Common Core Neg RKS

Notes
Ive included a few options for you to explore in tackling the Common Core Bad K aff. While I didnt
include a full shell for kritik and framework, Ive got some links and supplements to make the framework
and k shells you already have shine in round.
Be careful when choosing what case arguments to run. It wouldnt make a lot of sense to read
competitiveness and the capitalism kritik together, for example. Always double-check for contradictions,
because this file was written to accommodate policy, k, and soft left debate.
On-Case
Frontline
 Achievement
The Common Cores form is great for student achievement, equity, and college
readiness laundry list of reasons
Long 13
(Cindy Long, National Education Association. Six Ways the Common Core is Good For Students 10 May 2013, accessed 19 May 2017,
http://neatoday.org/2013/05/10/six-ways-the-common-core-is-good-for-students-2/ cVs)

As the Common Core debate heats up, weve heard a lot from policy makers, politicians, and even TV talk show hosts about the challenges posed
by the new standards and whether theyll help or hurt education. With all the chatter, the voices of the professionals who are actually responsible
for implementing the Common Core have been all but drowned out in the mainstream media. To get their perspective, NEA Today convened a
panel of educators from around the country who were attending NEAs Common Core Working Group in Denver, Colorado a strategy- and
ideas-sharing meeting of education professionals from the 46 states who have adopted Common Core. (Find out more about NEAs involvement
in the Common Core.) They told us theres a lot of anxiety among educators about the Common Core, and a lot of unanswered questions. How do
we best implement them? How do we train more teachers? How do we help students master the new content? And what about testing? But
despite these significant hurdles, the overwhelming consensus of the educators we heard from is that the
Common Core will ultimately be good for students and education. Read on for six reasons why. 1. Common Core
Puts Creativity Back in the Classroom I have problems and hands-on activities that I like my students to experience to help them
understand a concept or relationship, says Cambridge, Massachusetts, high school math teacher Peter Mili. One of his classic activities is taking
a rectangular piece of cardboard and asking the students to cut from each corner to make a box. They learn that different sized boxes need
different lengths in cuts, and then they fill the boxes with popcorn and measure how much each box can hold. I havent been able to do that in
years because of the push to cover so many things. Time is tight, especially because of all the benchmarks and high-stakes testing, Mili says. So
Ive had to put the fun, creative activities aside to work on drill and skill. But the Common Core streamlines content, and with
less to cover, I can enrich the experience, which gives my students a greater understanding. Mili says a lot
of teachers have fun, creative activities stuffed into their closets or desk drawers because they havent had
the time to use them in the era of NCLB tests and curriculum. He thinks the Common Core will allow
those activities to again see the light of day. Thats because the Common Core State Standards are just
that standards and not a prescribed curriculum. They may tell educators what students should be able to do by the end of a
grade or course, but its up to the educators to figure out how to deliver the instruction. 2. Common Core Gives Students a Deep
Dive When students can explore a concept and really immerse themselves in that content, they emerge
with a full understanding that lasts well beyond testing season, says Kisha Davis-Caldwell, a fourth-grade teacher at a
Maryland Title 1 elementary school. Ive been faced with the challenge of having to teach roughly 100 math topics over the course of a single
year, says Davis-Caldwell. TheCommon Core takes this smorgasbord of topics and removes things from the
plate, allowing me to focus on key topics we know will form a clear and a consistent foundation for
students. Davis-Caldwells students used to skim the surface of most mathematical topics, working on them for just a day or two before
moving on to the next, whether theyd mastered the first concept or not. Students would go to the next concept frustrated, losing confidence and
losing ground in the long haul, she says. The Common Core allows students to stay on a topic and not only dive deeply into it, but also be able
to understand and apply the knowledge to everyday life. 3. Common
Core Ratchets up Rigor The CCSS requires students
to take part in their learning and to think more critically about content, as opposed to simply regurgitating
back what their teachers feed them, says Kathy Powers, who teaches fifth- and sixth-grade English Language Arts in Conway,
Arkansas. One way Powers says the standards ratchet up the rigor is by requiring more nonfiction texts to be included in lessons on works of
fiction, and vice versa. She uses Abraham Lincoln as an example. A lesson could start with O Captain! My Captain!, the extended metaphor
poem written by Walt Whitman about the death of Lincoln, and incorporate the historical novel Assassin, which includes a fictional character in
the plot. Then shed follow that with the nonfiction work, Chasing Lincolns Killer, and have students also look at newspaper clippings from the
time. Or if were working on narrative writing, I can have them read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and ask them not to just absorb the
story, but also to evaluate C.S. Lewis as a writer, and then to try to write a piece of narrative in the style of C.S. Lewis, she says. In the past
wed ask them to simply write a story. But this requires more critical thinking, and this kind of increased rigor will make students more
competitive on a global level. 4. Common
Core is Collaborative The Common Core allows educators to take
ownership of the curriculum it puts it back into the hands of teachers, who know what information is
best for students and how best to deliver that information. Not only does it integrate instruction with
other disciplines, like English and social studies, or literacy, math, and science, the common standards
will allow us to crowd source our knowledge and experience, says Kathy Powers of Arkansas. Kisha Davis-Caldwell
agrees. The Common Core will create opportunities to share resources and create common resources, she says. We can discuss what isnt
working and use our voices collectively. That way we can all be part of the conversation about assessment of teaching, learning, and the standards
themselves. Peter Mili says the key word to focus on is common. He believes there is far too much academic variability from state to state and
not enough collaboration. Withthe Common Core State Standards, the good things that may be happening in
Alabama can be shared and found useful to educators in Arizona because they are working on the same
topics. 5. Common Core Advances Equity Cheryl Mosier, an Earth Science teacher from Colorado, says shes most excited about
the Common Core because itll be a challenge for all students, not just the high achieving students, which Mosier
and her colleagues say will go a long way to closing achievement and opportunity gaps for poor and
minority children. If students from all parts of the country affluent, rural, low-income or urban are being held to the same rigorous
standards, it promotes equity in the quality of education and the level of achievement gained. With the Common Core, were not going to have
pockets of really high performing kids in one area compared to another area where kids arent working on the same level, she says Everybody
is going to have a high bar to meet, but its a bar that can be met with support from and for all teachers. Davis-Caldwells Title 1 school is
in a Washington, D.C., suburb. In the D.C. metro area, like in other areas in and around our nations cities, there is a high rate of mobility among
the poorest residents. Students regularly move from town to town, county to county, or even state to state often in the middle of the school year.
There has been no alignment from state to state on whats being taught, so when a fourth-grade student
learning geometry and fractions in the first quarter of the school year suddenly moves to Kansas in the
second quarter, he may have entirely different lessons to learn and be tested on. It also helps teachers
better serve their students, says Davis-Caldwell. When teachers in one grade level focus consistently and comprehensively on the most
critical and fundamental concepts, their students move on to the next grade level able to build on that solid foundation rather than reviewing what
should have been learned in the previous grade. 6. Common Core Gets Kids College Ready One of the broad goals is that the
increased rigor of the Common Core will help everyone become college and/or career ready, says Peter Mili. Preparing kids for college and
careers will appeal widely to parents and the community, especially in a struggling economy where only 31 percent of eleventh graders were
considered college ready, according to a recent ACT study. If
a student who was taught how to think critically and how
to read texts for information and analysis can explain the premise behind a mathematical thesis, shell
have options and opportunities, Mili says. Students with that kind of education will be able to decide what kind of career path to
follow or whether they want to attend a university or any kind of school because they were prepared to do a higher level of work that is expected
in our society and our economy. Student success is the outcome every education professional works so tirelessly toward, and the Common Core
will help them get there if its implemented well, according to the panel of educators. Yes,
its an extra workload as a teacher,
and its difficultbut its for the betterment of the students, says Davis-Caldwell. And if we keep that
our focus, I dont see why we cant be successful.
 Race
Common Core can be retooled, but not abandoned, to increase social justice
education New York proves
Hall and Sipley 15
(Mercer Hall is a teacher and co-founder of the American Society for Innovation Design in Education. He is a co-editor of the ASIDE blog, and
his work is regularly featured in EdSurge, Edutopia, EdTech magazine and other forums. Gina Sipley is a lifelong teacher who has been
nationally recognized as a teacher of the future for her commitments to technology, sustainability and social justice. She writes about educational
technology for EdSurge and Mic. Test-obsessed instruction leaves little room to teach race Al-Jazeera America, 25 June 2015,
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/6/test-oriented-instruction-leaves-little-room-to-teach-race.html cVs)

Fortunately, more
schools are emphasizing social and emotional learning, or SEL, a curriculum of skills to
negotiate relationships, empathy and decision-making, which researchers say accounts for 50 percent of
overall learning. The Fieldston Lower School in the Bronx in New York City, for instance, recently began
folding conversations about personal and racial identity into the daily flow of learning. The program gathers
third-, fourth- and fifth-graders into affinity groups by race or ethnicity to discuss their life experiences. While the plan has spurred hand wringing
by some parents for highlighting rather than smoothing over the differences within the school community, Fieldstons quest to bring
personal identities into daily discourse appears to be a worthwhile endeavor. But it is also an independent school not
completely beholden to state requirements. But public schools have options for facilitating authentic dialogue as well.
Take the New York Performance Standards Consortium network of schools. These 28 open-admission
public schools have higher graduation, college attendance and college retention rates than city, state and
national averages. The pedagogical design of these schools empowers students and teachers to discuss
critical social issues. These schools carry waivers from New York state that allow them to substitute
student portfolios and oral presentations for required state exams. Students engage in a research process
similar to a dissertations and must defend their ideas before a peer-review panel. In preparation for these
summative assessments, students learn to pose critical questions, negotiate divergent opinions and cull evidence
to support their claims. Teachers facilitate seminars rooted in student inquiry, during which students
explore interpersonal ideas. At the Urban Academy, for example, faculty members engage in a weekly three-hour meeting and
professional development session to train in this inquiry-led approach. Although this alternative model of instruction has been adopted by other
schools in Vermont and Kentucky, the
autonomy to act independent of standardization is a crucial component in
the programs success. These conversations are not easy to begin, but students of all backgrounds need
more time to look up from their standardized tests and actually talk to one another.
 STEM Econ Impact
CCSS math standards are key to developing problem-solving skills to be used later
in STEM education and careers
Knudson 15
(Kevin Knudson, professor of mathematics at Duke University. Opinion: The Common Core is today's New Math which is actually a good
thing 9 Sept 2015 on Phys.org, https://phys.org/news/2015-09-opinion-common-core-today-math.html cVs)

As an instructor of college-level mathematics, I

view this focus on conceptual understanding and multiple strategies
for solving problems as a welcome change. Doing things this way can help build intuition about the size
of answers and help with estimation. College students can compute answers to homework problems to 10
decimal places, but ask them to ballpark something without a calculator and I get blank stares. Ditto for
conceptual understanding for instance, students can evaluate integrals with relative ease, but building one as a limit of Riemann sums to solve
an actual problem is often beyond their reach. This
is frustrating because I know that my colleagues and I focus on
these notions when we introduce these topics, but they fade quickly from students' knowledge base as they
shift their attention to solving problems for exams. And, to be fair, since the K-12 math curriculum is chopped up into discrete chunks of
individual topics for ease of standardized testing assessment, it's
often difficult for students to develop the problem-solving
abilities they need for success in higher-level math, science and engineering work. Emphasizing more
conceptual understanding at an early age will hopefully lead to better problem-solving skills later. At least
that's the rationale behind the standards. Alas, Common Core is in danger of being abandoned. Some states have already dropped the standards
(Indiana and South Carolina, for example), looking to replace them with something else. But these actions are largely a result of mistaken
conflations: that the standards represent a federal imposition of curriculum on local schools, that the standardized tests used to evaluate students
are the Common Core rather than a separate initiative. As the 2016 presidential campaign heats up, support for the Common Core has become a
political liability, possibly killing it before it really has a chance. That would be a shame. The
standards themselves are fine, and
before we throw the baby out with the bathwater, perhaps we should consider efforts to implement them
properly. To give the Common Core a fair shot, we need appropriate professional development for
teachers and a more phased introduction of new standardized testing attached to the standards. But, if we do
ultimately give in to panic and misinformation, let's hope any replacement provides proper coherence and rigor. Above all, our children
should develop solid mathematical skills that will help them see the beauty and utility of this wonderful
subject.

STEM education is booming the economy thats key to buffer education policy
and provide jobs for students
Oberoi 16
(Sidharth Oberoi, educational management at Instructure in Salt Lake City. The Economic Impact of Early Exposure to STEM Education 21
June 2016, https://www.ced.org/blog/entry/the-economic-impact-of-early-exposure-to-stem-education cVs)

As the US continues to recover from the recession, optimism is rising about the health of our economy. A key factor people often turn to in
evaluating economic health is the unemployment rate, which has hit a 20-year low in this country while jobs continue to be added
monthly. However, it is necessary for us to further evaluate the data to fully understand where these jobs are
coming from, and how various sectors of the workforce experience this impact. The May 2016 jobs report
indicated that there are currently 5.8 million job openings (CNNMONEY), which is a symptom of a growing problem in the
US: employers cant find skilled workers for jobs in a number of sectors. Much of this can be attributed to increasing
disparity known as the job skills gap. This gap is a critical issue that the country faces as vacant jobs can cost
companies hundreds of dollars a day in lost profits and can negatively drive Americas economic growth.
When we look at Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) jobs specifically, economic projections point to a need for
1 million more STEM professionals than the US will produce at the current rate over the next decade,
according to the Presidents Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. STEM jobs alone have grown 17 percent, which is much faster than
the nearly 10 percent growth rate in all other areas. Yet the civic infrastructure is not there to support this growth. One of the most important
factors that limits the United States ability to stay ahead of the STEM curve is the lack of introduction to these educational areas at an early age.
More school districts are providing laptops as resources for their students. Laptops or iPads are great in terms of exposure to technology and a
step in the right direction. However, the use of this technology is not enough to meet the future workplace skills that students need. This is not the
fault of teachers who hope to positively impact the lives of their students through more effective learning tools. Teachers continue to do their job,
but education has not embraced the notion of teaching students about technology itself. Students use technology as consumers, but not as
innovative developers through their formal education experience. The need for this at an institutional level is increasingly important, and schools
simply do not have sufficient time, flexibility, or resources to offer these types of curricula. Looking at countries that are leading the way in
technological innovation, we find students spend a greater amount of time in education outside of school traditionally in a tutoring or
enrichment capacity. The amount of time that a student spends weekly on their educational enrichment activities is significantly greater around
the world compared to the US. This may be associated with a cultural influence which is directly correlated to the rising importance of education
needs in different industries, but can also be attributed to increased importance placed on science and technology solutions provided to students.
In the United States we are in the midst of a STEM revolution. STEM is at the forefront of educators and
policymakers around the country. This is now also becoming increasingly important among parents as they begin to see the paradigm
shift in the economy that continues to favor individuals seeking STEM jobs versus their counterparts. STEM is finally being
integrated in schools, but not early nor extensively enough. 38 percent of students who start college with a STEM
major do not graduate with one, which is reflected by the fact that 69 percent of high school graduates are
not prepared for college-level math or science, according to the National Math and Science Initiative. This is alarming
and can be traced back to students not receiving the appropriate supports and interventions they need in
early grades. An increasing number of institutions are beginning to immerse students in STEM at younger ages. This exposure is
being facilitated outside of school hours and during school vacations, which enables students to
understand whether or not they are interested in further pursuing a particular STEM career. Institutions like
Zaniac introduce students to skills like computer programming and 3-D printing as early as Kindergarten, and push the envelope through the
eighth grade to teach more advanced subjects, such as thermodynamics, physics, orbital mechanics, and more. Such
exposure helps
promote students immersion in science and technology while building their confidence about STEM at a
young age. Creating a positive learning environment that empowers students in STEM is critical to
preparing the next generation for the future. The current lack of infrastructure around this educational priority is disconcerting
when we recognize the individual and economic benefits of addressing these issues. The necessity for STEM to be introduced at
an early age has never been more important. Action needs to be taken on behalf of parents, educators, and
business leaders to make sure this comes to fruition.
Backlines Defense
 Alt Causes
There are too many alt causes to just focus on education policy the aff is a drop in
the bucket of racialized poverty comparing test scores is not a good way to
measure the net result of the Common Core
Tienken 10
(Christopher Tienken, Ed.D. is an associate professor of leadership, management, and policy and education consultant. He has public school
administration experience as a PK-12 assistant superintendent, middle school principal, director of curriculum and instruction, and elementary
school assistant principal. He began his career in education as an elementary school teacher. Tienken is currently the editor of the American
Association of School Administrators Journal of Scholarship and Practice and the Kappa Delta Pi Record. Common Core State Standards: I
Wonder? Kappa Delta Pi Record 47.1, Fall 2010, cVs)

Like it or not, in the United States, the

variable with the strongest correlation to student performance and
achievement on standardized tests is poverty level. For instance, in no state in the United States does the
subgroup of students identified as "economically disadvantaged" achieve a higher mean scale score than
other students on any state standardized tests, at any grade level (Tienken 201 0). At the time of the TIMMS, the United States
ranked 2nd highest behind Russia in the percentage of students under the age of 1 8 living in poverty in industrial nations (Bradbury and Jntti
<1999). U.S. poverty rates correlate closely with race and student achievement on standardized tests, more so
than in other industrialized nations (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] 2009). Consider, for example, the results
from another international test - the 2000 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Disaggregating by race, white U.S. students
ranked 2nd out of 29 countries on the 2000 PISA reading tests, 7th out of 30 in mathematics, and 4th out of 30 in science (OECD 2000).
Conversely, black and Hispanic students ranked 26th among 30 countries on the reading test and 27th among 30 countries on the mathematics
and science tests (OECD 2000). The poverty rates for black and Hispanic students are three times higher than tor
white students in the United States (U.S. Census Bureau 2009). Another factor that impacts international
assessment scores is that participating countries negotiate the test items that will be included. Representatives
from more than 60 countries negotiated the development, wording, skills, and context of the iterns in the PISA 2003 assessment. The United
States does not do well in these negotiations, as reflected by the fact that there are typically more test items covered by Asian
curricula than by typical U.S. curricula. The Asian countries have reputations for scoring high on international tests, and there is intense national
pressure to maintain that reputation. Their negotiating teams do their best to ensure that trend continues. Also, their countries produce test
preparation materials based on skills they know will be included. For example, PISA and TIMSS test preparation materials are readily available
in stores in Taiwan and Singapore (Sjoberg 2007). Thankfully, I have not yet seen any prep materials for these meaningless tests on the store
shelves in the United States. The 'So What?' Connection Second, I
wonder whether it matters that other countries outscore
U.S. students. So what? Clearly, the validity of the results is questionable given all the other factors that impact
them. More importantly, even though international achievement tests have been given since 1 964, the predictive validity of these
tests has yet to be determined. In terms of test scores, predictive validity relates to how one test score predicts performance on some
other meaningful measure. The NCA and CCSSO make the double-barreled claim that (a) national standards will lead to higher international test
scores for U.S. students; and (b) performance on international tests (aka competition with international peers) is a predictor of future economic
superiority. Therefore, the results from international tests should predict economic strength. Like the first claim, this one
does not hold up even to superficial review. There is no strong, or even mild, correlation - and certainly not a
cause-and-effect relationship - between national standards and national performance on
international tests. Using basic probability skills, one can determine that the majority of countries in the world have
national standards, and thus the probability is high that many countries with national standards will score
well. Examining the actual test results, however, reveals the weak relationship. Some countries that rank higher on
international tests have national standards and some do not. For example, Canada does not use common national standards, but scored well on the
2006 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) of reading achievement (Mulls et al. 2006). Canadian students also scored well
on the PISA 2003 and 2007 tests. Both Canada and Australia, another country that did not have national curriculum standards, scored above
average on the 2006 Science PISA and ranked 2nd and 4th among the participating countries that are members of the OECD (PISA 2003; 2007).
Countries that perennially outscore the United States, such as Singapore and japan, are now trying to undo the damage done after nationalizing
their education systems around one set of standards (Zhao 2009; Tan 201 O). Interestingly, despite not having internationally benchmarked
national standards, America had the largest number of students who scored at the top levels in science on the latest PISA for 1 5-year-olds
(OECD 2009). The United States accounted for 25 percent of the world's top science achievers - nearly double the next closest competitor, Japan,
with only 1 3 percent; and triple Germany and the United Kingdom, with only 8 percent. Korea had only 5 percent of the world's top achievers in
science, and Hong Kong-China had only 1 percent. Never heard of this achievement? The data is readily available online (OECD 2009), but
apparently the NGA and CCSSO have not read it.
 SJ Education
The squo solves CCSS standards include the ability to learn about social justice
the undocuqueer movement proves
Pennell 16
(Summer M. Pennell, Truman State University. Queer Transgressive Cultural Capital in Critical Concepts in Queer Studies and Education.
cVs)

Using the example of undocuqueer populations, we can see how a

model of queer transgressive cultural capital can affect
how the topic is addressed in the classroom. Some educators may use a model of gaps, and focus on problems
undocuqueer people face due to their interlocking oppressions, such as lack of fi nancial resources for
college, lack of community for transgender activists who are arrested and put in isolation rather than with
others of their gender, lack of access to health care, and lack of employment protection. These are all
important points of discrimination, and should be understood by a general public who may not realize that
undocuqueer people face discrimination due to their race, ethnicity, citizenship status, sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender
expression in combination. Yet, if
this is where the discussion ends, K12 students or preservice teachers may feel
undocuqueer people have a solely negative experience, and it may be diffi cult for them to see the positive aspects of their
identity. Applying queer transgressive cultural capital to an analysis of undocuqueer activist movements, we can see the strengths inherent in this
group. Due to traveling in multiple activist spaces, undocuqueer activists know how to navigate the leadership of LGBTQ, immigrant, labor, and
students rights groups. Networking is vital for activist communities, as together these groups can share resources, contacts, and support. Because
undocuqueer activists lead intersectional lives, they are able to fi nd the broadly resonant master frame[s] associated with the practice of
crossmovement activism (Carroll and Ratner 1996, p. 601). Furthermore, because the movement is youth-led, these activists also navigate and
cross online spaces, which is becoming increasingly important for social activists (Olsson 2008). Looking to these strengths, teachers and teacher
educators can examine the undocuqueer movement from a positive stance. K-12
students can analyze the symbolism of the
undocubus and transcripts of speeches from National Coming Out of the Shadows Day to see where
rhetoric from multiple social movements was combined in sophisticated ways. This would require
students to practice a variety of skills, such as research, analyzing rhetoric, analyzing visual symbols,
recognizing and understanding historical references, and synthesizing information. These skills align
with Common Core State Standards Initiative ( 2010) for English Language Arts, making the
inclusion of undocuqueer activist movements in the curriculum justifi able for teachers. Teachers
can use standards such as CCSS. ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.3 Analyze how and why individuals,
events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text and CCSS.ELALITERACY.CCRA.R.4 Interpret words
and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and fi gurative meanings, and
analyze how specifi c word choices shape meaning or tone (Common Core State Standards Initiative 2010). Teacher
educators could show their preservice teachers the strengths of these individuals and communities, and how these strengths could be applied
advantageously in the classroom. Teacher educators could show videos or bring in guest speakers who are undocuqueer activists, to model for
their preservice teachers how to demonstrate positive traits and skills such as creativity, playful and sophisticated use of rhetoric, organizational
and community building techniques, the importance of historical knowledge, and the value of networking across social groups. These are
skills that many teachers want their students to learn, and the undocuqueer movement can be used as a
positive example. Through their queer transgressive cultural capital, the undocuqueer movement has
proven that differences are strengths, not weaknesses, and this is a positive example for all students and
educators. There may be undocuqueer students in the classroom as well, though expecting these students to represent this group is as
problematic as asking any minoritized student to represent an entire group. Additionally, undocumented students may not want to reveal their
citizenship status for fear of retribution.
 Testing Not Bad
Test scores going down doesnt mean that education quality is lower CCSS
provides more rigorous standards and a blueprint that can be reformed, but the
form is still good
Markell and Perdue 15
(Jack Markell and Sonny Perdue, governor of Delaware and former governor of Georgia and architects of the CCSS. Good Tests Are Good for
Students Dec. 4, 2015, USNews, https://www.usnews.com/opinion/knowledge-bank/2015/12/04/common-core-tests-are-working cVs)

Imagine two high school students, one from Delaware who spends summers enjoying the beautiful Rehoboth Beach and boardwalk and his
counterpart from Georgia, who spends her free time white water rafting with friends on the Chattahoochee River. Now, imagine these two kids
graduate from high school and head off for the same college. When they begin their coursework, they and their classmates will all benefit from
exposure to the wealth of very different experiences and perspectives each student brings to the table. But there's
one way in which we
should want every college freshman to be more alike than different: their academic preparedness for what
lies ahead. As the governor of Delaware and the former governor of Georgia, we know scenarios like the one above aren't uncommon. We
see these kids every day, and we know that the future of our economy depends on their academic
preparedness. That's why we led a bipartisan effort to develop the Common Core State Standards a set of guidelines in math and English
Language Arts and collaborated with education leaders across the country to create rigorous educational standards that are consistent from state
to state. We're proud of our work to develop the Common Core, and of the fact that more than 40 states voluntarily decided to adopt these
standards as their own. However, any educator can tell you that setting accurate goals is just one piece of ensuring
that our kids are prepared. Since the spring, news headlines about student scores on Common Core-
aligned tests including in Delaware and Georgia have highlighted another component of this work.
Gone are the days of fill-in-the-bubble assessments. Instead, today we're challenging our students to think critically and
find solutions to complex problems, just like they'll be asked to do in the workplace. The new tests
emphasize these skills and provide a more accurate measure of where our students are on their path to
college and career readiness, which can help them better prepare for the future. The 2014-2015 school year marked
the first time, after an initial practice run, that Delaware, Georgia and many other states across the country implemented end-of-year assessments
aligned to the Common Core. That makes this year the first that we'll have meaningful data to serve as a benchmark against which we can
measure student performance for years to come. This is significant in two ways. First, because we're
setting a new baseline, this
year's scores are different from previous years'. That's expected, and that's okay because the new
assessments are more rigorous than ever before, and they measure skills that are better aligned to what
today's students need to know to be successful. Secondly, while the improvements we've outlined will better
prepare our kids for the colleges and careers of tomorrow, data from the new assessments will also help
our teachers better serve the students in our classrooms right now. In Delaware, the overall results of this more rigorous
assessment show that we still have a lot of work to do to prepare all of our students for college and careers. Students in lower grades
outperformed those in middle and high school, and that's not surprising. The youngest students to take the assessment third graders have spent
virtually all of their time in school being taught to the higher standards, and their higher test results reflect this focus. We fully expect that our
results, particularly those of our older students, will continue to improve as they receive more rigorous instruction in every grade. In Georgia, our
old assessments weren't providing a realistic measure of the skills and knowledge students needed to know. We've raised the bar considerably
with our new assessment. Just like in Delaware, scores are lower this year, with proficiency levels remaining about the same for students in third
through eighth grade. But having an accurate measure of student performance is a necessary step for improving the quality of education all our
students are receiving. The good news is that there's
a lot to be hopeful about. In states that rolled out the standards
early, test scores dropped the first year, but rebounded after that. In Kentucky, the first state to adopt
Common Core State Standards, the percentage of high school graduates ready for college and career has
increased from 34 percent to 62 percent in just four years. Whether students prefer braving the rapids of
the Chattahoochee or walking the Rehoboth boardwalk during their free time, they deserve to know that
their hard work in the classroom will pay off when it matters most in college and the workplace. While
there are many policies that the two of us may not see eye to eye on, we're united in our belief that we've
made enormous progress toward preparing all of our students to succeed, and we can't stop now.
Backlines Offense
 Citizenship
The CCSS is the only education policy that demands political literacy this
empowers students to advocate for themselves
Wiener 14
(Ross Wiener is a vice president, and the executive director of the Education and Society Program, at the Aspen Institute. The Common Core's
Unsung Benefit: It Teaches Kids to Be Good Citizens The Atlantic, 5 March 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/the-
common-cores-unsung-benefit-it-teaches-kids-to-be-good-citizens/284209/ cVs)

The Common Core defines a literate American as having the ability to understand and evaluate the acts of
government and to determine independently whether arguments accord with our governments structure,
purpose, and history. The standards posit that a high-school graduate should be able to understand Supreme
Court opinions and dissents and decide for him or herself whether the Court arrived at the right decision. In
addition to focusing on building students understanding of civically important content, Common Core articulates standards for
speaking and listening that develop students ability to participate in democratic debate: Work with peers
to promote civil, democratic discussions and decision-making, set clear goals and deadlines, and establish
individual roles as needed. Propel conversations by posing and responding to questions that probe
reasoning and evidence; ensure a fair hearing for a full range of positions on a topic or issue; clarify,
verify, or challenge ideas and conclusions; and promote divergent and creative perspectives. These skills
analyze, delineate, evaluate, communicate, challenge ideas, promote divergent perspectivesare without a doubt valuable on college campuses
as well as in many modern, knowledge-economy careers. But the deliberate choice to define these advanced literacy skills
by illustrating their application to seminal texts of American democracy highlights Common Cores dual
purpose of also preparing students for the increasing intellectual demands of citizenship in a complex
world. The standards do not cover all the content or address all aspects of civics education, and they certainly are not a panacea for all that ails
civics education. But the Common Core makes an essential claim regarding American education: Preparing young people for government of the
people, by the people, for the people means more than a course in government or civics, and more than basic skills in reading and math. To
enjoy the privileges and shoulder the responsibilities of citizenship,young Americans must master the content and analytic
processes needed to fully participate in democratic processes. While some of this is undoubtedly covered
in good history and civics classes, the innovation of Common Core is to explicitly connect knowledge of
the principles and rules on which American democracy is based with the development of the practical
skills in reading, writing, speaking and listening, as well as in math, that students need to be discerning, empowered
citizens. Studying seminal documents of our democracy and the analytical approaches needed to deeply comprehend their meaning does not
privilege any particular political position. Schools, of course, should never seek to impose or encourage fealty to any party or faction. Quite the
opposite: CommonCore envisions every American possessing a personal understanding of the Declaration
of Independence and the U.S. Constitution so they can make their own judgments about what these
documents mean. Educating young people for citizenship should feature prominently in how we talk about and think about the Common
Core. And citizenship should be part of how students are tested on the standards:, At least one writing task on the high school language arts
assessment should engage students in analyzing and arguing an issue with reference to at least one foundational document of American
democracy, among other texts. Taking
these steps will not directly address the immediate political challenges
Common Core is confronting right now. But these signals will make it more likely that states, districts,
and schools implement Common Core in a way that reinvigorates the democratic purposes of public
education, and this could ultimately pave a path back to bipartisan support for education policy.
 Heg
Common Core is key to hegemony soft power leadership through diplomacy,
economic prosperity, and education
Millar 15
(Margaret Reed Millar is the Senior Program Associate for Standards, Assessment, and Accountability at the Council of Chief State School
Officers. Millar was a member of the Global Competence Taskforce. What's Global about the Common Core Standards? Asia Society
http://asiasociety.org/education/whats-global-about-common-core-standards cVs)

The Asia Society Partnership for Global Learning and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) partnered together to define global
competence and the skills and abilities that students need to demonstrate to be globally competent. CCSSOs EdSteps initiative convened a
Global Competence Taskforce composed of 24 researchers and practitioners that after 18 months of intense collaboration, defined global
competence as: the capacity and disposition to understand and act on issues of global significance. This definition is expanded in a global
competence matrix the Taskforce created that breaks the larger concept of global competence into the four primary capacities of globally
competent students: they investigate the world, recognize perspectives, communicate ideas, and take action. Global Competence can be
developed within any discipline, and cuts across disciplines. The
adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for
English language arts and mathematics in 45 states and the District of Columbia offers
educators an unprecedented opportunity
to marry the skill development and acquisition of core content needed to develop globally competent
citizens with the rigorous skills and core content needed to prepare all students for college and careers.
Further, the global competence matrix complements, and in many cases directly overlaps with, the
expectations set forth for students in the Standards. In concert with clear expectations for reading, writing, speaking, listening,
language and mathematics, the expectations outlined in the CCSS include the development of students abilities to think critically, reason,
communicate effectively, and solve problems that arise in everyday life, society, and the workplace. The adoption of new and rigorous college
and career ready standards creates an historic opportunity for individual schools, districts, and states across the nation to work independently and
collaboratively to rethink the curriculum, resource materials, and texts used in classroom and in online instruction. Educators across the United
States are currently engaged in thoughtful discussions in their local communities about how best to make the shift to teach the Common Core
State Standards through creatively adapting existing tools and resources, purchasing or creating new resources, and identifying world-class digital
open educational resources. As the introduction to the English language arts Standards notes, by emphasizing required achievements, the
Standards leave room for teachers, curriculum developers, and states to determine how those goals should be reached and what additional topics
should be addressed. The
time is now for schools and local communities to use the flexibility and opportunity
the CCSS provide to consider instruction and curriculum that incorporates global competence into the
preparation of college and career ready students. The intersection of the CCSS and the global competence matrix can best be
demonstrated through the lens of the four components of the matrix. For each, at least one example of direct intersection between the Standards
and the matrix is provided, as well as suggestions for how educators may choose to embed opportunities for students to develop their global
competence as part of CCSS aligned curriculum and instruction. INVESTIGATE THE WORLD Globally competent students
investigate the world beyond their immediate environment. The CCSS for English Language Arts make clear that building
research skills is integral to preparing students for the expectations of college and career, To be ready for college, workforce training, and life in
a technological society, students
need the ability to gather, comprehend, evaluate, synthesize, and report on
information and ideas, to conduct original research in order to answer questions or solve problems, and to analyze and create a high
volume and extensive range of print and nonprint texts in media forms old and new. The need to conduct research and to produce and consume
media is embedded into every aspect of todays curriculum. More directly, two of the College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for
Writing directly state that students must: 7. Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects based on focused questions, demonstrating
understanding of the subject under investigation. 8. Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and
accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism. Similarly, included
in the Common Core State
Standards for Mathematical Practice is the expectation that college and career ready students will be able
to construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others, which includes developing abilities to analyze
situations, justify their conclusions, and make plausible arguments. This emphasis on the ongoing and intentional
development of students research, analysis and argumentation skills is repeated in the Investigate the
World capacity defined in the global competence matrix, which calls for students to identify and weigh relevant evidence,
to analyze, integrate, and synthesize evidence, and to develop an argument based on compelling evidenceand draw defensible conclusions.
The higher-order analytic skills and research abilities that describe college and career readiness are equally a part of developing students to be
globally competent citizens. Where the global competence matrix expands upon the CCSS is in an expectation that some of the research students
conduct will focus on questions of global significance and that that the investigations into these researchable questions will include consultation
of a variety of sourcesincluding international sources and those sources that may exist in a non-native language. Educators looking to infuse
opportunities to build global competence into a CCSS aligned curriculum may consider posing a globally relevant problem that requires the use
of mathematical reasoning to develop an argument to address, or developing assignments that ask students to conduct original research into topics
that have an impact beyond the local community and providing access to international sources. RECOGNIZE PERSPECTIVES Globally
competent students recognize their own and others perspectives. The Common Core State Standards for English
Language Arts include a series of statements that, while not directly standards themselves, offer a portrait of the capacities of literate students
who meet the Standards. One of these seven statements directly addresses the importance of college and career
ready students coming to understand other perspectives and cultures. The statement continues, Students
appreciate that the twenty-first-century classroom and workplace are settings in which people from often
widely divergent cultures and who represent diverse experiences and perspectives must learn and work
together. Students actively seek to understand other perspectives and cultures through reading and listening, and they are able to communicate
effectively with people of varied backgrounds. This statement directly mirrors many of the statements in the Recognize Perspectives capacity of
the global competence matrix, including the expectations that students Recognize and express their own perspective, and Examine
perspectives of other people, groups, or schools of thought. Where the global competence matrix expands upon the CCSS for English Language
Arts document is in the expectations that a student will identify the influences on his or her own perspectives and on the perspectives of others,
as well as explain how cultural interactions influence situations, events, issues or phenomena. These statements call for students to go beyond
the recognition of existing differences in perspectives by conducting an analysis of the potential influences on ones perspective and how the
interaction of individuals and societies with different perspectives influences history. Educators wishing to incorporate this extension into an
aligned CCSS curriculum may consider, for example, developing assignments that ask students to interview others about their perspective on a
given issue, or analyze the perspective of an author or public figure, and then compare and contrast that to their own individual perspective on the
given topic. COMMUNICATE IDEAS Globally competent students communicate their ideas effectively with
diverse audiences. The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts document is replete
with standards and statements that call for students to develop effective communication skillsin writing, in
the creation of media, and in speaking and listening, both formally and informally. For example, one of the key features describing
the Standards for Speaking and Listening is flexible communication and collaboration, noting that the
Standards require students to develop a range of broadly useful oral communication and interpersonal skills. Students must learn to work
together, express and listen carefully to ideas, integrate information from oral, visual, quantitative, and media sources, evaluate what they hear,
use media and visual displays strategically to help achieve communicative purposes, and adapt speech to context and task. As another example,
the fourth College and Career Readiness Standard for Writing asks students to Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development,
organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. Likewise, the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics require
students to develop effective communications. For example, the third Standard for Mathematical Practice asks students to Construct viable
arguments and communicate them to others. The expectations for effective communications set forth in the Common Core State Standards are
shared by the Communicate Ideas column of the global competence matrix, which sets the expectation that students will communicate their
ideas effectively with diverse audiences. Where the matrix expands upon the CCSS is in the expectations that students will recognize and
express how diverse audiences may perceive different meanings from the same information and reflect on how effective communication affects
understanding and collaboration. Educators wishing to extend the curriculum to incorporate opportunities to build global competence in
communications while maintaining alignment to the Standards may wish to facilitate discussions on how the same message can be understood
differently by different individuals and groups, and ask students to reflecteither in writing or orallyabout the importance of effective
communication to successful collaboration with others from different backgrounds, cultures and nations. TAKE ACTION Globally
competent students translate their ideas and findings into appropriate actions to improve conditions. The
Common Core State Standards focus on the development of the reading, writing, speaking, listening, language and mathematical skills and
understandings students that research and evidence support are most essential for students to master in order to be ready for college and careers.
These foundational skills and competencies lay the foundation to develop students with the capacity to
take action to improve conditions in their local community, their state, the country and the world. The
Standards place an emphasis on real-world applicability of knowledge and skills, such as the fourth Standard for
Mathematical Practice focused on modeling which notes that mathematically proficient students can apply the mathematics they know to solve
problems arising in everyday life, society, and the workplace. Furthermore, an
entire strand of mathematics in high school is
devoted to modeling so students become adept at taking a real world situation and identifying when and
how mathematics should be applied to solve a particular problem. The decision left to educators, families and
communities is to determine how best to create opportunities for students to demonstrate their abilities and to take action. Those interested in
building into student learning experiences an expectation that students take action to improve conditions may consider designing extended
projects to give students this opportunity. These projects may require students to identify a problem or substandard condition, assess options and
plan actions based on evidence, act personally or collaboratively to execute the planned actions, assess the effectiveness of their actions, and
ultimately reflect on the experience. These types of opportunities may take place within the traditional school environment, in an outside of
school environment, or even at the self-direction of a student.
 STEM Girls
The CCSS is beneficial for girls, particularly girls of color its key to ensure that
teachers hold them to the same STEM standards as white men that spills up into
pay equity
Center for American Progress 14
(The Center for American Progress is s an independent nonpartisan policy institute that is dedicated to improving the lives of all Americans,
through bold, progressive ideas, as well as strong leadership and concerted action. For Women and Girls, the Common Core Is a Step Toward
Greater Equity 28 October 2014 https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/reports/2014/10/28/99435/for-women-and-girls-the-
common-core-is-a-step-toward-greater-equity/ cVs)

Women and girls continue to benefit from dramatically increased educational opportunities. Due in large part
to the success of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, more than half of the associates, bachelors, masters, and doctorate degrees
awarded by U.S. colleges today are earned by women. Yet despite this progress, large gender-based disparities and inequities in education and
employment persist. In particular, girls of color and girls from low-income backgrounds underperform academically compared with their white,
higher-income peers. Girls also often lack access to high-quality, rigorous courses, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and math, or
STEM. These courses can benefit girls by better preparing them for college and for careers that pay competitive wages. The
Common
Core State Standards represent an important step toward closing achievement gaps and opening the door
to higher-paying STEM fields for millions of girls. By establishing uniform and more-rigorous academic standards, the
Common Core helps ensure that all studentsboth girls and boys, regardless of their income levels and backgroundsare
taught to the same high expectations. For example, in New Yorkan early adopter of the Common Core
last year, black students scores grew more than 3 percentage points, and Hispanic students scores
increased by more than 4 percentage points. Educational gaps for girls and students of color The Common Core State Standards
can have an invaluable impact on girls particularly girls of color. In kindergarten through 12th grade There are achievement gaps in
math and science between girls and boys; in particular, girls of color significantly lag behind their peers. On the eighth-
grade National Assessment of Educational Progress exam, a nationally representative assessment of the knowledge and
skills of American students, girls are 20 percent less likely to achieve proficiency in science than boys. Strikingly,
39 percent of white girls are proficient in science, compared with just 9 percent of black girls and 13
percent of Hispanic girls. In math, the gap in proficiency between boys and girls is only 1 percent, but large race-based gaps persist.
While 44 percent of white girls reach proficiency in math, just 15 percent of black girls and 20 percent of
Hispanic girls reach proficiency. Girls and students of color take the Advanced Placement, or AP, exam for computer science at
lower rates and pass less frequently than boys and white students. About 30,000 students took the most recent AP exam for computer science,
which teaches the fundamentals of computer programming. Less than 25 percent of test-takers were girls; only 8 percent were Hispanic, and
approximately 3 percent were African American. In Mississippi and Montana, no female, African American, or Hispanic students took the AP
exam.11 In addition, white men passed the exam at a higher rate than women, African Americans, and Hispanics. Girls are underrepresented
among AP test-takers in nearly all STEM fields. In 2013, for each female student that took the Physics C exam, more than 2.5 male students took
the same test. Boys took the the Physics B exam at a rate of nearly 2-to-1 compared to girls and took the Calculus BC exam at a rate of nearly
1.5-to-1 in the same year. In higher education Female students and students of color take more remedial college courses. Thirty-nine percent of
female students in their first undergraduate year take a remedial course, compared with 33 percent of boys. Moreover, 31 percent of white first-
College majors are
year students take remedial courses, compared with 43 percent of Hispanic students and 45 percent of black students.
segregated by gender. Female students are still more likely than male students to major in the social
science and health care fields, while men are more likely than women to major in science, math,
engineering, and computer and information sciences. Women make up 88 percent of graduates in health
care fields and 81 percent of graduates in education. In engineering and engineering technology, however,
women make up just 18 percent of graduates; in computer and information sciences, they make up just 19
percent. After college and beyond The pay gap between women and men is established directly after college. In
2009, college-educated women made, on average, 82 percent of mens salaries one year after graduation. While
women choose fields that pay lesssuch as social sciences and teaching instead of engineering and computer scienceeven after controlling for
factors such as college major, occupation, and average hours worked, the wage gap still exists. Student-loan repayments make up a larger part of
womens earnings. Because women earn less than men do after college, student-loan repayments make up a larger part of womens earnings. In
2009, among full-time workers repaying their loans one year after college graduation, 47 percent of women were paying more than 8 percent of
their earnings toward student-loan debt; 39 percent of men were doing the same. Conclusion More
engaging and challenging
standards build a strong academic foundation for all students. Girlsand in particular, girls of color
have a lot to gain from more-rigorous learning standards that better prepare them for college and career
success. By raising the expectations for student learning, the Common Core State Standards allow girls
the opportunity to seize STEM learning opportunities while in grade school; to pursue a diverse set of college majors;
and to obtain jobs that command higher salaries. The Common Core State Standards can expand on the progress girls
have made since Title IX and can have a long-lasting impact on women in society.
 STEM Underserved Students
CCSS provides underserved populations with better mathematics education their
evidence assumes CAI which can be reformed
Kitchen and Berk 16
(Richard Kitchen, University of Denver, Professor and Kennedy Endowed Chair in Urban Education. Sarabeth Berk, University of Denver.
Educational Technology: An Equity Challenge to the Common Core, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, cVs)

This is an important time in the history of mathematics education in the United States. As of this writing, 43
of 50 states, the District
of Columbia, four U.S. territories, and the Department of Defense Education Activity have adopted the
Common Core State Standards (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2015). We believe that the implementation of the
Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM; National Governors Association Center for Best Practices [NGA] &
Council of Chief State School Officers [CCSSO], 2010) has the potential to move forward key features of standards-
based reforms in mathematics1 that have been promoted in the United States for more than 2 decades
(e.g., National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM], 1989, 2000; National Science Foundation [NSF], 1996). In particular, we
consider this to be an opportune time to purposefully focus on improving the mathematics education of
low-income students and culturally or linguistically diverse students2 who have historically been denied
access to a high-quality and rigorous mathematics education in the United States (e.g., Jacobsen, Mistele, &
Sriraman, 2013; Kitchen, DePree, Celedn-Pattichis, & Brinkerhoff, 2007; Leonard & Martin, 2013; Tllez, Moschkovich, & Civil, 2011). In this
Research Commentary, we argue that computer-assisted instruction (CAI) presents a challenge to realizing standards-based mathematics reforms
for underserved students in the United States.3 During
the 20092010 school year, more than 21 million students in
the United States attended schools that received supplemental federal funding (i.e., Title I funding) to improve
the academic achievement of children from low-income families (U.S. Department of Education, 2014). This was
approximately 44% of all students in Kindergarten to Grade 12 (Hussar & Bailey, 2013). Although these are the most recent data available, the
current figures are likely to be similar. In
recent years, there has been an influx of federal dollars for educational
interventions for Title I schools as part of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001.4 The purpose of NCLB was
to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency
on challenging State academic achievement standards and state academic assessments (U.S. Department of Education, 2004b, Sec. 1001.
Statement of Purpose, para. 1). Technology
should be employed by schools and school districts to ensure that
students achieve academic proficiency (U.S. Department of Education, 2004a). From 2007 through 2014, an average of $14.1
billion of NCLB funding was devoted to Title I grants to low-performing school districts throughout the United States (New America, 2015).
Given the influx of federal dollars into Title I schools and the growing educational technology industry
investments in educational technology companies nationwide have tripled in the last decade, from $146
million to $429 million in 2011 (DeSantis, 2012)we believe it is important to understand the impact that
technology is having on mathematics instruction in Title I schools. A concern for us is that Title I schools
disproportionately use educational technology such as CAI to learn or practice basic skills (Gray, Thomas, & Lewis, 2010, p. 3); 83% of
students attending a Title I school experience technology primarily for skill development, compared to 61% of their counterparts at non-Title I
schools (Gray et al., 2010). Because standards-based mathematics instruction may not be a priority at schools attended mainly by underserved
students (Kitchen, 2003; Martin, 2013), we
wonder what role CAI is playing with regard to the low-level, skills-
based mathematics instruction that has been pervasive in these schools (Davis & Martin, 2008; Secada, 1995). More
specifically, we pose the question: How may CAI support or hinder standards-based education reform in mathematics (e.g., development of
students reasoning through problem solving and discourse), particularly in schools largely attended by underserved students? For the purposes of
this commentary, we adopt the commonly held perspective that CAI is an instructional approach in which a computer, rather than an instructor,
provides self-paced instruction, tests, and learning feedback (Seo & Bryant, 2009).5 To be clear, it is not our intent to characterize CAI programs
as uniform because large differences exist. For instance, programs vary in terms of interactivity, use of graphics, and versatility (Barrow,
Markman, & Rouse, 2009). Some are software programs, whereas others are web-based. In addition, we recognize that there are at least three
different applications of CAI in the classroom: supplemental, core, and computer-managed learning systems (Slavin, Lake, & Groff, 2009). The
concerns we express here are intended to apply generally to any CAI intervention program designed for use in mathematics classrooms in U.S.
schools, and some of these concerns may apply for some CAI programs and not for others. Our goal is to identify and discuss our apprehensions
with regard to CAI in general and to attempt to explain why we believe our worries are particularly pertinent for underserved students. To
establish context, we give an overview of mathematical reasoning and discourse that are prominent in the CCSSM. We proceed to explore
research about how underserved students are being denied access to a rigorous standards-based education in mathematics, provide some
background on educational technology, and offer a brief review of the research on educational technology interventions that rely on CAI. We
conclude with remarks about the need for more research to understand the influence of CAI on mathematics
instruction at schools that serve students who have historically been marginalized by the U.S. educational
system.
Off-Case
Framework
 1NC Frontline
Interpretation: The affirmative should defend the desirability of topical government
action.

They dont meet: The United States federal government should means the debate
is solely about the outcome of a policy established by governmental means
Ericson 3 (Jon M., Dean Emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts California Polytechnic U., et al., The
Debaters Guide, Third Edition, p. 4)
The Proposition of Policy: Urging Future Action In policy propositions, each topic contains certain key elements, although they
have slightly different functions from comparable elements of value-oriented propositions. 1.
An agent doing the acting ---The
United States in The United States should adopt a policy of free trade. Like the object of evaluation in a proposition of
value, the agent is the subject of the sentence. 2. The verb shouldthe first part of a verb phrase that urges action. 3.
An action verb to follow should in the should-verb combination. For example, should adopt here means to put a program or
policy into action though governmental means. 4. A specification of directions or a limitation of the action desired. The
phrase free trade, for example, gives direction and limits to the topic, which would, for example, eliminate consideration of increasing tariffs,
discussing diplomatic recognition, or discussing interstate commerce. Propositions of policy deal with future action. Nothing has yet occurred.
The entire debate is about whether something ought to occur. What you agree to do, then, when you accept the
affirmative side in such a debate is to offer sufficient and compelling reasons for an audience to perform the future action that you propose.

Failing to defend topical action decimates the quality of debate

1. Competitive equityany alternative to our model of the topic as a baseline for

discussion wrecks itits impossible to negate alternative frameworks with the
ground allocated to us by the parameters of the resolutionall 2AC defense to this
claim will rely on concessionary ground which isnt a stable basis for a year of
debate.

Debate is a game and its value relies upon operating within the parameters of the
resolution any other value to debate is made possible through topical discussion.
Hurka 6 (Thomas - Canadian philosopher who holds the Jackman Distinguished Chair in Philosophical
Studies at the University of Toronto received his Ph.D. from Oxford University, GAMES AND THE
GOOD, https://thomashurka.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/games-and-the-good.pdf)
I take this admiration to rest on the judgement that excellence in games is good in itself, apart from any pleasure it may
give the player or other people, but just for the properties that make it excellent. The admiration, in other words,
rests on the perfectionist judgement that skill in games is worth pursuing for its own sake and can add value to ones
life. This skill is not the only thing we value in this way; we give similar honours to achievements in the arts, science and business. But one
thing we admire, and to a significant degree, is excellence in athletic and non-athletic games. Unless we dismiss this view, one task for
philosophy is to explain why such excellence is good. But few philosophers have attempted this, for a well-known reason. A
unified
explanation of why excellence in games is good requires a unified account of what games are, and many doubt
that this is possible. After all, Wittgenstein famously gave the concept of a game as his primary example of one for which necessary and
sufficient conditions cannot be given but whose instances are linked only by looser family resemblances.1 If Wittgenstein was right about this,
there can be no single explanation of why skill in games is good, just a series of distinct explanations of the value of skill in hockey, skill in
chess, and so on. But Wittgenstein was not right, as is shown in a little-known book that is nonetheless a classic of twentieth-century philosophy,
Bernard Suitss The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia. Suits gives a perfectly persuasive analysis of playing a game
as, to quote his summary statement, the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.2 And in
this paper I will use his analysis to explain the value of playing games. More specifically, I will argue that the different elements of
Suitss analysis give game-playing two distinct but related grounds of value, so it instantiates two related
intrinsic goods. I will also argue that game-playing is an important intrinsic good, which gives the clearest possible
expression of what can be called a modern as against a classical, or more specifically, Aristotelian, view of value. But first Suitss analysis. It
says that a game has three main elements, which he calls the prelusory goal, the constitutive rules, and the
lusory attitude. To begin with the first, in playing a game one always aims at a goal that can be described
independently of the game. In golf, this is that a ball enter a hole in the ground; in mountain climbing, that one stand
on top of a mountain; in Olympic sprinting, that one cross a line on the track before ones competitors. Suits calls this goal prelusory
because it can be understood and achieved apart from the game, and he argues that every game has such a
goal. Of course, in playing a game one also aims at a goal internal to it, such as winning the race, climbing the
mountain, or breaking par on the golf course. But on Suitss view this lusory goal is derivative, since achieving it
involves achieving the prior prelusory goal in a specified way. This way is identified by the second
element, the games constitutive rules. According to Suits, the function of these rules is to forbid the most efficient
means to the prelusory goal. Thus, in golf one may not carry the ball down the fairway and drop it in the
hole by hand; one must advance it using clubs, play it where it lies, and so on. In mountain climbing one may not ride a gondola to the top of
the mountain or charter a helicopter; in 200-metre sprinting, one may not cut across the infield. Once these rules are in place,
success in the game typically requires achieving the prelusory goal as efficiently as they allow, such as getting
the ball into the hole in the fewest possible strokes or choosing the best way up the mountain. But this is efficiency within the rules,
whose larger function is to forbid the easiest means to the games initial goal. These first two elements involve
pursuing a goal by less than the most efficient means, but they are not sufficient for playing a game. This is because someone can be forced to use
these means by circumstances he regrets and wishes were different. If this is the caseif, for example, a farmer harvests his field by hand
because he cannot afford the mechanical harvester he would much rather usehe is not playing a game. Hence the need for the third element in
Suitss analysis, the lusory attitude, which involves a persons willingly accepting the constitutive rules, or
accepting them because they make the game possible. Thus, a golfer accepts that he may not carry the
ball by hand or improve his lie because he wants to play golf, and obeying those rules is necessary for
him to do so; the mountaineer accepts that he may not take a helicopter to the summit because he wants to climb. The restrictions
the rules impose are adhered to not reluctantly but willingly, because they are essential to the game.
Adding this third element gives Suitss full definition: To play a game is to attempt to achieve a specific state of affairs
[prelusory goal], using only means permitted by the rules . . . where the rules prohibit the use of more
efficient in favour of less efficient means [constitutive rules], and where the rules are accepted just
because they make possible such activity [lusory attitude]. Or, in the summary statement quoted above, playing a
game is the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.3 This analysis will doubtless meet with objections, in
the form of attempted counterexamples. But Suits considers a whole series of these in his book, showing repeatedly that his analysis handles them
correctly, and not by some ad hoc addition but once its elements are properly understood. Nor would it matter terribly if there were a few
counterexamples. Some minor lack of fit between his analysis and the English use of game would not be important if the analysis picks out a
phenomenon that is unified, close to what is meant by game, and philosophically interesting. But the analysis is interesting if, as I will now
argue, it allows a persuasive explanation of the value of excellence in games. Suits himself addresses this issue of value. In fact, a central aim of
his book is to give a defence of the grasshopper in Aesops fable, who played all summer, against the ant, who worked. But in doing so he argues
for the strong thesis that playing
games is not just an intrinsic good but the supreme such good, since in the ideal
conditions of utopia, where all instrumental goods are provided, it would be everyones primary pursuit.
The grasshoppers game-playing, therefore, while it had the unfortunate effect of leaving him without food for the winter, involved him in the
intrinsically finest activity. Now, I do not accept Suitss strong thesis that game-playing is the supreme goodI think many other states and
activities have comparable valueand I do not find his arguments for it persuasive. But I will connect the weaker thesis that playing games is
one intrinsic good to the details of his analysis more explicitly than he ever does.
2. Truth testingthey moot the role of the negative which is to force the aff to
defend their core assumptionsallowing affs to reframe the debate around their
terms makes engagement impossibleoutweighs and turns the aff because clash is
the only way to translate anything debate gives us outside of the activity.

3. Limits The role of the ballot is to vote for whoever does the better debating over
the resolutional question. Any 2AC role for debate must explain why we switch sides
and why there has to be a winner and a loserswitching sides within a limited
resolution is key to avoiding polarization and unfairly burdening the negative team
this doesnt limit out certain forms or subjects, it only necessitates a tie to topical
action
Poscher 16 (Ralf, director of the Institute for Staatswissenschaft & Philosophy of Law, Professor of
Public Law and Legal Philosophy, Why We Argue About the Law: An Agonistic Account of Legal
Disagreement, in Metaphilosophy of Law, ed. Gizbert-Studnicki, Dyrda, Banas, 2/19/16,
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2734689)
Hegels dialectical thinking powerfully exploits the idea of negation. It is
a central feature of spirit and consciousness that
they have the power to negate. The spirit is this power only by looking the negative in the face and tarrying with it. This [] is the
magical power that converts it into being.102 The tarrying with the negative is part of what Hegel calls the labour of
the negative103. In a loose reference to this Hegelian notion Gerald Postema points to yet another feature of disagreements as a necessary
ingredient of the process of practical reasoning. Only if our reasoning is exposed to contrary arguments can we test
its merits. We must go through the labor of the negative to have trust in our deliberative
processes.104 This also holds where we seem to be in agreement. Agreement without exposure to
disagreement can be deceptive in various ways. The first phenomenon Postema draws attention to is the group
polarization effect. When a group of likeminded people deliberates an issue, informational and
reputational cascades produce more extreme views in the process of their deliberations.105 The
polarization and biases that are well documented for such groups 106 can be countered at least in some settings by
the inclusion of dissenting voices. In these scenarios, disagreement can be a cure for dysfunctional deliberative
polarization and biases.107 A second deliberative dysfunction mitigated by disagreement is superficial
agreement, which can even be manipulatively used in the sense of a presumptuous We108. Disagreement can help to police
such distortions of deliberative processes by challenging superficial agreements. Disagreements may thus
signal that a deliberative process is not contaminated with dysfunctional agreements stemming from
polarization or superficiality. Protecting our discourse against such contaminations is valuable even if we
do not come to terms. Each of the opposing positions will profit from the catharsis it received by looking
the negative in the face and tarrying with it. These advantages of disagreement in collective deliberations are mirrored on the
individual level. Even if the probability of reaching a consensus with our opponents is very low from the
beginning, as might be the case in deeply entrenched conflicts, entering into an exchange of arguments
can still serve to test and improve our position. We have to do the labor of the negative for
ourselves. Even if we cannot come up with a line of argument that coheres well with everybody elses beliefs, attitudes and dispositions, we
can still come up with a line of argument that achieves this goal for our own personal beliefs, attitudes and dispositions. To provide ourselves
with the most coherent system of our own beliefs, attitudes and dispositions is at least in important issues an aspect of personal integrity to
borrow one of Dworkins favorite expressions for a less aspirational idea. In hard cases we must in some way lay out the argument for
ourselves to figure out what we believe to be the right answer. We
might not know what we believe ourselves in questions
of abortion, the death penalty, torture, and stem cell research, until
we have developed a line of argument against the
background of our subjective beliefs, attitudes and dispositions. In these cases it might be rational to
discuss the issue with someone unlikely to share some of our more fundamental convictions or who
opposes the view towards which we lean. This might even be the most helpful way of corroborating a view, because we
know that our adversary is much more motivated to find a potential flaw in our argument than someone
with whom we know we are in agreement. It might be more helpful to discuss a liberal position with Scalia than with Breyer if we
want to make sure that we have not overlooked some counterargument to our case. It would be too narrow an understanding of our practice of
legal disagreement and argumentation if we restricted its purpose to persuading an adversary in the case at hand and inferred from this narrow
understanding the irrationality of argumentation in hard cases, in which we know beforehand that we will not be able to persuade. Rational
argumentation is a much more complex practice in a more complex social framework. Argumentationwith an adversary can have
purposes beyond persuading him: to test ones own convictions, to engage our opponent in inferential
commitments and to persuade third parties are only some of these; to rally our troops or express our
convictions might be others. To make our peace with Kant we could say that there must be a hope of coming to terms with someone
though not necessarily with our opponent, but maybe only a third party or even just ourselves and not necessarily only on the issue at hand, but
maybe through inferential commitments in a different arena. f) The Advantage Over NonArgumentative Alternatives It goes without saying that
in real world legal disagreements, all of the reasons listed above usually play in concert and will typically hold true to different degrees relative to
different participants in the debate: There will be some participants for whom our hope of coming to terms might still be justified and others for
whom only some of the other reasons hold and some for whom it is a mixture of all of the reasons in shifting degrees as our disagreements
evolve. It is also apparent that, with the exception of the first reason, the rationality of our disagreements is of a secondary nature. The
rational does not lie in the discovery of a single right answer to the topic of debate, since in hard cases there
are no single right answers. Instead, our disagreements are instrumental to rationales which lie beyond the topic at
hand, like the exploration of our communalities or of our inferential commitments. Since these reasons are of this
secondary nature, they must stand up to alternative ways of settling irreconcilable disagreements that have other secondary reasons in their favor
like swiftness of decision making or using fewer resources. Why does our legal practice require lengthy arguments and discursive efforts even
in appellate or supreme court cases of irreconcilable legal disagreements? The closure has to come by some nonargumentative mean and courts
have always relied on them. For the medieval courts of the Germanic tradition it is bequeathed that judges had to fight it out literally if they
disagreed on a question of law though the king allowed them to pick surrogate fighters.109 It is understandable that the process of civilization
has led us to nonviolent non argumentative means to determine the law. But what was wrong with District Judge Currin of Umatilla County in
Oregon, who in his late days decided inconclusive traffic violations by publicly flipping a coin?110 If we are counting heads at the end of our
lengthy argumentative proceedings anyway, why not decide hard cases by gut voting at the outset and spare everybody the cost of developing
elaborate arguments on questions, where there is not fact of the matter to be discovered? One reason lies in the mixed nature of our reasons in
actual legal disagreements. The different second order reasons can be held apart analytically, but not in real life cases. The hope of coming to
terms will often play a role at least for some time relative to some participants in the debate. A second reason is that the objectives listed above
could not be achieved by a nonargumentative procedure. Flipping a coin, throwing dice or taking a gut vote would not help us to explore our
communalities or our inferential commitments nor help to scrutinize the positions in play. A third reason is the overall rational aspiration of the
law that Dworkin relates to in his integrity account111. In a justificatory sense112 the law aspires to give a coherent account of itself even if it
is not the only right one required by equal respect under conditions of normative disagreement.113 Combining legal argumentation with the
nonargumentative decision making procedure of counting reasoned opinions serves the coherence aspiration of the law in at least two ways:
First, the
labor of the negative reduces the chances that constructions of the law that have major
flaws or inconsistencies built into the arguments supporting them will prevail. Second, since every
position must be a reasoned one within the given framework of the law, it must be one that somehow fits
into the overall structure of the law along coherent lines. It thus protects against incoherent checkerboard treatments114 of
hard cases. It is the combination of reasoned disagreement and the nonrational decisionmaking mechanism of counting reasoned opinions that
provides for both in hard cases: a decision and one of multiple possible coherent constructions of the law. Pure nonrational procedures like
argumentative procedures which are not geared towards
flipping a coin would only provide for the decision part. Pure
a decision procedure would undercut the incentive structure of our agonistic disagreements.115 In the face of
unresolvable disagreements endless debates would seem an idle enterprise. That the debates are about winning or losing
helps to keep the participants engaged. That the decision depends on counting reasoned opinions
guarantees that the engagement focuses on rational argumentation. No plain nonargumentative procedure would
achieve this result. If the judges were to flip a coin at the end of the trial in hard cases, there would be little incentive to engage in an exchange of
arguments. It is specifically the count of reasoned opinions which provides for rational scrutiny in our legal disagreements and thus contributes to
the rationales discussed above. 2. The Semantics of Agonistic Disagreements The agonistic account does not presuppose a fact
of the matter, it is not accompanied by an ontological commitment, and the question of how the fact of the
matter could be known to us is not even raised. Thus the agonistic account of legal disagreement is not
confronted with the metaphysical or epistemological questions that plague onerightanswer theories in
particular. However, it must still come up with a semantics that explains in what sense we disagree about the same issue and are not just
talking at cross purposes. In a series of articles David Plunkett and Tim Sundell have reconstructed legal disagreements in semantic terms as
metalinguistic negotiations on the usage of a term that at the center of a hard case like cruel and unusual punishment in a deathpenalty
case.116 Even though the different sides in the debate define the term differently, they are not talking past each other, since they are engaged in a
metalinguistic negotiation on the use of the same term. The metalinguistic negotiation on the use of the term serves as a semantic anchor for a
disagreement on the substantive issues connected with the term because of its functional role in the law. The cruel and unusual punishment
clause thus serves to argue about the permissibility of the death penalty. This account, however only provides a very superficial semantic
commonality. But the commonality between the participants of a legal disagreement go deeper than a discussion whether the term bank should
in future only to be used for financial institutions, which fulfills every criteria for semantic negotiations that Plunkett and Sundell propose. Unlike
in mere semantic negotiations, like the on the disambiguation of the term bank, there is also some kind of identity of the substantive issues at
stake in legal disagreements. A promising route to capture this aspect of legal disagreements might be offered by recent semantic approaches that
try to accommodate the externalist challenges of realist semantics,117 which inspire onerightanswer theorists like Moore or David Brink. Neo
descriptivist and twovalued semantics provide for the theoretical or interpretive element of realist semantics without having to commit to the
ontological positions of traditional externalism. In a sense they offer externalist semantics with no ontological strings attached. The less
controversial aspect of the externalist picture of meaning developed in neo descriptivist and twovalued semantics can be found in the deferential
structure that our meaningproviding intentions often encompass.118 In the case of natural kinds, speakers defer to the expertise of chemists
when they employ natural kind terms like gold or water. If a speaker orders someone to buy $ 10,000 worth of gold as a safe investment, he might
not know the exact atomic structure of the chemical element 79. In cases of doubt, though, he would insist that he meant to buy only stuff that
chemical experts or the markets for that matter qualify as gold. The deferential element in the speakers intentions provides for the specific
externalist element of the semantics. In the case of the law, the meaningproviding intentions connected to the provisions of the law can be
understood to defer in a similar manner to the best overall theory or interpretation of the legal materials. Against the background of such a
semantic framework the conceptual unity of a linguistic practice is not ratified by the existence of a single best answer, but by the unity of the
interpretive effort that extends to legal materials and legal practices that have sufficient overlap119 be it only in a historical perspective120. The
fulcrum of disagreement that Dworkin sees in the existence of a single right answer121 does not lie in its existence, but in the communality of the
As two
effort if only on the basis of an overlapping common ground of legal materials, accepted practices, experiences and dispositions.
athletes are engaged in the same contest when they follow the same rules, share the same concept of
winning and losing and act in the same context, but follow very different styles of e.g. wrestling, boxing,
swimming etc. They are in the same contest, even if there is no single best style in which to wrestle, box
or swim. Each, however, is engaged in developing the best style to win against their opponent, just as two
lawyers try to develop the best argument to convince a bench of judges.122 Within such a semantic
framework even people with radically opposing views about the application of an expression can still
share a concept, in that they are engaged in the same process of theorizing over roughly the same legal
materials and practices. Semantic frameworks along these lines allow for adamant disagreements
without abandoning the idea that people are talking about the same concept. An agonistic account of legal
disagreement can build on such a semantic framework, which can explain in what sense lawyers, judges and scholars engaged in agonistic
disagreements are not talking past each other. They are engaged in developing the best interpretation of roughly the same legal materials, albeit
against the background of diverging beliefs, attitudes and dispositions that lead them to divergent conclusions in hard cases. Despite the divergent
conclusions, semantic unity is provided by the largely overlapping legal materials that form the basis for their disagreement. Such a semantic
collapses only when we lack a sufficient overlap in the materials. To use an example of Michael Moores: If we wanted to debate whether a
certain work of art was just, we share neither paradigms nor a tradition of applying the concept of justice to art such as to engage in an
intelligible controversy.

Limits solve the aff theyre a floor, not a ceiling, for deconstructing and critiquing
status quo education policy
Dahlberg 14 (Lincoln - Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies, University of Queensland, The
Habermasian Public Sphere and Exclusion: An Engagement with Poststructuralist-Influenced Critics,
Communication Theory Volume 24, Issue 1, pages 2141, February 2014)
Normatively then, the Habermasian (or deliberative)4 public sphere
refers to the communicative space constituted
through rational-critical deliberation over practical problems, deliberation that leads to critically
(in)formed public opinion, which in turn enables the democratic scrutiny and guidance of official
decision-making processes. The criteria for rational-critical deliberation are understood to involve inclusive,
reasoned, reciprocal, reflexive, sincere, and coercion-free argumentation (Habermas, 2005, 2006).
Communicative rationality is supported by open information flows (publicity), motivated by the aim of
reaching understanding and agreement (public opinion), and moved toward this end by the forceless force of
the better argument (Habermas, 2005, p. 384). Claims and agreements are here contingent since every claim
can be met by a no and every deliberatively achieved agreement can be challenged and potentially
undone. It is important to note that public here refers to the mode, rather than the content or place or medium, of
communication. Thus, the public sphere may come into existence, for instance, through face-to-face or
technologically mediated argumentation between individuals and within informal groups, or through the more
organized discussions found in civil society associations and explicitly political organizations, or through the reflection and debate
engendered by the whole range of mass media forms and contentsnews, reports, commentaries, scenes and images, and shows and movies
with an informative, polemical, educational, and entertaining content (Habermas, 2006, p. 415; see also Habermas, 1996a, pp. 373374).
Habermas does not see rational-critical deliberation, which he also refers to as communicative rationality, as some sort of
metaphysical ideal, but rather argues that it can be identified as an idealization implicit in the inconspicuous
daily routines of asking for and giving reasons: It is built into communicative action (Habermas, 2006, p. 413). In other
words, the set of public sphere criteria listed above are, and must be, tacitly presupposed by anyone engaging in
any practical argument . As such, these criteria are conditions of possibility for such engagement,
constitutive of the game of argumentation (Habermas, 2005, p. 385). These presupposed criteria, Habermas (1984) argues,
can be rationally reconstructedusing the presuppositional analysis of formal pragmatics5from out of everyday arguments, illuminating
a universal public sphere norm that sets out nonarbitrary standards for the identification of communication pathologies (Habermas, 2006, p.
416). That is, the implicit idealization provides a critical ideal by which to evaluate the deliberative
quality of actual public sphere communication and thereby identify communicative distortions or
deviations and associated moments of inertia, the latter resulting from a scarcity of those functionally
necessary resources on which processes of deliberative opinion- and will-formation significantly depend (Habermas,
1996a, p. 326, drawing on Bernhard Peters' work). Such identification of limits in turn provides the basis for reflection
on the cultivation of more rational-critical deliberation. The aim of such reflection is not to set out
strict procedures for deliberation, as is required in formal decision-making (on this see Habermas, 1996a, pp. 302308), but to
identify the functionally necessary sociopolitical resources (or positive conditions) needed to enhance in
quality and quantityrational-critical deliberation in everyday practical argumentation (Chambers, 1996; Habermas,
1996a, p. 325). Specific resources will depend on context, but according to Habermas (1996a, 2006; see also Carleheden & Gabrils, 1996) they
will, in general, include: (first) a mass media system regulated in relation to the idealized criteria, (second) a network of autonomous civil society
associations supporting communicative reasoning and public opinion formation, the emergence, reproduction, and influence of which depend on
(third) a liberal-egalitarian political culture sensitive to problems affecting society as a whole (Habermas, 1996a, p. 488), which, in turn,
requires (fourth) social rights to the provision of sustainable living conditions, and (fifth) a population accustomed to (universal) freedom and
versed in critique. This deliberative public sphere norm, as already noted, is reconstructed from presuppositions of actual argumentation.
However, there is always a gap between idealization and practice: due to their idealizing content, the universal presuppositions of argumentation
can only be approximately fulfilled (Habermas, 1996a, p. 178, see also pp. 323326). As an idealization, rational-critical deliberation
(communicative rationality) is not burdened by the demands and impediments of everyday communicative practice, which means the latter
always falls short of the idealized presuppositions that are made. Habermas accepts the impossibility of realizing the always-already-presupposed
idealization of communicative rationality: the
public sphere ideal is not perfectly reachable (Habermas 1992b, p. 477).
This impossibility is not just due to empirical distortions (which will be discussed further in the next section), but also
to logical limits: Responding to his critics,6 Habermas has, particularly in recent times, argued that communicative rationality,
and thus the deliberative public sphere norm, cannot be understood as an end state, a final stage which can be
realized in time (Habermas as cited in Carleheden & Gabrils, 1996, p. 10), because if realized it would make all further communication
superfluous (Habermas, 1996b, p. 1518). In other words, the full realization of communicative rationality would mean
the end of communication, and human history, as it would eliminate those negative social conditions that make
communication in social life necessary, conditions such as inadequate information, interpersonal misunderstandings, lack of
insight, and so on (Cooke, 2004, p. 417, referring to Albrecht Wellmer's work). By blocking the realization of fully rational-
critical deliberation, these negative social conditions ensure that no actual deliberation or agreement can
ever be fully rational, which invites challenges to any democratic process and agreement (including over
deliberative criteria), and calls for ongoing argumentation. Thus, in parallel with Derridian logic, the unavoidable
moments of inertia (Habermas, 1996a, p. 326) of everyday communication, along with the idealized criteria of
communicative rationality that they limit, are conditions of possibility and impossibility of fully realizing
in actual argumentation the deliberative public sphere norm. This deliberative conception of the public sphere is seen by
advocates as radically democratic in the sense of being based solely on the will of those affected by a disputefor a number of
reasons: First, because it conceives of a rational-critical public and associated public opinion that can
scrutinize, inform, and hold publicly accountable political decisions; second, because it sees all instituted
processes and decisions as open to contestation by any excluded voices ; and third, because it understands
the criteria for guiding and judging the deliberative practice of participants as immanent to these
practices . However, poststructuralist-influenced critics, including those focusing on contemporary communication systems (e.g., Nguyen &
Alexander, 1996; Poster, 1997), see the Habermasian public sphere conception failing to be as radically democratic due to its not taking full
account of exclusion, both exclusion in everyday deliberative practice and exclusion resulting directly from the conception's formulation. I will
now outline this critique, and examine how Habermasians have responded and might further respond to it. The Habermasian public sphere
conception and exclusion Poststructuralist-influenced critics, generally speaking, argue that by promoting a universal rational
norm as the basis for public sphere communication, Habermasians make (at least) two fundamental mistakes with respect to
exclusion. First, they assume the possibility of the eliminability, or near eliminability, of exclusions in actual
argumentation, so that given the right conditions we could approximate (if not fully reproduce) communicative rationality, which
underestimates the pervasiveness of power and the extent of exclusions in everyday communicative
interaction (e.g., Flyvbjerg, 2000; Shabani, 2003). Second, and more widely articulated than the first critique, the Habermasian public sphere
norm is itself seen as exclusionary, despite its democratic aims. Poststructuralist-influenced critics, paralleling
feminist concerns (e.g., Dean, 1996; Fraser, 1997; Gould, 1996; Young, 2000) and rhetorical studies critique (e.g., Huspek, 2007a; Phillips,
1996), argue that the deliberative public sphere criteria, which are supposed to define democratically legitimate
communication and to differentiate between reasoned argumentation and coercion, actually support
domination and exclusion (e.g., Coole, 1996; Devenney, 2009; Lyotard, 1984, pp. 6566; Mouffe, 1999, 2000; Rabinovitch, 2001;
Villa, 1992). In order to be considered legitimate deliberators, subjects must come to internalize the rules of
the particular form of communication deemed to be the universally valid form of democratic engagement or be
excluded from the public sphere. As such, the Habermasian public sphere conception is seen as an exemplary form of what critical
theorists would refer to as ideology (a universal claim obscuring its particularity) and of what Foucault showed to be the operation of modern
disciplinary powerthe deliberative public sphere norm relying on the subjugation of selves through subjectivation, a normalizing that
constitutes subjects as rational-critical communicators (Villa, 1992, p. 715). As a result, participants
who have internalized
modes of communication closer to what is determined valid are advantaged over others. That is, in order to be
equally included, some participants must be disciplined more than othersthose more accustomed to rational-critical deliberative forms of
communicationso as to be capable of reproducing the idealized deliberative mode, disciplining that involves the exclusion or suppression of
those voices judged illegitimate (irrational, strategic, private). The problem for poststructuralist-influenced critics here is not with exclusion per
se, as they see norms as necessarily exclusionary, but with such exclusion being unaccounted for in relation to democratic communication and in
fact obscured by the claim to universality. I will briefly outline how Habermas and Habermasians have responded and might further respond to
these two interrelated lines of critique. In response to the first line of critiquethat the Habermasian public sphere conception
does not adequately account for exclusions in practiceI have already noted how Habermas not only understands the
public sphere norm, despite being reconstructed from everyday communicative interaction, as being logically impossible to
fully realize in practice but sees moments of inertia as ever-present and necessary features of actual
deliberation: They block the full realization of communicative rationality and yet make communication
necessary in the first place. These moments of inertia include illegitimate exclusion: Any deliberative
practice will involve exclusion, not just legitimate exclusion of undemocratic elements but exclusions defined as
illegitimate with respect to the idealization of communicative rationality. Such illegitimate exclusions
result from: unequal distribution of attention, competencies, and knowledge (Habermas, 1996a, p. 325); strategic manipulation of various
sorts, including bribes, threats, or violence (Habermas, 1996a, pp. 307308); and systemic coercionstate and corporate interests and their
instrumental media of money and power colonizing more and more areas of life including those that should, for a healthy democratic society, be
coordinated by public opinion derived from rational-critical deliberation (for an overview of the forms of distorted communication identified by
Habermas, see Huspek, 2007b, pp. 827830). In relation to systemic coercion, Habermas has been particularly critical of the instrumentalization
of communication media: How the potential of the mass media to support rational-critical deliberation, with maximum inclusion of voices, is
continually thwarted by system colonization, and particularly the intrusion of the functional imperatives of the market economy in the internal
logic of the production and presentation of messages (Habermas, 2006, p. 422). As well as exclusion resulting from such explicitly distorted
communication, Habermasian theory also considers the exclusionary effects of culturally specific (lifeworld) contexts. The
interpretation
and application of public sphere criteria as well as the validity and strength of arguments will always be
contextually affected and historically specified (Habermas, 1992b, p. 477; 1996a, p. 324). As a result, what comes to be
defined as legitimate deliberation will be colored by taken-for-granted meanings, leading to some
voices being illegitimately (according to the deliberative public sphere norm) valorized over others, with the illegitimate
marginalization or exclusion of these other voices. Thus Habermas (2006) and adherents are fully aware of how public spheres
in practice are dominated by the kind of mediated communication that lacks the defining features of
deliberation (p. 414), the kind of political communication we know goes against the grain of the normative requirements of deliberative
politics (p. 420). However, as we have seen, for Habermasians it is not just culture and power that determine communicative practice, as some
poststructuralist-inspired critique suggests. Rather, presuppositions
of communicative rationality are understood as implicit
in every argument, providing a countervailing force to distorted communication and the basis for a
postmetaphysical critique of exclusion and a potential for self-transformation (Habermas, 1992a, pp. 419429; 1992b, pp. 476479;
1996a, p. 374, 2006, p. 419; see also Benhabib, 1996; Chambers, 1996; Cooke, 1994). We can see this historically in the labor and women's
movements, as Habermas (1996a) points out, which have been able to draw on the rights to unrestricted inclusion
and equality built into liberal public spheres . . . in order to shatter the structures that had initially
constituted them as the other of a bourgeois public sphere (p. 374). The central purpose in reconstructing the public sphere
idealization of rational-critical deliberation, as already outlined in the previous section, is to illuminate this basis for critique and transformation.
Yet, poststructuralists see such a universal norm as in itself producing exclusions , exclusions that are not only
unaccounted for but are, in fact, obscured by the claim to universality. This is the second line of critique outlined above. In reply to this second
line of critique, it must first be noted that Habermasians accept that there is a necessary constitutive exclusion
involved in the deliberative public sphere conception. In fact, any conception of democracy must involve
normative claims about what democracy is and is not, including what is acceptable as democratic
communication and what is not, drawing a line between reasoned argumentation and coercion,
democratically legitimate and illegitimate exclusion. It is simply not possible to call on democracy and escape
invoking a norm of democratic communication with associated exclusions. The question is then
whether we can, as Habermas claims, reconstruct from everyday communicative practice a universal norm of the public sphere that
distinguishes between democratically legitimate and illegitimate exclusion. According to Habermas (1992a),
not only can we reconstruct such a norm, but the public sphere norm thus identified is not normalizing
in the disciplinary and exclusionary sense suggested by the poststructuralist critique. Of course, any norm will
require certain behavior from participants, and thus the constitution of subjectivity in particular
ways. But Habermasians do not see such requirements and constitution as necessarily antidemocratic .
More specifically, they do not see the deliberative public sphere norm as having to be internalized in a
disciplinary and exclusionary fashion . Rather, they see it as an always already presupposed
communicative structure that can be explicitly reconstructed as a critical ideal by which to
illuminate illegitimate exclusion within deliberation specifically, and society more generally, and
enable reflection upon possibilities for greater freedom and equality (Habermas, 1996a; Markell, 1997). As
Chambers (1996) argues, rational-critical deliberation here is about the endless questioning of codes, the
reasoned questioning of normalization and thus of exclusions (pp. 233234). Through deliberation,
participants presuppose themselves as rational-critical subjects (and in the process are constituted as such), able to
reflexively interrogate all aspects of their situation, including the particular deliberative rules applied in
practical disputes. Of course, as critics point out, subjects whose everyday communicative practice is already more
in line with the deliberative public sphere norm will be advantaged over others in becoming such rational-critical
interlocutors. However, for Habermasians, it is not the reconstructed norm that should be seen as at faultseeing
the reconstructed norm marginalizing or excluding voicesbut the uneven distribution of the
sociocultural resources necessary for engaging in rational-critical deliberation (that fall under the five general
positive conditions of the public sphere listed in the previous section). This unevenness, which is in fact highlighted by the Habermasian
public sphere norm in its critical role, indicates the need to provide for these resources so as to enhance and extend
communicative rationality . That is, we are faced here with a sociological problem, one that the Habermasian public sphere norm
illuminates and demands be addressed for the advancement of democracy, rather than a problem internal to the character of the norm.
 Education
Debating about education policy should inform our pedagogy absent critical
engagement in education policy with a pedagogy of social justice, the depoliticization
of populations marginalized by the Common Core will continue
Giroux 4
(Henry, Global TV Network Chair in English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University, Public Pedagogy and the Politics of Neo-liberalism:
making the political more pedagogical, Policy Futures in Education, Volume 2, Numbers 3 & 4, 2004,
http://www.cws.illinois.edu/IPRHDigitalLiteracies/GirouxPublicPFinE2004.pdf)

The moral implications of pedagogy also suggest that our responsibility as public intellectuals cannot be
separated from the consequences of the knowledge we produce, the social relations we legitimate, and the
ideologies and identities we offer up to students. Refusing to decouple politics from pedagogy means, in part,
that teaching in classrooms or in any other public sphere should not only simply honor the experiences students bring to
such sites, but should also connect their experiences to specific problems that emanate from the material
contexts of their everyday lives. Pedagogy in this sense becomes performative in that it is not merely about deconstructing texts,
but is also about situating politics itself within a broader set of relations that address what it might mean to
create modes of individual and social agency which enable rather than shut down democratic values,
practices, and social relations. Such a project recognizes not only the political nature of pedagogy, but also situates it within a call for
intellectuals to assume responsibility for their actions, to link their teaching to those moral principles that allow us to do something about human
suffering, as the late Susan Sontag has recently suggested.[19] Part of this
task necessitates that cultural studies theorists and
educators anchor their own work, however diverse, in a radical project that seriously engages the promise of an
unrealized democracy against its really existing forms. Of crucial importance to such a project is the rejection of the
assumption that theory can understand social problems without contesting their appearance in public life. More specifically, any viable
cultural politics needs a socially committed notion of injustice if we are to take seriously what it means to
fight for the idea of the good society. I think Zygmunt Bauman is right in arguing that: If there is no room for the idea of
wrong society, there is hardly much chance for the idea of good society to be born, let alone make waves.[20]
Cultural studies theorists need to be more forceful, if not committed, in linking their overall politics to modes of
critique and collective action that address the presupposition that democratic societies are never too just or just
enough. Such a recognition means that a society must constantly nurture the possibilities for self-critique, collective
agency, and forms of citizenship in which people play a fundamental role in critically discussing, administrating, and shaping the material
relations of power and ideological forces that bear down on their everyday lives. At stake here is the task, as the late Jacques Derrida
insisted, of viewing the project of democracy as a promise a possibility rooted in the continuing struggle for economic,
cultural, and social justice.[21] Democracy in this instance is not a sutured or formalistic regime, it is the site of struggle
itself. The struggle over creating an inclusive and just democracy can take many forms, offers no political
guarantees, and provides an important normative dimension to politics as an ongoing process of
democratization that never ends. Such a project is based on the realization that a democracy which is open to exchange, question, and
self-criticism never reaches the limits of justice. By linking education to the project of an unrealized democracy, cultural studies
theorists who work in higher education can make clear that the issue is not whether higher education has become
contaminated with politics, but rather that it is more importantly about recognizing that education is already a
space of politics, power, and authority. At the same time, they can make clear their opposition to those approaches to pedagogy that
reduce it to a methodology like teaching of the conflicts or, relatedly, to simply opening up a culture of questioning. Both of
these positions not only fail to highlight the larger political, normative, and ideological considerations that
inform such views of education and pedagogy, but they also collapse the purpose and meaning of higher
education, the role of educators as engaged scholars, and the possibility of pedagogy itself into a rather short-
sighted and sometimes insular notion of method, albeit one that narrowly emphasizes argumentation and
dialogue. There is a disquieting refusal in such discourses to raise broader questions about the social, economic,
and political forces shaping the very terrain of higher education particularly unbridled market forces, or racist and sexist
forces that unequally value diverse groups of students within relations of academic power or about what it might mean to engage pedagogy as a
 There is also a general misunderstanding of
basis not merely for understanding, but also for participating in the larger world.
how teacher authority can be used to create the pedagogical conditions for critical forms of education
without necessarily falling into the trap of simply indoctrinating students.[22] For instance, liberal educator Gerald Graff
believes that any notion of critical pedagogy that is self-conscious about its politics and engages students in ways
that offer them the possibility for becoming critical or what Lani Guinier calls the need to educate students to participate in civic life, and to
encourage graduates to give back to the community, which through taxes, made their education possible [23] either
leaves students
out of the conversation or presupposes too much and simply represents a form of pedagogical tyranny.
While Graff advocates strongly that educators create the educational practices that open up the possibility of questioning among students, he
refuses to connect pedagogical conditions that challenge how they think at the moment to the next step of prompting them to think about
changing the world around them so as to expand and deepen its democratic possibilities. George Lipsitz
criticizes academics such as
Graff, who believe that connecting academic work to social change is at best a burden and at worst a collapse into
a crude form of propagandizing, suggesting that they are subconsciously educated to accept cynicism about the
ability of ordinary people to change the conditions under which they live.[24] Teaching students how to
argue, draw on their own experiences, or engage in rigorous dialogue says nothing about why they should
engage in these actions in the first place. How the culture of argumentation and questioning relates to giving
students the tools they need to fight oppressive forms of power, make the world a more meaningful and just place, and
develop a sense of social responsibility is missing in work like Graffs because this is part of the discourse of political
education, which Graff simply equates to indoctrination or speaking to the converted.[25] Here, propaganda and critical pedagogy collapse into
each other. Propaganda is generally used to misrepresent knowledge, promote biased knowledge, or produce a view of politics that appears
beyond question and critical engagement. While no pedagogical intervention should fall to the level of propaganda, a pedagogy that
attempts to empower critical citizens cannot and should not avoid politics. Pedagogy must address the
relationship between politics and agency, knowledge and power, subject positions and values, and learning and social change
while always being open to debate, resistance, and a culture of questioning. Liberal educators committed to simply
raising questions have no language for linking learning to forms of public scholarship that would enable
students to consider the important relationship between democratic public life and education, politics and
learning. Disabled by a depoliticizing, if not slavish, allegiance to a teaching methodology, they have little
idea of how to encourage students pedagogically to enter the sphere of the political, which enables
students to think about how they might participate in a democracy by taking what they learn into new
locations a third grade classroom, a public library, a legislators office, a park [26], or, for that matter, by taking on collaborative projects
that ad dress the myriad of problems citizens face in a diminishing democracy. In spite of the professional pretense to neutrality, academics need
to do more pedagogically than simply teach students how to be adept at forms of argumentation. Students
need to argue and
question, but they need much more from their educational experience. The pedagogy of argumentation in and of itself
guarantees nothing, but it is an essential step towards opening up the space of resistance towards authority, teaching students to think critically
about the world around them, and recognizing interpretation and dialogue as a condition for social intervention and transformation in the service
of an unrealized democratic order. As Amy Gutmann argues, education
is always political because it is connected to the
acquisition of agency and the ability to struggle with ongoing relations of power, and is a precondition for
creating informed and critical citizens.[27] This is a notion of education that is tied not to the alleged neutrality of teaching methods
but to a vision of pedagogy which is directive and interventionist on the side of reproducing a democratic society. Democratic societies need
educated citizens who are steeped in more than the skills of argumentation. And it is precisely this democratic project that affirms the critical
function of education and refuses to narrow its goals and aspirations to methodological considerations. This is what makes critical pedagogy
different from training. And it
is precisely the failure to connect learning to its democratic functions and goals
that provides rationales for pedagogical approaches which strip the meaning of what it means to be
educated from its critical and democratic possibilities.
 Policy Focus Good Details
The devil is in the details for education policy having debates about CCSS is key to
know the language of scores and their implications the language of CCSS is
designed to trick people who arent in the know thats the only way to address
racism
Parsons 16
(Dr. Ebbie Parsons, III is the Managing Partner of Yardstick Learning where he leads the organizations vision and growth. Yardstick Learning is
a leading global strategic management consulting firm that provides strategy and change management services to mission-driven organizations.
The Institutional Racism Behind Getting to Proficient on Huffington Post, 23 September 2016, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-ebbie-
parsons-iii/the-institutional-racism-_b_8185608.html cVs)

Its been a great day so far and its just 10AM. I had the pleasure of reading to my daughters 3K Pre-School class and received an overwhelming
applause from the cutest group of kids imaginable. All of them displayed mastery of social emotional skills along with phenomenal language
development. They havent been formally assessed yet but leveraging my knowledge of assessments and early childhood development, I can
ballpark that at least 80% of the class would be considered Advanced Proficient if they were to take a standardized assessment. Hence, the
dilemma. As the Managing Partner of Yardstick Learning, Ive had firsthand experience working with high needs urban
schools, parochial schools, as well as extremely affluent public and private school systems. The
achievement gap across these socioeconomic groups is well documented, but no one ever seems to focus
on the expectations gap. The education reform community is more influential and powerful than ever
before and the national lens has been focused on low income communities and getting all kids to
proficient. However, in affluent communities, setting the bar to all children getting to proficient would result in the termination of everyone
in the district including the board. The expectations in affluent communities are far greater than getting to
proficient and instead focus on AP exam scores, Tier 1 college admissions, and Advanced Proficient
percentages. Few people outside of education actually know what proficient means as it relates to
the recently implemented common core standards. Ill pull out a few Kindergarten standards and challenge any readers of
this Op-ed to believe that they wouldnt pull their own kids out of a class if this is where their child is at at the END of their Kindergarten year.
For example, according to Common Core Standard CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.1.D, 6 year olds at the end of their
Kindergarten year should understand and use question words (interrogatives) (e.g., who, what, where, when, why, how). I
mentioned that my daughter just began 3K Pre-K this year and before she completed her 2 year old pre-
school program, she and her classmates were proficient at understanding and using question words. The
same holds true for any affluent community in the nation. Why then should proficient be the target for
impoverished kids when kids from higher income communities mastered whats considered proficient 2-4
years before the standard is even assessed? Lets look at another Kindergarten standard to help prove my point even further.
According to Common Core Standard CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.K.CC.B.5, 6 year olds should be able to count to answer
how many? questions about as many as 20 things arranged in a line, a rectangular array, or a circle, or
as many as 10 things in a scattered configuration; given a number from 1-20, count out that many objects. Again, my 3
year old isnt a genius nor are her classmates but they can all do this at least moderately well. This
standard is saying that she will be proficient if she can do this in 2 1/2 more YEARS. Is that not ridiculous?
The basic point of my argument is that proficient is such a low standard that not a single child who scores
proficient in all areas according to the standards will actually be college or career ready upon matriculation
from high school. The expectations are too low for any of these kids to rely on proficiency to help them get admitted into a competitive college
and theres nothing about any of these standards that are actually preparing these kids to be career ready for any type of position deemed to be on
a career track by any American standard. These standards arent good enough for White students so why should
schools be allowed to tout them as success for low-income Black and Brown students? How many times
have you seen schools say that theyve transformed or turned around a school by getting up to 70%
proficient? Or what about the schools that brag that 100% of their kids are proficient? I implore you to peel back the onion to find out what
percent of those kids are advanced proficient. And trust me, if that number is less than 10% and theyre touting 100% proficiency then you should
know that the school is nothing more than a testing mill preparing kids for standardized assessments. Affluent communities try to build critical
thinkers who are exposed to a vast array of opportunities and curriculum that explores all of the core content areas with a critical eye. Theyre not
teaching rote memorization of a standard so that kids can do well on an assessment. Theyre teaching kids to actually get it. Many of them may
even have fewer students that score proficient but nearly all of the students who are proficient actually score advanced proficient on an
must choose our childrens education eyes wide
assessment because they have a firm understanding of the material. We
open and understand when the wool is being pulled over our eyes. The institutional racism that is
proficient only continues to keep Black and Brown children from ever experiencing the real American
dream. We need to understand the standards in order to challenge the standards. This is our
responsibility as this determines our future!
 Steinberg + Freeley
Abdicating debates about the resolution destroys all debate---topic relevance isnt
enough to ensure effective clash
Steinberg and Freeley 13, David, Lecturer in Communication studies and rhetoric, advisor to
Miami Urban Debate League, Director of Debate at U Miami, former President of CEDA, and Austin,
attorney who focuses on criminal, personal injury and civil rights law, JD, Suffolk University,
Argumentation and Debate: Critical Thinking for Reasoned Decision Making, 121-4
Debate is a means of settling differences, so there must be a controversy, a difference of opinion or a conflict of interest
before there can be a debate. If everyone is in agreement on a feet or value or policy, there is no need or
opportunity for debate; the matter can be settled by unanimous consent. Thus, for example, it would be pointless to attempt to debate "Resolved: That
two plus two equals four, because there is simply no controversy about this statement. Controversy is an essential prerequisite of
debate. Where there is no clash of ideas, proposals, interests, or expressed positions of issues, there is no debate.
Controversy invites decisive choice between competing positions. Debate cannot produce effective
decisions without clear identification of a question or questions to be answered. For example, general argument may
occur about the broad topic of illegal immigration. How many illegal immigrants live in the United States? What is the impact of illegal
immigration and immigrants on our economy? What is their impact on our communities? Do they commit crimes? Do they take jobs from American workers? Do they
pay taxes? Do they require social services? Is it a problem that some do not speak English? Is it the responsibility of employers to discourage illegal immigration by
not hiring undocumented workers? Should they have the opportunity to gain citizenship? Does illegal immigration pose a security threat to our country? Do illegal
immigrants do work that American workers are unwilling to do? Are their rights as workers and as human beings at risk due to their status? Are they abused by
employers, law enforcement, housing, and businesses? How are their families impacted by their status? What is the moral and philosophical obligation of a nation
state to maintain its borders? Should we build a wall on the Mexican border, establish a national identification card, or enforce existing laws against employers?
Should we invite immigrants to become U.S. citizens? Surely you
can think of many more concerns to be addressed by a
conversation about the topic area of illegal immigration. Participation in this debate is likely to be
emotional and intense. However, it is not likely to be productive or useful without focus on a particular
question and identification of a line demarcating sides in the controversy. To be discussed and resolved
effectively, controversies are best understood when seated clearly such that all parties to the debate share
an understanding about the objective of the debate. This enables focus on substantive and objectively
identifiable issues facilitating comparison of competing argumentation leading to effective decisions.
Vague understanding results in unfocused deliberation and poor decisions, general feelings of tension
without opportunity for resolution, frustration, and emotional distress, as evidenced by the failure of the U.S.
Congress to make substantial progress on the immigration debate. Of course, arguments may be presented
without disagreement. For example, claims are presented and supported within speeches, editorials, and advertisements even without opposing or
refutational response. Argumentation occurs in a range of settings from informal to formal, and may not call upon an audience or judge to make a forced choice
among competing claims. Informal discourse occurs as conversation or panel discussion without demanding a decision about a dichotomous or yes/no question.
However, by definition, debate requires "reasoned judgment on a proposition. The proposition is a statement about which competing advocates will offer alternative
(pro or con) argumentation calling upon their audience or adjudicator to decide. The proposition provides focus for the discourse and guides the decision process.
Even when a decision will be made through a process of compromise, it is important to identify the beginning positions of
competing advocates to begin negotiation and movement toward a center, or consensus position. It is frustrating
and usually unproductive to attempt to make a decision when deciders are unclear as to what the decision
is about. The proposition may be implicit in some applied debates (Vote for me!); however, when a vote or consequential decision is called for (as in the
courtroom or in applied parliamentary debate) it is essential that the proposition be explicitly expressed (the defendant is guilty!). In
academic debate, the proposition provides essential guidance for the preparation of the debaters prior to the
debate, the case building and discourse presented during the debate, and the decision to be made by the
debate judge after the debate. Someone disturbed by the problem of a growing underclass of poorly educated, socially disenfranchised
youths might observe, Public schools are doing a terrible job! They' are overcrowded, and many teachers are poorly qualified in
their subject areas. Even the best teachers can do little more than struggle to maintain order in their classrooms." That same concerned citizen, facing
a complex range of issues, might arrive at an unhelpful decision, such as "We ought to do something
about this or, worse, Its too complicated a problem to deal with." Groups of concerned citizens worried about the state of
public education could join together to express their frustrations, anger, disillusionment, and emotions regarding the schools, but
without a focus for their discussions, they could easily agree about the sorry state of education without
finding points of clarity or potential solutions. A gripe session would follow. But if a precise question
is posedsuch as What can be done to improve public education?then a more profitable area of
discussion is opened up simply by placing a focus on the search for a concrete solution step. One or more judgments can
be phrased in the form of debate propositions, motions for parliamentary debate, or bills for legislative assemblies, The statements "Resolved: That the
federal government should implement a program of charter schools in at-risk communities and Resolved; That the state of Florida should adopt a school voucher
program" more clearly identify specific ways of dealing with educational problems in a manageable form, suitable
for debate. They provide specific policies to be investigated and aid discussants in identifying points of
difference. This focus contributes to better and more informed decision making with the potential for
better results. In academic debate, it provides better depth of argumentation and enhanced opportunity for reaping the
educational benefits of participation. In the next section, we will consider the challenge of framing the proposition for debate, and its role in the debate.
To have a productive debate, which facilitates effective decision making by directing and placing
limits on the decision to be made, the basis for argument should be clearly defined. If we merely talk
about a topic, such as "homelessness, or abortion, Or crime, or global warming, we are likely to
have an interesting discussion but not to establish a profitable basis for argument. For example, the statement
Resolved: That the pen is mightier than the sword is debatable, yet by itself fails to provide much basis for dear argumen-
tation. If we take this statement to mean Iliad the written word is more effective than physical force for some purposes, we can identify a problem area: the
comparative effectiveness of writing or physical force for a specific purpose, perhaps promoting positive social change. (Note that loose propositions, such as the
example above, may be defined by their advocates in such a way as to facilitate a clear contrast of competing sides; through definitions and debate they become
clearly understood statements even though they may not begin as such. There are formats for debate that often begin with this sort of proposition. However, in
any
debate, at some point, effective and meaningful discussion relies on identification of a clearly stated or
understood proposition.) Back to the example of the written word versus physical force. Although we now have a general subject,
we have not yet stated a problem. It is still too broad, too loosely worded to promote well-organized argument. What sort of writing are we concerned
withpoems, novels, government documents, website development, advertising, cyber-warfare, disinformation, or what? What does it mean to be mightier" in this
context? What kind of physical force is being comparedfists, dueling swords, bazookas, nuclear weapons, or what? A more specific question might be, Would a
mutual defense treaty or a visit by our fleet be more effective in assuring Laurania of our support in a certain crisis? The basis for argument could be phrased in a
debate proposition such as Resolved: That the United States should enter into a mutual defense treaty with Laurania. Negative advocates might oppose this
proposition by arguing that fleet maneuvers would be a better solution. This
is not to say that debates should completely avoid
creative interpretation of the controversy by advocates, or that good debates cannot occur over competing
interpretations of the controversy; in fact, these sorts of debates may be very engaging. The point is that
debate is best facilitated by the guidance provided by focus on a particular point of difference, which will
be outlined in the following discussion.
 TVA
The topical version of the aff is that the United States Federal Government should
repeal its financial incentivization for states to adopt the Common Core. The United
States Federal Government should mandate a social justice oriented curriculum
with room for teachers to determine the
Abolition solves the CCSS relies on DOE coercion leaving the states on their own
destroys the standards
Pullmann 17
(Joy Pullmann is managing editor of The Federalist and author of "The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of
American Kids," out from Encounter Books this month. Yes, Donald Trump Can Repeal Common Core. Heres How 16 February 2017,
http://thefederalist.com/2017/02/16/yes-donald-trump-can-repeal-common-core-heres/ cVs)

So, lets read Donald Trumps promise to repeal Common Core, not in the ruling classs legalistic hyperliteralism that attempts to definitionally
neuter their opponents, but on Donald Trump terms, on the American publics terms: seriously, but not literally. Common
Core is not
merely one federal mandate. It embodies the culmination of the federal education system itself. It is
marbled throughout state and federal education policy in myriad programs, mandates, funding streams,
and, most of all, the ineffective progressive-education thoughtworld it entrenches in its testing and
curriculum dictates. As I detail in full footnoted glory in my book out soon, Common Cores own founding documents
specifically invite federal involvement. Its success as a national program is directly attributable to
federal involvement in education, period. Common Cores creators and funders worked hand-in-glove with
the Obama administration, right down to transferring personnel and regular alignment phone calls, to impose it upon the nation and link
it to every major federal and state education policy (data collection, teacher preparation and certification, school rating systems, curriculum,
testing). The
new law replacing No Child Left Behind codifies the federal government as the ultimate
review board for state testing and curriculum policies, a Clinton-era policy that made Common Core
possible. So, as usual, the conventional political wisdom is wrong. President Trump can indeed fulfill his promise to
repeal Common Core. The mechanisms that led to its creation and force-fed it to states remain intact, and
need to be dismantled. At the heart of those mechanisms lies the U.S. Department of Education itself.

FULL POLICY abolition is key to relax standards and create room for meaningful
social justice education leaving the Common Core intact kills dialogue between
admins, teachers, and students the impact is institutional color-ignorance
Hall and Sipley 15
(Mercer Hall is a teacher and co-founder of the American Society for Innovation Design in Education. He is a co-editor of the ASIDE blog, and
his work is regularly featured in EdSurge, Edutopia, EdTech magazine and other forums. Gina Sipley is a lifelong teacher who has been
nationally recognized as a teacher of the future for her commitments to technology, sustainability and social justice. She writes about educational
technology for EdSurge and Mic. Test-obsessed instruction leaves little room to teach race Al-Jazeera America, 25 June 2015,
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/6/test-oriented-instruction-leaves-little-room-to-teach-race.html cVs)

The shooting tragedy in Charleston, South Carolina, combined with the alarming clashes in the past year in Ferguson, Missouri; Baltimore; and
McKinney, Texas, have forced conversations about race on a national citizenry that has long preferred looking the other way. Similar
reflections about social justice, however, have been almost entirely absent from U.S. schoolrooms. As
politicians and parents vehemently debate the role of the Common Core, teachers and students remain
largely silent about the roles of skin color on ones learning experience. More than ever, race as a
construct of civic and personal identity is critical to talk about with children. Pretending that racial
stressors do not exist in their minds and daily experiences is to pretend that their learning is not affected
by their social and emotional states. The increasingly diverse makeup of U.S. classrooms means that
students will wrestle with these questions of race whether educators guide them or not. But introducing
such discourse into classrooms requires planning and administrative support. For most public schools, the
testing mandates of the Common Core standards, which focus on English language arts and math, make
these kinds of dialogues nearly impossible. According to David Kirkland, an associate professor of education at New York
University who researches English education and urban studies, standardization, accountability and high-stakes testing
have swallowed up a lot of real estate in the school day that might otherwise be allocated to talking
with students about real-world problems. Too much time is mandated for drills and test taking at the
expense of actually educating the child. A 2013 study (PDF) from the American Federation of Teachers found that students
in heavily tested grades spend 20 to 50 hours a year taking standardized exams and another 60 to 110
hours in preparations. The standards themselves are not necessarily nefarious; the Common Core suggests reading challenging texts by
black authors such as Frederick Douglass and Richard Wright. There are no standards, however, emphasizing social and
emotional learning or self-identity. While the fates of schools and teachers reside in their test score results, there is nothing to
encourage and everything to discourage nuanced discussions of race and social status. Not allowing
children to wrestle with labels of identity and vocalize their feelings of belonging can isolate them,
depriving them of the tools to negotiate how society sees them. It can also suggest that inequality is
something that exists only in the past. Brigitte Fielder, an assistant professor of comparative literature who teaches courses in race
and gender studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, finds that her well-intentioned undergraduate students arrive at
college without the tools or the language to engage in antiracist discourse. Its not that they dont want to talk about
these things. They have never had to do it before. Many students come from segregated or cloistered environments in which race and racism are
not openly discussed. Fielders observations are consistent with a 2014 study on millennials and bias (PDF) conducted by MTV Strategic Insights
and David Binder Research. The survey concluded that more than 70
percent of millennials believe they are postracial and
wish to live in a colorblind society. Although
they feel that discussing bias is key to reducing prejudice, only 20
percent of respondents admit they would be comfortable engaging in that conversation. Only 37 percent were
brought up in families that talked about race. The postracial or colorblind mindset ignores the unequal conditions under which the social construct
of race emerges. Fielder explained, Whereas
privileged children can be protected from the discomfort of these
conversations, historically, parents of black children have needed to talk about these issues as a matter of
safety. These personal narratives are essential for all students to hear, regardless of racial identity, so that they
become aware of classmates realities. The next generation cannot work toward a more equitable
society without a shared understanding of how white privilege operates and how institutional
racism persists.
 AT Disembodiment
Were not disembodied resolutional debate allows for situating embodied politics
in a topical plan that solves
Lincoln Dahlberg 5, The University of Queensland, Center for Critical and Cultural Studies, Visiting
Fellow, The Habermasian public sphere: Taking difference seriously?, Theory and Society (2005) 34:111-
126
The idea that the public sphere of communicative rationality excludes or suppresses aesthetic-affective modes of
discourse is based upon a particularly narrow reading of the conception. This rationalist reading does not simply result from
poor stylizations of the conception by critics attempting to illuminate their own positions,21 but is also supported by Habermas own personal
antipathy towards aesthetic-affective modes of communication in politics.22 This
reading of the public sphere is further encouraged by
a recent American, liberal strain of deliberative democratic theory that does indeed promote a strongly
rationalist sense of political communication.2
In contrast to such a reading, the public sphere conception as set out in the conditions I have outlined
above does make room for aesthetic-affective aspects of discourse, which clearly cannot, and need not,
be wholly separated from rational communication. The requirements of the conception that are seen as most
exclusionary of the aesthetic-affective modes reexivity, impartiality, and the reasoned contestation of
validity claimsare not only complemented by requirements that embrace difference (inclusion, equality,
mutual respect) but in themselves do not exclude the aesthetic-affective dimensions of interaction. First,
reexivity should not be limited to systematic, ana- lytical reection, and certainly not to dry, dispassionate, self-analysis.
Reexivity should include, as Scott Lash emphasizes, aesthetic and hermeneutic dimensions; as well as logical self-
monitoring, reexivity involves intuition and imagination, which draw on feeling.24 Second, the assumption
that impartiality promotes non-emotional, abstracted, disembodied dialogue is also mistaken. Impartiality
indicates, as Selya Benhabib notes, an ethic of fairness rather than a non-empathetic, disembodied,
judgment.25 According to Simone Chambers, drawing uponKantspoliticalphilosophy, impartiality is part of the requirement of ideal
role taking, demanding that rather than participants abstracting themselves, they attempt to put themselves in the position of the concrete
other and assess the situation from the others perspective.26 Impartiality is complemented in this process by the condition of
respectful listening that further links cognitive and affective aspects of interaction. Of course, attaining
understanding and impartial judgment is always limited and partial in practice given context dependent subject positioning. But the point here is
that the attempt to take the position of the concrete other in order to judge problems more impartially is not bereft of feeling. Third, the
reciprocal contestation of validity claims does not limit exchange to the dispassionate style of
interrogation and analysis often found in modern law and science. The exchange of validity claims and reasons
should not simply be equated with dry logic. Positions worth defending will usually be articulated
and reasoned with a degree of passion and commitment.
 AT Exclusion
Debate inevitably involves exclusions and normative constraints---making sure that
those exclusions occur along reciprocal lines is necessary to foster democratic habits
which turn and solves the whole case
Amanda Anderson 6, prof of English at Johns Hopkins The Way We Argue Now, 33-6
In some ways, this is understandable as utopian writing, with recognizable antecedents throughout the history of leftist thought. But what is distinctive in Butlers
writing is the way temporal
rhetoric emerges precisely at the site of uneasy normative commitment . In the case of
performative subversion, a futural rhetoric displaces the problems surrounding agency, symbolic constraint, and poststructuralist ethics. Since
symbolic
constraint is constitutive of who we can become and what we can enact, 34 there is clearly no way to truly envision a
reworked symbolic. And since embracing an alternative symbolic would necessarily involve the imposition
of newly exclusionary and normalizing norms, to do more than gesture would mean lapsing into the
very practices that need to be superseded. Indeed, despite Butlers insistence in Feminist Contentions that we must
always risk new foundations, she evinces a fastidious reluctance to do so herself. The forward-looking
articulation of performative politics increasingly gives way, in Bodies That Matter, to a more reflective, and now strangely
belated, antiexclusionary politics . Less sanguine about the efficacy of outright subversion, Butler more soberly attends to ways we might
respond to the politically and ontologically necessary error of identity categories. We cannot choose not to put such categories into play, but once they are in play, we
can begin to interrogate them for the exclusions they harbor and generate. Butler here is closely following Gayatri Chakravorty Spivaks position on essentialism, a
position Butler earlier sought to sublate through the more exclusive emphasis on the unremitting subversion of identity.18 If performative subversion aimed to
denaturalize identity and thus derail its pernicious effects, here, by contrast, one realizes the processes of identity formation will perforce proceed, and one simply
attempts to register and redress those processes in a necessarily incomplete way. The production of exclusion, or a constitutive outside, is [butler quote starts] the
necessary and founding violence of any truth-regime, but we should not simply accept that fact passively: The task is to refigure this necessary outside as a future
horizon, one in which the violence of exclusion is perpetually in the process of being overcome. But of equal importance is the preservation of the outside, the site
where discourse meets its limits, where the opacity of what is not included in a given regime of truth acts as a disruptive site of linguistic impropriety and
unrepresentability, illuminating the violent and contingent boundaries of that normative regime precisely through the inability of that regime to represent that which
might pose a fundamental threat to its continuity. . . . If there is a violence necessary to the language of politics, then the risk of that violation might well be followed
by another in which we begin, without ending, without mastering, to ownand yet never fully to ownthe exclusions by which we proceed. (BTM, 53) [butler
quote ends]Because the exclusionary process is productive of who and what we are, even in our oppositional
politics, our attempts to acknowledge and redress it are always post hoc. Here the future horizon is
ever-receding 35 precisely because our own belated making of amends will never, and should never, tame the
contingency that also begets violence. But the question arises: does Butler ever propose that we might use the
evaluative criteria governing that belated critical recognition to guard against such processes of exclusion in
the first place? Well, in rare moments she does project the possibility of cultivating practices that would actually
disarm exclusion (and I will be discussing one such moment presently). But she invariably returns to the bleak insistence on the
impossibility of ever achieving this. This retreat is necessitated, fundamentally, by Butlers failure to
distinguish evaluative criteria from the power-laden mechanisms of normalization. Yet the
distinction does reappear, unacknowledged, in the rhetoric of belatedness, which, like performative
thresholdism, serves to underwrite her political purism . As belated, the incomplete acts of owning ones exclusions are

more seemingly reactive and can appear not to be themselves normatively implicated. We can see a similar maneuver
in Butlers discussion of universalist traditions in Feminist Contentions. Here she insists that Benhabibs universalism is perniciously grounded
in a transcendental account of language (communicative reason), and is hence not able to examine its own
exclusionary effects or situated quality (FC, 12832). This is, to begin with, a mischaracterization. Benhabibs account of
communicative reason is historically situated (if somewhat loosely within the horizon of modernity) and aims to
justify an ongoing and self-critical process of interactive universalismnot merely through the
philosophical project of articulating a theory of universal pragmatics but more significantly through the
identification and cultivation of practices that enable democratic will formation.19 Butler then introduces, in
contrast to Benhabib, an exemplary practice of what she calls misappropriating universals (Paul Gilroys The Black Atlantic is cited here). Now, it is hard not to see
Benhabib calls for the
this as a species of dogmatism. Bad people reinscribe or reinforce universals, good people misappropriate them.
reconstruction of Enlightenment universals, but presumably even reconstruction is tainted. The key point,
however, is that misappropriation is a specifically protected derivative process, one whose own belatedness and honorific
disobedience are guaranteed to displace the violence of its predecessor discourse. Let me pursue here for a moment
why I find this approach unsatisfactory. Simply because the activity of acknowledging exclusion or
misappropriating universals is belated or derivative does not mean that such 36 an activity is not itself as

powerfully normative as the normative political philosophy to which Butler refers with such disdain. There is a
sleight of hand occurring here: Butler attempts to imply that because such activities exist at a temporal and
critical remove from founding regimes of truth, they more successfully avoid the insidious ruse of critical theory. But
whos rusing who here? Because Butler finds it impossible to conceive of normativity outside of
normalization, she evades the challenging task of directly confronting her own normative
assumptions. Yet Butler in fact advocates ethical practices that are animated by the same
evaluative principles as communicative ethics: the rigorous scrutiny of all
oppositional discourse for its own newly generated exclusions, and the reconfiguration of debilitating identity terms such
as women as sites of permanent openness and resignifiability (FC, 50). Both these central practices rely
fundamentally on democratic
principles of inclusion and open contestation. Communicative ethics does no more than to clarify where
among our primary social practices we might locate the preconditions for such activities of critique and
transformation. By justifying its own evaluative assumptions and resources it aims not to posit a realm free of
power but rather to clarify our own ongoing critiques of power. This does not mean that such critiques
will not themselves require rigorous scrutiny for harboring blindnesses and further exclusions, but neither does it mean that such
critiques will necessarily be driven by exclusionary logic. And communicative ethics is by no means a
merely theoretical or philosophical project inasmuch as it can identify particular social and institutional practices

that foster democratic ends . By casting all attempts to characterize such practices as pernicious
normalizing, Butler effectively disables her own project and leaves herself no recourse but to issue
dogmatic condemnations and approvals.
K Links
 Academy
They dont build any skills here, they lose them. The academy destroys our ability to
actually engage with communities that need help because it coopts our discussions
and ability. We dont leave this space empowered to help, we leave with the values
of never-ending critique, inaccessible jargon, and the inability to resolve conflicts
unless there happens to be an impartial third party around say goodbye to your
permutation
Radfag 14 (A multiethnic, mixed-class, queer man who is dedicated to radical education, Black
feminism and community-committed activism. This is a queer blog, not in that it exists to serve the TLBG
community exclusively, but in that it takes a queer stance towards all systems of oppression and
normativity: gender, class, race, global capitalism, privatized education, etc.
http://radfag.wordpress.com/2014/07/20/escape-the-academy-militancy-and-the-university/ 2014 )
I left for college with the expectation of freedom. I couldnt wait to be among other Brown, queer people
who shared my passions, and gain tools for social change I believed I had been barred from in my home
town. What I arrived at was something totally different: Instead of being empowered to advocate for my
communities in ways I had thought myself previously unable, I found myself inculcated into an insular
sphere that, even as it claimed me as proof of its own progressiveness, isolated me from the communities
from which I came. It connected me to privileged networks and new accesses that estranged me from
much of my family, friends and the spaces which had raised me. In order to fit in and survive I had to take on
whole new forms of language and communication, ones that rarely offered me new insights into my
experiences as an oppressed person, but taught me that those experiences only had meaning and value if
they could be expressed through academic jargon. It became ingrained in me that writing, critiquing,
analyzing were the highest-order skills, and that somehow the more of this analysis I produced, the closer
I would get to liberating myself and people like me. Living under this jarring new set of values, much of
the activism I attempted as a college student looked very similar to my academic work: I gathered with other
students to share readings, to teach ourselves on various radical topics, to discuss, to debate. Some of the work I did I was very proud of.
But precious little of it was based on targeting the needs of my community with other members, plotting a course
of action, and accruing the resources we needed, regardless of what permission wed been granted. In retrospect, and in light of
recent events at my university, reflections on this academic activism reveal to me a crucial new understanding: That
the values I was working under, the new things I was learning from the academy, didnt contribute to
my movement building, but in reality ensured that movement building was impossible. JOMO, a member of
the revolutionary Black Orchid Collective, unveils in their landmark piece Queer Liberation is Class Struggle that the strategic gutting of labor and other grassroots,
militant community movements in recent decades is what has lead to the current investment on the part of radical activism in the academy and non-profit sector:
The resultis that our movement is left with a shallow analysis of intersectionality rather than a full
strategy by which the oppressedpeople of color, women, queer folks, people with disabilitiescan
unite to fight our common enemies. Among progressive circles, the idea of intersectionality has been taken
up by the non-profit industrial complex (NPIC). In the absence of working class organizations like
revolutionary organizations and thriving unions, academia and the NPIC have become the dominant
progressive institutions today. The theories they espouse understandably have lasting impacts. JOMO When
placed in a historical context, our reliance on academic institutions and non-profits is not an organic arrival at
welcoming spaces, but an exodus from our ravaged community movements to the best shelters weve
been able to findones neither made by us nor for us, and which have no intention of fomenting nor
sustaining movements for transformational social change. What are the lasting impacts JOMO predicts, in
which our investment in these institutions in place of our own communities has resulted? I feel this point cannot
be overemphasized. The intersectionality JOMO refers to speaks not only to the individualistic identity politics that have largely replaced full-scale
 An element as seemingly simple as the language we use to discuss
community movements, but also academic vocabulary.
radical change has been wholly hijacked by institutions that have constantly represented the undermining,
discrediting and intentional destruction of radical change. We know this language is elitist by definition,
yet we continue to employ it to organize our intimate relationships, political alliances, and the futures of
our collectives. Yet its not merely elitist language weve ironically adopted as tools for social justice, but the
larger frameworks and values which generate it. Huge sectors of our activism are based almost solely in critique
and analysis, preoccupied with terminology, debate and theory. Our work has become focused on making the most
airtight, politically correct arguments, and calling out the flaws in the arguments of others, instead
of having messy, complicated conversations with the goal of direct action in mind. How often have
we had our own experiences belittled or denied because we did not have the right vocabulary to defend
them, lacked access to the buzzwords and frameworks of the moment? How often have we been
discouraged from or unable to speak for fear of what analysis we had left out, what holes would be poked
in our thoughts? This style of activismso deeply inspired by the academyoften alienates the exact
communities for which it claims to advocate, and ignores the fact that so many of us who are
engaged in it are also at the fore of gentrification, consumption and the privatizing of oppressed
communitiesconversations which occur much less often than ones about ethnic studies and queer
theory. Because the academy and the resources it commands dominate our movements in the current
moment, we are continuously coerced into seeking its approval and reinvesting in its values. We are rewarded for
doing sowith scholarships, with salaried positions, with accolades, with clout, with publications, with
degrees, with grants, with tenure, with fellowships. We are reassured by the university that the accruing of
these honors and privileges will result in our commanding of our own resources, ones that will aid us in
the service of our visions for justice. The reality is that the university and the NPIC gain incredible influence
and control over what our movements look like, who is considered a part of them, and what kinds
of organizing and action are condoned. We are dissuaded from any action that would threaten the
institutions which grant us these privileges, and the more dependent we become on them, the more we
fear for our livelihoods in organizing in the ways our communities truly need. Conferences, gallery
openings, articles and pre-approved protests become the only outlets for us to make our voices heard. The
debacle over gender-neutral bathrooms at Wesleyan University comes at the same time as questions about sexual assault on campus and the universitys reactions
reemerge yet again, as well as student protests around the insulting lack of support for the African American Studies program. Will the university respond to these
struggles in ways that aid and empower oppressed communities, or ones based on preserving its own power and control? Will justice for women, for queers, for Black
and Brown people, ever come from institutions which have only welcomed us when it has been convenient for themselves? As a young, oppressed person who wants
militant movements which unite my communities, I do not oppose critical analysis, community discussion, and studied planning for the ways in which we build
together. I believe all these things will be crucial in generating struggles which are sustainable, inclusive and effective in threatening the systems which destroy our
lives. The issue is that the academy has taught many of us not that these are steps in a larger process of direct action and militant organizing, but that they are the
entire process in and of themselves. Moreover, it has taught us that this process can only be carried out on the universitys own terms, with its language, its values, its
frameworks, and not the already-existing ones of the communities being affected, those doing the actual organizing. I believe the struggle of queer and trans students
at my college is powerful because in an attempt on the part of oppressed people to make the university more welcoming and inclusive, they uncovered something
much more potent: That
the university is unwilling and unable to include them; That the academy has roots that
will always serve as its foundation, and that these have always defined, confined and rejected our
struggles for autonomy; That the destruction of propertythe literal and not figurative dismantling of our
oppressionis exactly what it may take to gain our liberation; That the best way to advocate for ourselves
and our communities is to work within them, not removed from them, and that the tools we already
collectively possess are the most effective ones for gaining the resources we lack and regenerating
community movements; That the university is yet another face of the same structures we must oppose,
confront and destroy if we are to be truly free.
Their production of a civic life necessarily lends power to the university to continue
the production of a social death even those schools of thought outcast by the
university are simply a cog in the machine only revitalizing intellect through social
context can resist cooption and flourish desire into radical action
Occupied UC Berkeley 9
(The Necrosocial Civic Life, Social Death, and the University of California published in Craccum Magazine on 3 July 2012
accessed 7 March 2016 http://craccum.ausa.auckland.ac.nz/features/the-necrosocial-civic-life-social-death-and-the-
university-of-california cVs)

Yes, very much a cemetery. Only here there are no dirges, no prayers, only the repeated testing of our threshold for anxiety, humiliation, and
debt. The classroom just like the workplace just like the university just like the state just like the economy
manages our social death, translating what we once knew from high school, from work, from our family
life into academic parlance, into acceptable forms of social conflict. Who knew that behind so much civic
life (electoral campaigns, student body representatives, bureaucratic administrators, public relations officials, Peace and Conflict Studies, ad
nauseam) was so much social death? What postures we maintain to claim representation, what limits we assume, what desires we
dismiss? And in this moment of crisis they ask us to twist ourselves in a way that they can hear. Petitions to Sacramento, phone calls to
Congressmeneven the chancellor patronizingly congratulates our September 24th student strike, shaping the meaning and the force of the
movement as a movement against the policies of Sacramento. He expands his institutional authority to encompass the movement. When
students begin to hold libraries over night, beginning to take our first baby step as an autonomous
movement he reins us in by serendipitously announcing library money. He manages movement, he kills
movement by funneling it into the electoral process. He manages our social death. He looks forward to these
battles on his terrain, to eulogize a proposition, to win this or thathe and his look forward to exhausting us. He and his look
forward to a reproduction of the logic of representative governance, the release valve of the university plunges us into an abyss where ideas are
wisps of etherthat is, meaning is ripped from action. Letstalk about the fight endlessly, but always only in their
managed form: to perpetually deliberate, the endless fleshing-out-ofwhen we push the boundaries of
this form they are quick to reconfigure themselves to contain us: the chancellors congratulations, the
reopening of the libraries, the managed general assemblythere is no fight against the administration
here, only its own extension. Each day passes in this way, the administration on the look out to shape
student discourseit happens without pause, we dont notice nor do we care to. It becomes banal, thoughtless. So much so that
we see we are accumulating days: one semester, two, how close to being this or that, how far? This accumulation is our shared history. This
accumulationevery once in a while interrupted, violated by a riot, a wild protest, unforgettable fucking,
the overwhelming joy of love, life shattering heartbreakis a muted, but desirous life. A dead but restless
and desirous life. The university steals and homogenizes our time yes, our bank accounts also, but it also steals
and homogenizes meaning. As much as capital is invested in building a killing apparatus abroad, an
incarceration apparatus in California, it is equally invested here in an apparatus for managing social death.
Social death is, of course, simply the power source, the generator, of civic life with its talk of reform,
responsibility, unity. A life, then, which serves merely as the public relations mechanism for death: its
garrulous slogans of freedom and democracy designed to obscure the shit and decay in which our feet are
planted. Yes, the university is a graveyard, but it is also a factory: a factory of meaning which produces civic life
and at the same time produces social death. A factory which produces the illusion that meaning and reality can
be separated; which everywhere reproduces the empty reactionary behavior of students based on the
values of life (identity), liberty (electoral politics), and happiness (private property). Everywhere the same
whimsical ideas of the future. Everywhere democracy. Everywhere discourse to shape our desires and distress in a way acceptable to the electoral
state, discourse designed to make our very moments here together into a set of legible and fruitless demands. Totally managed death. A machine
for administering death, for the proliferation of technologies of death. As elsewhere, things rule. Dead objects rule. In this sense, it matters
little what face one puts on the universitywhether Yudof or some other lackey. These are merely the
personifications of the rule of the dead, the pools of investments, the buildings, the flows of materials into
and out of the physical space of the universityeach one the product of some exploitationwhich seek
to absorb more of our work, more tuition, more energy. The university is a machine which wants to grow,
to accumulate, to expand, to absorb more and more of the living into its peculiar and perverse machinery:
high-tech research centers, new stadiums and office complexes. And at this critical juncture the only way it can continue to
grow is by more intense exploitation, higher tuition, austerity measures for the departments that fail to
pass the test of relevancy. But the irrelevant departments also have their place. With their pure
motives of knowledge for its own sake, they perpetuate the blind inertia of meaning ostensibly detached
from its social context. As the university cultivates its cozy relationship with capital, war and power, these discourses and
research programs play their own role, co-opting and containing radical potential. And so we attend
lecture after lecture about how discourse produces subjects, ignoring the most obvious fact that we
ourselves are produced by this discourse about discourse which leaves us believing that it is only words which matter, words
about words which matter. The university gladly permits the precautionary lectures on biopower; on the
production of race and gender; on the reification and the fetishization of commodities. A taste of the
poison serves well to inoculate us against any confrontational radicalism. And all the while power weaves the invisible
nets which contain and neutralize all thought and action, that bind revolution inside books, lecture halls. There is no need to speak
truth to power when power already speaks the truth. The university is a graveyard as es. The graveyard of liberal good
intentions, of meritocracy, opportunity, equality, democracy. Here the tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the
living. We graft our flesh, our labor, our debt to the skeletons of this or that social clich. In seminars and lectures and essays, we pay tribute to
the universitys ghosts, the ghosts of all those it has excludedthe immiserated, the incarcerated, the just-plain-fucked. They are summoned forth
and banished by a few well-meaning phrases and research programs, given their book titles, their citations. This is our gothicwe are so
morbidly aware, we are so practiced at stomaching horror that the horror is thoughtless. In this graveyard our actions will never touch, will never
become the conduits of a movement, if we remain permanently barricaded within prescribed identity categoriesour force will be dependent on
the limited spaces of recognition built between us. Here we are at odds with one another socially, each of us: students, faculty, staff, homebums,
activists, police, chancellors, administrators, bureaucrats, investors, politicians, faculty/ staff/ homebums/ activists/ police/ chancellors/
administrators/ bureaucrats/ investors/ politicians-to-be. That is, we
are students, or students of color, or queer students of
color, or faculty, or Philosophy Faculty, or Gender and Women Studies faculty, or we are custodians, or
we are shift leaderseach with our own office, place, time, and given meaning. We form teams, clubs,
fraternities, majors, departments, schools, unions, ideologies, identities, and subculturesand thankfully
each group gets its own designated burial plot. Who doesnt participate in this graveyard? In the university we prostrate
ourselves before a value of separation, which in reality translates to a value of domination. We spend money and energy trying to convince
ourselves were brighter than everyone else. Somehow, we think, we possess some trait that means we deserve more than everyone else. We have
measured ourselves and we have measured others. It should never feel terrible ordering others around, right? It should never feel terrible to
diagnose people as an expert, manage them as a bureaucrat, test them as a professor, extract value from their capital as a businessman. It should
feel good, gratifying, completing. It is our private wet dream for the future; everywhere, in everyone this same dream of domination. After all,
we are intelligent, studious, young. We worked hard to be here, we deserve this. We are convinced,
owned, broken. We know their values better than they do: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. This triumvirate of sacred
values are ours of course, and in this moment of practiced theaterthe fight between the university and its own studentswe have used their
words on their stages: Save public education! When those values are violated by the very institutions which are created to protect them, the
veneer fades, the tired set collapses: and we call it injustice, we get indignant. We demand justice from them, for them to adhere to their values.
What many have learned again and again is that these institutions dont care for those values, not at all, not for all. And we are only beginning to
understand that those
values are not even our own. The values create popular images and ideals (healthcare,
democracy, equality, happiness, individuality, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, public education) while
they mean in practice
the selling of commodified identities, the states monopoly on violence, the expansion of markets and
capital accumulation, the rule of property, the rule of exclusions based on race, gender, class, and domination and
humiliation in general. They sell the practice through the image. Were taught well live the images once we accept the practice. In this crisis the
Chancellors and Presidents, the Regents and the British Petroleums, the politicians and the managers, they all intend to be true to their values and
capitalize on the university economically and sociallywhich is to say, nothing has changed, it is only an escalation, a provocation. Their most
recent attempt to reorganize wealth and capital is called a crisis so that we are more willing to accept their new terms as well as what was always
dead in the university, to see just how dead we are willing to play, how non-existent, how compliant, how desirous. Every institution has of
course our best interest in mind, so much so that were willing to pay, to enter debt contracts, to strike a submissive pose in the classroom, in the
lab, in the seminar, in the dorm, and eventually or simultaneously in the workplace to pay back those debts. Each
bulging institutional
value longing to become more than its sentiment through us, each of our empty gestures of feigned-
anxiety to appear under pressure, or of cool-ambivalence to appear accustomed to horror, every moment
of student life, is the management of our consent to social death.
Education just reproduces humanist power structures absent a true focus on
universality this requires the rejection of academic elitism
Stirner ND
(Johann Kaspar Schmidt, better known as Max Stirner, was a German philosopher. He is often seen as one of the forerunners of
nihilism, existentialism, postmodernism, and anarchism, especially of individualist anarchism. He makes fantastic self portraits.
The False Principle of Our Education, or, Humanism and Realism accessed by nonserviam.com in 2009, accessed via
Anarchist Library on 8 March 2016, https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/max-stirner-the-false-principle-of-our-education cVs)

Before arriving at his own proposals, Heinsius draws up a short sketch of the course of history since the Reformation. The period between
the Reformation and the Revolution is which I will assert here without support since I plan to show it in greater detail at another
opportunity that of the relationship between adults and minors, between the reigning and the serving, the
powerful and the powerless, in short, the period of subjection. Apart from any other basis which might justify a
superiority, education, as a power, raised him who possessed it over the weak, who lacked it, and the
educated man counted in his circle, however large or small it was, as the mighty, the powerful, the
imposing one: for he was an authority. Not everyone could be called to this command and authority; therefore, education was
not for every one and universal education contradicted that principle. Education creates superiority and
makes one a master: thus in that age of the master, it was a means to power. But the Revolution broke through the
master-servant economy and the axiom came forth: everyone is his own master. Connected with this was the necessary conclusion that education,
which indeed produces the master, must henceforth become universal and the task of finding true universal education now presented itself. The
drive toward a universal education accessible to everyone must advance to struggle against the obstinately
maintained exclusive education, and in the area also the Revolution must draw the sword against the
domination of the period of the Reformation. The idea of universal education collided with the idea of exclusive education, and
the strife and struggle moves through phases and under sundry names into the present. For the contradictions of the opposing enemy camps,
Heinsius chose the names humanism and realism, and, inaccurate as they are, we will retain them as the most commonly used. Until the
Enlightenment began to spread its light in the Eighteenth Century, so
called higher education lay without protest in the
hands of the humanists and was based almost solely on the understanding of the old classics. Another
education went along at the same time which likewise sought its example in antiquity and mainly ended up with a considerable knowledge of the
Bible. That in both cases they selected the best education of the world of antiquity for their exclusive subject matter proves sufficiently how little
of dignity our own life offered, and how far we still were from being able to create the forms of beauty out of our own originality and the content
And as the world of antiquity through
of truth out of our own reason. First we had to learn form and content; we were apprentices.
classics and the Bible rule over us as a mistress, so was which can be historically proven being a lord and being a
servant really the essence of all our activity, and only from this characteristic of the era does it become
plain why they aspire so openly toward a higher education and were so intent upon distinguishing
themselves by that means before the common people. With education, its possessor became a master of
the uneducated. A popular education would have opposed this because the people were supposed to remain in the laity opposite the learned
gentlemen, were only supposed to gaze in astonishment at the strange splendor and venerate it. Thus Romanism continued in learning and its
supporters are Latin and Greek. Furthermore, it
was inevitable that this education remained throughout a formal
education, as much on this account because of the antiquity long dead and buried, only the forms, as it
were, the schemes of literature and art were preserved, as for the particular reason that domination over
people will simply be acquired and asserted through formal superiority; it requires only a certain degree
of intellectual agility to gain superiority over the less agile people. So called higher education was therefore an elegant
education, a sensus omnis elegantiae, an education of taste and a sense of forms which finally threatened to sink completely into a grammatical
education and perfumed the German language itself with the smell of Latium so much that even today one has an opportunity to admire the
most beautiful Latin sentence structures, for example, in the just published History of the Brandenburg-Prussian States. A Book for Everyone.[3]
In the meantime, a spirit of opposition gradually arose out of the Enlightenment against this formalism and the demand for an all-encompassing, a
truly human education allied itself with the recognition of the secure and universal rights of man. The
lack of solid instruction which
would interact with life was illuminated by the manner in which the Humanists had proceeded up to that
time and generated the demand for a practical finishing education. Henceforth, all knowledge was to be
life, knowledge being lived; for only the reality of knowledge is its perfection. If bringing the material of life into
the school succeeded in offering thereby something useful to everyone, and for that very reason to win everyone over for this preparation for life
and to turn them towards school, then one would not envy the learned gentlemen anymore for their singular knowledge and the people would no
longer remain of the laity. To
eliminate the priesthood of the scholars and the laity of the people is the endeavor
of realism and therefore it must surpass humanism. Appropriating the classical forms of antiquity began
to be restrained and with it the sovereign-authority lost its nimbus. The time struggled against the
traditional respect for scholarship as it generally rebels against any respect.
 Afropessimism
The affs critical pedagogy and piecemeal focus on one education policy is
emblematic of a larger racial caste system that refuses the category of human to
black people
Pierce 16, Clayton Pierce is an assistant professor of interdisciplinary studies at Western Washington
University, 10/11/16, W.E.B. Du Bois and Caste Education: Racial Capitalist Schooling From
Reconstruction to Jim Crow, http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.3102/0002831216677796 NN
Within the field of educational research W.E.B. Du Bois is one of the most important thinkers in the 20th century. Yet, as Banks (1992), Gordon
(1995), Alridge (1999, 2008), Johnson (2000), Brown (2010), and Grant, Brown, and Brown (2016) argue, critical educational thought
is rarely conceptualized from the standpoint of the Black intellectual tradition. One result has been a
failure to recognize one of the most important theoretical contributions to educational research in the 20th
century: Du Boiss devastating and comprehensive historical and sociological analysis of schooling in the United States, which he termed caste
education. For Du Bois, schools played a central role in preserving the caste society established in the
colonialplantation period. After the fall of the old caste system based on slave codes, a type of reconstruction took
place, according to Du Boisone in which the public school became a primary place where the racial privileges of the
white world and the dehumanizing conditions the dark world were educated into existence and the
old caste codes were dressed in new Jim Crow clothing. Du Boiss work on caste formation through
schooling underscores the dynamic and adaptive nature of caste control in U.S. society, which continues
today in the school, prison, hyper-policed communities, court, housing, and health systems (Alexander, 2010).
With the application of corporate turnaround tactics working in concert with city gentrification projects (Buras, 2014; Lipman, 2011),
schools have become tools of caste formation that create gated communities for children of privilege
(Novak, 2014). In this sense, Du Boiss caste analysis helps us understand what Ladson-Billings (2006) has called the
ongoing educational debt as a necessary byproduct of the inextricable projects of White supremacy and
capitalist accumulation through schooling. A caste analysis of schools thus emphasizes the fact that there are no
intentions of ever paying off the educational debt in a racial capitalist society. Doing so would mean
the public schooling system ceasing to be one of the most important sites of caste reconstruction
necessary for producing racial and economic competition between the White and non-White worlds. In
developing Du Boiss caste analysis of schooling in racial capitalist society, I proceed as follows. First, I discuss Du Boiss marginalization in
education research and how this example of epistemic
apartheid has obscured his highly original biopolitical
critique of schooling in the United States. Next, I define racial capitalism and its relation to caste education. Specifically, I outline
how Du Boiss historical materialist understanding of racial capitalism grounds his caste analysis of U.S.
schools within a biopolitical framework; schools, for Du Bois, are one of the most important governing tools
for managing and producing social life in line with the racial capitalist needs of the industrial/state nexus.
In developing Du Boiss biopolitical analysis of education, I focus next on clarifying what a caste analysis consists of in his writings on
education, race, and economic injustice. The next section puts the conceptual strengths of caste into conversation with the debate on the
intersection of race and class in the education research literature. I argue here that Du Boiss caste analytic bridges a gap in the literature through
its biopolitical approach that differs from other models generated from Marxist, neo-Marxist, critical race theory (CRT), and other critical social
theory traditions. I then turn to Du Boiss concept of double consciousness to look at how unequal
forms of social life are
produced in segregated schools. Here I focus on how subjects think of themselves and others in schooled spaces
organized through caste toolswhat I call veil technologies. Du Boiss focus on the production of subjectivity in caste school settings
offers a powerful biopolitical perspective on how racial and economic inequality is reproduced through states school governing strategies. In the
last section, I
apply Du Boiss caste analytic to the choice/charter policy debate as a way of introducing a
new direction that moves away from liberal reform models and European-informed Marxist strategies of
resistance. Turning to recent work in Afro-pessimism, I argue that despite the difference between them, both
models of social and political change assume a problematic understanding of the human subject
supportive of White supremacy and accumulation. Finally, a brief note on the methodology I use in this essay to articulate Du
Boiss analytic of caste. To support the claim that Du Boiss analytic of caste is a biopolitical methodology, I trace its historical development as it
evolves throughout Du Boiss large interdisciplinary body of research on education, race, capitalism, and imperialism. In connecting the diffuse
pieces of work where Du
Bois provides caste analyses of education throughout his early sociological and
historical work to his later Marxist revolutionary and anti-imperialist phase, a highly relevant
methodological framework is apparent. Namely, the caste analytic I outline and unify from Du Boiss work provides an important
interdisciplinary research model that puts human life as the stakes of the public education systemthe very ability of people of color to live
without being cut down by the systematic violence of the white world. When Du Bois (1973/2001) says in the opening quote to this essay that
either we do this or we die, he means that the abolition of caste education and caste society in general
requires developing an education system that can create an alternative of not dying like hogs (p. 121). For
Du Bois then, part of guid[ing] our future so as to ensure our physical survival, our spiritual freedom and
our social growth for the dark world depends on picking up and utilizing caste as a methodological tool
as we move into the next hundred years of educational research. In the neoliberal era when caste schooling still persists as
an important appendage to the racial capitalist state, social death is now wrapped in free market myths and discourses of individual responsibility.
It is now imperative more than ever for educational research to carry on and advance Du Boiss study of caste education. Now let us, however,
turn to some of the reasons Du Boiss caste analytic has remained obscured as a method of educational research.
 Capitalism Pedagogy
Critical pedagogy is counter-revolutionary it is built on Cold War-style fear of the
Soviet Union and praise of American democracy only by critically analyzing both
can education stand against capitalism
Malott 17
(Curry S. Malott, Westchester University of Pennsylvania. In Defense of Communism: Against Critical Pedagogy, Capitalism, and Trump.
Critical Education 8(x) http://ices.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled/article/viewFile/186173/185413 cVs)

The communist desire is for the worlds system of nature to be governed under the logic of need and ability, rather than limitless exchange value.
It is a desire for all Indigenous nations to not be obstructed in rebuilding the elements of nationhood, such as economy, land, culture, language,
and the self-determination of the political apparatus. Humans
must be in a position to collectively engage the system of
nature according to their own notions of need and ability. The demonization of the former Soviet Union,
which critical pedagogy took as its place of departure,, represents a vulgar distortion of what this
collective access has looked like in practice. In making the case for the ongoing relevance of communism I revisit the history of
the Soviet Union. Because this vision is grounded in the concrete world, the potential it embodies is similarly
concrete and not fantastic or utopian. While challenging the demonization of other workers states from the Democratic Peoples
Republic of Korea (DPRK) to Hungary is also relevant, it is beyond the scope of this essay (see Ford, 2016, 2017; Malott 2016). Dean (2012)
argues that since the fall of the Soviet Union and the socialist Bloc, much of the Left has made the mistake of
turning away from communism and its seemingly paradoxical open concreteness. Rather than advancing
an anti-capitalist politics that points toward the communist horizon and the sharp division it suggests, a
common trend in the Left is focused on the notion of post-capitalism, which privileges the role of discourse and
ideology in social reproduction. Dean, however, argues that poverty, suffering, and immiseration continue to serve as
powerful levers of mobilization around the world, including here in the U.S. The election of Trump in 2016 is certainly
evidence of this as he ran on false, rhetorical promises of revitalizing the US manufacturing base (PSL, 2016). Even if Trump were to succeed in
transferring manufacturing jobs to the US, the average US wage, far higher than in current centers of manufacturing (i.e. China), would be
transferred to consumers, thereby leading to a huge spike in the cost of commodities and a deepening crisis of realization. If US corporations,
unable to sell in their home markets, focused on exporting their products to markets in Europe, South America and Africa, for example, then they
would have to compete with sellers of Chinas low wage produced commodities. Either way, Trumps version of making America great again
would be devastating to the working class, the global economy, and would likely plunge the US into a war with China (Wolfe, 2016). Another
factor Trump failed to address in understanding the redundancy of the US working class is the role of laborsaving technology (i.e. automation).
While labor saving technology leads to the further enslavement and immiseration of workers under capitalism, in socialism it can reduce the
length of the workday. Again, if communism represents humanitys ultimate liberation, challenging anti-
communism and the demonization of workers states such as the former Soviet Union is indispensible. As
alluded above, one of the more striking aspects of todays global context, for Dean, is the effect of
communisms absence, as opposed to its presence. Commenting on what this absence has done to Left intellectuals in
the U.S. Michael Parenti (2001) argues that they are busy fighting the ghost of Stalin, dwelling on the tabloid reports
of the horrors of communism, doing fearless battle against imaginary hordes of doctrinaire Marxists at
home and abroad, or in some other way flashing their anti-Communist credentials and shoring up their
credibility (p. 158). Similarly, the history of what is known as critical pedagogy began in the 1980s as a
conscious break from Marxist educational theory and capitalisms communist horizon, whose exact shape
and logics will depend on the agency and level of class consciousness of those workers and oppressed
who carry its flag forward, and expand its existence deep into the system of nature which humanitys
sustenance is irreducibly connected. In other words, the success of the communist movement and the liberation of
humanity from capitalism is dependent upon the existence of a party of communists armed with an
accurate analysis and organizational structure. Critical pedagogys North American founders established
their credibility in the antiSoviet fashion described by Parenti (2001). For example, Stanley Aronowitz (1989), an early
collaborator with Henry Giroux, made his case against communism and for critical pedagogys focus on what he
considered to be the best aspects of American democracy, stating that, "...the Soviet Union is far from an
egalitarian society; privilege and nepotism are rampant" (p. 23). Some years later Donaldo Macedo (1994), in his book, Literacies of
Power: What Americans are not allowed to know, established his credentials with a surprising nod toward Chinas bourgeois, counter-
revolutionary movement for so-called democracy, arguing that, "we continually violate international laws to undermine Cuba because of its
communist regime while we readily go to bed with China, which is far more oppressive than Cuba, as could be seen in the Tiananmen Square
mass killings." (p. 51) Continuing
this anti-communist agenda nearly three decades after his initial statements Henry Giroux
(2004), in his book, The Terror of Neoliberalism, suggests,
with stunning conviction, that Soviet communism is on par
with the cruelties of neoliberal capitalism and the outright genocidal fanaticism of Nazi capitalism. For example, Giroux (2004)
argues that, "newer forms of authoritarianism" are "emerging under the banner of democracy" but are "taking different forms from those
twentieth-century regimes of terror that marked the former Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and fascist Italy" (p. 147). These descriptions of
communism tend to mirror Deans (2012) observation that in the United States, the multiplicity of historical and theoretical communisms
condense into onethe USSR (p.23). It is not that the anti-communist propaganda only acknowledged the Soviet Union, but that it stood, and
stands, as the authoritarian model from which all workers states are inevitably molded. The purpose of the following summary of the history of
the Soviet Union is not just to develop a more accurate understanding of contemporary world affairs, but is to contribute to the laying of a more
solid foundation from which to build communist pedagogy (Malott & Ford, 2015). A
communist pedagogy in the context of the
U.S., for example, includes the subject matter required to develop a complex understanding of the creation of
the current settler state in the seventeenth century after the dawn of the capitalist era had already cast its
shadow over the fall of British feudalism. As capitalisms center of gravity began to shift westward from
England to America, the center of proletarian revolution simultaneously shifted from the Western
European revolutions of 1848 Eastward toward Russia (Marcy, 1953). While the first workers state did not emerge until
1917, the idea of communism predates even the work and activism of Marx and Engels. It was therefore not only the shifting global material
conditions that paved the way for communism in Russia, but it was both the work of Marx and Engels, who argued that the abolition of private
property should be the primary goal of communism, and the failed revolutionary movements of the nineteenth century, such as the Paris
Commune of 1871, that inspired and informed Lenin and the whole of the Bolshevik Party and the mass movement for socialism. The Soviet
Union similarly served as a beacon of inspiration and guidance to oppressed people the world over. As a result, the
Soviet Union would
also come to be an object of obsession for the worlds capitalist classes, although rather than a source of
admiration, it would engender an unparalleled fear and insecurity, unleashing a similarly unparalleled
counter-revolutionary offensive.
 Capitalism Social Location Politics
Social location doesnt offer a more privileged access to truth it often results in a
higher likelihood to mimic hegemonic beliefs. We need empirical science to have
truly effective revolutionary politics
Ferguson 15 (Stephen C., Assoc. Prof. in Liberal Studies @ North Carolina A & T State U. [he is
black], Philosophy of African American Studies: Nothing Left of Blackness, pp. 182-186)
timeworn yet popular
The perspective that experience is sui generis of theory is a philosophical error rooted in empiricism. (The
view that "I lived it so I know it" is an expression of vulgar empiricism.) Here Collins identifies social
experience with theoretical reflection, wherein sociology of knowledge is identified with knowledge proper. The social
context of knowledge is important; for a materialist analysis, it provides a means for uncovering the objective, material conditions
for the genesis of certain forms of thinking and action. However, a description of immediate social experience is only, at
best, phenomenalist and does not disclose the underlying essential social relations giving rise to immediate
experience. A scientific, that is, materialist, epistemology requires the mediation of theory, in order to understand our immediate social
experience. Our immediate experience will not disclose that the Sun is the center of our universe or the
existence of subatomic particles. The weakness of empiricism (and positivism as a form of empiricism) is that it
begins with the legitimate notion that knowledge starts with experience and comes to the more general
conclusion that knowledge is limited to experience. My critique of empiricism should not be seen as
the rejection of what is a legitimate pursuit in AAS, that is, the undertaking of empirical science both in their natural/physical and
social forms. Rather, it is a critique of empiricism. Empiricism is not identical to engaging in empirical work. Just as living under
capitalism does not necessarily make one a capitalist, engaging in empirical research does not necessarily
make one an empiricist. Let me offer the following example to further make my point. After a number of years, a worker
in a factory would in all probability have a rich storehouse of (immediate) experiences concerning the
working of the factory. Yet, by virtue of these (immediate) experiences in a factory, the same worker
would not of necessity have a critical comprehension of capitalist political economy.99 To conflate the
sociology of knowledge and epistemology is to confuse the genesis of thought with its validity and veracity. Epistemology is distinct from the
sociology of knowledge. It is concerned with the nature of knowledge or understanding what is the substance (content) of knowledge. It is
concerned with the justification of beliefs and what constitutes truth. 100 The
conflation of epistemology with the sociology
of knowledge often leads to a reduction ad absurdum, namely, the validity and veracity of a given idea, or body
of thought turns entirely on the social origins or sources of knowledge. This reduction is no more than the expression of a
genetic fallacy. This fallacy is pervasive among those, in AAS, who desire to affirm that which is
African/Black and negate that which is European/white on the basis of their respective points of social origin
or "social situatedness." In fact, being a member of a "subjugated group" does not mean that you will
interpret reality differently from that of the hegemonic dominant ruling class. The so-called Reagan
Democrats refers to traditionally Democratic voters, particularly white working-class Northerners, who defected from
the Democratic Party and, in turn, supported Republican presidential candidates in 1980, 1984, and 1988 elections in
the United States. The turn to the right by "Reagan Democrats" was greatly influenced by bourgeois ideology in
the form of Nixon's concept of the "Silent Majority," television shows such as All in the Family and the overall structural crisis of capitalism in
the late 1970s. 101 It
is important to highlight that, in any class-divided society, the ruling ideology is the
ideology of the ruling class. Proletarian consent to the ruling ideas is in substance the subordination of objective proletarian interests to
bourgeois ideology. This contradiction in objective conditions as reflected in subjective consciousness is directly manifested as proletarian false
consciousness. 10"- So, given the influence of white supremacist ideology, all white workers are not inherently
racist in the sense of being active and organized proponents of racist ideology. Despite this fact, I would be remiss if I overlooked
the fact that racist ideology has a definite influence on the social psychology of white workers, leading to
certain beliefs, customs, and traditions as well as to spontaneous actions that are obstacles to class solidarity and the development of class
consciousness and, yet, shared by the ruling class. A clear example of this is the tragic Vincent Chin incident. On June
19, 1982, in Detroit, Michigan, Vincent Chin, a Chinese-American draftsman, was killed by two unemployed Euro-American autoworkers
Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz. Before bludgeoning him to death with a baseball bat, they reportedly screamed racial obscenities and believing
him to be Japanese blamed him for layoffs in the automobile industry. 105 Rather than see increasing unemployment as a
structural contradiction of monopoly capitalism, resulting primarily from the trade and investment rivalry between United
States and Japanese firms, auto workers such as Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz place the blame on some "Yellow Menace"
taking jobs from American workers. Their immediate social experiences of the world obscured their perception
of the objective world. The origins of standpoint epistemology can be found in the empiricist errors of
Gyorgy Lukacs's work History and Class Consciousness, particularly in his discussion of class-consciousness and the "standpoint
of the proletariat." For Lukacs, the shared collective consciousness of the proletariat becomes the basis for their designation as the
gravediggers of capitalism by Marx. Lukacs observes: "Only the consciousness of the proletariat can point to he way that leads out of the impasse
of capitalism.104 In a parallel move, standpoint epistemology gives "epistemological priority" to the
"phenomenological experience of a specific collecrivity."105 As such, epistemology passes over into the sociology of
knowledge. However, as Terry Eagleton astutely notes: For it is not in the first place the consciousness of the working-
class, actual or potential, which leads Marxism to select it as the prime agency of revolutionary change. If the
working-class figures as such an agent, it is for structural. material reasons the fact that it is the only body so located within the productive
process of capitalism, so trained and organized by that process and utterly indispensable to it, as to be capable of taking it over. In this sense it is
capitalism, nor Marxism, which "selects" the instruments of revolutionary overthrow, patiently nurturing its own potential gravedigger. 11"1
There are "structural, material reasons" for Marx and Engels designating the working-class as the "prime
agency of revolutionary change." In contrast, feminist and critical race theorists have found in Lukacs's framework
a critical standpoint from which to articulate forms of oppositional political subjectivity that no longer
privilege the proletariat as "the identical subject-object of history." Consequently, we are left with
communities that speak a different language and, ultimately, incommensurable communities across
which rational discourse is impossible.107 If all knowledge claims are partisan and partial, then it logically follows that all
knowledge claims arc equally valid. The obvious problem for Collins's relativism is the following: if all viewpoints or "situated knowledges'' are
equally valid, then there seems to be no reason why hegemonic perspectives (by white racist and sexist males) should be thrown out of the
intellectual marketplace. Collins provides us with the view that reality is always subject to different descriptions
or interpretations. There are as many valid "true" descriptions of the world as there are "language-games," "forms of life," or
"cultural communities" in existence. Ultimately, our standpoint or "social situatedness" becomes the final arbitrator in all conflicts or
disagreements, whether epistemological, political, social, economic, or aesthetic. We should take note of the following commentary by Andrew
Sayer: To note that a particular kind of knowledge comes from a particular culture or is associated with a particular
subject position, does not entail that it is valid for or applies only to those who belong to the same
originating social group. Acupuncture is Chinese in origin but it can also work on non-Chinese people,
just as Western medicine can work on non-Western people. Similarly, French social theory cannot be
discounted as only applicable within France! To be sure, there is no view from nowhere all knowledge is
social, situated, and contextual. But it does not follow from this that truth claims can only be applicable to
the particular group who propose them.108 From the standpoint of Collins's Afrocentric feminist
epistemology, both race and gender take on the power of epistemology and, consequently, make the rules for
valid arguments. The problem with "malestream" social science is not merely that it is a masculine or Eurocentric view. Rather, the heart of
the problem is that it does not offer a true, approximate reflection of the way the world is.
 Queer Pessimism
Their academic project doesnt do anything for queer people they fall prey to the
liberalism only a violent rupture from liberalism is sufficient to escape the
university and do something vote neg on presumption
Schamel 15
(Craig R. Schamel is a writer. The Liberal is an Enemy of Queer Justice in REFORM OR REVOLUTION? Catalyst: A Social
Justice Forum 6:1 2015 http://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=catalyst cVs)

The liberalism of the Western academy is a third obstacle to, and thus effective enemy of, queer justice. To
the extent that the Western academy may be understood as liberal, it stands accused by revolutionaries of lacking integrity. One hallmark of
the educated liberal is a lack of correspondence between theory and action when the action required for
consistency is fundamental or dangerous. The academic attack on identity politics, which was begotten in part by
Foucaults response to Nietzsche, presents a revolutionary path to queer justice with another essentially liberal
problem and obstacle. The reality of the position of those making such attacks, whatever their purely theoretical
value, is that they have not been able to translate themselves into real gains in justice for queer persons, no
matter how much identity deconstruction and conversion of issues to pun, humor, and literary fodder has
been theoretically directed by postmodernism. The fact that these critiques are expressed from within the
walls of liberal institutions, where revolutionary action only gets tenure when it has been mollified and
transmogrified into liberal respectability, and where the type of writing that calls people to dangerous or violent action when
necessary does not get published anywhere that counts when it comes to the curricula vitae of academics, is important. Ironically, the
very comfort zone of liberal academia and its favored theoretical tropes begins to slip away actually, as
soon as its guarantor, revolutionary vigilance and action, is not taken as the path to justice.22 With regard to the
permissible deconstruction of queer identity and its components within university curricula, one can argue that, even if one could succeed in
deactivating any queerness that has a broad and coherent identity using an always contingent episteme in which the deconstructed stands in the
place of the known, would not something great be lost in such a process? Was there no value in the gay and lesbian liberation movement? In the
Gay Liberation Front? In the Gay Left Collective? Was there no value in the fact that society was moving toward a collective gay identity in
1969, and not away from it? In other words, was not something great really lost in the loss of a gay movement? No amount of liberal-
postmodern revision of identity will take away the real abuse and the real political loss that the loss of a
revolutionary queer movement has been.23 The liberal academic deconstruction of identity should
remember its origins, which are firmly planted in anti-modernity, which anti-modernity is not at all
benign. There is no way out through the back door. Even if, in an educated reality, deconstruction of identities has validity, such
deconstructed identities exist no less actually within the realm of political and social abuse. One does not suffer
less for being attacked as a lesbian because one has deconstructed ones sexual identity or, in the case of, say, the gay academician, because one
has deconstructed sexual identity in general. Those in the process of personally questioning and deconstructing gender or sexuality are no less
likely to be abused and degraded and left lonely and desperate. This salient fact could stand alone as a mandate for revolutionary justice as queer
justice. Further, the
working out of deconstructed identities cannot occur in a political milieu of oppression
and abuse that is rather itself a byproduct of the malignancy of liberal thought on queer justice , a spectrum of
thought and an academic attitude that nurtures postmodern deconstruction of identity and deconstruction of the modes of protest attached to what
has now been discredited as identity politics, and the favoring of delusional ignorances as art as protest or worse, performance as protest.
When these comprise the entire corpus of protest, they push out effective protest, and are fed by the creativeness and
queernessas-not-necessarily-homosexual politics and all of their attendant petit bourgeois metatheories which, for all
political purposes can be considered casuistries of disappearance.24 The subsumption of same-sex desire under a new
political theory properly comes after the gay revolution and after the liberal academy and its petit
bourgeois abstractions, and it comes dialectically; placing it before such a revolution is now the way to
the grave for queer justice. The great fear of liberal academic institutions is loss of state funding, and such a
fear will allow for aspects of modernity, which have as their outgrowths and manifestations forms of political activity which are ineffectual for
queer justice and non-threatening to the powers that be. Colleges and universities can produce activists because activist is an appellation
given by the corporate media to what are merely responsible, (i.e. neutralized) citizens who are innocuous to the oppressor, but this appellation is
of course readily accepted by liberals, who can always be counted on to be agreeable when it is imperative not to be so. Colleges and universities
cannot, however, openly and intentionally produce or groom revolutionaries, that is, real and dangerous menaces to the powers that be who are
not committed to nonviolence, and colleges and universities themselves cannot take meaningful revolutionary stands against the government and
 The only viable path
society and expect to retain funding: end of story on the universitys liberal openness to all paths and possibilities.
to justice, and to actually creating a real community of mutual respect and equality in intellectual and
scholarly life, is barred from a real existence in liberal institutions of higher learning, whose boards of
directors are primarily comprised of bourgeois corporate welfare recipients who are often involved in interlocking
directorates of persons with various degrees of separation from anti-gay abuse, and who, even in state schools, are beholden to Boards of Trustees
which include deranged and maleficent anti-gay sociopaths whom the heterosexual regime of liberalism considers munificent. Such sociopaths
include officeholders of the Catholic Church and fanatical privatization dogmatists who want to dismantle the state and turn it over to such
profiteers as multi-billionaire Bill Gates, who hired as a "consultant" on gay "issues" (with hefty remuneration), the preposterous, business-suited,
hillbilly charlatan and anti-gay crusader Ralph Reed.25 The
displacement of pain from queer loss onto academicized and
often literary intellectual analysis is antidemocratic, apolitical and anti-justice. This kind of exercise
makes sense only in a world where queer justice has already been achieved on the basis of a collective
identity under oppression, a world where queer persons as they are understood as oppressed persons are
leading society, not being dragged along by it or backed into a corner by it. Young queer persons, and
indeed all persons, need inspiration and fire, not merely playful transmogrification of their identities la
petit bourgeois academic postmodernism, which tries to pass itself off as, or worse, take the place of, political or social progress.
The feeling of justice inspired by dangerous action which is incompatible with comfort and success in the liberal establishment, a significant part
of which is the Western academy, will know no end in the love-filled retrospectives and pride of future generations. How could deluded
incrementalist negotiators and compromisers with our enemies inspire future gay and lesbian children, those coming up, those who will be
looking at us? Liberal negotiation and the playing of good little boy or girl and begging vicious, ruined, psychologically unwell people for
acceptance and rights, and trying to evade the problem in academic citadels in which evasive excurses and identity play abound may be a
strategy for temporary survival and a way to lick one's wounds, but it is certainly no horizon, no fireball, no star in the sky, no source of pride. I
agree with Dorothy Allison when she writes, I need you to do more than survive.26
Policy
 State PTX IL Turn
The disad turns the aff narrowing the achievement gap depends on supplemental
regulations that rely on governor influence they cant repair the damage of CCSS,
and reform solves
Ostashevsky 16
(Luba Ostashevsky is a contributing writer to The Hechinger Report. She is also the managing editor of This View of Life, a magazine about
human evolution, and a teaching assistant in the chemistry department at Hunter College. She has written for Aeon, Popular Science, Nautilus,
among others. She became interested in education since she stepped into an elementary school in Brooklyn as a second-grader after immigrating
from Russia and not understanding a word. More than five years after adopting Common Core, Kentuckys black-white achievement gap is
widening Heching Report 22 May 2016, http://hechingerreport.org/five-years-adopting-common-core-kentuckys-black-white-achievement-gap-
widening/ cVs)

The inauguration of Gov. Matt Bevin has since put Kentuckys Common Core reforms in limbo. Bevin
campaigned against Common Core, although his administration may only tweak the standards, in the
words of the new state education commissioner, Stephen Pruitt, who previously worked at the nonprofit Achieve, a major supporter of Common
Core. Common Cores staying power now depends on politics and on whether the states achievement
gap finally starts to shrink. Pruitt is encouraged by the current efforts at schools such as at Dunn to address the individual needs of
students. In a similar vein, the Kentucky Department of Education recently started the Novice Reduction for Gap
Closure program, which is focused entirely on closing the states achievement gap. Among other things, it helps
teachers become more sensitive and culturally attuned to the level of diversity in their classrooms. An
online platform shares the advice of teachers with experience in diverse schools, and the state is working with
districts to suggest interventions teachers can use to reach students. Pruitt expects these new efforts to close what he calls the opportunity gap.
More than five years in, Kentucky
may be ahead of the rest of the country on its use of the Common Core, but
Common Cores supporters say the state and the standards still need more time to move the needle.
Were still at the start of implementation, said Education Trusts Santelises. Itll take longer to see the
results of Common Core.