offensive against Islamic State,
begun by President Obama in 2014, is moving rapidly toward success — and for that, President Trump deserves
some credit.
Under Obama, who waged a “light footprint” strategy with minimal U.S. troops, Islamic State lost most of the
territory it once held in Iraq and almost a third of what it held in Syria.
But taking the extremist group’s most important strongholds, Mosul in Iraq and Raqqah in Syria, was taking
longer.
Enter Trump. The new president, after claiming he had a secret plan to win the war, told his generals to give him
one in 30 days. They responded with an outline — a “skeleton plan,” in the words of Defense Secretary James N. Mattis – that could be
described as Obama Plus: more bombing, more troops, fewer restrictions on commanders.
“The Obama strategy wasn’t failing, but it was slow,” James F. Jeffrey, a former ambassador (and former Army officer) who’s
advising the administration, told me. “This is more — not only more troops, but more willingness to use them .
It’s a change of maybe 20%, but it’s an important 20%.”

Paradoxically, the success of those changes comes with its own danger: the peril of “catastrophic success,” a phrase military officials use to
describe the 2003 invasion of Iraq. That experience taught a lesson: Conquering
territory doesn’t guarantee that a
war will stay won. So Trump administration officials are quietly planning for an open-ended
commitment of U.S. troops to both Iraq and Syria for “stabilization operations” after Islamic State is
defeated. And that may well require more American troops, not fewer.
In Iraq, stabilization means persuading the government in Baghdad, which told U.S. forces to leave in 2010, to let them stay longer.

In Syria, where the U.S. doesn’t want to cooperate with the government of President Bashar Assad, it means setting up an interim
administration of local leaders under the protection of U.S. and allied troops.
A State Department official said stabilization means “making sure people can come back to their homes, there’s a security apparatus in
place that’s locally based, there’s a local government in place.”

In Jeffrey’s view, it also means

a continued effort to negotiate the Assad regime out of power. “If the
Assad regime remains in power, you’ll just get another [Islamic State],” he said.
It all sounds expensive, ambitious and not quite in keeping with Trump’s campaign promise to
take the U.S. “out of the nation-building business.”

That may be one reason officials take pains to say their goals are limited.

“Stabilization … is very distinct from long-term reconstruction, long-term nation-building,” a State Department official said.

Eventually, officials say, they hope the oil-rich countries of the Persian Gulf will pay to rebuild Syria and Iraq.

Good luck with that. Other

countries aren’t likely to pony up — and the effort isn’t likely to succeed —
unless the United States is involved too.
One more dilemma: To
make stabilization work, Trump is going to have to spend money on the State
Department and foreign aid agencies whose budget he wants to cut. (That’s not just my civilian opinion;
Mattis says that every time he appears before Congress.)

It all sounds a lot more complicated than the strategy Trump suggested in his campaign.
8/17/17
 Critical Pedagogy Alternative
The alternative is critical pedagogy – it enables us to criticize both the neoliberal
speech act and the institutional underpinnings of the 1AC – and fosters an anti-
neoliberal public model of education that transcends the classroom.
Armaline 17 (William, director of the Human Rights Institute and an associate professor in the
Department of Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences at San Jose State University,
"Interdisciplinary Approaches to Pedagogy and Place-Based Education", Chapter 9: “Public
Education Against Neoliberal Capitalism: Illustrations and Opportunities,” 2017, DOA: 8-18-
2017) //Snowball
The political-economic (re)organization of the world, manifested in the current global division of labor
marked by extreme resource and wealth inequalities, and in the utter political and economic dominance of
military state-backed financial and corporate firms, arrived through decades of “global economic
restructuring,” according to a specific, “neoliberal” economic logic.20 Perhaps the most prolific
scholar on neoliberalism and its connections to public education is Henry Giroux, also a founder of
critical pedagogy as a concept. It is worth noting his definition of neoliberalism at length, given its complex ideological reach into so
many aspects of policy, social structure, and social life:

[Neoliberalism] promotes privatization, commodification, free trade, and deregulation. It

privileges personal responsibility over larger social forces, reinforces the gap between
the rich and the poor by redistributing wealth to the most powerful and wealthy individuals and groups, and it
fosters a mode of public pedagogy that privileges the entrepreneurial subject while
encouraging a value system that promotes self interest, if not an unchecked selfishness. Since the 1970s, neoliberalism or
free-market fundamentalism has become not only a much vaunted ideology that now shapes all
aspects of life in the United States, but also a predatory global phenomenon “that drives
the practices and principles of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and World Trade Organization, trans-national
institutions which largely determine the economic policies of developing countries and the rules of international trade.”
...Another characteristic of this crushing form of economic Darwinism is that it thrives on
a kind of social amnesia that erases critical thought, historical analysis, and any
understanding of broader systemic relations. In this regard, it does the opposite of critical memory work by
eliminating those public spheres where people learn to translate private troubles into public issues.21

In contrast, critical pedagogy seeks to provide such a space—across notions of place, connecting
classrooms, workplaces, public squares, and so on—where C.W. Mills’ “sociological imagination,” subtly referenced in
Giroux’s definition above, might thrive.22 In these spaces, students and educators cooperatively analyze
social structure, public policy, and their relationship to the reproduction or replacement of existing
institutional and resulting power relationships. Political speech and action in the critique and re-
imagining of existing social systems are not a result of critical pedagogy, but a part of it. It invites
students and educators to define and nourish their shared interests in the classrooms, beyond there in their
communities, while critically locating their communities in larger politicaleconomic and social
contexts.
Critical pedagogy expands the democratic classroom as a material place and pedagogical
space to the broader public arena. In this sense, critical pedagogy does not only operate in formal
classroom settings, but also in public places and through our public interactions and political
expressions. As an organic, public intellectual, the critical educator at all times creates and nurtures pedagogical
space for critique and growth—particularly in grounded contexts of struggle.23 The current Oaxacan teachers’ struggle
illustrates this aspect of critical pedagogy in action.
8/19/17
 Capitalism Depressing
Capitalism causes widespread depression and other mental illnesses.
Tweedy 8/9/17 (Rod, Author and Editor, "A mad world: capitalism and the rise of mental
illness", RedPepper, 8-9-2017, http://www.redpepper.org.uk/a-mad-world-capitalism-and-the-
rise-of-mental-illness/, DOA: 8-19-2017) //Snowball
Indeed, consumerism and materialism are themselves widely recognised today as key drivers of a whole raft of
mental health problems, from addiction to depression. As George Monbiot notes, ‘Buying more stuff is
associated with depression, anxiety and broken relationships. It is socially destructive and self-
destructive’. Psychoanalytic psychotherapist Sue Gerhardt has written very compellingly on this association, suggesting that in modern
societies we often ‘confuse material well-being with psychological well-being’. In her book The Selfish
Society she shows how successfully and relentlessly consumer capitalism reshapes our brains and reworks our
nervous systems in its own image. For ‘we would miss much of what capitalism is about,’ she notes, ‘if we overlook its role in
restructuring and marketing desire and impulse themselves.’

Another key aspect of capitalism and its impact on mental illness we could talk about of course is inequality. Capitalism is as much
an inequality-generating system as it is a mental illness producing system. As a Royal College of
Psychiatrists report noted: ‘Inequality is a major determinant of mental illness: the greater the level of
inequality, the worse the health outcomes. Children from the poorest households have a
three-fold greater risk of mental ill health than children from the richest households. Mental illness is consistently
associated with deprivation, low income, unemployment, poor education, poorer physical
health and increased health-risk behaviour.’
Some commentators have even suggested that capitalism itself, as a way of being or way of thinking about the
world, might be seen as a rather ‘psychopathic’ or pathological system. There are certainly some striking correspondences
between modern financial and corporate systems and individuals diagnosed with clinical psychopathy, as a number of analysts have noticed.
8/20/17
 Equity Counterplan [needs text]
Counterplan: [put the plan text, replacing “equal” with “equitable” or “equality” with
“equity”].

The counterplan is textually and functionally competitive.

Educational equality assumes all students have the same needs – the Affirmative
doesn’t resolve the needs of poor students and students of color – only equitable
policies will.
Mann 14 (Blair, Former Senior Communications Associate at Education Trust, "Equity and
Equality Are Not Equal", Education Trust, 3-12-2014, https://edtrust.org/the-equity-line/equity-
and-equality-are-not-equal/, DOA: 8-20-2017) //Snowball
There is a common misconception that equity and equality mean the same thing — and that they can be
used interchangeably, especially when talking about education . But the truth is they do not — and cannot. Yes,
the two words are similar, but the difference between them is crucial. So please, don’t talk about equality when you really mean equity.

What’s the difference?

Should per student funding at every school be exactly the same? That’s a question of equality. But
should students who come from less get more in order to ensure that they can catch up?
That’s a question of equity.
Yes, making sure all students have equal access to resources is an important goal. All students should have
the resources necessary for a high-quality education. But the truth remains that some students need more to get there.

Here’s where equity comes in. The students who are furthest behind — most often low-income students
and students of color — require more of those resources to catch up, succeed, and eventually, close
the achievement gap. Giving students who come to school lagging academically (because of factors
outside of a school’s control) the exact same resources as students in higher income schools alone will not
close the achievement gap. But making sure that low-income students and students of color
have access to exceptional teachers and that their schools have the funding to provide them
with the kind of high-quality education they need to succeed will continue us on the path toward
narrowing that gap.
Equality has become synonymous with “leveling the playing field.” So let’s make equity synonymous with “more for
those who need it.”
8/22/17
 Teacher Shortage
Data show an increasing teacher shortage in American public schools.
Ostroff 8/21/17 (Caitlin, Data Intern at CNN, "Schools throughout the country are grappling
with teacher shortage, data show", CNN, 8-21-2017,
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/21/health/teacher-shortage-data-trnd/index.html, DOA: 8-22-
2017) //Snowball
"Currently, there are not enough qualified teachers applying for teaching jobs to meet the demand in all
locations and fields," said the Learning Policy Institute, a national education think tank, in a research brief in September.

Some schools, such as in New York City, are being forced to increase class sizes, which some studies show can reduce
how much a student learns.

The institute estimated last year that if trends continue, there could be a nationwide shortfall of 112,000
teachers by 2018.
What subjects are most affected?

Public schools in 48 states and the District of Columbia report teacher shortages in math for the 2017-
18 school year, according to the US Department of Education. Forty-six states report shortages in special education, 43
in science and 41 in foreign languages.
[table omitted]

Statistics on shortages may be based on the percentage of unfilled teaching jobs, the number
of emergency credentials given to those without traditional teaching certificates and the
number of teachers hired after the school year starts , says Dan Goldhaber, director of the University of
Washington's Center for Education Data and Research.

It's always been harder to fill teacher jobs in math, science and special education positions, Sorrells
said. But the past five years have been worse than usual .

Increasingly, she said, teachers in areas like math and science are leaving for higher-paying private sector
jobs after a few years.
As a result, many teachers who remain are being asked to do more. Some states, like California, are seeing classes
with up to 35 students, says Linda Darling-Hammond, director of the Learning Policy Institute.

And some schools are making do without certain subjects.

Is there help on the way?

Probably not soon. The supply of aspiring teachers has been dwindling.
Nationwide, teacher education enrollments dropped 35% between 2009 and 2014, the most recent year
for which data are available, according to the Learning Policy Institute.

[graph omitted]

A survey at UCLA found that freshmen's interest in teaching as a career has steadily declined over the
past decade.
8/23/17
 Capitalist Edu → Enviro/Oppression
The education system naturalizes capitalism, guaranteeing structural oppression and
environmental destruction.
Karlin 8/20/17 (Mark, Editor and Publisher, Citing Fred Magdoff, professor emeritus of plant
and soil science at the University of Vermont, "The Economy of an Ecological Society Will Be at
the Service of Humanity", Truthout, 8-20-2017, http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/41655-
the-economy-of-an-ecological-society-will-be-at-the-service-of-humanity, DOA: 8-23-2017)
//Snowball
By its very nature capitalism operates in ways that harm people and the broader environment. The
purpose of capitalism is to produce something (a good or a service) using hired labor, raw materials and machinery and
sell it for more than the production cost. The motivating and driving force of the system is making more and more money by
producing and selling commodities. As [Richard] Levins wrote, "Agriculture is not about producing food but about
profit. Food is a side effect. Health service is a commodity, health a by-product."
If some peoples' needs are met because they have a good income, that's how the system is supposed to work. But for
the poor and near
poor, always present in capitalist societies, their needs for food or health care or decent housing or clean water, etc.
are not met, forcing them to rely on mostly inadequate government programs and charity. That is also the
way the system is supposed to work. Class stratification of society is integral to capitalism and is considered
"natural." Unemployment, racism, oppression of native peoples, oppression of women and other
forms of discrimination cause stress, illness and frequently, shortened lives. For example, African American
men have a high incidence of hypertension. But while scientists search for genes to explain this, the fact that Africans living in Africa do not
have particularly high blood pressure indicates that the high rate of hypertension
among African Americans is a result
of stresses suffered while living in a racist and competitive dog-eat-dog society. Workers laboring
in insecure and contingent jobs feel considerable stress, leading to diseases such as ulcers, diabetes,
heart disease and hypertension.
Regarding the environment, there is nothing built into the system, no formal procedures or mechanisms, to
rationally regulate human interaction with the rest of the natural world. This means that environmental
damage is part of the very fabric of capitalism: overfishing of the seas, pollution of air, water, soil and life,
including people. According to a 2009 report of the President's Cancer Panel, we are even born "pre-polluted" with a cocktail of toxic chemicals.
Mines, factories and refineries are operated with little regard for the environment. And cleaning up
abandoned mines, factories and waste dumps is normally left to society to take care of -- we all pay twice, by living with
damaging pollution and by paying for cleanup costs.

Social scientists refer to these negative social

and environmental effects of capitalism as "externalities." But in
reality, they are logical outcomes of a system in which decisions are made based on the profit motive.
Although laws are sometimes passed to deal with some of the "externalities," they are usually watered down to make them
acceptable to business and regulations are not rigorously enforced. These are the equivalent of small band-
aids placed on a patient suffering from a variety of life-threatening ailments who desperately needs multiple
operations.
The ideology developed through our educational systems and media gives the false impression
that capitalism is natural, just the right fit for our "human nature." Thus, any other system is just not
possible because it goes against the basic nature of humans. So, there are both practical and ideological
impediments thrown up by capitalism to make it very difficult to change the economic/political/social
system.
8/25/17
 AT: Give Back the Land
Giving back the land hurts more than it helps – violates sacred principles, forces them
to sell it privately, it’s unconstitutional, they don’t have the property rights to receive
it, we can’t distribute it fairly, and they won’t be able to use it effectively.
Patterson 17 (Joseph, Candidate for Juris Doctor, Notre Dame Law School, 2017, "THE NATIVE
AMERICAN STRUGGLE BETWEEN ECONOMIC GROWTH AND CULTURAL, RELIGIOUS, AND
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION: A CORPORATE SOLUTION", Notre Dame Law Review Volume
92 Issue 6 Online Supplement Article 8, May 2017,
http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4728&amp;context=ndlr, DOA: 8-25-
2017) //Snowball
In order to fix these problems, some scholars recommend the best solution would be to give the land to
the Native Americans.82 The federal government could easily transfer the property out of the trust and to the Native Americans.83
At this point, Native Americans would have the right to transfer the land to anyone they choose, including non-Native Americans.84 In this
scenario, the Native American tribes would retain autonomy over the land, similar to how a city such as New York City
retains autonomy over its land.85

The problem, however, is that this ignores many of the other issues facing Native Americans.86 As
mentioned above, many indigenous people view the land as sacred and religious ground.87 The city
could regulate through zoning what non-Native Americans do on the land, but they would still be selling
away their sacred land. It could be argued that they do not have to sell the land; however, this argument is flawed because with the
fractionated parcels many Native Americans would be forced to sell as they would not have enough
land to use effectively.88 Therefore, it would open up the tribal land to the highest bidder, which
would likely not be the Native American tribes, considering Native Americans currently have
the highest rate of poverty of any racial group.89 In addition, if the land was just given to the tribe
from the federal government, as seen in Hodel v. Irving, 90 this would constitute an unconstitutional
taking, unless just compensation was provided.91
As to my second point, in order for a co-owner of a parcel to use or possess part of that parcel, they are required to obtain permission from the
other co-owners or to obtain a lease from the BIA.92 The reason for this is because “[t]he federal Indian trust prevents reservation land from
being subdivided, which means all inherited ownership claims are for an ‘undivided’ interest (i.e. percentage interest) in the entire tract,”93
rather than in a specific acreage or portion of the parcel. Therefore, Native
Americans lack the most basic rights of co-
tenants: to possess and use the property.94 The fact that Native Americans do not have a right to
possess and use their property presents a difficulty for the previously mentioned argument—
that if the federal government just returned the land to the Native Americans, they would instantly have access to
more capital.95 This is a problem because it is not clear as to what land individual landowners would be
entitled to receive. If a current owner of two percent of a parcel were to receive two percent of the acreage in the parcel, would this
make up for their interest? Additionally, would all acreage be considered of equal quality? More importantly, would
two percent of a parcel be enough land to be able to efficiently use the land to make a profit?96

At the time of allotment, “the poorest off-reservation ranches ran fifty or more cattle on at least 1000 acres.”97 The parcels, however, were
160 acres for individuals and 320 acres for heads of a household.98 On a 160- acre parcel, an individual could “run seven or eight cattle . . .
much too small a herd to compete with non-Indian ranchers.”99 In addition, the undercapitalization, mentioned above,
decreased the returns on Native American farming activities because they did not have the
resources to irrigate the land.100 Therefore, even by providing Native Americans with the
traditional co-tenant rights of possession and use, it is very unlikely that Native Americans
would be able to use their land effectively. In addition, fractionated land parcels make all of this
more challenging and create an anticommons problem, assuming all of the individual owners were given an
“undivided right to possess the whole property.”101 For example, if all 439 owners of Tract 1305102 had an undivided right to possess the
entire 40 acres, it would be impossible for any one of them to effectively use the land .103
8/26/17
 Deep State Wrecks Hegemony
The policies of the American deep state have guaranteed the end of the American
unipolar moment.
Pieraccini 8/22/17 (Federico, independent freelance writer specialized in international affairs,
conflicts, politics and strategies., "How the US Deep State Accidentally Forged a Multipolar
World Order", Global Research, 8-22-2017, http://www.globalresearch.ca/how-the-us-deep-
state-accidentally-forged-a-multipolar-world-order/5605167, DOA: 8-26-2017) //Snowball
//deep state = government institutions/officials “secretly” influencing power
One of the consequences of two decades of the US deep state’s brazen foreign policy has been the birth
of a multipolar world order, with US superpower status being challenged by competing powers
like China and Russia. Indeed, Washington’s historic allies in the Middle East , Israel and Saudi Arabia, have borne
the consequences of the disastrous policies of the US, with Iran rising to be one of the power centers of the region
destined to dominate the Middle East militarily and even economically.

The incredible paradox of the failure of deep state is represented by the emergence of two
alternative poles to the American one, increasingly allied with each other to counter the chaotic
retreat of a unipolar world order. In this scenario, Washington and all its power centers are in an
unprecedented situation, where their desire does not match their abilities. A sense of frustration is increasingly
evident, from the incredible statements of many American political representatives on Russian influence in US
elections, to the threats of aggression against North Korea, or the game of chicken with the
nuclear powers of Russia and China.

If the deep state continues to hamstring the presidency, and the military wing succeeds in pressuring Trump,
there are likely to be a number of indirectly linked effects. There will be an exponential increase in synergies
between nations not aligned with American interests. In economic terms, there are alternative
systems to that centered on the dollar; in terms of energy, there are a host of new
agreements with European, Turkish or Russian partners; and in political terms, there is a more or less explicit
alliance between Russia and China, with a strong contribution from Iran, as will soon become more evident
with Tehran’s entry into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

By the end of the 1980s, the United States was the only world power destined for a future of
unchallenged global hegemony. The deep state’s greed, as well as the utopian desire to
control every decision in every corner of the world, has ended up consuming the ability of the US to
influence events, serving only to draw Russia and China closer together with the shared interest of halting America’s heedless advance.
It is thanks to the firmly ensconced American deep state that Moscow and Beijing are now
coordinating together in order to put to an end the United States’ unipolar moment as soon as possible.
It is not entirely wrong to say that the American unipolar moment is coming to an end, with the
deep state’s attacks on the Trump presidency preventing any rapprochement with Moscow.
The stronger the pressure of the deep state on the multipolar powers, the greater the speed
with which the advance of the multipolar world will replace the unipolar one. Early effects will appear
in the economic sphere, particularly in relation to movement towards de-dollarisation, which may mark the beginning of a long-awaited
change.
8/27/17
 Rural Schools DA
Current federal education policy is built with rural schools in mind.
Dulgerian 16 (Deena, J.D. Candidate, Georgetown University Law Center 2017, "The Impact of
the Every Student Succeeds Act on Rural Schools", HeinOnline, 24 Geo. J. on Poverty L. & Pol'y
111, 138 (2016) , DOA: 8-27-2017) //Snowball //modified for ableist language
ESSA creates three rural-specific systems that have the potential to ease the administrative
handicaps [burdens] from which rural schools suffer: (1) a comprehensive review and report
of rural schools' needs, 9 7 (2) outreach and technical assistance to rural schools for competitive
grants, 98 and (3) an application consolidation plan that allows multiple schools to submit one application for an ESSA-
funded program. 99 These reflect a change in Congress' perspective that rural schools are no longer
"an afterthought," 0 0 but are instead a valuable aspect of American life that ESSA must
protect. Without specific action plans, problems specific to rural schools could be swept
under the rug.
General changes from NCLB also can be applied in ways that benefit rural schools . ESSA eliminates
the highly-qualified requirements across the board and replaces it with an effective standard.' 0 ' This new standard removes a
burden for highly capable rural teachers who, despite their experience and abilities to balance multiple roles and
subjects, were unable to meet NCLB's highly-qualified requirements.1 0 2

New federal regulations are structured around urban and sub-urban school reform –
rural schools lack the logistical and financial capacities to adapt.
Dulgerian 16 (Deena, J.D. Candidate, Georgetown University Law Center 2017, "The Impact of
the Every Student Succeeds Act on Rural Schools", HeinOnline, 24 Geo. J. on Poverty L. & Pol'y
111, 138 (2016) , DOA: 8-27-2017) //Snowball
Despite the significant number of rural schools and students, some rural
educators believe that federal education law
has historically neglected to appropriately address the unique needs of rural schools.4 They believe that
federal laws are "designed primarily for urban and suburban districts and are poorly suited
for rural districts."' Not only is the substance of federal education law out of touch with the
reality in rural districts, but administrative logistics and procedures are beyond the scope and financial
capabilities of most rural schools and districts. 6 While "rural" does not automatically imply poverty,7 rural areas are
more susceptible to poverty and deep poverty than urban areas": about one-fourth of children
living in rural areas are poor, compared to one-fifth of children living in urban areas. 9 This means there are fewer
individuals who have developed specific skill sets and, subsequently, fewer employment
opportunities to develop rural economics. Despite this disparity, there are scattered examples of successfully-structured and efficiently-
run rural schools.' 0

These disparities became evident with No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the 2002 reauthorization of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). NCLB, from the perspective of some rural educators and non-rural
educators, became synonymous with an overreach of the federal government into what was
historically a state-controlled arena." NCLB was labeled as a "one size fits all"' 2 accountability
scheme that compelled state standardized testing to assess student progress and teacher
quality standards without recognizing the differences between rural and non-rural districts
that would affect meeting those standards.' 3 One size fits all or not, it was NCLB's lack of guidance to
states on how to adopt its requirements in rural areas that was the problem .' 4

That wrecks the viability of rural communities, which are key to American economic
competitiveness.
Dulgerian 16 (Deena, J.D. Candidate, Georgetown University Law Center 2017, "The Impact of
the Every Student Succeeds Act on Rural Schools", HeinOnline, 24 Geo. J. on Poverty L. & Pol'y
111, 138 (2016) , DOA: 8-27-2017) //Snowball
Rural and non-rural schools raised similar criticisms of NCLB.1 9 So, why is it that an entire community of advocates has developed around
promoting the recognition of rural schools' unique needs? Additionally, how can better-tailored education laws sustain
rural communities? One possible answer is divided into a state and national perspective on sustaining rural populations and
economies. Rural educators (like all educators) want their students to gain access to higher-education
and career opportunities given that employment rates are much higher for those with more
educational attainment.20 Unfortunately, because many of these opportunities are unavailable in
rural areas, 2 1 an .outmigration" effect of rural students leaving their communities has led to a decrease
in rural population, risking the long-term viability of rural communities. 22 Therefore, unlike all educators,
rural educators balance encouraging their students to seek these opportunities with the sustenance of their communities. 23

The viability of rural communities impacts our nation's viability because rural students
comprise a significant portion of this country's workforce. 2 4 If rural students leave their
communities without the proper education to participate in a modem economy, the United
States could remain at a national and global disadvantage. 25 There are incidents of a return-migration effect; 2 6
adults who left rural communities for college or bigger job opportunities decide for various reasons to return
home. They bring back with them "training to fill positions as doctors . . . lawyers . . . and
entrepreneurs . . . [and] translate their education and training into economic and social
benefits."27 However, in order for these individuals to even have the option to leave their
communities in the first place, they must be competitive applicants. Even those who do return did not do so
primarily to seek jobs, but more so for community or familial reasons.28

<economy impact>
8/28/17
 1NC Complexity K
The Affirmative’s carrot and stick reform relies on educational hard power – an
aggressive and prescriptive agenda that ignores the complexity of the system –
results in circumvention and educational setbacks – the alternative is educational
soft power – to influence, not control education.
Jochim 8/21/17 (Ashley, a senior research analyst at the Center on Reinventing Public
Education at the University of Washington, "What if Education Policy Were More Like
Astronomy? The Value of 'Soft Power'", Education Week, 8-21-2017,
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2017/08/what_if_education_policy_were
_more_like_astronomy_the_value_of_soft_power.html, DOA: 8-28-2017) //Snowball
Education policy turns out to be a poor substitute for the laws of Newtonian physics. Cause,
effect, and prediction are all elusive in the realm of school reform. Efforts to scale programs and
policies often end with disappointment, as optimism is quickly tempered by wide-ranging and disparate
results.
The limits on policymakers' ability to instill the types of ambitious changes they seek is aptly captured
by what Richard Elmore called the "noble lie" of public policy. Elmore argued that policymakers pretend they
can decide things. But in practice, they are unable to influence implementation because
educators and administrators possess significant discretion and are constrained by
countervailing organizational and political realities.
Education policy is less predictable because its impacts depend, in large part, on people:
teachers, principals, administrators, as well as parents, taxpayers, and citizens. These
individuals have varying capacities, commitments, and opinions and work in widely different environments.
Public policy attempts to reconcile this otherwise chaotic system by channeling people's effort
towards some common goals. But these are set via the political process and are often
compromised and ambiguous. Laws and regulations are then enforced by bureaucracies,
which have their own biases and are difficult for political leaders to control.
The end result is that government's formal powers are incomplete. Policymakers at all levels of
government have more authority than private citizens, control more money, and possess
enforcement powers that can exert influence. But these powers are modest compared to the
problems they seek to resolve and can be circumscribed by those inside and outside of government.
At this writing, Trump ostensibly holds the most powerful government office in the world, and yet, he's
learning that there's very little he can accomplish on his own. Congress, the courts, state and
local governments, and private citizens can block actions and actively undermine the
president's agenda. The less cooperation he receives, the less effective his formal powers become. As President Truman lamented with
the election of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, "He will say 'do this, do that,' and nothing will happen . Poor Ike-
-it won't be a bit like the Army. He'll find it very frustrating."

Like presidents, state

and district superintendents and administrators in state education agencies
and the U.S. Department of Education cannot be effective without gaining the cooperation of
others. Teachers, principals, central office staff members, board members, and interest
groups all have their own jobs to do and ways of ignoring or thwarting initiatives spawned
from Washington, DC, state capitols, and districts. Or to put it in the words of Renly Baratheon from Game of Thrones, "A man
without friends is a man without power."

In recent years, these

limits on government's formal powers have proven frustrating for those
who seek to leverage policy to support improvement in K-12 education. Reforms launched
from Washington, DC and state capitols on Common Core standards, teacher evaluation, and school
improvement have run aground in the face of states' and districts' uneven capacity and
varying commitment to the reform agendas advanced from elsewhere.
What's a policy wonk to do in the face of these dilemmas? One
answer is to demand more of those whose
cooperation policymakers require by becoming more prescriptive, less discretionary, and
more punitive. Such actions rely on what political scientist Joseph Nye called "hard power"—
carrots and sticks that coerce or compel people to change what they do. This strategy, emphasized under both Bush and Obama
and numerous state and district superintendents, can be effective at getting narrow compliance for a time, but
it comes with political costs. Just as threatening a wayward teenager can spur more rebellion, forcing states,
districts, and educators to do something that lacks buy-in can backfire disastrously, setting
reform back, rather than moving it forward.
Facing the limits of hard power, reform-minded policymakers ought to remember the
second kind of power described by Nye. "Soft power" enables officials to influence others
via "attraction"—i.e., by reshaping the agendas and preferences of others. Rather than forcing
someone to do something, soft power motivates people to act and to align their support
towards someone else's cause. This may seem like it's too good to be true, but it's far more common than it would appear. Traditional
public education institutions like locally elected school boards are buttressed in large part by soft
power: deeply engrained beliefs that such institutions are good, even when they do not benefit the
individuals directly. The Every Student Succeeds Act creates opportunities for soft power to work for reform. Financial
transparency requirements could be leveraged to build support for greater resource equity,
thereby disrupting the political juggernaut that has confronted those looking to address
funding inequities.
Wielded effectively, soft power might make education just a little like astronomy—exerting
forces akin to the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun. Without it, education policy
will remain vulnerable to the unpredictability that characterizes most human systems.
8/29/17
 Nuke Terror
Nuclear terrorism is feasible – weapons-usable material is everywhere – no
international obligations check – the impact is catastrophic.
Rohlfing et al. 16 (Joan, President of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, et al., "Global Dialogue on
Nuclear Security Priorities: Building an Effective Global Nuclear Security System", Nuclear
Threat Initiative, March 2016,
http://www.nti.org/media/pdfs/Global_Dialogue_Report_final.pdf?_=1458780838, DOA: 8-29-
2017) //Snowball
Minimizing or eliminating weapons-usable nuclear materials permanently reduces the risk of nuclear
terrorism because the more materials and sites, the greater the exposure to the risk of theft
or sabotage. Yet, today, there is no international obligation to minimize or eliminate holdings of
weapons-usable nuclear materials or radioactive sources, and there is no ready way to track what states are
doing in this regard, because few states disclose their holdings of these materials.

A major international program is working to phase out the civilian use of HEU and eliminate HEU holdings, but 24
countries still
possess either HEU or separated plutonium for civilian use, nuclear weapons purposes, or
both. Although the work to eliminate HEU from civilian use has been very successful, very little work has been
accomplished to address growing stocks of separated plutonium and the challenges related to plutonium
management.

More worrisome, although the number of countries with weapons-usable nuclear materials has decreased from 52 in 1991 to 24 today and overall
global stocks of weapons-usable nuclear materials have decreased in recent years, trends
indicate that global stocks are
expected to plateau or even increase in the immediate future. This is because six states have been
increasing their stocks of weapons-usable nuclear materials in the last few years (mostly increases
in separated plutonium in the nuclear energy sector, but also for weapons purposes in India, North Korea, and Pakistan) and the U.S.- Russia
HEU Purchase Agreement, which was responsible for a large portion of declining global stocks of HEU, ended in 2013.

sources that could be used to build a “dirty bomb” are found in almost
In addition, radioactive
every country in the world in unsecured facilities such as hospitals and universities. The
relevant international instrument, the Code of Conduct on the Safety and Security of Radioactive Sources, is not
universal and compliance is voluntary.
As long as these dangerous materials exist, the threat of nuclear or radiological terrorism
will persist. The only way to permanently reduce risk is to minimize and, where possible, eliminate
those materials.
8/30/17
 U.S. Soft Power
U.S. soft power is key to resolving violence in Africa and the Middle East.
LaFranchi 2/28/17 (Howard, Reporter and Diplomacy Correspondent, Christian Science
Monitor, "Trump signals a US shift from 'soft power' to military might", 2-28-2017,
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2017/0228/Trump-signals-a-US-shift-from-
soft-power-to-military-might, DOA: 8-30-2017) //Snowball
In recent years, soft power has been a crucial part of the US security toolkit as presidents have sought to make
military intervention more of an option of last resort.

Under President Obama in 2013, for example, then-Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power went to the
Central African Republic to help stop sectarian violence from turning into civil conflict
during a tense election campaign. And over the past decade, USAID has initiated programs in drought-sensitive
and conflict-prone pockets of Africa to help women farmers respond to food shortages that
otherwise might have meant destabilizing family displacement.

Military leaders have underscored the essential contribution that investments in soft power
make to US security. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s close working relationship with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was
well-known. And current Defense Secretary James Mattis told members of Congress in 2013, when he was commander of
US Central Command, “If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more
ammunition.”
On Monday, a group of more than 120 retired generals and admirals sent a letter with the same message to members of
Congress, saying “now is not the time to retreat” on State Department and USAID spending.
“We know from our service in uniform that many of the crises our nation faces do not have military
solutions alone,” the group said, citing examples ranging from “confronting violent extremist groups like
ISIS” to stabilizing weak states that, unaddressed, can lead to greater instability.
8/31/17
 Solving K-12 Racism K2 College
The plan has a spill-over effect into higher education – college underrepresentation
is a result of K-12 racism.
Finn and Wright 8/30/17 (Chester, Distinguished Senior Fellow and President Emeritus at
Fordham Institute, and Brandon, Editorial Director at Fordham Institute, "Diversifying our
selective colleges begins in kindergarten", EdExcellence, 8-30-2017,
https://edexcellence.net/articles/diversifying-our-selective-colleges-begins-in-kindergarten,
DOA: 8-31-2017) //Snowball
A recent New York Times analysis suggests that a
generation of policies meant to bring racial proportionality to
our selective colleges has failed. “Even after decades of affirmative action, black and Hispanic students are
more underrepresented at the nation’s top colleges and universities than they were 35 years ago,” declared the
authors.

In 2015, black and Hispanic students made up 15 and 22 percent of the U.S. college age
population, respectively, but just 8 and 14 percent of the enrollments at top universities. Those
gaps are wider today than in 1980—and, in the case of Hispanic students, the gap has tripled
over that time.

Yet these higher-education problems are a consequence and symptom of a systemic ailment that is
typically caught as soon as students of color enter the classroom. Some, of course, have been immunized before
they get there and some were hit well before kindergarten. For many, however, the K–12 system is where trouble begins.
“Elementary and secondary schools with large numbers of black and Hispanic students are
less likely to have experienced teachers, advanced courses, high-quality instructional
materials and adequate facilities,” writes the Times, citing data from the Office for Civil Rights.
These school-level deficiencies are legion and—at least vis-à-vis the vexing gaps in elite colleges—they do the
greatest harm to high-ability youngsters from disadvantaged circumstances, those being
the kids most likely to gain acceptance into top universities, provided their primary and
secondary schools cultivate their potential.
September
9/1/17
 Adv CP – Cooperative Federalism
Counterplan: Vice President Mike Pence should partner with the Office of
Management and Budget to reduce unnecessary requirements on state and local
governments, encourage a shift in federal focus from monitoring compliance to
tracking outcomes, and add incentives and flexibility to federal competitive and
formula grant programs for accountability, innovation, and evidence-based policy
from state and local governments.

Solves cooperative federalism.

Feldman 6/29/17 (Andrew, Former Expert at Brookings Institute, "A new way of working with
states and localities", Brookings, 6-29-2017, https://www.brookings.edu/research/a-new-way-of-
working-with-states-and-localities/, DOA: 9-1-2017) //Snowball
federal government’s
If you are a public manager at the state and local level, you have likely seen firsthand that the
relationship with state and local governments focuses on compliance, not outcomes. The
federal government needs a new relationship with states and localities that emphasizes evidence-
based approaches and flexibility in exchange for stronger accountability for results.
Why is this important? Because billions of grant dollars flow from the federal government to states and localities. Also, many federal
policies are implemented at the state and local levels. The federal government’s
relationship with states and localities is a critical opportunity to advance results-focused government. Yet
today, there are serious barriers to stronger state and local performance. In particular, the federal government:

has a heavy focus on tracking compliance with rules, not on accountability for results
too often does not encourage or require evidence-based approaches
makes it challenging for states and localities to address certain policy issues when there is a
maze of overlapping programs, each with different rules and reporting requirements
provides too few opportunities for states and localities to innovate to find new ways of tackling policy
challenges.
To significantly improve results in government, the nation needs to reinvent how the federal
government works with state and local governments around issues that cross federal
agency lines. Important improvements in this area will require a high-level champion in the Trump
administration to make those reforms a reality. As a former governor who has invested political capital in reforming government, Vice
President Mike Pence would be an ideal person to lead this effort. His office could partner
with the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which would bring unique
knowledge about agencies to the table and help institutionalize reforms beyond the Trump
administration.

GOALS OF THE INITIATIVE

Today, manyfederal programs and policies implemented at the state and local levels are
overly prescriptive, focused on compliance rather than outcomes, and have few incentives
for continuous improvement through the use of evidence and data. Because a significant portion of
federal policy is implemented at the state and local levels, making government more
results-focused cannot be done simply by changing internal federal operations. It also requires
giving state and local partners the ability and incentive to focus on results.

An intergovernmental reform initiative could work to:

reduce unnecessary requirements that inhibit state and local innovation
encourage a shift in focus from monitoring states’ and localities’ compliance to tracking outcomes
add incentives to federal competitive grant programs (which are smaller but more flexible than larger formula
grant programs) for states and localities to build and use evidence about what works

add incentives and flexibility in federal formula grant -programs—large funding streams that flow to states
and -localities—to focus those dollars on what works.
9/2/17
 Economy Turns Education/Equality
Economic decline turns education and equality – 2008 proves.
Barnum 8/30/17 (Matt, Reporter, "The Great Recession decimated the economy. It also hurt
student learning, according to pioneering new study", Chalkbeat, 8-30-2017,
https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2017/08/30/the-great-recession-decimated-the-economy-it-
also-hurt-student-learning-according-to-pioneering-new-study/, DOA: 9-2-2017) //Snowball
As the Great Recession was sending economic shockwaves through the country, it was also hurting student learning,
according to a new study.

Using a huge data set that included over 95 percent of the country’s public school students, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania
found that each year students spent in school during the recession hurt their reading and math
test scores.
The effects were modest in size — roughly equal to the impact of increasing class sizes by three to five students — but they
applied to a vast number of students.
Crucially, the
downturn didn’t affect all students equally: Test scores generally declined the most
in districts serving more disadvantaged students. More affluent districts, with many white students or few students
with disabilities, for example, often went unharmed.

“The adverse effects of the recession were concentrated among school districts serving
higher concentrations of low-income and minority students,” write researchers Matthew Steinberg and
Kenneth Shores. “The Great Recession exacerbated the inequality of student achievement
outcomes.”
Older students seem to have been affected the most, which is surprising in light of previous studies showing that young students are more
susceptible to economic trauma.

The new research, which has not been formally peer reviewed, appears to be the first to examine how the economic downturn affected student
learning.

To understand the cause and effect, the

study compares changes in achievement among groups of
students in districts most adversely affected by the recession to students in districts that
were relatively unaffected by the downturn. They look specifically at the effects of being in school during the 2007-08
and 2008-09 school years.

The study cannot conclusively identify why the recession influenced learning. But achievement
dropped more in schools
that had to lay off a large number of staff and had their funding slashed — a finding consistent with a
string of recent research showing that spending more on schools benefits students.

The research does not look at the post-Recession effects, when many districts and states made their deepest
cuts to school spending.
Students may also have been been affected by changes outside of school, such as a parent
losing their job. Past research has linked family income to student achievement.
The paper suggests the recession may have long-term economic consequences for affected students.
9/3/17
 School Choice Shouldn’t Be Federal
Federally provided school choice suffers extensive regulation and squashes
federalism – it should be controlled by the states.
Burke et al. 8/25/17 (Lindsey, Director, Center for Education Policy, "Keep the Federal
Government Out of School Choice", Heritage Foundation, 8-25-2017,
http://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/keep-the-federal-government-out-school-choice,
DOA: 9-3-2017) //Snowball
Trump deserves credit for seeing the need to weaken a government monopoly, let parents choose the best education for their unique children and
leave educators free to teach as they see fit. But there
is great risk in federalizing choice: He who pays the piper calls the
tune, and federal control could ultimately impose the same regulations on once-independent schools that
have stifled public institutions.

We can glimpse what that might look like in higher education, where federal student aid
makes schools and students dependent on Washington and drives the federal government’s regulatory tentacles
deep into the education system.
In the 1970-1971 academic year, total federal aid for higher educationwas just $16 billion. Today it is around $158 billion. In 1992-1993, 45
percent of full-time, full-year undergraduates used some form of federal aid. By 2011-2012, that share had jumped to nearly 73 percent.

Attached to all that aid are volumes of regulations that have increased in scope and
intrusiveness for years. There are rules eroding core legal protections for students accused of sexual misconduct and blunt measures of
school quality that fail to account for even basic variables such as the composition of a school’s student body or big state subsidies. And colleges
deal with a student body of adults — imagine the rules that could be instituted for children, who are not assumed to be capable of caring for
themselves.

Of course, lots of college aid comes in the form of grants and loans, while the K-12 proposal getting the most attention is a tax credit for
donating to organizations that provide scholarships. It’s appealing because it could fulfill Trump’s $20 billion promise without technically
increasing the debt-ridden federal budget.

But that setup would not be protected from regulation. College tax credits can be claimed only for expenditures on
accredited institutions, and the federal government regulates the accreditors. It is likely that a federal K-12 tax credit would
start with a similar thicket of requirements for accreditation or eventually end up there. If
something were to go wrong at even one or two schools accepting scholarship students, choice opponents and “accountability” hawks would
likely head right to the regulatory presses.

Of course, such regulation can happen at the state level. But that is where federalism — states and
Washington controlling different matters — can help. States are “laboratories of democracy.” They can try
different policies, and do so without exposing everyone to possible failure. States also
compete for residents and businesses, creating a much greater incentive to care about
efficient and effective policy than Washington has.
If the federal government delivered choice through a new nationwide model, it would likely
swamp these democratic labs and snuff out competition among differing choice policies,
including vouchers, education savings accounts and other ideas of which no one has yet dreamt.
9/4/17
 Credibility K2 Multi-polarity
U.S. hegemony is declining now – it’s only a question of the alternative – American
credibility is key to multi-polarity – without it, the world descends into regionalist
conflict.
Freeman 17 (Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr., Senior Fellow, the Watson Institute for
International and Public Affairs, Brown University, "Reimagining Great Power Relations",
Watson Institute, 9 March 2017,
http://watson.brown.edu/files/watson/imce/people/fellows/freeman/ReimaginingGreatPowerRela
tions.pdf, DOA: 9-4-2017) //Snowball
The Trump administration’s rejection of multilateralism marks a major step back from
international leadership by the United States. It signals that America no longer seeks to make and interpret
the rules that govern the world’s political, economic, and military interactions. Instead, Washington will seek
unilateral advantage through piecemeal bilateral deals. This pivot away from preeminence has created a geopolitical and
geoeconomic power vacuum into which other great powers are being drawn. Responsibility for
the maintenance of global political, economic, and military order is everywhere devolving to the regional
level.
Meanwhile, the United States is increasingly isolated on transnational issues. Official American antipathy to
science on climate change and similar issues has discredited the United States as a participant in
setting polices that address them. And Washington’s escalating disdain for the United Nations and
international law has delegitimized its role as the “world policeman.” The uncertainties inherent in this situation
are everywhere accelerating the formation of regional groupings. But, despite some stirring by China,
there is as yet no credible successor to the United States as a global order-setter.
The U.S. armed forces remain the only military establishment with global power projection
capabilities and experience in managing multinational coalitions. Generals and admirals bestride the highly militarized foreign policy apparatus
so thoroughly identify “power” as
of the United States government. This caps a longstanding trend. Americans
exclusively military in nature that it has been necessary to invent an academic concept of “soft power” to
embrace measures short of war like diplomacy.

But global military primacy no longer translates into political leadership at either the global or regional
levels. It doesn’t even guarantee dominance in the world's regions. Recent American military interventions
abroad have consistently evoked resistance that has frustrated the achievement of their goals. Unless tied
to clearly attainable political objectives, the use of force can accomplish little other than the slaughter of foreigners and the destruction of their
artifacts. This generates more blowback than security.

As American influence has receded, regional great powers like China, India, Iran, and Russia have begun
to consolidate regional state systems centered on themselves. This process was underway even before “America first”
impaired U.S. leadership by making American indifference to the interests and concerns of other countries officially explicit. America has
now chosen publicly to redefine itself internationally as the foreign relations equivalent of a
sociopath – a country indifferent to the rules, the consequences for others of its ignoring them, and the 1
reliability of its word. No nation can now comfortably entrust its prosperity or security to Washington,
no matter how militarily powerful it perceives America to be.

In the United States, there

has been a clear drift toward the view that outcomes, not due process,
are the sole criteria of justice. Procedures – that is, judicial decisions, elections, or actions by legislatures – no
longer confer legitimacy. The growing American impatience with institutions and processes is
reflected in the economic nationalism and transactionalism that now guide U.S. policy. Washington
now reserves the right to pick and choose which decisions by international tribunals like the World Trade Organization (WTO) it will follow or
ignore.

The idea that previously agreed arrangements can be abandoned or renegotiated at will has succeeded the principle of “PACTA SUNT
SERVANDA” (“agreements must be kept”). The
result is greatly reduced confidence not only in the
reliability of American commitments but also in the durability of the international
understandings that have constituted the status quo. In the security arena, this trend is especially pronounced with
respect to arms control arrangements. As an example,, Russia has cited American scofflaw behavior to justify its own delinquencies in Ukraine
and with respect to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

When a hegemon fails to pay attention to the opinions of its allies, dependencies, and client
states or to show its adversaries that it can be counted upon to play by the rules it insists they follow, it conjures up its own
antibodies. In the absence of empathy, there can be no mutual reliance or collective
security. Without confidence in the reliability of protectors or allies, nations must be ready to
defend themselves by themselves at any moment. If covenants are readily dishonored, the law offers no assurance of safety.
Only credible military deterrence can protect against attack.

The post-Cold War era began in 1990 when the international community came together to
affirm that the new order should not allow large states to use force to annex smaller, weaker
neighbors, as Iraq attempted to do with Kuwait. But the opening years of the 21st century have taught
small and medium-sized nations a different lesson. They have learned that to preclude threats to their independence
and territorial integrity from great powers they must either accommodate them, seek the protection of alliances with
others, or possess the capacity to inflict severe injury on any potential attacker, no matter how militarily powerful.

They have learned that there is no longer any security to be found in the United Nations
Charter or its decision-making processes. International law and vetoes in the U.N. Security Council did not protect Serbia from great
power intervention to detach Kosovo from it. Nor did opposition in the Security Council prevent the coercive separation of Crimea from Ukraine.
No one even bothers to mention international law in discussions of Syria, where external interventions to produce regime change have been
unabashedly overt. The old rules no longer provide security. They are increasingly ignored.
An Indian general remarked after the 1990-91 Gulf War that its lesson was clear. To be secure from attack by the United States one must possess
a nuclear deterrent. (Pakistan would no doubt say the same thing about India, as would some in Iraq and Iran about Israel.) Lacking nuclear
weapons, Iraq and Libya saw their governments overthrown and their leaders brutally murdered. Nuclear-armed North Korea – by any measure, a
far more dangerous regime – has so far been spared foreign attack. It is telling that every non-nuclear weapons state now allegedly attempting to
develop such weapons and related delivery systems (including north Korea) is said to be doing so to deter an attack by the United States. Not one
appears to be motivated by a desire to deter China, Europe's nuclear powers, India, Japan, Pakistan, or Russia.

Across the globe, the lessened security that results from the erosion of rule-bound order
has been compounded by hysteria over attacks by terrorists. The spread of Islamophobia has
paved the way for the revival of other forms of xenophobia, like racism and anti-Semitism. Illiberalism
looks like the wave of the future. We are witnessing the consolidation of national security-
obsessed garrison states.
Some sub-global powers -- like Iran, Turkey, Russia, and China -- are demanding deference to their power
by the countries in their “near abroad” or “near seas.” They thus negate the near-universal sphere
of influence that America asserted during the so-called “unipolar moment” of worldwide
U.S. hegemony that followed the Cold War. They are imposing their own military precautionary zones (“cordons
sanitaires”) to manage and reduce external threats from other powers. This pushback is resented by the
United States, which – with no sense of irony, given its own insistence on exclusive control of the Americas – charges them with
attempts to project illegitimate "spheres of influence" beyond their borders.
By disavowing longstanding U.S. commitments, the Trump administration has inadvertently confirmed foreign
doubts about American reliability. Efforts to allay these concerns have garnered little credence. The ebb of U.S.
influence is forcing countries previously dependent on Washington’s protection to make unwelcome choices
between diversifying their international relationships, decoupling their foreign policies from America's, forming
their own ententes and coalitions to buttress deterrence, or accommodating more powerful neighbors. Whatever mix of actions they choose, they
also boost spending to build more impressive armed forces.

Almost all countries still under U.S. protection continue to affirm their alliance with the United
States even as they ramp up a capacity to go it alone. Arms races are becoming the norm in most
regions of the world. Global military expenditures grew by fifty percent from 2001 to 2015.

Not long ago, geopolitics was largely explicable in bipolar terms of US-Soviet rivalry. After
a unipolar moment, the
political and economic orders have gone fractal – understandable only in terms of evolving complexities at the
regional or sub-regional level. Intra-regional rivalries now fuel huge purchases by middle-ranking powers of state-of-the-art weaponry produced
by the great powers. No
one should confuse increased weapons purchases with a deepening of
alliance commitments.
So, for example, Saudi Arabia’s arms purchases have tripled in the past five years. Trends in other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member
countries are similar. At the same time, the Gulf Arabs are reaching out to China, the EU, India, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, and Turkey and
convening pan-Muslim coalitions against Islamist terrorism and Iran. They have undertaken unprecedentedly unilateral and aggressive military
interventions in places like Libya, Syria, and Yemen. As they have done so, the countries of the Fertile Crescent – Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria –
have drawn ever closer to Iran. Iraqi Kurdistan has become a de facto Turkish dependency. Before a Western-supported coup ousted Ukraine’s
elected president , that country wobbled 2 between East and West but was on its way into the Russian embrace. The Philippines has distanced it
from the United States and bundled with China. So has Thailand. Myanmar and Vietnam, by contrast, are seeking partners to balance China. The
Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have doubled down on their reliance on NATO, which they joined in 2004 to secure their
independence from Russia. Cuba and Venezuela look to Russia and China for support against ongoing American policies of regime change.

Meanwhile, international governance of trade and investment continues to devolve to the

regional level and configure itself to supply chains. Examples include new trade pacts, like the RCEP, the Pacific
Alliance, and the Eurasian Economic Union; preexisting blocs like the 3 4 5 GCC, Mercosur, and the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization; as well as well-established 6 7 8 confederations like the 27-member post-Brexit EU and the Economic Community of West African
States (ECOWAS) . Each of these groupings has one or two heavyweight members at 9 its core, constituting a natural leadership.

Where such regional arrangements have been implemented, rules are made and enforced
without much, if any, reference to external powers. Thus, the EU has had no role to speak of in shaping relations between
Canada, Mexico, and the United States under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Conversely, the United States has
had very little say in decisions made in Brussels on rules for trade and investment in the EU and its
associated economies. Given the Trump administration’s aversion to multilateralism, the United States
will have no say at all in the standard-setting that will take place in either the RCEP or the 65-country pan-Eurasian
economic community that is beginning to emerge from China’s “belt and road” initiative. Regionalism limits the reach of
great powers. Bilateralism limits it even more.
The decentralization of authority over global economic, political, and defense issues represents a net loss
of influence by the U.S. and other great powers over the evolution of the international state
system. But it presents both a challenge and an opportunity for middle-ranking powers. On the
one hand, as U.S. and EU influence atrophies, they have an expanding role in international rule-making. On the other, they are now subject to
pressure from neighboring great powers that is unmoderated by any global rules.
9/6/17
 Education & Poverty
Education and poverty are in a self-reinforcing cycle – only funding and reforming
the K-12 system can overcome obstacles that trap families in poverty.
Taylor and Vollman 17 (Kelley, contributing writer for INSIGHT Into Diversity. Alexandra,
editor of INSIGHT Into Diversity. , "Poverty’s Long-Lasting Effects on Students’ Education and
Success", INSIGHT Into Diversity, 5-31-17, http://www.insightintodiversity.com/povertys-long-
lasting-effects-on-students-education-and-success/, DOA: 9-6-2017) //Snowball //rhetoric
modified
In 2015, approximately 20 percent of children in the United States lived in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That is to say, nearly
one in five children were part of a family — composed of two adults and two children — that had a household income of less than $24,339 a
year. Other data, pertaining to the federal government’s free and reduced lunch program, suggest that a staggering 51
percent of pre-K
through 12th grade students reside in low-income households. In both instances, the notion that
public school classrooms across the U.S. are replete with economically disadvantaged students
poses important questions and challenges.
Early and Lasting Effects

“The impact of poverty on a child’s academic achievement is significant and starts early,” says
Jonah Edelman, PhD, co-founder and chief executive officer of Stand for Children, a nonprofit education advocacy organization. “Young
children growing up in poverty face challenges with cognitive and literary ability and
[often] begin school both academically and socioeconomically behind their peers from higher-income
backgrounds.”

In its 2016 report, The Condition of Education, the

National Center for Education Statistics attributed living
in poverty during early childhood, in part, to lower levels of academic performance “beginning in
kindergarten and extending through elementary and high school.”
Beyond education-related deficiencies, low-income children can experience inadequacies with physical
and cognitive development and disparities regarding access to healthcare and to key
resources that help ensure success. Furthermore, data show that low-income students are five times more likely
to drop out of high school than those who are high-income and 13 times less likely to
graduate from high school on time.
For many of these young people, both their families’ financial situation and their experience in under-
resourced K-12 schools have long-term effects on their ability to enter and succeed in
postsecondary education, according to Watson Scott Swail, EdD, president and CEO of the Educational Policy Institute (EPI). EPI
is an international organization dedicated to expanding educational opportunities for low-income and other historically underrepresented students
through research and analysis.

“[These students] do not possess a good foundation of education ability, and college, for the most
part, isn’t on their agenda,” Swail says. “For those who do manage to go to college, they are, on
average, ill-prepared for the journey. Their poor academic preparation handicaps [hinders] them
the entire way, as do poor time-management and study skills.”
“One cannot dismiss the financial pressures facing these students as well,” he adds. “Even for those who
receive full Pell Grants and some institutional aid, that rarely provides enough to cover their needs,
and their families typically do not have the wherewithal to help. ”
The ability to earn a college degree matters because, in the United States, education is linked to
future earnings. The Pioneer Institute reports that two-thirds of those without a high school diploma
have an annual income of less than $25,000. And at a time when the demand by employers for a
college education is greater than ever before, according to The Century Foundation, even low-income
students who graduate from high school have low college enrollment and completion rates.
“There is more to prepping for college than completing high school,” says Swail, adding that many students from under-
resourced school districts get left behind. “The roads of higher education are littered with the corpses of low-income and
other students who are ill-prepared for the rigors of higher education, even when [those have] diminished over time. It’s a sad situation.”

Yet some school districts and organizations are working to improve the system to ensure better
outcomes for underserved and low-income students.

“To deal with the myriad issues that can accompany poverty, we must invest in high-quality early
education and the necessary supports in the public K-12 system,” says Edelman, who is working toward this end
through Stand for Children. Working in 21 states, Stand for Children’s efforts focus on promoting high-quality universal pre-kindergarten for all
children and ensuring that those in kindergarten through third grade can read well. The organization couples these early interventions with
dropout prevention efforts, career pathways, and academic acceleration programs to make sure students make it through high school.
9/7/17
 Patents Economy
Patents are key to innovation and competitiveness – long-term data trends.
Nicholas et al. 17 (Tom, Professor of Business Administration in the Entrepreneurial
Management Group of Harvard Business School, et al., "When America Was Most Innovative,
and Why", Harvard Business Review, 3-6-2017, https://hbr.org/2017/03/when-america-was-
most-innovative-and-why, DOA: 9-7-2017) //Snowball
The competitiveness of the U.S. economy depends on technological progress, but recent data
suggests that innovation is getting harder and the pace of growth is slowing down. A major challenge
in business and policy spheres is to understand the environments that are most conducive to
innovation. One way to do that is to look to history. In our research we focused on the golden age
of invention: the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when America became the world’s
preeminent industrial nation.
The golden age is associated with some of America’s leading technology pioneers, such as Thomas
Edison and Nikola Tesla in electrical illumination and Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray in telephony. Our analysis goes beyond these
well-known individuals. We
built a systematic data set that contains millions of patented inventions
and millions of individuals in Federal Censuses from 1880 to 1940. We
also linked patent data to state- and country-
level information. By analyzing this data, we were able to shed light on why the U.S. was so innovative.
The context for technological development was very different a century ago. For instance, in 1880 most inventive activity was the result of
inventors operating outside the boundaries of firms. Research laboratories, such as the famous one opened, in 1876, by Thomas Edison in Menlo
Park, New Jersey, were rare. From the middle of the 20th century, however, the modern corporation started to dominate patenting. By 2000
almost 80% of patents were assigned to inventors associated with firms.

Nevertheless, the impact of innovation on economic growth was typically large. The chart below
illustrates a strong relationship between patenting activity and GDP per capita at the state
level. It predicts that an innovative state like Massachusetts, which from 1900 to 2000 had four times as many
patents as a less innovative state, like Wyoming, would become 30% richer in terms of GDP per capita by 2000.
9/8/17
 AT: Hollow Hope – Disability
Hollow hope isn’t a reason to reject pragmatic reform – major rulings set precedent
for smaller victories.
Waterstone 14 (Michael, J. Howard Ziemann Fellow and Professor of Law, Associate Dean of
Research and Academic Centers, Loyola Law School Los Angeles, EMORY LAW JOURNAL
[Vol. 63:527, "DISABILITY CONSTITUTIONAL LAW", 2014,
http://law.emory.edu/elj/_documents/volumes/63/3/articles/waterstone.pdf, DOA: 9-8-2017)
//Snowball
Any arguments about disability constitutional law must be located within the context of modern
disability rights advocacy. Thus, I seek to place this project within the growing body of scholarship
demonstrating the crucial link between social movements and evolving notions of constitutional law.21
Disability constitutional law will not casually develop; it will only happen when movement lawyers
make a conscious decision to invest resources and manage the requisite legal risk. They have
good reason to be a skeptical audience: part of what I and others have shown in previous work is that disability cause lawyers are
quite pragmatic, and intensely focused on pursuing access to employment opportunities, government programs, and
privately owned places of public accommodation, not abstract pronouncements of constitutional rights.22 At the same time, a
move toward the courts to declare new constitutional rights has moved out of vogue amongst
progressive legal commentators, partially based on the perceived futility of litigating these cases in a conservative judicial
era23 and also in recognition of the “hollow hope” provided by Court victories.24

Despite this, operating within the practical nature of a highly evolved disability advocacy movement,
and incorporating the literature on dynamic constitutionalism, this Article offers an
optimistic (and hopefully realistic) assessment of what constitutional law could actually
accomplish for people with disabilities. LGBT advocates have been successful in securing
favorable decisions in lower courts, and most recently in the Supreme Court, in challenges to discriminatory
marriage laws. In hindsight, it is easy to examine how this political and judicial strategy has been successful. And while Windsor was
not a complete victory for the LGBT movement in the pursuit of marriage equality, and predictably did not result in a constitutional
renaissance of new protected classes, this decision and the lower court cases leading up to it did create
space in Equal Protection Clause jurisprudence.25 Disability cause lawyers should pay
careful heed, looking to adopt similar strategies as they are able.
 Student Protests Solve Neolib
Student protest combats racial inequality by sparking national dialogue leading to
cultural movements
Curwen 15 [ Thomas Curwen, Jason Song and Larry Gordon (reporters), "What's different about the latest
wave of college activism," LA Times, 11/18/2015] //Yan

Although some of the strategies may seem familiar, it is the speed and the urgency of today's protests
that are different. "What is unique about these issues is how social media has changed the way
protests take place on college campuses," said Tyrone Howard, associate dean of equity, diversity and
inclusion at UCLA. "A protest goes viral in no time flat. With Instagram and Twitter, you're in an
immediate news cycle. This was not how it was 20 or 30 years ago." Howard also believes that the
effectiveness of the actions at the University of Missouri has encouraged students on other
campuses to raise their voices. "A president stepping down is a huge step," he said. "Students elsewhere
have to wonder, 'Wow, if that can happen there, why can't we bring out our issues to the forefront as well?'"
Shaun R. Harper, executive director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for the Study of Race and
Equity in Education, agrees. The resignation of two top Missouri administrators, Harper said, showed
students and athletes around the country that they have power they may not have realized before. The
protests show "we're all together and we have the power to make the change we deserve,"
said Lindsay Opoku-Acheampong, a senior studying biology at Occidental. "It's affirming," said Dalin Celamy,
also a senior at the college. "It lets us know we're not crazy; it's happening to people who are just
like you all over the country." Celamy, along with other students, not only watched the unfolding
protests across the country, but also looked to earlier protests, including an occupation of an administrative
building at Occidental in 1968. Echoes of the 1960s in today's actions are clear, said Robert Cohen, a history
professor at New York University and author of "Freedom's Orator," a biography of Mario Savio, who led the
Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley in the 1960s. "The tactical dynamism of these nonviolent protests and
the public criticism of them are in important ways reminiscent of the 1960s," Cohen said. "Today's
protests, like those in the '60s, are memorable because they have been effective in pushing
for change and sparking dialogue as well as polarization." Although the targets of these protests are the
blatant and subtle forms of racism and inequity that affect the students' lives, the message of the
protests resonates with the recent incidents of intolerance and racial inequity on the streets
of America. There is a reason for this, Howard said. Campuses are microcosms of society, he said, and are
often comparable in terms of representation and opportunity. "So there is a similar fight for more
representation, acceptance and inclusion." The dynamic can create a complicated and sensitive social
order for students of color to negotiate. "Latino and African American students are often under the belief if
they leave their community and go to colleges, that it will be better," Howard said. "They believe it will be an
upgrade over the challenges that they saw in underserved and understaffed schools. But if the colleges and
universities are the same as those schools, then there is disappointment and frustration." In addition,
Howard said, when these students leave their community to go to a university, they often feel conflicted. "So
when injustice comes up," he said, "they are quick to respond because it is what they saw in their
community. On some level, it is their chance to let their parents and peers know that they have not forgotten
the struggle in the community." On campuses and off, Harper, of the University of Pennsylvania center, finds
a rising sense of impatience among African Americans about social change. "As a black person, I think black
people are just fed up. It's time out for ignoring these issues," he said. While protests in the 1960s helped
create specific safeguards for universities today, such as Title IX, guaranteeing equal access for all students to
any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance, a gap has widened over the years
between students and administrators over perceptions of bias. Institutions often valued for their support of
free speech find themselves wrestling with the prospect of limiting free speech, but to focus on what is or
isn't politically correct avoids the more important issue, Cohen said: whether campuses are diverse enough
or how to reduce racism. Occidental student Raihana Haynes-Venerable has heard criticism that modern
students are too sensitive, but she argues that subtle forms of discrimination still have a profound
effect. She pointed to women making less than men and fewer minorities getting jobs as examples. "This is
the new form of racism," she said.
9/10/17
 AT: U.S. Irredeemably White
America is not irredeemably racist – that conception of power naturalizes white
supremacy as transcendent rather than material.
Kaufman and Rubenstein 17 (Elliot, former editorial intern at National Review, and Adam,
most recently a Robert L. Bartley Fellow at the Wall Street Journal, "America the White?",
National Review, 9-7-2017, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/451149/whiteness-american-
history-education-discourse, DOA: 9-10-2017) //Snowball //modified for gendered langauge
If Western civilization were fundamentally and irredeemably racist, the Left would be right to
deplore it. But it isn’t, and they aren’t. The West is unique not for practicing slavery, which had been a
constant in human history, but for ultimately deciding to eradicate it. That Buchanan thinks the West is fundamentally racist
and praises it anyway is doubly condemnable.

“The old view,” according to Professor Allan Bloom, “was that, by recognizing and accepting [hu]man’s
natural rights, men [humans] found a fundamental basis of unity and sameness. Class, race,
religion, national origin or culture all disappear or become dim when bathed in the light of natural rights, which give men common interests and
make them truly brothers.”

The Left, however, rejected that vision as a charade, a mere cover for white, capitalist subjugation.
Led by Charles Beard, the Left endeavored to prove that the Constitution was really organized to
defend the class interests of the wealthy Framers. Worse, they claimed, the country was, is, and will
always be racist. Consider Ta-Nehisi Coates:
Plunder of black life was drilled into this country in its infancy and reinforced across its history, so that plunder has become an
heirloom, an intelligence, a sentience, a default setting to which, likely to the end of our days, we must invariably return.

On this reading, racism

and whiteness come alive, acting through Western and American history
as transcendent, irrepressible forces with wills of their own. Like God, whiteness can be
found in everything, all the time, though often only the elect can see it.
9/11/17
 AT: Test Scores / Economy
Their test scores arguments are fiction – no economic causation and they’ve been
improving.
Christakis 17 (Erika, author of The Importance of Being Little: What Young Children Really
Need From Grownups, "Americans Have Given Up on Public Schools. That’s a Mistake.",
Atlantic, October Issue, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/the-war-
on-public-schools/537903/, DOA: 9-11-2017) //Snowball
Not only is the idea that American test scores were once higher a fiction, but in some cases they
have actually improved over time, especially among African American students. Since the early
1970s, when the Department of Education began collecting long-term data, average reading and math scores for 9- and 13-
year-olds have risen significantly.

These gains have come even as the student body of American public schools has expanded to
include students with ever greater challenges. For the first time in recent memory, a majority of U.S.
public-school students come from low-income households. The student body includes a
larger proportion than ever of students who are still learning to speak English. And it
includes many students with disabilities who would have been shut out of public school
before passage of the 1975 law now known as the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, which guaranteed all children a
“free appropriate public education.”

The fantasy that in some bygone era U.S. test scores were higher has prevented us from
acknowledging other possible explanations for America’s technological, scientific, and cultural
preeminence. In her 2013 book, Reign of Error, Diane Ravitch—an education historian and former federal education official who
originally supported but later became a critic of reforms like No Child Left Behind—cites surprising evidence that a
nation’s higher position on an international ranking of test scores actually predicted lower
per capita GDP decades later, compared with countries whose test scores ranked worse. Other findings complicate the picture,
but at a minimum we can say that there is no clear connection between test scores and a nation’s economic
success. Surely it’s reasonable to ask whether some of America’s success might derive not from factors measured
by standardized tests, but from other attributes of our educational system. U.S. public
schools, at their best, have encouraged a unique mixing of diverse people, and produced an
exceptionally innovative and industrious citizenry.
9/12/17
 AT: Constitution Checks Trump
Even if the Constitution checks Trump in the stable status quo, it’s getting weaker
and won’t check a crisis.
Goldsmith 17 (Jack, professor at Harvard Law School and a senior fellow at the Hoover
Institution, "Will Donald Trump Destroy the Presidency?", Atlantic, October Issue,
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/will-donald-trump-destroy-the-
presidency/537921/, DOA: 9-12-2017) //Snowball
To that depressing conclusion I will add another. The relatively hopeful parts of the analysis offered here—that
the
Constitution has prevented presidential law-breaking, and that most of Trump’s norm
violations will not persist—rest on a pair of assumptions that have so far prevailed but that might not
hold in the future. The first is that Trump’s presidency, which has accomplished little, will continue to
fail and that he will not be reelected. But it is conceivable that he will turn things around—
for example, by pulling off tax and infrastructure reform and putting Kim Jong Un in a box—and win the 2020 election, perhaps in
a three-way race. If Trump succeeds and makes it to a second term, his norm-breaking will be seen to
serve the presidency more than it does today. If that happens, the office will be forever changed, and not for the
better.

The second assumption is that the country is fundamentally stable. In Trump’s first seven months in
office, the stock market boomed and the United States faced no full-blown national-security crisis. But what if the economy
collapses, or the country faces a major domestic terrorist attack or even nuclear war? What
if Mueller finds evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians—and Trump fires not just Mueller but also scores
of others in the Justice Department, and pardons himself and everyone else involved? These are not
crazy possibilities. The Constitution has held thus far and might continue to do so under more-
extreme circumstances. But it also might not.
9/13/17
 AT: CTE Economy
Even if CTE has short-term benefits for workers, it ultimately makes them
uncompetitive because they never learn the skills to adapt.
Barnum 17 (Matt, Writer, "The Long-Term Downside to a Bipartisan Education Initiative",
Atlantic, 6-6-2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/06/the-downside-to-
career-and-technical-education/529161/, DOA: 9-13-2017) //Snowball
Trump’s budget actually cuts CTE funding, but, at least in theory, there’s wide support across the ideological spectrum for
helping more students learn career-specific skills in high school.

Yet new international research points to a significant downside of such programs: Students may benefit
early in their careers, but are harmed later in life as the economy changes and they lack the
general skills necessary to adapt.

The study raises concerns about the trade-offs that could come with significantly expanding career
and technical training in the United States—at least any version that substitutes for broad knowledge
and skills transferable across jobs.

“Individuals with general education initially face worse employment outcomes but experience
improved employment probability as they become older relative to individuals with
vocational education,” write four researchers in the study, which appeared in the winter 2017 issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of
Human Resources.

Many European and developing countries provide extensive vocational education, including apprenticeships with involvement from industry, the
authors note. That stands in contrast with the U.S., which has reduced or eliminated separate vocational tracks in most high schools.

Looking at 11 European countries, the researchers compared students within the same country who went on the vocational track to similar
students who went through a general-education program. (The study excludes women, citing changes over time in their likelihood of participating
in the workforce.)

The takeaway is that although vocational students make higher salaries and are more likely to be employed as
young adults, that advantage fades over time; by their late forties, those who went through a general education
program have higher employment rates. Those findings were confirmed with more granular data from Germany
and Austria.

“The advantages of vocational training in smoothing entry into the labor market have to be set against
disadvantages later in life,” the study concludes.
9/14/17
 CP Must Use USFG
In order to present an opportunity cost, a counterplan must use the same actor as
the plan.
Yip 99 (David, MPhil - Accounting @ University of London, "A Critical Review of the
Opportunity Cost Concept", London School of Economics, 1999, etheses.lse.ac.uk/3053/, DOA:
9-14-2017) //Snowball //gendered rhetoric modified
Opportunity costs exist when there are at least two courses of action, and the decision
maker can select either course of action as his [its] own choice. The value of the rejected
choice is sacrificed or given up by the decision maker, and this sacrificed value is the
(opportunity) cost of the choice. Thus, it is not crucial what “accounting costs (the calculation of transacted or recorded costs as
appeared in the cost accounts) are incurred for the selected choice, rather it is crucial to know what value has been
given up by rejecting other choices (Thirlby 1946).

Even if the counterplan is competitive and theoretically legitimate, it’s not an

opportunity cost and doesn’t disprove the Affirmative.
9/15/17
 2AC Link Turn – F-ism
The Affirmative increases federalism and it’s not zero-sum.
Marsh and Wohlstetter 13 (Julie, University of Southern California–RSOE, and Priscilla,
Teachers College, Columbia University, "Recent Trends in Intergovernmental Relations: The
Resurgence of Local Actors in Education Policy", Consortium for Policy Research in Education,
June/July 2013, http://www.cpre.org/sites/default/files/journal/1494_wohlstetter2.pdf, DOA: 9-
15-2017) //Snowball
Relationships between the federal, state, and local governments greatly shape education policy
in the United States. Continually shifting over time, intergovernmental relations (IGR) have been the object of much
attention in academic and policy circles. These relationships have also sparked perennial debates over questions of who
should decide what is taught and tested in our schools, and what level of government should be
responsible for matters of standards, curriculum, testing, and accountability.
In recent years, considerable attention has been devoted to the expanded federal role in
education. Scholars have touted federal reforms such as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) as “far-
reaching” (Hess & Petrilli, 2006, p. 2) and “the greatest extension to date of federal authority over
public school governance” (McDermott & Jensen, 2005, p. 39). Others have characterized the Obama
administration’s recent policy initiatives as having “moved the boundaries of federalism” (Viteritti,
2012, p. 2117). Often accompanying these observations, however, is an assumption that expansion of
federal authority translates into an inexorable, one-way loss of power from state and local
governments. In this essay, we challenge this assumption, arguing that recent trends in
education policy have led us to rethink where power is located. The evidence points to a different conclusion:
Federal efforts to exert more control in education policy have in many ways strengthened
the influence of local actors by providing avenues for local players to challenge traditional
governance arrangements.
9/20/17
 Politics Card
The federal agenda is blocked by high levels of partisanship – only education reform
will revive it.
Simon 9/20/17 (Liz, General Counsel & Vice President of External Affairs at General
Assembly and a former Obama Administration official, "A Bright Spot for Bipartisanship?",
RealClearEducation, 9-20-2017,
http://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2017/09/20/a_bright_spot_for_bipartisanship_11020
4.html, DOA: 9-20-2017) //Snowball
These days, itdoesn’t seem like there’s much our politicians agree on. Partisanship in Washington has
reached the highest levels in decades. We don’t see eye-to-eye on what sort of health care Americans
deserve and who deserves it. Momentum for once-inevitable tax reform appears to have slowed, and
plans for a major infrastructure project, where there was early hope for bipartisan
collaboration, feel out of reach.
Yet, there’san odd sort of bipartisan convergence happening in the world of education and
workforce development. Because, as the specter of mass technological unemployment heightens
concerns that our education and training systems can’t keep up, politicians on both sides of the
aisle are taking steps toward action.
9/21/17
 AT: Teacher Circumvention
Teachers won’t circumvent because they get systematically evaluated and have
incentives for compliance.
Rosen and Parise 17 (Rachel, Research Associate, and Leigh, Education Policy Researcher,
"USING EVALUATION SYSTEMS FOR TEACHER IMPROVEMENT", MDRC, March
2017, https://www.mdrc.org/sites/default/files/iPD_ESSA_Brief_2017.pdf, DOA: 9-21-2017)
//Snowball
While NCLB itself did not explicitly require teacher evaluations, federal initiatives during the NCLB era — including Race to the Top and NCLB
waivers — gave states and districts strong incentives to revamp their teacher evaluation systems.3 As a result, the
last decade has
seen sharp increases in the number of states in which teachers are evaluated annually, as well as in the
number of states that include evidence of student learning in their teacher evaluations.4

Although ESSA contains no specific requirements concerning teacher evaluations, the law does allow states and districts to
use Title II improvement funds to invest in evaluation systems.5 In addition, because ESSA requires states to
ensure that their efforts give disadvantaged students equal access to effective teachers, it is likely that states will continue to use
existing systems to document teacher effectiveness.6 Finally, ESSA also encourages states and districts to
develop career ladders for teachers, and although it does not say so explicitly, it implies that states and
districts may use existing evaluation frameworks to identify teachers who would be suited
for leadership roles.7 For these reasons, the strong teacher evaluation systems that are now widespread are unlikely
to disappear. In fact, because many of these systems focus on providing teachers with feedback on their
performance, they can also be used to meet ESSA’s new goals.8 Additionally, research evidence suggests that when teacher evaluations give
teachers information intended to help them grow professionally, students benefit.9 In other words, there are many reasons that
districts may continue investing in systems to foster professional growth.
9/22/17
 Nukes → Extinction
Nuclear war kills everything.
Gorman 17 (Peter, MD, MS, associate professor of Neurology at the University of Maryland
School of Medicine, "Nuclear War Is Not Good For Your Health", HuffPost, 4-20-2017,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nuclear-war-is-not-good-for-your-
health_us_58f8f840e4b00fa7de1235a0, DOA: 9-22-2017) //Snowball
When a nuclear bomb explodes, it unleashes a cascade of five massively destructive effects: an initial blast wave,
an electromagnetic pulse, a thermal wave, a radiation burst, and radioactive fallout. The blast wave
creates an enormous wind that travels at supersonic speeds outward in all directions from ground zero, destroying all
people, animals and buildings for miles. Those who aren’t killed by the initial blast will be in
mortal danger from flying debris. The electromagnetic pulse can damage electronic devices over an enormous
area, possibly hundreds of miles; this may disrupt all electrical power and all forms of modern communication.
The explosion also causes a thermal wave that has a temperature of 10 million degrees Centigrade or
higher; this completely incinerates anything close to ground zero, causes severe burns to anyone within several miles,
and has the potential to trigger enormous fires. The intense light from this thermal blast causes retinal
burns in anyone looking directly at it, even those who are miles away.
Finally, fallout, radioactive dust and particles from
the explosion, floats downwind of ground zero; wherever the wind
takes the fallout, people suffer damaged immune systems and an increased cancer risk. If there are multiple bombs,
with multiple fallouts, the food supply around the world could be contaminated. In areas further from the blast,
contamination of the water supply and disruption of sanitation systems would raise the risk of
infectious disease outbreaks.

What could the health care system do after a nuclear explosion? Very little. In the immediate area, hospitals
would be destroyed, and doctors and other health care workers would be dead. There would be little or
no remaining equipment, supplies, or medicine, even morphine for the victims suffering unspeakable pain. Movement of
casualties would be extremely difficult.

There is an even darker scenario, one that makes questions about medical care superfluous. If as few as 100 bombs were to explode over densely-
populated cities, soot
from the resulting fires would enter the upper atmosphere and lead to global
cooling for a decade or more—resulting in a nuclear winter. If the United States and Russia use their several thousand
weapons, the planet will cool dramatically, likely leading to a mass extinction and the end of
civilization and life as we know it.
All of this information is well-known and scientifically validated. It is not controversial. The
severity of effects differs depending on the particular scenario, but the undeniable fact is that nuclear war poses a
grave and present danger to our planet.
9/26/17
 LD – Security Link
The Affirmative justifies a permanent state of militarism with a fragile and
rationalistic conception of war and politics that automatically justifies warfare
against distant yet existential threats to national security.
Burke 7 (Anthony, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at UNSW, Sydney,
"Ontologies of War: Violence, Existence and Reason", Accessed on Academia, 2007, DOA: 9-
26-2017) //Snowball
When such a theory takes the form of a social discourse (which it does in a general form) such
an ontology can only support,
as a kind of originary ground, the basic Clausewitzian assumption that war can be a rational way of resolving
political conflicts -- because the import of Schmitt's argument is that such 'political' conflicts are ultimately
expressed through the possibility of war. As he says: 'to the enemy concept belongs the ever-present possibility of
combat'.37 Where Schmitt meets Clausewitz, as I explain further below, the existential and rationalistic ontologies of
war join into a closed circle of mutual support and justification.
This closed circle of existential and strategic reason generates a number of dangers. Firstly, the emergence of
conflict can generate military action almost automatically simply because the world is conceived
in terms of the distinction between friend and enemy; because the very existence of the other constitutes
an unacceptable threat, rather than a chain of actions, judgements and decisions. (As the Israelis insisted of Hezbollah, they 'deny
our right to exist'.) This effaces agency, causality and responsibility from policy and political discourse: our actions
can be conceived as independent of the conflict or quarantined from critical enquiry, as necessities that achieve an instrumental purpose but do
not contribute to a new and unpredictable causal chain. Similarly the
Clausewitzian idea of force -- which, by transporting a
Newtonian category from the natural into the social sciences, assumes the very effect it seeks -- further encourages
the resort to
military violence. We ignore the complex history of a conflict, and thus the alternative paths to its resolution
that such historical analysis might provide, by portraying conflict as fundamental and existential in nature; as possibly
containable or exploitable, but always irresolvable. Dominant portrayals of the war on terror, and the Israeli-Arab conflict, are
arguably examples of such ontologies in action.

Secondly, the
militaristic force of such an ontology is visible, in Schmitt, in the absolute sense of vulnerability
whereby a people can judge whether their 'adversary intends to negate his [their]
opponent's way of life'.38 Evoking the kind of thinking that would become controversial in the Bush doctrine, Hegel similarly
argues that:

...a state may regard its infinity and honour as at stake in each of its concerns, however minute,
and it is all the more inclined to susceptibility to injury the more its strong individuality is impelled as
a result of long domestic peace to seek and create a sphere of activity abroad. .... the state is in essence mind and therefore
cannot be prepared to stop at just taking notice of an injury after it has actually occurred. On the
contrary, there arises in addition as a cause of strife the idea of such an injury...39

Identity, even more than physical security or autonomy, is put at stake in such thinking and can be defended and
redeemed through warfare (or, when taken to a further extreme of an absolute demonisation and dehumanisation of the other, by mass
killing, 'ethnic cleansing' or genocide). However anathema to a classical realist like Morgenthau, for whom prudence was a core political virtue,
these have been influential ways of defining national security and defence during the twentieth century and
persists into the twenty-first. They infused Cold War strategy in the United States (with the key policy document NSC68 stating that 'the Soviet-
led assault on free institutions is worldwide now, and ... a defeat of free institutions anywhere is a defeat everywhere')40 and frames dominant
Western responses to the threat posed by Al Qaeda and like groups (as Tony Blair admitted in 2006, 'We
could have chosen
security as the battleground. But we didn't. We chose values.')41 It has also become influential, in a particularly
tragic and destructive way, in Israel, where memories of the Holocaust and (all too common) statements by Muslim and Arab leaders rejecting
Israel's existence are mobilised by conservatives to justify military adventurism and a rejectionist policy towards the Palestinians.

On the reverse side of such ontologies of national insecurity we find pride and hubris, the belief that martial
preparedness and action are vital or healthy for the existence of a people. Clausewitz's thought is thoroughly imbued
with this conviction. For example, his definition of war as an act of policy does not refer merely to the policy of cabinets, but expresses the
objectives and will of peoples:

When whole communities go to war -- whole peoples, and especially civilized peoples -- the reason
always lies in some political situation and the occasion is always due to some political object. War, therefore,
is an act of policy.42
Such a perspective prefigures Schmitt's definition of the 'political' (an earlier translation reads 'war, therefore, is a political act'), and
thus creates an inherent tension between its tendency to fuel the escalation of conflict and
Clausewitz's declared aim, in defining war as policy, to prevent war becoming 'a complete, untrammelled,
absolute manifestation of violence'.43 Likewise his argument that war is a 'trinity' of people (the source of 'primordial violence,
hatred and enmity'), the military (who manage the 'play of chance and probability') and government (which achieve war's
'subordination as an instrument of policy, which makes it subject to reason alone') merges the existential and rationalistic
conceptions of war into a theoretical unity.44
9/28/17
 AT: Native Consult
Consultation is insincere and ignores Native interests and sovereignty.
Stone 11 (Sarah, University of Massachusetts – Amherst, Honors Thesis, "American Indian
Education: How Assimilation Decreases Retention", Commonwealth Honors College, August
2011 ,
http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&amp;context=chc_theses,
DOA: 9-28-2017) //Snowball
Negative Effects of Governmental Action

the government has also

Just as the government has created programs that are beneficial to American Indian education and retention,
created programs that encourage assimilation of American Indian students into
mainstream American culture. As previously mentioned enforcing testing in the school systems encourages the assimilation of
all students into a culture of testing (Forbes). The recent increase of testing practices increased with the Bush administration‟s passing of the No
Child Left Behind Act, a policy that specifically goes against the Indian Education act of 1972. The Indian Education Act focused on the
uniqueness of American Indian students (U.S. Department of Education). The No
Child Left Behind Act focuses on standards that
need to be met in education by all students (Williams). This lumps American Indian students with students of all
other ethnicities and cultures. These standards, however, do not include aspects from the cultures of the American Indian
students, and by making the standard resemble a different culture, the No Child Left Behind Act forces assimilation of the American Indian
student into Anglo-American culture.

The No Child Left Behind Act

President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act on January 8, 2002. It states:
It is the policy of the United States to fulfill the Federal Governments unique and continuing trust relationship
with and responsibility to the Indian people for the education of Indian children. The Federal Government will continue to work
with local educational agencies, Indian tribes and organizations… (Reyhner, Education and
Language 81).

This declaration directly goes against the recent relationship between federal government and Indian
sovereignty that granted American Indians full control over their education. Additionally, the No
Child Left Behind Act focuses on English only learning which contradicts the Native American Language Act signed in 1990, by President Bush.
This act stated that it was the “policy of the United States to preserve, protect, and promote the rights and freedoms of Native Americans to use,
practice, and develop Native American languages (Swisher 117). The No Child Left Behind Act undid this policy with its focus of English only
learning (Lomawaima and McCarty 151). Not
only does the Act go against several past legislative policies,
it also does not have the American Indian students‟ best interests at heart. It is felt that the new laws
are unrealistic for reservation schools and will only increase the gap between American Indian students and their white peers (Williams).
Financially, the No Child Left Behind Act again hurts American Indians by requiring teacher and paraprofessional training which is expensive
and time consuming. Although the Lumina Foundation gave $325,000 to the American Indian College Found for such training, donations such as
this are rare and only go so far (Williams). Governmentally, academically, and financially, the No Child Left Behind Act greatly and negatively
affect American Indian education by encouraging assimilation into American culture.

Chapter Summary

Although the United States government has made an effort to improve the education of
American Indians by incorporating American Indian culture, the government has also increased means of
assimilating the American Indian. This demonstrates how the government wants to appear as if it is
helping the American Indian, when in reality, the government is not very different now
than it was back when Indian boarding schools were popular. Assimilation is still a big part of American
Indian education and until this is dealt with retention of American Indian students will also be a problem. Hopefully, with President Obama‟s
plan to replace the No Child Left Behind Act with the “Race to the Top” plan as described in his State of the Union speech in 2011, American
Indian education will improve (Obama)