Days Eighteen and Nineteen – Distance Learning, Being Flexible, Early Childhood Education, Re-thinking Your Life, and Self- Discipline, Thursday, Octo

These two days have to be lumped together because, I can’t tell the difference between them in my mind. They both just kind of happened, actually throughout the entire weekend, I did the school work related to these two days.

Let’s start with Thursday. I got up at the regular time and worked on Math for a long time, and then did some British Literature, before Debate Class. It was really interesting trying to catch up, luckily, she is eliminating the Informative Speech (after I did all of that work, right?). But it was interesting to talk about all of the kids in my class’s topics. Then, I went to my Aunt’s House and started to pack up to go CAMPING! It was a lot of fun to go shopping and learn how to set up camp, and stuff like that, and then I got some work done, with a lot of just looking at the Lake and thinking in between.

Friday, the kids came out to the campsite, and we started to hang out and have a good time, and I tried to do some more of my homework. However, Lex got it in her mind that she wanted to learn how to write, and so I ended up spending 3 hours trying to teach her how to write the alphabet (in caps), while still trying to get some work done. I got a lot done then too, but I think it was a lot more fulfilling to teach a little one how to write.

Saturday was a lot of the same. Doing some work here and there, and also teaching Lex her letter’s….a lot. I got a lot of my work done (all but two things that needed the Internet). It was really interesting to see how quickly she was picking things up the more and more we practiced.

I also had a lot of time to think about my life. I started to think about things that have happened in the past that I can’t change, and yet, I somehow started to forgive myself. I got upset about a lot of the college stuff that has been bothering me lately. Yet, the beauty of the lake began to help me feel better about it. I started to let things go and just enjoy the weekend, later Saturday night, I didn’t find myself thinking about how much things sucked, or how everything was changing, I could only think about how amazing it was out there, to just hang out with the little ones, and to improve my handwriting, while helping a little person learn how to write for the first time.

Liam, Lex, and I discussed love a lot, and how everyone and everything deserves to be loved. It really warmed my heart to know that, even in the days that we live in, little kids still understand what love is, and know that everyone needs some. It made me happy.

Sunday, today, I had to come back to the real world. I had to finish all of my homework, and be reminded about all of the homework that I had to do, and all of the scholarships I needed to apply for, essays to write, and a lot of things to stress and worry about. I suppose we will see what happens this week.

Here is PF case Files that were written today by Gardner Hagens and Keith

Neg. File

CON-

Cont. 1-

Encourages Cheating

Teach to test

Test = poor measuring stick

Cont. 2-

Teacher competition

Cont. 3-

Disadvantaged Students

December 2009 Public Forum

Merit plans begin with the notion that workers are not working hard enough now. Teachers and other workers find this insulting and inaccurate from the get go. Teachers, after all, are the university educated people who deliberately chose not to go into more lucrative fields at the beginning of their careers (Little 2009).

Which is why my partner and I stand in firm Negation of this month’s resolution; Resolved: That merit pay based on student achievement should be a significant component of K-12 teacher compensation in United States public schools.

We will have three main contentions to support our points: One- Merit pay encourages cheating, Two- Merit pay encourages negative teacher competition, Three- Merit pay hurts disadvantaged students.

Moving into our first contention:

Merit Pay encourages cheating. This is included but not limited to, Teaching to the test, altering tests, and test scores, as well as narrowing of the curriculum. Since merit pay is typically based on how well students do on standardized tests, teachers are going to do everything possible to get the merit pay bonus.

According to Pechthalt in 2006, “rewarding educators based on student test scores would further exacerbate the “teach to test” syndrome that has narrowed the curriculum and dulled the educational experience for students and teachers. It could also create conditions that would encourage cheating.”

Basically meaning that teachers are trying to teach to the test so that they get the reward, which means that causing curriculums to narrow and students to get less out of their education. Therefore decreasing the value of these teachers, and making the whole merit pay system pointless.

According to Clabaugh in 2009 “No sooner was NCLB in place, for instance, than we began to read of teachers and principals changing standardized test answers or cheating in some other way. Merit pay will only make that gaming worse by increasing the rewards.”

No Child Left Behind is a PERFECT example of what is going to happen if this plan is put into action. Teachers and principals are going to change test scores and answers more to make themselves, and their schools and districts to look better. The system is going to be manipulated so that a lot of teachers get the bonuses.

Moving on to our second contention:

Merit Pay encourages negative and unfair teacher competition. This will include favoritism and a “kill or be killed attitude,” Destroying teacher collaboration.

According to Blumenfield in 2009 “‘Performance pay undermines strong teacher collaboration,’ says Roger Rada, superintendant of the Oregon City (OR) School District, ‘as well as collegiality. That works against what we’re doing in Oregon City School District. Over the last two years our state assessment scores have improved dramatically. Much of that improvement can be attributed to teachers working together in professional learning communities. We don’t need teachers competing; we need them collaborating with one another.’”

Basically meaning that since teachers are going to be competing against each other, the students are ultimately going to be the ones getting cheated out of their education, and the whole system will be pointless. Teachers that work together would have better standards of teaching and their students get a better education.

It is widely accepted that the principals and superintendents will be the ones to decide which teachers will be the ones to decide who gets the bonuses. As stated in Drevitch in 2006 “What if my principal happens to like me and happens to dislike you?” asks Kathy Bourdreau, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association. Her union opposed a merit-pay system proposed by Governor Mitt Romney that relied on individual student test scores and the potentially subjective teacher evaluations. ‘Education is all about collaborative effort, but if teachers believe other teachers are getting consideration for pay based on non-objective criteria, it can create a breakdown on the team,’ says Boudreau. ‘If I’m a great teacher with great practices, I might think, ‘why would I want to share?’’”

A teacher is going to think to herself, why should I help other teachers get this bonus that I have worked so hard for? If I am an awesome teacher, why should I, who have worked so hard all of these years, help someone who isn’t as good as me? This system creates unnecessary hatred in the hearts of teachers, therefore making the system not worth it.

Moving onto our third contention:

Merit Pay hurts disadvantaged students. Teachers are going to be less willing to teach disadvantaged students that are going to be harder to have them improve or do well on test scores. They are going to want to teach and focus on the students that they KNOW are going to do well on tests. Teachers are going to want to leave schools that aren’t going to do as well on test and move to schools where they are almost guaranteed a bonus, therefore hurting the education of the students that are already disadvantaged.

According to Pechthalt in 2006 “within schools, teachers might want to teach those students whose skill levels would translate into higher test scores. Skilled, veteran teachers might be less likely to work with students with limited English proficiency or special needs children for fear their students would not test well. In fact, merit pay would create a disincentive for the very teachers we want going into the most challenging schools and communities. Such teachers might want to move to the most affluent schools because of monetary rewards would be greater. This could have a devastating impact on our poorest schools.”

Teachers aren’t going to want to accept special education and ESL classes because they know that those students won’t do as well on standardized tests. These are the positions that need the best teachers anyways! And the best teachers are going to take positions where they can help the gifted or just average students and get the bonuses!

Legend!

Introduction

Claim

Transitions

Link

Warrant

Resolution

Millard West Congress

Here are the bills for Congress at Millard, If you are competing please print off.

http://www.hhsdebate.com/congress/bill_full_list.php?school_id=4860

Extemp Prep 1

Obama policy on Afghanistan
NYTIMES article

1) He will be putting troops there, the question is how much
2) Tuesday night he will let us know the answer
3) This comes on the heals of him receiving the Nobel Piece award and protests in England against the war.
4) He was just in India and is going to Copenhagen talking about Climate Control and occupation in Afghan in India

Jobless, Unemployment, and Housing
AP Report Jobless
Consumer Spending is up http://news.bbc.co.uk
1) Understand what is happening with job loss, and unemployment
2) How does this predict the future
3) Housing is up for the fourth month in a row, which is one main cause of the Econ. downturn

Overview on What Happened on Healthcare now in the Senate and what the problems are
1) Just a great article to read from NYTimes with a nice overview


FX:
Obama On Climate among the world
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8378890.stm

Fighting in the Congo
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8377842.stm

India Foreign Policy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8375904.stm


Printing these off, and being familiar with all of these articles is really a good idea. I'll keep doing this as long as this is helpful. Let me know if this format works.

CX debate Rules

Let me call your attention to Nebraska rules for CX please

NEBRASKA NOVICE POSITION LIMITS 2009-10

Nebraska debate coaches in association with the Nebraska Debate Institute have established the following rules regarding the novice year of policy debate teams.

v All novice teams (i.e. students in their first two semesters of debate) will adhere to state case limits. For the 2009-010 policy resolution the case areas that have been adopted are:

· Abortion (Hyde Amendment)

· Medicaid coverage of illegal immigrants

· Legal Services

· Veterans

v Novice level negative arguments are restricted to the following areas:

1) Topicality – No determination about the topicality of the case limits has been made. Students are free to challenge and evaluate the areas as a whole or specific logistical aspects of the Affirmative plan. It is acceptable for a judge to vote for a case being within the case limits and against the same team on the topicality grounds.

2) Disadvantages & Case Arguments - The Negative is free to research and run any disadvantage or case argument relevant to Affirmative action. No restrictions have been placed on the structure or form of these arguments.

3) Kritiks – No novice team is permitted to run a kritik at any tournament before January 1, 2010. At that time, judges may both evaluate and vote on the following criticisms:

· Capitalism

· Biopolitics

· Objectivism

4) Counterplans – Only the States CP may be run before January 1, 2010. After that time, judges may both evaluate and vote on counterplan arguments.

v Judges should be reminded that adherence to these rules is considered a voting issue in Nebraska novice debate. However, judges should not enforce these limits on their own rather it is the competitors’ responsibility to make rule challenges. All decisions on possible violations should be limited to the argumentation made in the round and the opposing team retains the right to argue that their position is not outside of the established position limits.




You can download all the cases you will need at.

http://www.planetdebate.com/blockhouse

Please download your Aff. and start to become very familiar with it.

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