Verbatim Mac - resources.chicagodebates.org · Web viewThe Negative defines the word “Regulations” from the resolution as being a “mandatory requirement. ... This Kritik draws

CDL/CMSDL Core Files Summaries 2017-2018

CORE FILES SUMMARIESNote: these summaries are NOT Core Files and are NOT meant to be read out-loud in the debate as the Core Files are. These are merely background materials meant to aid comprehension and to help coaches and debaters to get introduced to the overall story and context of each argument in the Core Files. You might want to use some of the explanations in helping students to write out analysis and extensions for later speeches (particularly for Framework and the Classroom Kritik) and are welcome to do so, but they are not structured as being ready to read in a debate.

English Language Learners Aff......................................................................................2English Language Learners Neg...................................................................................3Federal Funding Inequality AFF....................................................................................4Federal Funding Inequality Negative..........................................................................5STEM AFF..............................................................................................................................6STEM Negative....................................................................................................................7Topicality – “Regulations” (vs. Funding Inequality)...............................................8Answering Funding Inequality Topicality..................................................................9Topicality – “Substantial” (vs. English Language Learners).............................10Answering English Language Learners Substantial Topicality.......................11Topicality – “USFG”/“Its” (vs. STEM)........................................................................12Answering STEM Topicality..........................................................................................13Federalism DA - Negative..............................................................................................14Answering Federalism DA - Affirmative....................................................................15States Counter Plan..........................................................................................................16Answering States CP........................................................................................................18Military Trade Off DA......................................................................................................19Answering Military Trade-Off DA................................................................................20

HIGH SCHOOL ONLY SUMMARIES:............................................................................21

Charter Schools AFF........................................................................................................22Charter School Negative................................................................................................23Topicality – “Regulation” (vs. Charters)...................................................................25Answering Charter Regulation Topicality................................................................26Classroom K.........................................................................................................................27Answering Classroom K..................................................................................................29Framework...........................................................................................................................30Answering Framework....................................................................................................31

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English Language Learners Aff Summary: US schools have not been educating our youth in different languages, emphasizing English-only education. This lack of truly bilingual education makes our youth less competitive in our growing and diverse workforce. The Every Student Succeeds Act has increased funding for English Learners but with no federal direction. The Affirmative Plan mandates that any state receiving funding for ELL will use the funds to increase Dual Language Immersion Programs. These programs help educate future generations for the changing global economy. It also helps break down borders between people and unite them through sharing different languages.

Harms - American Economy: As the workforce expands, the US needs more bilingual employees to fill demand. Some of the top global companies are recruiting more and more bilingual individuals to meet their customer's needs. Education and retention of bilingual speakers helps the US expand its markets and customer base outside of the English speaking realm. Bilingual speakers become more attractive to global businesses as opposed to local employers. The increase of bilingual workers fills the gaps in the US economy. Economic growth and efficiency prevents economic downturns and prevents countries from engaging in nuclear war.

Harms - American Racism: Historically, English-only initiatives have been rooted in racist policies, from ideas that there are cultural threats posed by Spanish-speaking to signs outright banning different languages. Dual Language programs counter that ideology and creates benefits to educating children in different languages. Students do not have to feel different or shameful for speaking different languages because their entire school does. These programs could help unite and expand interactions between different students. As a society, we have a moral obligation to address and speak out against racism. Racism leads to more violence and exclusion if we don’t take a stance against it at every instance.

Solvency: Dual Language Immersion programs help non-English speakers ease into learning English. English Language Learners will not learn English in a day, it will take time, but Dual Language Immersion is more sustainable and studies show ELL students will outperform similar peers by middle school.

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English Language Learners Neg 1NC Harms - American Economy:

Defensive arguments:

There’s no real risk of the economic downturn the Affirmative claims might happen. The US job market has been steadily increasing, reaching an all-time unemployment low of 4.4%.

Many Latinos are already bilingual. More children of Latinos are retaining Spanish, increasing the chances of future generations retaining bilingualism, too.

Finally, history shows that economic decline hasn’t lead to international wars.

1NC Harms - American Racism:

Offensive arguments: Turn

Dual language immerstion schools are magnets for privileged families, leading to gentrification of schools and neighborhoods, and taking up resources that won’t help immigrant students.

Gentrification displaces lower-class and/or people of color from their communities and culture.

Solvency:

Offensive arguments: Turns

English-Only programs are more beneficial in the short term for students to learn English and do well in school. Studies prove ELL students increased their test scores and performance after having to learn in English sooner.

Bilingual education is not effective and is far more expensive, wasting time and money that could go to programs that work.

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Federal Funding Inequality AFF

Summary: This Affirmative seeks to establish grant incentives around Title I within a progressive funding model to establish equal access to resources across state and district lines. This is essential to fight poverty and systemic racial bias in resource allocation.

Inherency: Lack of unified federal funding now to deal with achievement stratification that affects people of color.

Harms - Poverty: Poverty is runaway in the status quo and that is ever apparent in schools. This culture of poverty leads to skewed life chances and inadequate access to basic survival needs. This situation culminates in mass structural inequity and is unethical.

Harms - Racism: Lack of resources in public education is entrenched in racism that must be overcome for the betterment of the life chances of students of color. Resource inequity perpetuates racist ideology that must be reversed through the Affirmative’s incentive structure

Solvency: The Affirmative reform of resource allocation represents the best chance for equity in schools and addresses the funding disparity across state and district lines through federal oversight and regulation

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Federal Funding Inequality Negative

1NC Harms – Racism:


First, we have alternate causality arguments, which basically make the argument that there are other forms of systematic injustice that the plan doesn’t resolve that are more central issues of racism. For instance, police brutality or housing segregation outweigh the need for equality in school through funding.

We also argue that money doesn’t solve racism within schools.

Finally, we read evidence arguing that even with many examples of racism today, overall the data shows that racism has declined over the years.

1NC Harms - Poverty:


First, we argue that global poverty and inequality is declining and will decline even further.

We also argue that the existing social safety net helps people out of poverty, regardless of the education system’s problems.

Offensive arguments:

We argue a turn that says there’s already more money for students of color now in our education system and that more funding will be mismanaged by bureaucrats.

1NC Solvency:


First, we have a chicken-or-egg argument: it’s not a lack of education that causes poverty, it’s poverty that makes it difficult for students to benefit from education.

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We also say that simply allocating money toward the poor doesn’t specifically help students of color – much of the money goes toward rural school districts without students of color.

Offensive arguments:

We have a Solvency Turn, which says regulations would lead to tax increases, which inevitably lead to teacher cuts and the poorest students losing out once again.

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STEM AFF Summary: This Affirmative argues we need to orient our resources and teaching around Science and Mathematics to make ensure the United States is producing students prepared to participate successfully in the global economy. This is necessary for the United States to maintain hegemony and use technology to resolve problems like global warming.

Inherency: There is no federal mandate for common curriculum regarding Mathematics and Science education. The Department of Education just requires that testing take place, but fails to establish a benchmark for proficiency and improvement in students in the subjects of Mathematics and Science.

Plan Text: The affirmative uses Title I as the mechanism to get states to adopt Next Generation Science Standards for elementary schools and high schools.

Advantage 1: Hegemony The technology sector is increasing rapidly, but we don’t have enough educated workers to meet the demand. This hurts our ability to compete internationally versus other countries with strong STEM education. Failing global economic competitiveness in technology leads to these other countries eclipsing American hegemony and results in geopolitical instability throughout the globe, causing everything from nuclear proliferation to armed conflict.

Advantage 2: Warming Dealing with runaway global warming requires massive investments in technology at multiple levels. First, in terms of adaption, the effects of a warming planet will require major changes in infrastructure, especially in coastal cities to make those areas livable, and most major cities will require innovative solutions in facing more intense natural disasters, hotter summers and colder winters. This requires having the best and brightest leading innovation in this sector. Another important aspect of dealing with climate change is geo-engineering. This area of technology is essential in potentially removing carbon gases trapped within the atmosphere, which is essential to develop to reverse the amount of greenhouses gases stored and produce significant results in the fight against climate change.

Solvency: NGSS sets up a standard achievement benchmark in the area of Science and Mathematics. This is to make sure students are on track to be able to compete in the global marketplace and lead

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American innovation, preserving American hegemony and allowing us to successfully face the global warming crisis.

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STEM Negative Hegemony 1NC Harms Answers:


The main defensive argument we’re making here is that more students are earning STEM certification in status quo, thus the plan is not a necessity.

Another defensive argument to make is that American hegemony is sustainable now – we’re a strong world leader.

Offense arguments:

Terrorism Turn - seeking to maintain U.S. Hegemony leads to increased terrorism. Major terrorist attacks cause military conflicts, which then go nuclear. We also make the argument that hegemony doesn’t deter terrorism – it incites it.

Global Warming 1NC Harms Answers:


Action is being taken now to solve climate change, meaning the Plan isn’t necessary to solve.

STEM education can’t possibly do enough to solve the effects of climate change.

We are beyond the tipping point for C02 emissions: this means that climate change is runaway and the plan can’t ever solve.

Their global warming Impacts are over exaggerated and not based on peer-reviewed science.

Solvency 1NC Answers:


NGSS standards will be rolled back once the Plan is passed - some states will unilaterally circumvent the standards

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NGSS standards are overrated and don’t actually address resource disparities which are the real problem, according to the Finn and Porter-Magee evidence

Another argument you can make on the Solvency debate is that there aren’t enough qualified teachers who can teach the NGSS curriculum, according to the Kobler evidence.

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Topicality – “Regulations” (vs. Funding Inequality)

Summary: This is the Topicality the Negative will run against affirmatives reading the Funding Equality Aff. Remember that Topicality is not speaking to the substance of the case, but rather the educational legitimacy of having to argue about it on the topic. Topicality can be a powerful argument for the Negative because it can effectively argue that even if the Affirmative is a good idea on-balance, it shouldn’t be allowed as part of this year’s topic because it is bad for our education that we receive from debating this year’s topic.

Interpretation: The Negative defines the word “Regulations” from the resolution as being a “mandatory requirement.”

Violation: The Negative makes the argument that the Plan text is written such that the government is providing incentives to produce change rather than complying with the proper definition of “regulations” of forcing a mandatory requirement. That means that given the way the Plan text is worded, schools would not have to change, they would have a choice of whether or not to comply.

Standards: There are two standards

1. Mixing Burdens- the Negative claims that because the Affirmative does not require schools to adopt the progressive funding model, the Aff may not actually cause anything to happen at all in education reform. This makes it hard and unfair to be the Negative team because there is very little strategy a Negative team can have if the plan does not mandate a change.

2. Limits: There are already too many potential Affirmative cases on this topic that give funding. The Negative is making the argument that debating all the Affirmative cases that don’t make it “mandatory” to change regulation makes the topic far too big. That makes it unfair or un-educational because there are too many cases to research and understand.

The Voters are reasons why Topicality comes before anything else in the debate and are reasons the Negative can win the debate on Topicality even if they are losing the rest of the debate. The Voters in this Topicality, fairness and education, are tucked within each standard and should be impacted in later speeches if the Negative chooses to continue attacking Topicality.

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Answering Funding Inequality Topicality

We meet - this is an essential argument in responding to Topicality, where you argue that you do not in fact violate the Negative’s interpretation. The “we meet” we argue here is based off of 1AC evidence that outlines that the Plan mandates state enforcement for equal funding, resolving any and all regulatory burdens.

Counter Interp - this should be an interpretation that best supports the Affirmative Plan and takes a different angle on what the words in the resolution mean than the restrictive interpretation that the negative proposed. Here, the 2AC counter interpretation defines regulation as voluntary incentives. This means that under our Affirmative interpretation, incentives don’t have to be regulatory mandates.

Counter Standards: Key to establish reasons why your Affirmative interpretation should be preferred and why the Negative interpretation is bad

Topic Education – Here, the Affirmative makes the claim that the Negative’s definition of federal mandates runs contrary to the vast majority of education reform policy and is not the direction in which education policy is going. There are many factors that prevent such top-down orientation between the federal government and states

No case meets -explain that the Negative interpretation establishes an unfair burden upon on the Affirmative and is a bad interpretation of the topic because it is impossibly restrictive

Real World — Here, we argue that the Affirmative’s Plan and interpretation is more representative of how education reform happens give – we can refer to 1AC Solvency evidence to prove this is true

Reasonability - you want to make the argument that your counter interpretation is reasonably Topical and should be preferred even if it might cause some potential abuse

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Topicality – “Substantial” (vs. English Language Learners)

Summary: This is the Topicality the Negative will run against Affirmatives reading the English Language Learners Aff. Remember that Topicality is not speaking to the substance of the case, but rather the educational legitimacy of having to argue about it on the topic. Topicality can be a powerful argument for the Negative because it can effectively argue that even if the Affirmative is a good idea on-balance, it shouldn’t be allowed as part of this year’s topic because it is bad for our education that we receive from debating this year’s topic.

Interpretation: The Negative defines the word “Substantial” from the resolution as being at least “25%” of the whole.

Violation: The Negative reads evidence that English Language Learners make up less than 10% of students attending public schools. That means the Affirmative does not comply with the proper definition of “substantial” as “25%” because it doesn’t affect enough students to be substantial.

Standards: There are two standards1. Limits: The Negative is making the argument that allowing

such small cases to be considered Topical that do not effect “25%” of school populations makes the Negative have to debate any number of small, trivial changes the Affirmative could make. Allowing the Affirmative to be considered Topical justifies any cases that affect “10%” or more of school population. That makes it unfair or un-educational because there are too many cases to research and understand.

2. Ground: The Negative is making the argument at allowing such a small case means the negative will not have anything to argue because the case is so small or so obscure that they will be unable to find Links to Disadvantages or on-case attacks to Harms and Solvency. That is unfair or un-educational because Negatives will always be at a strategic disadvantage with less to say.

The Voters are reasons why Topicality comes before anything else in the debate and are reasons the Negative can win the debate on Topicality even if they are losing the rest of the debate. The Voters in this Topicality, fairness and education, are tucked within each

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standard and should be impacted in later speeches if the Negative chooses to continue attacking Topicality.

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Answering English Language Learners Substantial Topicality

We meet: - Here, the Affirmative argues that that the Plan actually affects tons of students and that ELL populations are growing rapidly.

Counter Interp: The Affirmative redefines the word “substantially” to argue instead that a “substantial” Plan is “socially important.”

Core of the topic: you want to state the importance of ELLs to what we learn on an education topic. Its essential to think through social impact of English learners in schools - and how education reform policy affects those students

Precision: Here, we argue that the Negative interpretation of “substantial” is very biased and doesn’t establish a clear delineation (“bright line,” in debate terms) between what is or is not substantial

Over-limiting: The Negative interpretation of “substantial” does not allow us to learn enough about the education topic because it doesn’t allow us to debate about the student populations that education reform affects most

Reasonability: you want to make the argument that your counter interpretation is reasonably Topical and should be preferred even if it might cause some potential abuse

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Topicality – “USFG”/“Its” (vs. STEM)

Summary: This is the Topicality the Negative will run against affirmatives reading the STEM Aff. Remember that Topicality is not speaking to the substance of the case, but rather the educational legitimacy of having to argue about it on the topic. Topicality can be a powerful argument for the Negative because it can effectively argue that even if the Affirmative is a good idea on-balance, it shouldn’t be allowed as part of this year’s topic because it is bad for our education that we receive from debating this year’s topic.

Interpretation: The Negative defines two words in the resolution. The Neg defines “the United States federal government” as “the central national government” and the Negative defines “its” as having a grammatical meaning showing possession to the previously mentioned noun. The Interpretation is that the United States central government has to modify its own funding and regulation, not modify regulation belonging to another entity other than the central government.

Violation: The Negative reads evidence that the Next Generation Science Standards are written by individuals who are not a part of the federal government. That means the Affirmative does not comply with the proper definition of “its” by having the USFG modify a third party’s policy, rather than any of the USFG’s own policies.

Standards: There are two standards1. Limits: The Negative is making the argument that allowing the

USFG to change other organizations’ policies makes the number of cases on the topic even bigger. Allowing this case to be considered Topical justifies any cases that included regulation or funding from private companies, non-profits, or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as Topical. Those are a lot of companies and organizations on the planet. That makes it unfair or un-educational because there are too many cases to research and understand.

2. Ground: The Negative is making the argument at allowing the USFG to change other organizations’ policies means the Negative will not have anything to argue because all Links to disadvantages would be researched expecting the government to change government policy. If the Aff is allowed to read Plans

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that do not change US policy, then none of the Negative’s Links would apply. That is unfair or un-educational because Negatives will always be at a strategic disadvantage with less to say.

The Voters are reasons why Topicality comes before anything else in the debate and are reasons the Negative can win the debate on Topicality even if they are losing the rest of the debate. The Voters in this Topicality, fairness and education, are tucked within each standard and should be impacted in later speeches if the Negative chooses to continue attacking Topicality.

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Answering STEM Topicality We Meet: You want to say here that STEM education IS federal education policy.

Counter Interpretation: - Here, we offer a definition that says regulation includes different organizations, like non-profits and the private sector Standards:

Core of the topic: Here, we make the argument that common standards are essential to establish uniformity and equity within our education system – historically, these government standards have been set in conjunction with outside education experts

Over-limiting: You want to say that their interpretation radically over limits the debate in unrealistic ways. Top-down education standards are not the way education policy happens now and we lose the chance to debate about any ideas that involve outside standards

Contextual definition: You want to argue your interpretation is backed by current education policy discussions


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Federalism DA - Negative Summary: Federalism is power divided between our federal government and our state and local governments. A high level of Federalism is when the state governments have more responsibility to govern. A low level of federalism is when states have little power.

Uniqueness- Federalism is strong right now due to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’s increased support for charter schools (which are privately owned and not fully accountable to local governments) and Trump has decreased funding to the Department of Education. This has limited the federal government’s role in regulating schools.

Funding Link- When the federal government uses funding grants or penalties to restrict state’s control over education policies, it limits state choice and forces compliance with the federal government’s policy. The card specifically says that education policy is particularly important to determining federalism. Therefore, the Affirmative Plan, which either incentivizes education policy with grants or imposes penalties for lack of compliance, will decrease federalism.

Note on the Link:The funding link described above in the shell (first three cards read in the 1NC) would only be read against Plan texts that change funding. The Core Files also includes a Regulation Link for Plans that do not involve money but instead change education regulation. The funding Link card would be removed from the shell and would not be read. The Regulation Link would be put in its place and be read during the 1NC instead.

Regulation Link - The federal government does not intervene or overturn state education regulation often. Therefore, if the Affirmative Plan has the US federal government change regulation, the card says that would be a strong signal that the government was overruling state education decisions, thus decreasing federalism.

Impact- A cross-national study shows Federalism is necessary to preventing ethnic conflict. When the Plan decreases federalism, it will lead to a chain reaction of rebellions, succession, and ultimately ethnic conflict and violence in other parts of the world. The reason for this is that countries with governments built on federalism solve regional and ethnic differences by accommodating a diversity of small

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governments that reflect the individuals in that area. In America, those regional areas are states. Federalism creates power sharing in which groups with different perspectives and cultures can feel they have control over the regional issues that affect them.

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Answering Federalism DA - Affirmative

Defensive Arguments:

Non-Unique : Federalism is extremely low – there has been massive unilateral action by Trump, circumventing other governmental bodies. The Affirmative Plan would be a drop in the bucket in light of larger policy changes from the executive office.

No link: You want to argue that the plan doesn’t trade off with States’ rights. In the world of the Federal Inequality Affirmative, for example, the progressive funding model works in conjunction with state actors to establish quality education incentives to districts within states across the country, which checks back on unilateral executive action.

No Internal Link: Here, we want to press the Negative’s assumption about modeling of federalism internationally. You want to argue international actors are moving away from modeling United States politics. The Disadvantage Impacts should have been already triggered, but hasn’t happened, meaning there’s no way the DA could outweigh the Affirmative Harms.

Offensive Arguments:

Impact Turn: Federalism is bad for education – states get caught up in red tape

Impact Turn: States’ rights will and have always been used to entrench racism

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States Counter Plan

Summary: The Negative argues that the federal government is not needed to do the Plan. Instead, the fifty state governments should do the Plan or something very close to the Plan. The purpose of this is to solve all of (or some of) the Aff Harms without the use of the federal government. The negative will provide an alternative course of policy action to the judge. The judge will have to now decide between the Plan where the USFG completes the Affirmative policy action or the States Counterplan in which the 50 states will complete the policy action.

Text: The fifty states should substantially increase their funding and/or regulation of elementary and secondary schools by … [doing the same action the Affirmative said the United States federal government should take.]

Solvency: The Negative reads cards explaining that the state governments are more equipped to do the plan action than the United States federal government because they have historically had this control. That familiarity would make them more efficient than the federal government. History shows States can successfully carry out the Plan. The Negative uses these cards to show that not only could states solve the Aff Harms (capture them as an advantage to states’ action), but also that they would do it better than the federal government action, thus giving them a net benefit to states’ action because the Counterplan would be better than the Plan.

Notes on Competition: All Counterplans have to force a choice in the judge’s mind between the Affirmative Plan and another way to solve the problems the Affirmative has identified. Otherwise, a reasonable policymaker could say, “do both the Plan and the Counterplan: there is no reason why the federal government cannot work to improve education policy at the same time the state governments are working to solve education policy.” In debate, we call this a Permutation. In this instance, the competition happens via Net Benefit. In order to win, the Negative has to prove there is some consequence to the affirmative plan that makes it undesirable, not just that the Counterplan is a good idea. For this year’s States Counterplan, both the Military Trade-off DA and the Federalism DA are both Net Benefits to the States Counterplan. At least one DA should be run in conjunction with the Counterplan in the 1NC.

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Military Trade-off DA: The Military Trade-off DA says that if the USFG spends money on education, it will not be able to pay for military infrastructure. The Counterplan avoids that because the state governments would pay for the plan instead and free up the USFG’s funds to upgrade our military. So, the DA would link to the Plan but not link to the States CP, meaning there would be reason for the judge to vote for the Counterplan – having the states fund education allows for federal military spending at the same time.

Federalism DA: The Federalism DA says that if the USFG takes away states’ power, our system of federalism will deteriorate and this instability will be modeled in developing democracies throughout the world, threatening their governments and causing civil wars. In the States CP, the state governments would take action rather than the USFG limiting them. So, the DA would link to the Plan but not to the States CP, meaning there would be reason for the judge to vote only for the Counterplan.

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Answering States CP Theory: 50 State Fiat Bad is argument that makes the claim that 50 state actors performing a uniform action all at once is historically unprecedented and totally unrealistic, which is uniquely unfair and is a theoretical reason why the negative team should lose for using such an uneducational argument.

To make this argument coherent, it must contain A) an interpretation, B) a violation, and C) a reason to prefer said interpretation, which is outlined in the 2AC Affirmative Answers to the States CP in the Core Files.

No Solvency: A central argument (and often the most important and best argument) you want to make versus any Counterplan is that it doesn’t solve the Affirmative Harms. The warrant behind that claim in the Core Files is that states will find loopholes and increase inequality within education.

Permutation: Another important argument is the Permutation: The idea that states and federal actors can work together. The Permutation is a powerful argument against the counter plan and forces the Negative to prove that there’s a uniquely valuable (net beneficial) reason for the states to act.

Disadvantage to the Counterplan: State governments are broke and state budgets are tapped out. Having to fund the cost of the Affirmative plan means state governments will have to cut money from other areas related to welfare, education, and domestic violence prevention.

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Military Trade Off DA Summary: Trump has set up a “skinny budget” to improve military infrastructure and create a message of global strength by cutting the amount of federal funding for education. If the Affirmative passes a Plan that increases the amount of money given to schools, it will come out of the federal budget for the military. Increased military funding is needed to fight ISIS, and without it, the U.S. will be unable to prevent ISIS from getting nuclear weapons and using it against the U.S.

Uniqueness: Our budget is set now - any new spending like the Affirmative Plan would trade off with funding for military infrastructure development.

Link : The Affirmative Plan’s funding trades off with budget for the military.

Internal Link: Not being able to fund an improved military hurts military readiness and the ability to combat global terrorism, which is on the rise now

Impact: Global terrorism leads to nuclear weapon acquisition, risk to global nuclear stockpiles, and potential dirty bomb usage, resulting in mass death and potentially extinction

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Answering Military Trade-Off DA First, Uniqueness overwhelms the Link: the Affirmative argues that we already spend an astronomical amount on military spending – there’s no way the Affirmative Plan matters much when compared to the massive military budget.

The Affirmative should focus on turning the Negative Impact with an Impact Turn: an increase in military spending would be bad because we would be more aggressive in the war on terror (such as military strikes in Syria), which has historically increased terrorist retaliation. We will also argue that a larger and more aggressive military could cause war with our two biggest and most armed rivals, Russia and China.

Then we can use Impact Calculus to weigh the Affirmative Harms against the probability of the Negative Disadvantage Impact. Specifically, we might argue that in the negative’s Macdonald ‘16 evidence, there is no specific mention that ISIS has access to or is pursuing nuclear weapons.

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HIGH SCHOOL ONLY SUMMARIES:

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Charter Schools AFF Summary: This is a critical (or more philosophical)Affirmative that seeks to opposethe economic, market-centered, hyper-rational policy making that is known as neoliberalism. Charter schools are a growing national trend that siphon off funds from public schools, promoting elitism and discrimination in education. This Affirmative has two different Plans, a critical Plan text and a policy option Plan text. These two options shouldn’t be used at the same time – please pick ONE Plan before the debate.

Harms - Neoliberalism: Neoliberalism is the belief that market forces are the natural and best way to make decisions. It is a cold, hyper-rational policy approach that drains services to poorer, traditionally black and brown communities and is a growing national way of managing education. With traditionally privileged people making education models affecting people of color, this dissonance sustains a homogenous white supremacy structure, corrupting education’s model of democracy and civic engagement that shapes our entire society. Homogenous, neoliberal ideas in education shape our society and we are more likely to be genocidal and war-bound as we look for the most efficient and “pure” ways to order the world around us.

Critical Solvency/Plan - The first “Plan” is a critical Plan text which positions the actor as the two members of the Affirmative team taking the stance to reject all charter school programs in favor of a more critically-centered educational system, training students to be conscious and active participants in today’s society. Using the work of education theorist Henry Giroux, the Affirmative bridges the gap between education and real world issues by using debate as the space to make change possible.

Policy Solvency/Plan - This option has the United States Federal Government implement the Annenberg Institute regulations on charter schools, which would substantially limit their autonomy and increase their adherence to publicly funded school district guidelines. Charters will have to take on the same reporting and quality control systems that other public schools do, making charter schools less

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discriminatory and disrupting the elitist, racist, neoliberal machine that they are currently a product of.

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Charter School Negative 1NC Harms – Neoliberalism:

The Friedman evidence is an Impact Turn, which defends neoliberalism and says it is good because it increases democracy and freedom.

There are also a few defensive arguments:

Charter schools have existed already for years without our society becoming genocidal and warlike.

Charter schools have a lot of regulations and checks currently.

Neoliberalism has been around for a long time and is a product of human nature.

Making enough defensive arguments on solvency and the brink of neoliberalism actually causing this impacts the affirmative claim can leave this affirmative susceptible to a disadvantage or counterplan. The negative should also ask the affirmative if neoliberalism can be stopped altogether and why regulating or banning charter schools would solve all the problems of neoliberalism. Use the Friedman evidence to turn the impacts of neoliberalism.

1NC Solvency (against Critical Plan):

We have a strong offensive argument:

We argue a Solvency Turn, which argues that charter schools are good at improving education and are effective in high-poverty areas.


We also indict the radical theorists behind their Affirmative evidence and argue that Neoliberalism can’t be wished away with ideas or words and that critical theorists have illusions about “emancipating” the oppressed – we need more concrete actions to reduce the conditions of the oppressed and create structural change.

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1NC Solvency (against Policy Plan):

We have a strong offensive argument:

We argue a Solvency Turn, which argues that charter schools are good at improving education and are effective in high-poverty areas.


We argue that charters and their funders will circumvent regulations and use money to avoid regulation.

We also argue that the problem is an overall lack of funding for public education – getting rid of charters doesn’t fix the issue.

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Topicality – “Regulation” (vs. Charters)

Summary: This is the Topicality the Negative will run against Affirmatives reading the Charters Aff. Remember that Topicality is not speaking to the substance of the case, but rather the educational legitimacy of having to argue about it on the topic. Topicality can be a powerful argument for the Negative because it can effectively argue that even if the Affirmative is a good idea on-balance, it shouldn’t be allowed as part of this year’s topic because it is bad for our education that we receive from debating this year’s topic.

Interpretation: The Negative defines the word “regulations” to mean “measurable results of the policy.”

Violation: The Negative makes the claim that the Plan text increases oversight of charter but they have no mechanism to evaluate charters. That means the Affirmative does not comply with the proper definition of “regulations” by not having a way to measure the results of oversight.

Standards: There are two standards1. Limits: The Affirmative has no way to determine if change

happened as result of the plan; the plan may do nothing at all. That justifies any small, trivial, or merely symbolic education reform would be considered Topical even if nothing happened at all as a result of the Plan. This makes it hard and unfair for the Negative team because there is very little strategy a negative team can have if the Plan does not cause a change. And it’s unfair or un-educational because there are too many cases to research and understand without including more.

2. Education: If there is no way to measure the efficacy of the plan regulation, there is no way to have a quality debate about the topic. We will never know how to determine if something is good or bad about the plan if we don’t have a way to measure what it does. That is unfair and un-educational because Negatives can never test the Plan and will always be at a strategic disadvantage with less to say.

The Voters are reasons why Topicality comes before anything else in the debate and are reasons the Negative can win the debate on Topicality even if they are losing the rest of the debate. The Voters in

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this Topicality, fairness and education, are tucked within each standard and should be impacted in later speeches if the Negative chooses to continue attacking Topicality.

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Answering Charter Regulation Topicality

We meet: Here, the Affirmative argues that it does not violate the Negative’s interpretation of “regulation” because of the oversight of the Affirmative Plan, which has regulatory bodies watch over charter schools

Counter Interp: Here, you want to expand the definition of regulation to include concepts like oversight, competition controls and guidance — you have evidence to support this claim in the 2AC answers to this T argument

Standards:

Common Phrasing: you want to make arguments that we should not adopt the obscure interpretation of the Negative. You should say your definition has a specific intent to define what “regulation” is, versus their definition, which just an outlier

Mixing Burdens: you want to make the claim that the Plan text should act as the bright line for how we should understand the T debate – the Negative forces you to look at things like Solvency and the results of the Plan, which is far more subjective and unclear

Core of the Topic: Make arguments as to why your definition of regulation is more in tune with the mainstream of education reform and gives us education that is core to this year’s topic


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Classroom K Short Version:

This is a Kritik, a philosophical (and often more radical) objection to the way the Affirmative approaches education reform. This Kritik draws on the work of Michel Foucault, a French post-modern philosopher and his concept of Bio-politics, “a political rationality which takes the administration of life and populations as its subject: ‘to ensure, sustain, and multiply life, to put this life in order1,” a kind of social engineering where politics becomes about directing the way people live; are classified and evaluated; and create and express their identities.

Bio-politics is intertwined with education. Classrooms can act as normative factories to (re)-produce dominant discourses and ideas about personhood, often with an unethical claim to represent truth and objective or scientific knowledge. We should instead challenge the way governments and schools create students’ identities through a necessary criticism of the process of bio-politics itself within education.

Long version:

Summary: This criticism is centered on the concept that schools can be micro-fascist landscapes of regulation and control of life. Heavily influenced the by the work of Michael Foucault, this argument revolves around concepts such as bio-politics, historicism, self-regulation, and counter-hegemonic discourse. Below will be a sample analysis of how one could break down and explain each component of what could seem like a complex and daunting argument. This is one template for how a Kritik could be understood and of course would change based on the Affirmative we are debating against. In this example, this criticism is being applied to the Federal Funding Inequality Affirmative:

Link: The concept of funding equity resulting in better schooling is nothing more than a ruse and example of the failed regulatory policymaking that creates the very Harms identified within the 1AC. The achievement gap represents a landscape of power that is in no way truly resolved, but instead wielded as a rhetorical and financial weapon to aid in racial mythology that sustains mechanisms of control 1 http://criticallegalthinking.com/2017/05/10/michel-foucault-biopolitics-biopower/

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of black and brown students as racial variables of calculated value. This means that the very stratification they claim to resolve has a political economy and epistemic orientation (shaping the way we reformers understand the “data”) that sustains the failed reformism, progressive-liberal savior-ism and profit-minded attempt to make students “docile bodies,” efficient and productive prototypes within machine-like institutions that monopolize power and control of the body through discipline and self-regulation.

Impact: Their 1AC represents the worst instances of bio-politics control and sovereign violence – its financial reform does nothing but further mystify real structural inequities that make reducing things like the achievement gap, or poverty, an impossibility. The Negative thus argues that they should win the debate because the Affirmative’s Plan has no actual ability to solve - the status quo is a better option than the Plan and the 1AC’s flawed language and implicit assumptions about schools and the students in them. Bio-politics is the worst impact. It’s unethical manageralism of education that literally creates industries around the failure of students, be it the prison industrial complex, education “consulting,” or the acceleration of private sector control of education, which is how micro-fascism infiltrates through all facets of education as we know it. The 1AC should be rejected for its participation in the same insidious logic. Equal funding does not result in equity in education, but the assumption that it does speaks to heart of the issue with their Affirmative.

Alternative: Our alternative is to problematize the system of education through rigorous historical inquiry into the problems posed by the Affirmative. Our alternative is to use historicism in critically examining our educational institutions, to use multiple social histories against the dominant narratives about the education of students of color. At a micro-level, this looks like challenging our assumptions and questioning forms of disciplinary control in schools through things like testing, bathroom regulation, gender division, detention halls, etc. This questioning of assumptions does not mean mere antagonism, but instead productive skepticism toward bio-political control, through everyday insurgencies of micro-political action. Our alternative is a model for looking at the way we describe and understand education, not a call toward specific action - meaning we are a necessary prerequisite before attempting anything like the Affirmative’s Plan to reform education.

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Answering Classroom K Framework: this argument is used to argue that the Affirmative should be able to weigh the Harms of the Affirmative plan to resolve who wins the debate, not just resorting to defending language and assumptions

Link Turn: Here, we make arguments about the ethical value of your 1AC - how it’s an important education reform and is important to making education policy more effective

Permutation: Here, we make arguments about the combination of both approaches (the Affirmative’s political action of fixing structural problems in education combined with the Negative’s historicist approach to the problematic assumptions and language we’ve used to describe these problems) being net-beneficial to determining the best policy and ethical outcome.

Impacts: Weigh the Affirmative Harms and argue why it is more important to do the Affirmative Plan and talk about education reform than risk the ethical and philosophical consequences the Negative Kritik Impacts talk about. Even if we go about education reform imperfectly or with an incomplete understanding of its complicated intellectual history, it’s better that we debate about the education system’s Harms the way we’ve done in the 1AC and measure what we can accomplish through political action.

Turn: The Negative chooses to “cede the political” sphere. If we give up the responsibility to act to reform education through our engagement with political institutions, powerful elites in the private sector and corporations will fill the vacuum and use the glaring problems in our education system as an excuse to take more power and exert more violence against the marginalized.

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Framework Summary: This argument says that the resolution is limited to action around USFG policy and that the Affirmative, by arguing about students being agents of activism and resistance rather than the government, should be rejected as untopical

Standards and reasons to prefer the Negative interpretation:

Education: The best education comes from policy proposals around education reform. When we move away from the resolutional question, it skirts the very material effects of policy that are important to make ethical and accurate real world policy solutions.

Fairness: the resolution is essential to ensuring competitive equity for all debaters. This is essential for a debate to occur, an agreed upon topic for which both sides have adequate amount of research. Non-Topical Affs kill research and clash and are uniquely unpredictable.

Fairness is an isolated Impact above and beyond the rest of the debate: How we argue and whether what we argue hurts our education takes precedence over whether or not the Affirmative is a good policy idea. If we prove the Affirmative creates an unfair burden and hurts Negative ground and clash, the Negative can win the debate on this issue alone, whether or not the Affirmative wins the rest of the debate.

Trust testing: This argument says the judge must hold the claims of the 1AC suspect because the nature of their argument makes it impossible to rigorously research, test and engage their theories about the nature of power in society

Limits: Without a Plan using the USFG, the Affirmative creates a virtually unlimited topic that can be about any individual’s ideas or activism and sets a horrible standard for what we learn in the rest of our debates.

Topical version of the Affirmative: There is a policy version of the Affirmative, which shows there was no reason that they needed to focus on their individual role as students as the agents of change

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rather than the US Federal Government. We could have talked about the Harms of their Affirmative and still had an educational debate about government policy and federal education reform.

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Answering Framework Overall Goal: First, you want to make offensive arguments. Use your critical Affirmative to create disadvantages to their model of debate education that is focused solely on the topic and government action.

We meet: explain how your Affirmative and the ideas presented are about education reform

Counter Interp: Be creative here. Have a counter interp that reflects best on your Affirmative, but also your view of the topic and how debates should/could look like under your version of the topic. Tell the judge that even if the counter interpretation isn’t persuasive, the Affirmative should win because of the substantial problems with the Negative’s standards for Topical education.

Answers to Education standard: They say we make debate un-educational.

The Negative team’s interpretation of education is uniquely flawed. Forcing students to be beholden to policy prescription is such a limiting mechanism that ignores the very important movements across the country that aren’t indebted to USFG action. Argue that the Affirmative creates very necessary education around ethics or social justice.

Answers to Fairness standard: They say we make debate unfair.

The Affirmative will argue that debate being unfair is Non-Unique – unfairness is already the case, all the time. Unfairness is not only inevitable - competitive activities like debate are not isolated from larger power relations that structure our unfair and unequal system of education.

Defending what is “fair” is a move toward hegemony or maintaining unethical status quo domination. Who determines what is fair and what role does privilege have in determining “fair” rules to a game that starts with unequal odds and is structured so that very privilege is not at stake in the game?

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In terms of their argument about debate being a game that needs to be played fairly, there is a difference between rules and norms. Their understanding of the game of debate is the worst example of creating norms and passing them off as rules, which is problematic as a model of debate and for our education. We didn’t agree to their rules, so arguing we should be punished and lose for violating them is a normative appeal to exercise power through unilateral rule-making.

Answers to Decision Making standard: They say we need to model debate focused on real-world decision-making. Focusing on policymakers and policies is not the only way we can achieve change and the assumption that we can only go through the powerful to influence social problems is a part of the reason we have these problems in the first place.

Debates about policy are also not neutral – they’re tied up in power inequalities that are a reason their framework is both impossible and harmful, because it tries to pretend that “policy” debates are somehow clean and objective and stand outside the society that these “policy” debates purport to describe.

Answers to Predictability standard: They say we need predictability in debate.

Making arguments and social discourse predictable is a way of securing the existing order. Knowing something will be said doesn’t mean a healthy debate will occur. This is a problematic normative assumption about our education and communication, the assumption that we need to say predictable things in order to understand or learn from each other.

Their complaints that our Affirmative is unpredictable are overblown – the core of our Affirmative is about education reform that we discuss in a way that is net beneficial for learning about problems with the education system from student intellectuals within it.

There’s a strong tradition of educational debate that includes students as intellectuals and agents of action and change. Limiting ourselves to only what the government can do and holding up the resolution by itself as the only standard is insufficient as the only point of conversation about much bigger problems with education that need to

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be debated by students who know the most about it on the ground, more than policymakers do.

Answers to Limits standard: They say we need limits on the debate topic.

Similar to predictability, their complaints that our Affirmative creates a huge topic without limits are overblown – the core of our Affirmative is about education reform that we discuss in a way that is net beneficial for learning about problems with the education system.

Sometimes, maybe the best argument in a conversation about gender norms or systemic racism isn’t a Disadvantage with a nuke war Impact. Our interpretation forces organic conversations around issues that have ethical importance for the world, which should outweigh the desire to read a contrived and esoteric argument about the political system. We can have robust debates about the Harms we’ve raised without being limited by the resolution.

Topical version of the Affirmative: They say there’s a Topical version of our Affirmative.

The examples they give of our Affirmative are insufficient – limiting what we can argue and how we advocate for change prevents any real effect upon regimes of power and cultural violence. They say this limitation is necessary for a debate to occur, but it makes it impossible for us to present a real challenge to the issues we want to debate about.

Make Role of Judge claims: Many judges will be educators - stress the importance of their ethical orientation and stress the importance of their job as one that encourages the opening of spaces for conversation and intellectual development, regardless of normative interpretations of what students’ political education should or must look like.

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Documents

Verbatim Mac - resources.chicagodebates.org · Web viewThe Negative defines the word “Regulations” from the resolution as being a “mandatory requirement. ... This Kritik draws