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Vouchers
The United States federal government should
- provide student vouchers in their respective states by creating school voucher
programs that include a progressive scholarship system, school of choice
accreditation, and government sponsored platforms to make information more
accessible.
- adopt and enforce clear, unambiguous, antidiscrimination measures in their
voucher programs

The Planks of the counterplan resolve all of their offense- schools will have a
competitive incentive to cater to students of lower socioeconomic status
Benjamin Scafidi 2015

(Benjamin Scafidi- director of the Education Economics Center at Kennesaw State, professor of
economics in the Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University, senior fellow with the Georgia
Public Policy Foundation, a think tank in Atlanta. “The Integration Anomaly”
https://www.edchoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/2015-10-The-Integration-Anomaly-WEB.pdf)
mba-alb
Many of us share the goal of greater racial and economic integration in schools, and in neighborhoods. Unfortunately, the current trends are going largely away from this goal, especially with regards to economic integration. Based on the historical evidence and on the studies reviewed

giving parents greater school choice is perhaps the only practical way we can promote significant
above, I believe that

improvements in school and neighborhood integration. we can learn from prior experience and In particular,

logic about how to design school choice programs in ways that promote integration . To that end, I recommend specific “Do’s” and “Don’ts” of

These “Do’s” and “Don’ts” were informed by the myriad studies reviewed earlier in this
school choice program design.

report I propose the

. An appendix contains a taxonomy of the studies that informed the recommendations below. School Choice Program Design DO’s Given the historical evi dence on housing and school segregation and the studies discussed previously,

following school choice program design features in order to maximize benefits to students and take to heart the equity concerns

Do’s”: Universal scholarships Offer

of those worried about the increase in race and class segregation that has been present in the American public education syst em since 1980. The school choice program “ • .

scholarships to all families regardless of income Scholarships to higher- and middle-income families will .

give them more incentive to live closer to employment centers in what we now know as lower-income
communities Universal school choice would also empower
—where scholarship programs will allow new, high-quality school options to open to serve existing and new residents.

low-income families to send their children to schools located in neighborhoods only higher-income
families may currently access Universal scholarships will also maximize the amount of competition in the
.

school marketplace and build political support for more generous scholarship amounts—and both will
enhance student outcomes. Progressive scholarships Provide larger scholarships to students from
• .

lower-income families and students with special needs. Larger scholarships give schools more of an
incentive to enroll students who may be more expensive to teach or who come from limited means. It
also gives those families more power and influence within their schools by giving them more
opportunities for “exit , it gives disadvantaged students an opportunity to attend schools their
.” Finally

families currently cannot afford. External accreditation Require that public and private schools that
• .

admit students with taxpayerfunded scholarships to be accredited by an external and independent

accrediting body or to immediately pursue accreditation in the case of new schools. Along with the
—
enforcement of antidiscrimination laws, accreditation will limit entry and
including the revoking of their tax-exempt status,

persistence of any schools with “pernicious” intents, which is a fear of school choice skeptics. While accreditation raises operating costs, limits entry, and has other ill effects, it may be an

• Aid parents in choosing Civil society can create online platforms, like
unfortunate, yet politically necessary, compromise.75 .

GreatSchools.org, and organizations to help parents maximize the benefits of choice by finding the
schools that are best for the specific interests and needs of their children.76

Only school choice can access the kind of racial cohesion necessary to resolve racism
and break down second generation segregation
McCluskey 7(Neal, the director of Cato’s Center for Educational Freedom. Prior to arriving at Cato,
McCluskey served in the U.S. Army, taught high-school English, and was a freelance reporter covering
municipal government and education in suburban New Jersey. More recently, he was a policy analyst at
the Center for Education Reform. McCluskey is the author of the book Feds in the Classroom: How Big
Government Corrupts, Cripples, and Compromises American Education, and his writings have appeared
in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and Forbes. In addition to his
written work, McCluskey has appeared on C-span, CNN, the Fox News Channel, and numerous radio
programs. McCluskey holds an undergraduate degree from Georgetown University, where he double-
majored in government and English, has a master’s degree in political science from Rutgers University,
and has a PhD in public policy from George Mason University, “Why We Fight: How Public Schools Cause
Social Conflict”, January 23, https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/why-we-fight-how-
public-schools-cause-social-conflict, MSCOTT)

Freedom Is the Key As noted earlier, despite the absence of any system remotely approximating “public education” as it is conceived of today—or even
as it was imagined by men like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Rush—Americans were remarkably unified and civic-minded in the nation’s first decades. Why? De
Tocqueville offers a clue: The free institutions which the inhabitants of the United States possess, and the political rights of which they make so much use, remind
every citizen, and in a thousand ways, that he lives in society. They every instant impress upon his mind the notion that it is the duty as well as the interest of men
to make themselves useful to their fellow creatures; and as he sees no particular grounds for animosity to them, since he is never either their master or their slave,
his heart readily leans toward the side of kindness. Men attend to the interests of the public, first by necessity, afterwards by choice; what was intentional becomes
an instinct, and by dint of working for the good of one’s fellow citizens, the habit and the taste for serving them is acquired.46 It
is especially
important to note the voluntary nature of early Americans’ democratic spirit. De Tocqueville does not say that schools,
or some other government-sponsored undertakings, are responsible for Americans’ democratic behaviors. He suggests, rather, that people first came to understand
the practical need for voluntary cooperation, and that then helping “one’s fellow citizens” grew into an “instinct” over time. This, of course, makes both intuitive
and logical sense. True unity—meaning shared bonds of affinity between people—can only ultimately come through individual
volition. People have to want to be unified. In contrast, when an authority simply requires diverse people to
get along, the best that can be expected is for citizens to coexist and not do each other overt harm.
Unity, however, can only truly exist when individuals themselves choose to work with, and even
befriend, other people. This proposition, demonstrated during de Tocqueville’s time, has been substantiated throughout U.S.
history. But what has brought diverse Americans together in order to form voluntary bonds? The answer
is commerce. While suspicion, animosity, and prejudice have been inescapable components of American society—as they are in any pluralist society,
especially with the arrival of new, strange, people—Americans have been very adept at overcoming their worse natures by

letting their desires for mutual gain overcome those natures. As Hunter College urban affairs and planning professor Peter Salins
has observed, “once immigrants and natives work together and come to appreciate each other’s value it becomes much easier to form other kinds of interest-based
relationships. Eventually,
economic relationships lead to social ones, culminating in friendship and even
intermarriage.”47 A look at several ethnic groups, including Irish, Jews, and Asians, bear out the importance of
commerce—rather than public schooling—in bringing diverse peoples together. To see this, it is useful to compare the
approximate length of time it took various ethnic groups to integrate into American society. Michael Barone did this in The New Americans, and found that the Irish,
who came from largely peasant stock that had little experience with economic entrepreneurialism, took nearly 120 years to become fully integrated in American
society. Jews and Asians, by contrast, who much more often came from merchant and artisan classes, were able to achieve economic and social integration in a
matter of eight decades or less.48 The importance of freedom to democracy goes beyond social and economic integration, however. Freedom’s importance is, in
fact, visible in civic education itself, where we find that students
in private schools demonstrate both greater civic
knowledge and greater tolerance for others than public school students. As Notre Dame political scientist David E.
Campbell found after controlling for variables such as race, family income, and academic performance, only 48 percent of nonmagnet public school students
participate in community service, compared with 52 percent of students in secular private schools, 57 percent in nonCatholic religious schools, and 59 percent in
Catholic schools.49 He found similar differences in students’ political knowledge, though the disparities were only statistically significant between Catholic school
students and non-magnet public school children, with the former exhibiting appreciably greater political knowledge than the latter.50 Finally—and perhaps most
surprisingly—Campbell found that students in Catholic and private schools were more tolerant of inflammatory political expression—even anti-religious
expression— than were public school students.51 In addition to creating better democratic citizens, private
schools tend to be better racially
integrated, a fact demonstrated best in school lunchrooms, where students exhibit truly voluntary integration. In a 1998 study of such integration, Jay
Greene and Nicole Mellow found that 63.5 percent of students in lunchrooms at randomly selected
private schools sat in groups where at least one out of every five students immediately around them
was from a different racial group, while in the public schools only 49.7 percent of students were so
integrated.52 Perhaps the final—and for many parents and students, most important—advantage of
private over state-run schooling comes in the form of academic success. When parents can choose schools
that share their moral, pedagogical, and other beliefs, education is more effective because schools can quickly and

efficiently teach coherent lessons rather than having to struggle to accommodate different children,
values, and so forth. It’s a reality that has been demonstrated well in Chile, which has relatively extensive
school choice. There, researcher Claudio Sapelli found that students in private schools outpaced the performance of their counterparts at municipal schools
even after accounting for socioeconomic variables and so-called “peer effects” (the tendency for a child’s performance to improve simply as a result of attending
schools with better-off students, rather than as a result of the schools themselves).53 School Choice: The Only Solution Given the
dubious value and divisive social effects of state-run schooling, it seems logical that democratic values—and
academic excellence—would best be served by an education system that maximizes freedom. School choice—in

which the public ensures that all children can get an education, but parents select the schools—fits that bill. Supporters of the status quo frequently contend,
however, that letting people choose their own schools would lead to serious social divisions, a result commonly known as “Balkanization.” The specter of
Balkanization was most famously applied to education in a dissenting opinion in a 2002 Supreme Court decision that declared a choice program in Ohio
constitutional. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris: The Court’s decision is profoundly misguided. . . . I have been influenced by my
understanding of the impact of religious strife on the decisions of our forbears to migrate to this continent, and on the decisions of neighbors in the Balkans,
Northern Ireland, and the Middle East to mistrust one another. Whenever we remove a brick from the wall that was designed to separate religion and government,
we increase the risk of religious strife and weaken the foundation of our democracy.54 Stevens’ assertion came, of course, directly from the “foundation of
democracy” myth. It was also highly ironic. Imposing government-run schooling on every American— the opposite of
freedom and choice—has been the cause of constant social and political conflict, while enabling people
to select schools that reflect their own values, use the curricula they desire, and so on, is essential to
defusing social conflict,. Indeed, the misery in places like the Balkans and the Middle East is much more
the consequence of forcing different ethnic and religious groups together— just as public schooling
attempts to do—than letting them remain apart. Choice’s salutary effects are not just theoretical. In
other nations as well as our own, we have seen educational choice defuse social conflicts. The
Netherlands, for instance, was split between Protestants, Catholics, and socialists, for generations, and these divisions caused constant battles over what
should be taught in the public schools. Eventually, in a drive to end these conflicts, the Netherlands instituted a voucher system that let families

choose their preferred public or private schools. By the 1960s, the social divisions that had previously
torn the country apart had almost disappeared.55 In the United States we have seen similar decreases
in hostility thanks to school choice. As discussed, when Catholics established their own schools and removed themselves from many battles to
control public schooling, friction between Catholics and Protestants lessened and Catholics integrated fully into American society. Similarly, little of the

outrage that accompanied desegregation in Denver, Pontiac, or Boston has been found in voucher
programs, which tend to place students in more integrated settings than do traditional public
schools.56 But though vouchers allowed the Dutch to vanquish their fiercest social conflicts, they were not a panacea. They reduced coercion, but still force
generally liberal Dutch taxpayers to support some educational choices with which they do not agree, most notably, the more conservative Muslim voucher schools.
Some Dutch citizens view state funding of conservative Islamic education as out of step with their values, and that has led to calls for government intervention to
reduce the freedom or number of such schools. Thankfully, vouchers are not the only vehicles that deliver choice; tax credit programs of various types ensure that
everyone can afford an education, without forcing taxpayers to support educational decisions with which they disagree.57 Finally, going back to the observations of
de Tocqueville, Salins, and others, it
is clear that choice in education is ultimately just a subset of the overall
freedom that has united Americans and enabled them to succeed socially and economically. Indeed schooling
driven by choice is the only education system that is truly consonant with liberty because it lets individuals—rather than government—make their own educational
choices. Imposing “democracy” through government-run schooling, in contrast, is inherently authoritarian.
Conclusion All across the country, public schools threw Americans’ fundamental values into conflict during the 2005–2006 school year— whether over
intelligent design, dress codes, controversial school books, or sundry other divisive topics. This was not an aberration. American history is littered

with an endless series of such conflicts, and the problem has only grown worse as public school systems
have become more centralized and the nation more diverse. These conflicts are not only inescapable
under our monolithic system of official schools, they are actually caused by it. Different cultural, ethnic, and religious
groups have no choice but to enter the political melee if they want to see their values taught and desires met by the public schools. So is American education
doomed to eternal acrimony? Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be. If
public education were driven by free parental choice, it could
escape the Balkanizing battles that plague our current system, because individual parents could choose
schools that comport with their values, and there would be no need to fight over public schools for
which all must pay, but only the most politically powerful can control. And there is an upside to choice even beyond unity
and social cohesion. Current research shows that private schools do a significantly better job of teaching kids to become

good, active, knowledgeable, and tolerant citizens than do the public schools.
 T cooch
Education means the process of learning within schools – it’s distinct from the broader
‘schooling’
Cooch, 3 – Judge for the Superior Court of Delaware (Richard, UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE, Plaintiff-
Below, Appellant, v. NEW CASTLE COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF LAND USE and NEW CASTLE COUNTY
BOARD OF ASSESSMENT REVIEW, Defendants-Below, Appellees. C.A. No. 02A-03-001 RRC SUPERIOR
COURT OF DELAWARE, NEW CASTLE 2003 Del. Super. LEXIS 37, 1/30, lexis)

The Court's view that the placement of the Bank's facilities within the Student Center serves "school
purposes" is further buttressed by the fact that the Agreement between the school and the Bank
frequently notes that its purpose was "to provide [or implement] enhanced levels of banking service to…
[University] students…" 65 When one thinks of a "school" as encompassing the body of students,
faculty, administrators, and employees which constitute the institution's makeup, it is not illogical to
view "enhanced levels of banking service" directed at those persons as serving a "school" purpose; this
is to be contrasted with the term [*31] "education," which, as noted above, is more directed to the
actual process of learning itself. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Footnotes - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 65 See Agreement at 1
para. 1 (R. at 13), 2 para. 3 (R. at 14). - - - - - - - - - - - - End Footnotes- - - - - - - - - - - - - - By contrast, the
County, although couching its arguments against property tax exemption in terms of "school purposes,"
focuses solely on the connotation of the "educational" purpose portion of section 8105. The County
relies heavily on cases from other jurisdictions decided under differently-worded statutes. It argues that
"school" purpose means "an institution for learning…" 66 and that "providing convenient banking
facilities does not promote instruction or education[][.]" 67 But this analysis fails to take into account
that the term "school" is not necessarily limited to the actual process of learning, in contrast to the term
"education," which tends to be more exactly limited. And when one considers that the predominant use
of the Bank in the Student Center is student convenience, this Court's finding that that the Bank serves
"school [*32] purposes" is warranted; the Burris Court itself noted that student "convenience" is
entitled to consideration when it found that the property at issue was taxable because it was for the
headmaster's convenience and not "a convenient place for holding meetings and social affairs" in
connection with the school. 68 The County's argument that tax exemption of the Bank's facility would
lead to a commercial advantage in its favor, while colorable, is ultimately unpersuasive.

Voting issue to protect limits – expanding the topic to include the entire school
systems makes us debate anything tangentially related to education
 Midterms
Dems will win, but the margin is thin--voter enthusiasm key
Agiesta 1/22/18. Jennifer--CNN POLLING DIRECTOR. “CNN Poll: Democratic advantage narrows in
2018,” https://www.local10.com/news/politics/cnn-poll-democratic-advantage-narrows-in-2018

As the midterm election year begins, a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS finds the Democratic advantage on a generic
congressional ballot has tightened to a narrow 5 points among registered voters, but those voters who say they are most enthusiastic about

turning out to vote this fall favor Democrats by a wide 15-point margin. The new poll's 49 percent Democrat to 44 percent Republican margin among

registered voters is almost identical to Democrats' standing in January of 2006, the last midterm election year in which
they made significant gains in the House of Representatives. But it represents a large shift from CNN polls
conducted in the past three months, in which Democrats held double-digit advantages over the Republicans.
Preferences among all adults have shifted less dramatically, but are also tighter than last fall, with Democrats currently 10
points ahead of Republicans among all Americans. Enthusiasm about voting in this year's contests has grown as the calendar page has turned, with

a spike among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents from 32 percent feeling extremely or very
enthusiastic about casting a ballot in December to 43 percent saying the same now. Democrats still hold
an advantage in enthusiasm, however, with 51 percent saying they are that enthusiastic about voting in this year's midterm elections.
Enthusiasm for this year's contests peaks among liberal Democrats, 62 percent of whom say they are deeply energized about voting.

Among conservative Republicans, just 46 percent say the same. That disparity is fueling the Democrats' much wider edge on the generic ballot
among enthusiastic voters. Among those voters who call themselves extremely or very enthusiastic about casting a ballot, 56 percent favor the Democratic
candidate in their district, while 41 percent favor the Republican. Republicans hold a 5-point edge among those voters who rate themselves somewhat enthusiastic
or less. The tightened race among voters more broadly reflects shifts among independent voters in the last month, who broke
heavily in Democrats' favor on the generic ballot in a December poll conducted amid Republican efforts to pass an unpopular tax bill. In the new poll, independents
have grown more positive toward Donald Trump and now split almost evenly on the generic ballot: 45 percent for the Republican in their district to 42 percent for
the Democrat.

The plan flips the election

Klein 17. Alyson Klein--reporting for EdWeek. “Is There an Upside for Democrats in DeVos as GOP's
Face of K-12 Policy?” February 9, 2017. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-
12/2017/02/there_could_be_a_big_upside_fo.html

Democrats could spend a lot of time fighting brand-new U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her initiatives over the next
few years, especially if she tries to make good on the $20 billion voucher initiative President Donald Trump pitched on the campaign trail. But her time in the
spotlight also has a big potential upside for them. For one thing, it
could energize Democrats and those who support their vision
to open their wallets and pound the pavement for local, state, and federal Democratic candidates. And that
energy would serve Democrats best where they may need it most right now: in rural, red states with Democratic
senators that are up for re-election in 2018. Democrats have 25 seats to protect in the mid-term election,
including 10 in states that President Donald Trump won, including Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, and West Virginia. DeVos' favorite K-12 policy—

vouchers—won't do much good in those states, where students have transportation challenges just getting to regular public schools. (More on

that issue here.) And the vulnerable senators—all of whom joined their Democratic colleagues in voting against DeVos Tuesday—were more

than happy to point that out, setting up the DeVos nomination as an example of Trump betraying his most-
loyal voters. "The reddest part of my state are parts of my state where there are no private schools. Rural Missouri," Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said
Tuesday as the Senate was wrapping up debate on DeVos. "In rural areas of this country, there are not private schools for parents and kids to choose. They would
have to drive miles." Republicans, McCaskill said, "are kicking in the shins the very voters that put them in power. And I
don't get that. I don't understand how you can give the back of your hand to rural America with this decision." Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., made a similar pitch in
this post on Medium, and said on Twitter that she had gotten nearly 3,000 anti-DeVos calls, including many questioning her qualifications, not just her positions.
And in this tweet, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., another likely 2018 GOP target, cited DeVos' lack of knowledge of education policy—and especially rural schools—as a
reason he voted against her. Both Heitkamp and Manchin were the target of ads by two conservative nonprofit groups, the Club for Growth and America Next,
urging voters to persaude them to vote for DeVos. And to be sure, DeVos has offered up virtual charter schools as a solution for families in isolated areas that want
to take advantage of school choice. But many rural areas don't have the broadband capability to make that work. And virtual charter schools have been plagued by
uneven—and often, dismal—academic performance, as an investigation by Education Week found. Notably, the two Republicans who ultimately opposed DeVos—
Sens. Susan Collins, of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska,—are both from rural states and have faced contested elections. And on the national level, opinion
polling doesn't show vouchers as a big winner, especially among Republican voters. In fact, vouchers have slipped in popularity, even as more states have embraced
choice. Less than half of Americans are fans of the policy, according to an August 2016 opinion poll by Education Next, a journal published by Stanford University's
Hoover Institution. Forty-three percent of the 4,181 survey participants—which constituted a nationally representative sample—said they support the idea of
vouchers, down from 55 percent four years ago. And vouchers for low-income students were more popular among Democrats than Republicans, the poll found: 49
percent compared to 37 percent. (More here in this great explainer by my colleague Arianna Prothero.) Jack Jennings, who spent three decades working for
Democrats on Capitol Hill, sees DeVos as a policy minus, but a potential political plus for his party. "The main advantage for the Democrats is that it clearly identifies
the Republicans nationally as committed to privatizing public education," Jennings said. That
won't sit well with suburban parents
whose kids go to public schools, a key voting block for the GOP. "Democrats can tell those parents that the Republicans are
only interested in charter schools, of which there are not a lot in suburbia, and private schools, of which there are not a lot anywhere. Even Catholic schools in the
cities are declining." But David Winston, the president of the Winston Group, a Washington polling firm that works with GOP candidates, noted that Trump's win is
evidence that voters might be ready to take a chance on something different. " The
electorate is willing to take some risks to change
the status quo because they feel that it isn't working, and that's going to play in her favor," he said of DeVos. But she will have to show
that her policies are actually improving student outcomes. "You need results," he said. Democrats though, already
appear to think they may hold the winning cards on the DeVos debate when it comes to mobilizing the grassroots

activists, if nothing else.

Key to impeachment
Madonna 7/29/17. Terry Madonna--phd political history, University of Delaware. “Will midterm
elections become an impeachment referendum?” http://lancasteronline.com/opinion/columnists/will-
midterm-elections-become-an-impeachment-referendum/article_6d99354c-73a7-11e7-94ed-
0398f677997f.html
Trump’s controversial conduct in office is likely to continue — indeed likely to become more controversial. What now inoculates him from the consequences of his
behavior is the intense support he retains from his base — hardcore GOP voters that helped elect him and continue to believe in him. But what happens if that
support weakens or even collapses? In that event impeachment goes from a distinct improbability to a daunting probability. Nate Silver of
FiveThirtyEight has set the scenario for that happening. “If
Republicans get clobbered in the midterms after two years of trying to defend
Trump, the Republican agenda is in shambles, Democrats begin impeachment proceedings … and just enough

Republicans decide that Pence … gives them a better shot to avoid total annihilation in 2020.” This would be a GOP
doomsday scenario for sure. But American midterm elections have become a referendum on the president — and increasingly,

Democrats are framing the issue of impeachment in the context of the fast approaching 2018 election. To retake control of Congress, Democrats need to win

24 seats in the House and three in the Senate. These are challenging but not overwhelming gains in a midterm year. In
this case, 2018 would be a presidential election without the president on the ballot — an election cycle in which voters are asked to

cast ballots for or against congressional candidates on whether they favor or oppose the impeachment of the chief executive. Will this
actually happen? Will we see a historic 2018 midterm election that turns on the question of impeachment — in effect a referendum on Trump? As President
Trump’s approval rating continues to fall and the proportion of voters supporting impeachment continues to rise, the prospect of impeachment looms more likely.
The closer we approach the factors enumerated by Nate Silver: a midterm loss for Republicans; a GOP agenda in disarray; and a
belief that a “President Pence” could avoid calamity in 2020; the more inevitable impeachment becomes.

Try-or-die
Amr 17 (Hady Amr, nonresident senior fellow at Brookings, “What would US foreign policy look like
under President Pence?,” 5/25, http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/foreign-policy/335160-what-
would-us-foreign-policy-look-like-under-a-president)

It is not hard to envision a similar coalition coming together under Pence’s watch. A
Pence presidency also may lead to a shoring-up of
security and economic alliances. Just as Trump has cast the free-trade regime into jeopardy, castigated NATO
(at least before an abrupt about-face last month) and signaled massive funding cuts to the Bretton Woods Institutions, Pence may

reverse many of these pronouncements. In the current configuration of the Trump administration, three separate groups tangle for foreign policy
primacy: the economic nationalists/populists led by Stephen Bannon, the military pragmatists represented by Secretary of Defense James Mattis and National
Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and the economic globalists fronted by National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.
Under Pence, the Bannon wing would likely make a quick and graceless exit. The economic globalists and the military pragmatists would stay entrenched in strong
positions, but old groups would likely return, such as the neoconservatives and religious faith leaders. A Pence presidency would bring big style changes. Gone
would be the late night tweets and blustery rhetoric. More than likely, “America First” would gradually disappear, with a return to a more traditional form
of American exceptionalism. The impulsivity, erratic swings of policy and casual disregard for intelligence and briefing material would also likely pass.

These changes alone would considerably ease fears about an accidental stumble into a major war or nuclear
confrontation. On the other hand, the divisive culture wars that have framed Pence’s political career would presumably return in a major way and likely spill
over into the foreign policy arena. On a regional basis, we can also expect significant differences. In the Middle East, President Trump has focused on three issues
thus far: Israeli-Palestinian peace, countering ISIS and containing Iran. While it is unlikely that President Pence would jettison any of these efforts, what is likely is
that he would reprioritize and change the tenor of engagements. On the Israeli-Palestinian front, Pence might be less likely to swing for the fences
to achieve an unlikely peace and might side even more closely with Israel. He would also most certainly continue to counter ISIS, but would do so in a

manner less aligned with Russia, which might mean more direct pressure on the Syrian regime. On Iran, President Pence would likely not reverse Trump’s
policy to both stick to the nuclear agreement but build pressure on Iran through closer ties to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council, but

he might inject a push for greater democracy and human rights, which would certainly strain ties. Turning to Asia, Pence’s approach to North Korea may not
vary appreciably from the current strategy — ramp up economic pressure and sanctions and convince China to play a more assertive role in reigning in Kim Jong-un
— but Pencewill refrain from Trump’s Twitter baiting and will tamp down the bellicose rhetoric. Instead, expect a more
concerted, behind-the-scenes effort to force the North Korean regime to the negotiating table. When it comes to China, we can
anticipate more consistent pushback from Pence, including reestablishing clear markers on the South China Sea and efforts to put together a TPP-like economic
alliance to counter China’s ambition.
 States
The 50 states and all relevant territories should:
- Ensure the enforcement of desegregation orders on elementary and secondary
public education through integration based upon a student’s socioeconomic
status. If integration based upon a student’s socioeconomic status fails to fulfill
desegregation orders, then the state should enforce race-based integration in
elementary and secondary schools;
- End all collaboration between state and federal agents for the purpose of
immigration enforcement including outlawing anyone or any entity to use a
database maintained by a state agency and prohibiting state and local law
enforcement agencies from using either personnel or funds to hold, transfer,
question or share information about people with federal immigration agents.

The CP solves
Shajuti Hossain and Will Reed, JUNE 29, 2016, "School Integration after Parents Involved:
Constitutional race-based approaches to school diversity," Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under
Law, https://lawyerscommittee.org/2016/06/school-integration-parents-involved-constitutional-race-
based-approaches-school-diversity/]//Rank

In 2007, the Supreme Court struck down voluntary race-based integration plans in Seattle and Louisville in Parents
Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 on the grounds that the two districts’ use of individual students’ race was not narrowly tailored to meet their school diversity goals.[9] The Court also argued
that accepting racial balance as a compelling interest for race-based plans would prohibit America’s goal of eliminating race as a factor in government decision-making.[10] However, Justice Kennedy’s

concurring opinion stated that the Court’s decision still permits school districts to consider the racial
makeup of schools and adopt generalized race-based policies to increase diversity, which is an appropriate compelling interest.
“Race may be one component of that diversity, but other demographic factors, plus special talents and
needs should also be considered.” He states that school boards can constitutionally consider race in a general
way without treating students differently based solely on race. He offers the following examples: strategic site selection, creation of attendance zones with
an understanding of neighborhood demographics, special programs, targeted recruitment of faculty and students, and records of enrollment, performance, and other statistics by race.[11] Federal Guidance in the K-12 Context

The U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice provides guidance on the constitutional methods of achieving
racial diversity in schools. The Departments state that districts should first consider race-neutral approaches,
such as socioeconomic status or parental education. Consideration of racial impacts is permissible. Approaches are
unworkable if they will not effectively achieve diversity or if they require sacrificing particular educational
missions or priorities, such as academic selectivity. If race-neutral approaches are unworkable, then districts may consider
generalized race-based approaches which take into account racial composition of neighborhoods
among other factors. Under these methods, all students within zones characterized by race, income,
and/or parental education must be treated the same regardless of their race. If the generalized race-
based approaches are unworkable, then districts may adopt race-based approaches if they are narrowly
tailored to meet a compelling interest.
 Housing
The United States federal government should develop a housing desegregation
strategy that
- Changes the economic forces behind home ownership by equalizing housing
subsidies to reverse the racist effects of the housing interest deduction
- Outlaws, and judicially enforces against, discriminatory practices in mortgage
lending, real estate, and insurance industries
- Creates and enforces comprehensive programs to support black people who
wish to exercise housing choice by moving to the suburbs
The counterplan is ‘territorial reparations’ that desegregates more effectively than the
plan
Kenn 1 - Associate Professor of Law and Director, Community Development Law Clinic, Syracuse
University College of Law, Syracuse, New York (Deborah, “INSTITUTIONALIZED, LEGAL RACISM:
HOUSING SEGREGATION AND BEYOND,” 11 B.U. Pub. Int. L.J. 35, Lexis)

B. Recommendations for Economic Equity and Access to Property

A simple solution for leveling the playing field and beginning to address the economic inequalities
between races is to compensate African-Americans for the deliberate exclusion from economic
opportunity in this country. Professor Oliver recommends a dollar-for-dollar reimbursement plan. 187 Professor Calmore advocates territorial
reparations which would take the form of community reinvestment in black communities historically
marginalized by the federal government's active and malicious involvement in spatial subordination. 188 In
addition to community and/or individual reparations, the more complex problem of access to property should be explored and redressed to

sustain economic equity for the long term. Until systemic housing segregation is reversed, the
marginalization and economic isolation of black people will be perpetuated. There are three approaches that, taken
together, would provide increased access to property and its concomitant economic resources. First, the economic forces that prevent

blacks, especially low and moderate income blacks, from having choices about where to live have to be
reversed. Second, discriminatory practices in the mortgage lending, real estate, and insurance industries
must be effectively outlawed. Finally, there must be comprehensive programs instituted to support black
people who wish to exercise housing choice by moving to the suburbs. 189 The first of these approaches needs further
explanation. There are at least two illusions in our nation's approach to property that work together to exclude blacks from the suburbs and from property
ownership. Unfortunately, people hold steadfast to their beliefs in these illusions, perpetuating the severely disproportionate distribution of wealth between blacks
and whites. The first illusion is that the market that defines property values somehow magically operates independent of any human manipulation. Nothing could
be further from the truth. In fact, as explained by Professor Jennifer Nedelsky: Property takes its power and importance in large part from "the market" - which
[*69] is itself defined by the legal system. "The market" is not a freestanding, natural phenomenon, but consists of rules defined by law and backed by the power of
the state. 190 At present, the market is regulated to maintain property ownership and wealth in the hands of the powerful, at the expense of those without power.
Professor Oliver states: "Our empirical investigation of housing and mortgage markets demonstrates the way in which racialized state policies interact with other
forms of institutional discrimination to prevent blacks from accumulating wealth in the form of residential equity." 191 Historical patterns of residential housing
segregation are entrenched by the operation of the market. 192 As stated by Professor Alex M. Johnson, Jr.: "Thus, the cycle of segregated neighborhoods is
reinforced by the market, which creates endogenous economic incentives for the maintenance and expansion of such neighborhoods." 193 There
exist two
significant areas of human intervention in the market system of property valuation that require
attention. The first is the appraisal system. Home appraisals are conducted by human beings. These human beings are allowed to take racism
into account when determining the resale value of a home. Our present system of appraising home values, inflating the value

of homes in white neighborhoods and reducing the value of homes in black or integrated
neighborhoods, contributes significantly to the inability of blacks to reap the financial benefits of home
ownership and prevents them from buying homes in certain neighborhoods. 194 The appraisal industry needs to be
subject to better enforcement of fair housing requirements. A second significant regulatory variable influencing the housing

market is the federally granted mortgage interest deduction for homeowners. The federal government foregoes $ 54
billion in tax revenues each year by subsidizing housing for middle and high income families in the form of property tax and mortgage interest deductions. 195 It
spends barely half of that amount in subsidizing housing [*70] for the less fortunate among us who are in need of adequate shelter. "When the government
stimulates the high end of the housing market and provides virtually no support for the lower end, conditions of supply and demand result in high prices and a
constricted supply of low-and moderate-income housing." 196 Equalizing housing subsidies among the classes would engender
greater equity in property ownership. The second illusion operating to the exclusion of blacks is that individual rights of property ownership
exist in a vacuum and individuals enjoy free expression independent of the rights of others. This illusion creates a dangerous fiction enabling the widespread
practice of racially exclusionary zoning in the suburbs. 197 Again, the "haves," the white people with property, are benefactors of a racially and economically
discriminatory system that reproduces itself to the exclusion of blacks. Having acquired property through this racially discriminatory system, whites then get to
preserve their segregated neighborhoods. "Rights to racial equality in education and housing cannot coexist with rights to private property, contract and free
association when these more traditional rights are defined primarily by the right to exclude." 198 Operating together, our
system of exclusionary
zoning, and the market system of property ownership, prevent equal access to property in this nation.
Suburbs must be prohibited from abusing their zoning power to prevent affordable housing from being
built within their boundaries. 199 A more drastic, but effective solution, would be to remove property
ownership from the vagaries of the market system. In low income communities, "community land trusts" have been
created to maintain affordability of housing for the long term. The concept of a community approach to
property valuation could be extended to all communities. Upon resale of property, individuals would receive return on any
reasonable, pre-approved investment made in the property. However, the increase in the value of their property based on forces outside their control, i.e.,
appreciation in market value, would be recaptured by the societal forces that caused that appreciation. This social value of property could then be utilized to
stimulate the production of affordable housing for those placed out of the housing market by those same societal forces. 200 Individuals do not exist independently
of society; nor do property rights. To begin to achieve a reconception of property ownership reversing the racist
past, a collective, community approach must be taken. 201 [*71] VI. Conclusion The legacy of racism in the United States is
undeniable. The continuation of that legacy remains unabated. Only lip service has been paid to easing the tension between the races. Housing

segregation and the deliberate physical separation of races has unavoidably led to a snowballing effect
of unequal opportunity between communities with people of different skin colors. Blacks have less
opportunity for quality education and gainful employment due to their geographical isolation and
marginalization in society. The hopeless conditions caused by social isolation, lack of opportunity, and
ensuing poverty create an environment where criminal activity is highlighted, visible, and easily
targeted by selective law enforcement. A vicious cycle of racism is thus maintained and negative stereotypes reinforced because there is no
opportunity to get to know the unknown "other." In the words of Professor Patricia J. Williams: There is a crisis of community in the United States no less than in the
rest of the world, of specific and complicated origin perhaps, but in this moment of global upheaval, worth studying for possibilities both won and lost. Whites fear
blacks, blacks fear whites. Each is the enemy against whom the authorities will not act. 202
 Innovation
Education is shifting models to one focused on competencies, outcomes and
personalization—it is changing the way k-12 and higher education works.
Kristi Depaul 17, Founders Marketing provides editorial support and regular contributions to the
Transforming Higher Ed column of EDUCAUSE Review on issues of teaching, learning, and edtech., 2-6-
2017, "Competency-Based Education Gains Momentum,"
http://er.educause.edu/blogs/2017/2/competency-based-education-gains-momentum

We’re examining competency-based education (CBE), an approach that has been celebrated for its
customization and modularized structure, enabling students to demonstrate mastery and move at their
own pace through academic programs. Beyond its timing advantages, CBE also has been cited as a means of supporting student equity, and
encouraging knowledge transfer--in order to sufficiently educate kids as well as adults for roles that are currently evolving, or perhaps those which have yet to be
created. While
CBE remains somewhat nascent across K-12 districts and postsecondary institutions, it has
gained a foothold and interest in it continues to grow across the United States. I spoke with educators, academic
experts and institutional leaders to learn more about the ways in which CBE is serving students of all ages, grades and skill levels, and to better understand existing
collaborations or points of intersection between schools and academia. The
approach is currently bridging gaps between
employers and aspiring college graduates; there appears to be significant potential for CBE to also
positively impact younger students. Embracing the Real World Matthew Prineas, Vice Provost and Dean of The Undergraduate School at
University of Maryland University College, agrees. "The promise of competency-based methodology is its power to create

new connections and seamless pathways between K12, higher education, and the workplace,” he said.
“At UMUC, we are developing competency-based learning experiences that connect the real-world skills employers are asking for with the intellectual abilities our
students need for academic success. We believe that competency-based approaches are equally adaptable to the needs of our adult students, who are looking to
connect their prior experience with a college credential and a profession, as they are for high school students, who need to develop the foundational skills and
behaviors necessary for success in college and beyond. The emphasis is, of course, on demonstrated mastery rather than rote memorization. “By
putting
the focus on what students can do, not just what they know, competencies give us the means to
construct learning experiences that are more relevant and engaging—and that is to the benefit of all
students, wherever they are in their educational journey." Imagining a New Academic Experience Chris Sturgis, Co-Founder
CompetencyWorks, believes that while significant differences between the two sides exist, alignment is possible—and could be extremely beneficial for students of
all ages and backgrounds. “At the level of conceptualization, K12 and institutions of higher education have a shared understanding of competency education,” she
explained. “Yet, in the implementation to date there are differences, and some of them are significant. For example, a school district must serve all students
regardless of their skill levels or educational experiences. Institutions of higher education have more ability to select their students, whereas districts have to
organize themselves to meet the needs of every student regardless of their skills and educational experiences.” Student
agency also plays a role.
“Another difference is that institutions of higher education can screen for self-directed learning skills:

many have created parallel programs, one online with a traditional structure and one competency-
based and online for students who have demonstrated adequate self-directed learning skills. K-12
districts and schools are creating the capacity to help all students learn the self-directed skills needed
for college and careers. Over time, it is likely that the two approaches will become more alike. In the meantime, it is important to understand the
differences in order to learn across the sectors.” Greater affiliation K-12 and higher education CBE programs could also boost student equity. “We have not even
begun to tap into the potential of aligning the two sectors of K-12 and institutions of higher education around competencies,” Sturgis explained. “Imagine

the world where students know exactly what it means to be doing freshmen level work while in high
school and can demonstrate their mastery based on calibrated assessments. Imagine the world where
students who feel that they are not being well served by districts, particularly young men of color, can
find opportunities to complete their high school degree at a community-based organization supported
with programming provided by districts or colleges. Once we have robustly calibrated understanding of
performance levels and quality control mechanisms in place—so that we never return to a situation of
inconsistency, meaningless credits and variability in grading—the sky is the limit in how we organize
learning experiences that meet the needs of all of our students.” Building Stronger Regional Connections Mark Kostin,
Associate Director of Great Schools Partnership, identified several areas of intersection he has seen through the organization’s role as conveners of the New England
Secondary School Consortium. “High
school graduates who have come from a CBE environment tend to be greater
advocates for their own learning, emphasizing relevance and meaning as part of their experience,” he
said. “They’re more desirous of clear and actionable feedback against transparent, shared expectations,

and tend to have honed self advocacy skills and awareness as agents of their own learning. We often hear
stories from schools that we work with; some have told us that college freshmen who are CBE high school graduates will proactively approach professors to see the
rubric.” It
has engendered an organic K-16 discipline-based conversation. “We work with a handful of
school districts who either by proximity or through dual enrollment programs have developed both
formal and informal relationships with institutions of higher education. For example, high school science
teachers and biology professors are discussing what progression should look like, sharing expectations
so that grads can be better prepared. It’s happening now, but currently it’s taking place in pockets
rather than across institutions.” Collaboration often hinges on a number of factors such as district or state policies. “Schools that historically have
had dual enrollment or early college depending upon language that district or state tends to use. There are two possible models: if the college campus is within
driving distance from a CBE high school that will send students to pursue degrees, the college will need to closely track academic standards. This is an obvious
important connection that has to happen; a translation of sorts, so that everyone knows what a B+ ‘means’. I think we’re at the early stages of that. In some cases,
there have been very productive conversations that actually examine standards and the assessment of those standards as well, going well beyond reviewing the
syllabus to determine equivalency. In fact, some CBE high schools will send their rubrics to the college faculty, eager to know how their students performed against
their own rubrics. They’ll even ask that student to return and share their portfolio of learning outcomes.” What about training teachers for competency-based
models? “Teacher preparation is critical. With a growing number of secondary schools in New England using a CBE model, you can imagine that districts in their
hiring processes are looking for candidates with experience in or knowledge of CBE. We’re seeing that transpire in Maine in particular, as ‘receiving schools’ (schools
that hire new teacher grads) are part of an advisory group to the teacher education program at area universities. The level of responsiveness in terms of serving
regional schools is important.” Kostin cited a raised awareness of what’s happening via policy and research centers at universities, including one institution that is
shifting to an entire competency-based model (the University of Maine at Presque Isle). However, he notes that on both sides, we are ‘at the early stages of mostly
pioneering states’. Piloting Intersectional Partnerships Steve Kossakoski, CEO of Virtual Learning Academy (VLACS), an online public middle and high school, believes
that competency-based education could lead to significant changes in the way in which students are educated. “ Competency-based
education
effectively transforms the one-size-fits all learning model into one where time, pace, and place can
flex to meet the needs of students. At VLACS, competency-based education is the foundation of our customized learning model. We define
customized learning as providing students with the freedom to determine when, where, and how they will learn based on their needs, interests, and talents.”
Two recent collaborations with institutions of higher education enable high school students to work
toward an associate degree while pursuing their diplomas.

Federal regulation disrupts this transition—creates compliance focus instead of

student focus and disempowers the most relevant stakeholders.
Jennifer Marshall 11, Heritage domestic policy studies director, 4-6-2011, “Freeing Schools from
Washington’s Education Overreach,” http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2011/pdf/wm3214.pdf

Expanded scope of intervention. Federal intervention started with a narrow purpose: to provide supplemental
resources to low-income students. The role gradually expanded, and in the mid-1990s laws began to focus on
leveraging system-wide reform from Washington, leaving no area of education off-limits. Beyond such laws,
Washington’s regulations and guidance dictate implementation of the 150-plus federal education
programs. Hundreds of pages in the Code of Federal Regulations specify the operation of the U.S. Department of Education’s K–12 education programs. The
department has also issued guidance on K–12 education on 100 occasions since NCLB enactment in 2002.8 Federal Education Intervention

Erodes Good Governance. Washington’s intervention has led to increased state and local education
bureaucracy and shifted focus toward compliance with federal policy. This undermines schools’ direct
accountability to parents and taxpayers and erodes good governance. Enlarges state and local bureaucracy. State education
bureaucracy grew rapidly following the 1965 passage of ESEA: Between 1966 and 1970, Congress appropriated $128 million for state education agencies (SEAs), and
their staffs doubled.9 At the local level, K–12 public school enrollment has increased just 7 percent since 1970, while staff hires have increased 83 percent. Teachers
as a percentage of school staff has declined significantly, from 70 percent in 1950 to 51 percent in 2006.10 Fosters a “client mentality” on the part of states. State

bureaucracy grew following 1965 because of the focus on tapping the new federal funding source and
implementing federal programs. This created a “client mentality” that has undermined effective
educational governance and direct accountability to parents and other taxpayers.11 About 10 percent
of local education funding is from taxpayer dollars cycled through the federal government,12 but by
some estimates the federal government is responsible for more than half of the red tape local schools
face.13 States often exert enormous energy to obtain federal funding. For example, in the recent Race to the Top grant
competition, 41 states spent countless man-hours crafting applications—some close to 1,000 pages—in order to qualify for a slice of the $4.35 billion funding. Only
11 states ultimately received awards. For the rest, the significant amount of time and money expended on grant applications will not be recouped by taxpayers.14
Disrupts direct accountability to parents and taxpayers. Accountability is often the reason given for
expansive federal intervention in local schools. Accountability is certainly important, but to whom and for what? Rather than
answering up the bureaucratic chain of command to Washington, accountability should be directed to
parents and other taxpayers. Positive student outcomes are more likely when incentives are aligned so
that schools are most accountable to those with the most at stake in students’ educational
outcomes—their parents.15 Policies that roll back federal intervention, which detracts from this proper
alignment, and advance parental choice can help redirect accountability from Washington to parents. Federal
Intervention Creates a Compliance Burden that Saps Time and Money. The number and scope of federal
programs and regulations has created a significant compliance burden for local schools. This wastes
time and money that could be more effectively deployed to achieve educational excellence. Moreover, an
education dollar spent by Washington does not translate into a dollar spent in a local classroom. Diminished funds. For three decades, the

U.S. Education Department has collected taxes, filtered that money through the Washington
bureaucracy, and sent it back to states and school districts. Each step diminishes the funds available to
local schools due to administrative set-asides and other spending. By one 1998 estimate, only 65 cents to 70 cents of every dollar makes its way to the
classroom.16 For 30 years, this spending cycle has failed to improve education. Human capital wasted. The federal burden should

also be calculated in terms of opportunity cost, as school staff attention is directed to program
administration and reporting rather than educational activities. According to the Office of Management
and Budget in 2006, NCLB had increased the annual paperwork burden on state and local communities
by 7 million hours, or $140 million.17 One district reports that “the cost of setting aside a single day to
train the roughly 14,000 teachers in the division on the law’s complex requirements is equivalent to the
cost of hiring 72 additional teachers.”18

Global challenges are increasing and require innovating learning---otherwise

automation causes social instability and transnational threats overwhelm public
responses.
Rebecca Winthrop & Eileen Mcgivney 16, senior fellow and director of the Center for Universal
Education at the Brookings Institution, 9-12-2016, "Rethinking Education in a Changing World (SSIR)," No
Publication, https://ssir.org/articles/entry/rethinking_education_in_a_changing_world
Earlier this year, we visited developers from IBM Watson, famous for creating the intelligent machine that beat both the world’s top chess player and the long-time
Jeopardy! champion. IBM’s work to simulate the intelligence and actions of humans has reached the level of science fiction, prompting the question: What will the
world look like in the future? Depending on which economist you talk to, advances in technology such as AI either
hold incredible promise—enabling increases in productivity that will give us twice as much leisure
time—or mark the end of decent work for most of the population and an incredible increase in
inequality. Skills that allow young people to adapt to rapid change could be an important factor in
determining whether the future is full of promise or peril. Automation has hollowed out the labor
market, leaving many middle-skilled workers out of work or in low-wage jobs, a phenomenon documented in more than
30 countries across the developed and developing world. On the other hand, the skills that are uniquely human and that
complement digital technologies are increasingly in demand. These skills, such as communication,
teamwork, critical thinking, and flexibility, have always been important for work and life, but the current
context makes them even more crucial for future generations. A 70-country study by the McKinsey
Global Institute estimates that by 2020, approximately 83 million high- and middle-skilled jobs will go
unfilled because employers looking to hire in developed and developing countries will not find people
with the necessary skills. Not only individuals’ future employment needs, but also ever-more-complex
global challenges demand a new approach to education. As boundaries between nations and
communities that once contained our problems fade, we will need creative solutions to problems such
as climate change, the global migrant crisis, and, as the spread of the Zika virus reminds us, cross-
border health epidemics. We need to foster good global citizens who actively care about their
communities and the world, work together to solve problems across boundaries, and contribute to more
inclusive and peaceful societies. Throughout history, every society has grappled with how to best educate and prepare its young people for the
world they will face. From hunter-gatherers thousands of years ago who had to impart vast amounts of knowledge about plants, animals, and relations between
tribes to their youth, to craftsmen who taught trades through apprenticeships that defined education for many young men in the 18th and 19th centuries, humans
have adapted education to meet the needs and challenges of the time. Our current world and the changes we predict for the
future call for education to equip every young person with the appropriate set of skills. Academic skills—
such as mastery of reading, math, and science—are crucial but not sufficient. Young people increasingly
need to be able to do such things as develop ideas, empathize with others, and collaboratively
problem-solve; they also need to have the resilience and adaptability to continue to learn and master
new things. Indeed, some learning scientists argue that these non-academic skills are among the most important skills of all, as they can help to both drive
better academic outcomes in school and prepare children to thrive in a changing world. The problem is that most children are not

participating in the learning experiences that would help them develop this full breadth of skills.
Opportunities to engage in the types of experiences in and out of school that do promote these skills are
too often unequally distributed between richer and poorer children, perpetuating deep inequities both
between and within nations. We know more about young people’s academic competence, including their ability to think critically and analytically,
than their non-academic skills, due to regular international student assessments in subjects such as math, reading, and science. The United States, which regularly
beats itself up about the quality of its education system, actually has some of the best schools in the world, but stark inequities hold it back. Students in the state of
Massachusetts, for example, achieve scores equivalent to the top 10 high-income countries in the world, demonstrating strong problem-solving and critical thinking
skills in math. However, scores of students in Mississippi are tied with Chile for second-to-last place on the same list, beating out only Mexico. Most students in low-
and middle-income countries, those where per-capita income is less than $12,475 per year, perform far worse in academic competence than even the least
accomplished students in the United States. By one estimate of reading and math skills, an average student in these countries scores alongside the worst 8 percent
of students in countries where the annual per-capita income is above $12,475. And that only considers the students who are in school and being tested—not the
120 million kids shut out of academic learning all together, of which more than 96 percent live in developing countries. Based on a number of measures of academic
learning and school completion, we have found that at the current pace of change, it would take nearly 100 years to close the education gap between rich and poor
countries. We know much less about children’s non-academic skills, largely because they are not easily
captured in international student assessments. However, we do know that many educators, employers,
and academics are deeply worried that children’s learning experiences often do not enable them to
develop the full breadth of skills they need. For example, employers around the world regularly express unhappiness with young people’s
lack of “workplace competencies” like communication and teamwork. The foundation for these and other skills, such as creativity

and learning agility, are laid in early childhood, and we know that globally a full 200 million children
below the age of 5 are not achieving proper cognitive development due to impoverished early childhood
experiences that include poor nutrition and lack of stimulation. We also know that children from high-
income families struggle to master the full range of skills necessary, even if they perform well on
academic measures, often because parents and schools do not provide learning experiences that would
cultivate skills and attitudes such as the ability to work hard to meet goals and resilience in the face of
failure. Ultimately, we need to redefine the basics to include the full breadth of academic and non-
academic skills that all children, rich and poor alike, need. Then we need to rethink how to help
children have the types of learning experiences—both in and outside of school—that can help
cultivate these skills.

Extinction—innovation is the only way to avoid tipping points.

Naam, fellow of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, 13
(Ramez, former Microsoft executive, "How Innovation Could Save the Planet", World Future Society,
The Futurist, 2013 Issues of The Futurist, March-April 2013 (Vol. 47, No. 2), www.wfs.org/futurist/2013-
issues-futurist/march-april-2013-vol-47-no-2/how-innovation-could-save-planet)
The Best of Times: Unprecedented Prosperity There are many ways in which we are living in the most wonderful age ever. We can imagine we are heading toward a sort of science-fiction utopia, where we are incredibly rich and incredibly prosperous, and the planet is healthy. But

there are reasons to fear that we’re headed toward a dystopia

other of sorts. Ramez Naam spoke at WorldFuture 2013, the annual conference of the World Future Society in
Chicago, in July of 2013. On the positive side, life expectancy has been rising for the last 150 years, and faster since the early part of the twentieth century in the developing world than it has in the rich world. Along with that has come a massive reduction in poverty. The most fundamental
empowerer of humans—education—has also soared, not just in the rich world, but throughout the world. Another great empowerer of humanity is connectivity: Access to information and access to communication both have soared. The number of mobile phones on the planet was
effectively zero in the early 1990s, and now it’s in excess of 4 billion. More than three-quarters of humanity, in the span of one generation, have gotten access to connectivity that, as my friend Peter Diamandis likes to say, is greater than any president before 1995 had. A reasonably well-
off person in India or in Nigeria has better access to information than Ronald Reagan did during most of his career. With increased connectivity has come an increase in democracy. As people have gotten richer, more educated, more able to access information, and more able to
communicate, they have demanded more control over the places where they live. The fraction of nations that are functional democracies is at an all-time high in this world—more than double what it was in the 1970s—with the collapse of the Soviet Union.* Economically, the world is a
more equal place than it has been in decades. In the West, and especially in the United States, we hear a lot about growing inequality, but on a global scale, the opposite is true. As billions are rising out of poverty around the world, the global middle classes are catching up with the global

In many ways, this is the age of the greatest human prosperity, freedom, and potential that has ever
rich.

been on the face of this planet. But in other ways, we are facing some of the largest risks ever. The Worst of Times: The

At its peak, the ancient Mayan city of Tikal was a metropolis, a city of 200,000 people inside of a
Greatest Risks

civilization of about 20 million people. Now, if you walk around any Mayan city, you see mounds of dirt.
That’s because these structures were all abandoned The Mayan civilization grew by about the mid-900s AD. We know now what happened:

too large. It overpopulated. To feed themselves, they had to convert forest into farmland. They
chopped down all of the forest. That, in turn, led to soil erosion. It also worsened drought, because
trees, among other things, trap moisture and create a precipitation cycle. When that happened, and was met by some normal (not human-caused) climate

the Mayans found they didn’t have enough food.

change, That in turn led to more They exhausted their primary energy supply, which is food.

violence in their society and ultimately to a complete collapse. The greatest energy source for human
civilization today none is more important than oil
is fossil fuels. Among those, . In 1956, M. King Hubbert looked at production in individual oil fields and predicted that the United States would see the

peak of its oil production in 1970 or so, and then drop. His prediction largely came true: Oil production went up but did peak in the 1970s, then plummeted. Oil production has recently gone up in the United States a little bit, but it’s still just barely more than half of what it was in its peak
in the 1970s. Hubbert also predicted that the global oil market would peak in about 2000, and for a long time he looked very foolish . But it now has basically plateaued. Since 2004, oil production has increased by about 4%, whereas in the 1950s it rose by about 4% every three months.

We haven’t hit a peak; oil production around the world is still rising a little bit. It’s certainly not
declining, but we do appear to be near a plateau; supply is definitely rising more slowly than demand . Though

Water is another resource that is incredibly precious

there’s plenty of oil in the ground, the oil that remains is in smaller fields, further from shore, under lower pressure, and harder to pump out.

to us. The predominant way in which we use water is through the food that we eat: 70% of the freshwater that humanity uses goes into agriculture. The Ogallala Aquifer, the giant body of freshwater under the surface of the Earth in the Great Plains of the United States, is fossil water left
from the melting and the retreat of glaciers in the end of the last Ice Age, 12,000–14,000 years ago. Its refill time is somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 years from normal rainfall. Since 1960, we’ve drained between a third and a half of the water in this body, depending on what
estimate you look at. In some areas, the water table is dropping about three feet per year. If this was a surface lake in the United States or Canada, and people saw that happening, they’d stop it. But because it’s out of sight, it’s just considered a resource that we can tap. And indeed, in
the north Texas area, wells are starting to fail already, and farms are being abandoned in some cases, because they can’t get to the water that they once did. Perhaps the largest risk of all is climate change. We’ve increased the temperature of the planet by about 2°F in the last 130 years,

CO2 levels, now at over 390 parts per million, are

and that rate is accelerating. This is primarily because of the carbon dioxide we’ve put into the atmosphere, along with methane and nitrous oxide.

the highest they’ve been in about 15 million years . Ice cores go back at least a million years, and we know that they’re the highest they’ve been in that time. Historically, when CO2 levels are high,

we’ve actually never existed as human beings while CO2 levels have been
temperature is also high. But also, historically, in the lifetime of our species,

this high. glaciers have disappeared

For example, As these glaciers melt, they produce water
such as the Bear and Pedersen in Alaska just since 1920.

that goes into the seas and helps to raise sea levels. Over the next century, the seas are expected to rise
about 3 to 6 feet. Most of that actually will not be melting glaciers; it’s thermal expansion: As the ocean gets warmer, it gets a little bit bigger. But 3 to 6 feet over a century doesn’t sound like that big a deal to us, so we think of that as a distant problem. The

there’s a more severe problem with climate change: its impact on the weather and on agriculture.
reality is that In
2003, Europe went through its worst heat wave since 1540. Ukraine lost 75% of its wheat crop. In 2009, China had a once-in-a-century level drought; in 2010 they had another once-in-a-century level drought. That’s twice. Wells that had given water continuously since the fifteenth
century ran dry. When those rains returned, when the water that was soaked up by the atmosphere came back down, it came down on Pakistan, and half of Pakistan was under water in the floods of 2010. An area larger than Germany was under water. Warmer air carries more water.
Every degree Celsius that you increase the temperature value of air, it carries 7% more water. But it doesn’t carry that water uniformly. It can suck water away from one place and then deliver it in a deluge in another place. So both the droughts are up and flooding is up simultaneously, as

2012
precipitation becomes more lumpy and more concentrated. In Russia’s 2010 heat wave, 55,000 people died, 11,000 of them in Moscow alone. In 2011, the United States had the driest 10-month period ever in the American South, and Texas saw its worst wildfires ever. And

was the worst drought in the United States since the Dust Bowl—the corn crop shrank by 20%. So that’s
the big risk the world faces: that radical weather will change how we grow food, which is still our most
important energy source—even more important than fossil fuels. A number of people in the environmentalist movement are saying that we have to just stop growing. For
instance, in his book Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines, Richard Heinberg of the Post-Carbon Institute says that the Earth is full. Get used to it, and get ready for a world where you live with less wealth, and where your children live with less wealth, than any before. I

don’t think this idea of stopping growth is realistic, because there are a top billion people who live pretty well and there are another 6 billion who don’t and are hungry for it. We see demand rising for everything—
water, food, energy—and that demand is rising in the developing world. This is
not in the United States or Europe or Canada or Australia. It’s rising
the area that will create all of the increased demand for physical resources. Even if we could, by some chance, say That’s enough, sorry, we’re not going to

The best-selling
let you use these resources, which is doubtful, it wouldn’t be just, because the West got rich by using those natural resources. So we need to find a different way. Ideas as a Resource Expander, Resource Preserver, and Waste Reducer

environmental book of all time, Limits to Growth showed , was based on computer modeling. It was a simple model with only about eight variables of what would happen in the world. It

that economic growth would inevitably lead to more pollution and more consumption of finite
, more wealth,

resources, which would in turn take us beyond the limits and lead ultimately to collapse. While it’s been widely reported recently

If you look at the vast majority of the numbers that the researchers predict in
that its predictions are coming true, that’s actually not the case.

this model, they’re not coming true. Why did they get these things wrong? forecasters The most important thing that the did was

underestimate the power of new ideas to expand resources, or to expand wealth while using fewer
resources. Ideas have done tremendous things for us. Let’s start with food. In The Population Bomb (1968), Paul Ehrlich predicted that food supply could

what’s happened is that we’ve doubled population since 1960, and we’ve nearly
not support the population, just as Malthus did. But

tripled the food supply in total. Before the

We’ve increased by 30%–40% the food supply per person since the 1960s. Let’s look at this on a very long time scale. How many people can you feed with an acre of land?

advent of agriculture, an acre of land could feed less than a thousandth of a person. Today it’s about
three people, on average, who can be fed by one acre of land. Pre-agriculture, it took 3,000 acres for one person to stay alive through hunting and gathering. With agriculture, that

it’s because we’ve changed the productivity of the

footprint has shrunk from 3,000 acres to one-third of one acre. That’s not because there’s any more sunlight, which is ultimately what food is;

resource by innovation in farming—and then thousands of innovations on top of that to increase it even
more. the reason we have the forests that we have on the planet is because we were able to handle a
In fact,

doubling of the population since 1960 without increasing farmland by more than about 10%. If we had
to have doubled our farmland, we would have chopped down all the remaining forests on the planet.
Ideas can reduce resource use In the United States, the amount of energy used on farms
. I can give you many other examples.

per calorie grown has actually dropped by about half since the 1970s. That’s in part because we now
only use about a tenth of the energy to create synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, which is an important input.
The amount of food that you can grow per drop of water has roughly doubled since the 1980s. In wheat,
it’s actually more than tripled since 1960. The amount of water that we use in the United States per
person has dropped by about a third since the 1970s, after rising for decades . As agriculture has gotten more efficient, we’re using less water per person.

Ideas can also find substitutes for scarce resources

So, again, ideas can reduce resource use. . We’re at risk of running out of many things, right? Well, let’s think about some things that have

The sperm whale was almost hunted into extinction

happened in the past. Sperm whale oil— . Sperm whales were, in the mid-1800s, the best source of illumination.

spermaceti—was the premier source of lighting the demand for it led to huge . It burned without smoke, giving a clear, steady light, and

hunting of the sperm whales. In a period of about 30 years, we killed off about a third of the sperm
whales on the planet. That led to a phenomenon of “peak sperm-whale oil ”: The number of sperm whales that the fleet could bring in dropped over time as

Demand rose as supply dropped, and the prices skyrocketed. So it looked a

the sperm whales became more scarce and more afraid of human hunters.

little bit like the situation with oil now. Gesner That was solved not by the discovery of more sperm whales, nor by giving up on this thing of lighting. Rather, Abraham , a Canadian,

discovered kerosene. He found that, if he took coal, heated it up, captured the fumes, and
this thing called

distilled them, he could create this fluid that burned very clear. And he could create it in quantities
thousands of times greater than the sperm whales ever could have given up. Gesner We have no information suggesting that was an

was motivated by scientific curiosity and by the huge business opportunity of

environmentalist or that he cared about sperm whales at all. He

going after this lighting market. What he did was dramatically lower the cost of lighting while saving the
sperm whales from extinction. ideas can do is transform waste into value. In places like
One more thing that

Germany and Japan, people are mining landfills. Japan estimates that its landfills alone contain 10-year
supplies of gold and rare-earth minerals for the world market. Alcoa estimates that the world’s landfills
contain a 15-year supply of aluminum. So there’s tremendous value. When we throw things away, they’re not destroyed. If we “consume” things like aluminum, we’re

in some cases, the concentration of these resources in our landfills is

not really consuming it, we’re rearranging it. We’re changing where it’s located. And

actually higher than it was in our mines. What it takes is energy and technology to get that resource
back out and put it back into circulation. Ideas for Stretching the Limits So ideas can reduce resource use, can find substitutes for scarce resources, and can transform waste into value. In that context, what are the

Is there a population limit? Yes, there certainly is, but it doesn’t look like we’re going to hit that.
limits to growth?
Projections right now are that, by the middle of this century, world population will peak between 9
billion and 10 billion, and then start to decline. In fact, we’ll be talking much more about the graying of
civilization, and perhaps underpopulation—too-low birthrates on a current trend. Are there What about physical resources?

limits to physical resource use on this planet? Absolutely. It really is a finite planet. But where are those limits? To illustrate, let’s start with energy. This is the most important resource that we use, in

many ways. But when we consider all the fossil fuels that humanity uses today—all the oil, coal, natural gas, and so on—it pales in comparison to a much larger resource, all around us, which is the amount of energy coming in from our Sun every day. The amount of energy from sunlight that strikes the top of the atmosphere is about 10,000 times as much as the energy that we use from fossil fuels on a daily basis. Ten seconds of sunlight hitting the Earth is as much energy as humanity uses in an entire day; one hour of sunlight hitting the Earth provides as much energy to
the planet as a whole as humanity uses from all sources combined in one year. This is an incredibly abundant resource. It manifests in many ways. It heats the atmosphere differentially, creating winds that we can capture for wind power. It evaporates water, which leads to precipitation elsewhere, which turns into things like rivers and waterfalls, which we can capture as hydropower. But by far the largest fraction of it—more than half—is photons hitting the surface of the Earth. Those are so abundant that, with one-third of 1% of the Earth’s land area, using current
technology of about 14%-efficient solar cells, we could capture enough electricity to power all of current human needs. The problem is not the abundance of the energy; the problem is cost. Our technology is primitive. Our technology for building solar cells is similar to our technology for manufacturing computer chips. They’re built on silicon wafers in clean rooms at high temperatures, and so they’re very, very expensive. But innovation has been dropping that cost tremendously. Over the last 30 years, we’ve gone from a watt of solar power costing $20 to about $1. That’s
a factor of 20. We roughly drop the cost of solar by one-half every decade, more or less. That means that, in the sunniest parts of the world today, solar is now basically at parity in cost, without subsidies, with coal and natural gas. Over the next 12–15 years, that will spread to most of the planet. That’s incredibly good news for us. Of course, we don’t just use energy while the Sun is shining. We use energy at night to power our cities; we use energy in things like vehicles that have to move and that have high energy densities. Both of t hese need storage, and today’s storage
is actually a bigger challenge than capturing energy. But there’s reason to believe that we can tackle the storage problem, as well. For example, consider lithium ion batteries—the batteries that are in your laptop, your cell phone, and so on. The demand to have longer-lasting devices drove tremendous innovations in these batteries in the 1990s and the early part of the 2000s. Between 1991 and 2005, the cost of storage in lithium ion batteries dropped by about a factor of nine, and the density of storage—how much energy you can store in an ounce of battery—increased
by a little over double in that time. If we do that again, we would be at the point where grid-scale storage is affordable and we can store that energy overnight. Our electric vehicles have ranges similar to the range you can get in a gasoline-powered vehicle. This is a tall order. This represents perhaps tens of billions of dollars in R&D, but it is something that is possible and for which there is precedent. Another approach being taken is turning energy into fuel. When you use a fuel such as gasoline, it’s not really an energy source. It’s an energy carrier, an energy storage
system, if you will. You can store a lot of energy in a very small amount. Today, two pioneers in genome sequencing—Craig Venter and George Church—both have founded companies to create next-generation biofuels. What they’re both leveraging is that gene-sequencing cost is the fastest quantitative area of progress on the planet. What they’re trying to do is engineer microorganisms that consume CO2, sunlight, and sugar and actually excrete fuel as a byproduct. If we could do this, maybe just 1% of the Earth’s surface—or a thirtieth of what we use for agriculture—
could provide all the liquid fuels that we need. We would conveniently grow algae on saltwater and waste water, so biofuel production wouldn’t compete for freshwater. And the possible yields are vast if we can get there. If we can crack energy, we can crack everything else: • Water. Water is life. We live in a water world, but only about a tenth of a percent of the water in the world is freshwater that’s accessible to us in some way. Ninety-seven percent of the world’s water is in the oceans and is salty. It used to be that desalination meant boiling water and then catching
the steam and letting it condense. Between the times of the ancient Greeks and 1960, desalination technology didn’t really change. But then, it did. People started to create membranes modeled on what cells do, which is allow some things through but not others. They used plastics to force water through and get only the fresh and not the salty. As a result, the amount of energy it takes to desalinate a liter of water has dropped by about a factor of nine in that time. Now, in the world’s largest desalination plants, the price of desalinated water is about a tenth of a cent per
gallon. The technology has gotten to the point where it is starting to become a realistic option as an alternative to using up scarce freshwater resources. • Food. Can we grow enough food? Between now and 2050, we have to increase food yield by about 70%. Is that possible? I think it is. In industrialized nations, food yields are already twice what they are in the world as a whole. That’s because we have irrigation, tractors, better pesticides, and so on. Given such energy and wealth, we already know that we can grow enough food to feed the planet. Another option that’s
probably cheaper would be to leverage some things that nature’s already produced. What most people don’t know is that the yield of corn per acre and in calories is about 70% higher than the yield of wheat. Corn is a C 4 photosynthesis crop: It uses a different way of turning sunlight and CO2 into sugars that evolved only 30 million years ago. Now, scientists around the world are working on taking these C 4 genes from crops like corn and transplanting them into wheat and rice, which could right away increase the yield of those staple grains by more than 50%. Physical
limits do exist, but they are extremely distant. We cannot grow exponentially in our physical resource use forever, but that point is still at least centuries in the future. It’s something we have to address eventually, but it’s not a problem that’s pressing right now. • Wealth. One thing that people don’t appreciate very much is that wealth has been decoupling from physical resource use on this planet. Energy use per capita is going up, CO2 emissions per capita have been going up a little bit, but they are both widely outstripped by the amount of wealth that we’re creating.
That’s because we can be more efficient in everything—using less energy per unit of food grown, and so on. This again might sound extremely counterintuitive, but let me give you one concrete example of how that happens. Compare the ENIAC—which in the 1940s was the first digital computer ever created—to an iPhone. An iPhone is billions of times smaller, uses billions of times less energy, and has billions of times more computing power than ENIAC. If you tried to create an iPhone using ENIAC technology, it would be a cube a mile on the side, and it would use more
electricity than the state of California. And it wouldn’t have access to the Internet, because you’d have to invent that, as well. This is what I mean when I say ideas are the ultimate resource. The difference between an ENIAC and an iPhone is that the iPhone is embodied knowledge that allows you to do more with less resources. That phenomenon is not limited to high tech. It’s everywhere around us. So ideas are the ultimate resource. They’re the only resource that accumulates over time. Our store of knowledge is actually larger than in the past, as opposed to all physical

resources . Challenges Ahead for Innovation Today we are seeing a race between our rate of consumption and our rate of innovation, and there are multiple challenges. One challenge is the Darwinian process, survival of the fittest. In areas like green tech, there will be hundreds and even thousands of companies founded, and 99% of them will go under. That is how innovation happens. The other problem is scale. Just as an example, one of the world’s largest solar array s is at Nellis Air Force Base in California, and we would need about 10 million of these in order to

meet the world’s electricity needs. We have the land, we have the solar energy coming in, but there’s a lot of industrial production that has to happen before we get to that point. Innovation is incredibly powerful, but the pace of innovation compared to the pace of consumption is very important. One thing we can do to increase the pace of innovation is to address the biggest challenge, which is market failure. In 1967, you could stick your hand into the Cuyahoga River, in Ohio, and come up covered in muck and oil. At that time, the river was lined with businesses and
factories, and for them the river was a free resource. It was cheaper to pump their waste into the river than it was to pay for disposal at some other sort of facility. The river was a commons that anybody could use or abuse, and the waste they were producing was an externality. To that business or factory, there was no cost to pumping waste into this river. But to the people who depended upon the river, there was a high cost overall. That’s what I mean by a market externality and a market failure, because this was an important resource to all of us. But no one owned it,
no one bought or sold it, and so it was treated badly in a way that things with a price are not. That ultimately culminated when, in June 1969, a railway car passing on a bridge threw a spark; the spark hit a slick of oil a mile long on the river, and the river burst into flames. The story made the cover of Time magazine. In many ways, the environmental movement was born of this event as much as it was of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. In the following three years, the United States created the Environmental Protection Agency and passed the Clean Water and Clean Air acts.
Almost every environmental problem on the planet is an issue of the commons, whether it’s chopping down forests that no one owns, draining lakes that no one owns, using up fish in the ocean that no one owns, or polluting the atmosphere because no one owns it, or heating up the planet. They’re all issues of the commons. They’re all issues where there is no cost to an individual entity to deplete something and no cost to overconsume something, but there is a greater cost that’s externalized and pushed on everybody else who shares this. Now let’s come back again to
what Limits to Growth said, which was that economic growth always led to more pollution and more consumption, put us beyond limits, and ends with collapse. So if that’s the case, all those things we just talked about should be getting worse. But as the condition of the Cuyahoga River today illustrates, that is not the case. GDP in the United States is three times what it was when the Cuyahoga River caught on fire, so shouldn’t it be more polluted? It’s not. Instead, it’s the cleanest it’s been in decades. That’s not because we stopped growth. It’s because we made
intelligent choices about managing that commons. Another example: In the 1970s, we discovered that the ozone layer was thinning to such an extent that it literally could drive the extinction of all land species on Earth. But it’s actually getting better. It’s turned a corner, it’s improving ahead of schedule, and it’s on track to being the healthiest it’s been in a century. That’s because we’ve reduced the emissions of CFCs, which destroy ozone; we’ve dropped the amount of them that we emit into the atmosphere basically to zero. And yet industry has not ground to a halt
because of this, either. Economic growth has not faltered. And one last example: Acid rain—which is primarily produced by sulfur dioxide emitted by coal-burning power plants—is mostly gone as an issue. Emissions of sulfur dioxide are down by about a factor of two. That’s in part because we created a strategy called cap and trade: It capped the amount of SO2 that you could emit, then allowed you to swap and buy emission credits from others to find the optimal way to do that. The cost, interestingly enough, has always been lower than projected. In each of these cases,
industry has said, This will end things. Ronald Reagan’s chief of staff said the economy would grind to a halt, and the EPA would come in with lower cost estimates. But the EPA has always been wrong: The EPA cost estimate has always been too high. Analysis of all of these efforts in the past shows that reducing emissions is always cheaper than you expect , but cleaning up the mess afterwards is always more expensive than you’d guess. Today, the biggest commons issue is that of climate change, with the CO2 and other greenhouse gases that we’re pumping into the
atmosphere. A logical thing to do would be to put a price on these. If you pollute, if you’re pumping CO2 into the atmosphere and it’s warming the planet, so you’re causing harm to other people in a very diffuse way. Therefore, you should be paying in proportion to that harm you’re doing to offset it. But if we do that, won’t that have a massive impact on the economy? This all relates to energy, which drives a huge fraction of the economy. Manufacturing depends on it. Transport depends on it. So wouldn’t it be a huge problem if we were to actually put a price on these
carbon emissions? Well, there has been innovative thinking about that, as well. One thing that economists have always told us is that, if you’re going to tax, tax the bad, not the good. Whatever it is that you tax, you will get less of it. So tax the bad, not the good. The model that would be the ideal for putting a price on pollution is what we call a revenue-neutral model. Revenue-neutral carbon tax, revenue-neutral cap and trade. Let’s model it as a tax: Today, a country makes a certain amount of revenue for its government in income tax, let’s say. If you want to tax
pollution, the way to do this without impacting the economy is to increase your pollution tax in the same manner that you decrease the income tax. The government then is capturing the same amount of money from the economy as a whole, so there’s no economic slowdown as a result of this. This has a positive effect on the environment because it tips the scales of price. Now, if you’re shopping for energy, and you’re looking at solar versus coal or natural gas, the carbon price has increased the price of coal and natural gas to you, but not the cost of solar. It shifts
customer behavior from one to the other while having no net impact on the economy, and probably a net benefit on the economy in the long run as more investment in green energy drives the price down. Toward a Wealthier, Cleaner Future The number-one thing I want you to take away is that pollution and overconsumption are not inevitable outcomes of growth. While tripling the wealth of North America, for instance, we’ve gone from an ozone layer that was rapidly deteriorating to one that is bouncing back. The fundamental issue is not one of limits to growth; it’s
one of the policy we choose, and it’s one of how we structure our economy to value all the things we depend upon and not just those things that are owned privately. What can we do, each of us? Four things: First is to communicate. These issues are divisive, but we know that beliefs and attitudes on issues like this spread word of mouth. They spread person to person, from person you trust to person you trust. So talk about it. Many of us have friends or colleagues or family on the other side of these issues, but talk about it. You’re better able to persuade them than

These problems aren’t solved

anyone else is. Second is to participate. By that I mean politically. Local governments, state and province governments, and national governments are responsive when they hear from their constituents about these issues. It changes their attitudes. Because so few constituents actually make a call to the office of their legislator, or write a letter, a few can make a very large impact. Third is to innovate.

yet We don’t have the tech for these problems today The trend lines look very good, but the next 10
. nologies .

years of those trend lines demand lots of bright people, lots of bright ideas, and lots of R&D . So if you’re thinking about a career
change, or if you know any young people trying to figure out what their career is now, these are careers that (A) will be very important to us in the future and (B) will probably be quite lucrative for them.
 PTX
DACA will pass now, but maintaining strong bipartisanship is critical
[Tal Kopan, Cnn, 1-23-2018, "Immigration talks: What's next?," CNN,
https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/23/politics/immigration-talks-what-next/index.html]//Rank

Democrats and Republicans spun their vote as a victory because

who worked to break the impasse over the shutdown to accept a slightly shorter continuing resolution

of a commitment to turn to immigration conversations . But the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy and discussions on border security are undetermined. "Well, there's

already started, bipartisan conversation, about a bipartisan bill before February 8 whether we can come up with Senate ," said Senate No. 2

a bill can pass the Senate with a strong

Democrat Dick Durbin, who had been pursuing a DACA compromise for months. The "hope," he said, for those who pushed for a promise to move to immigration is that if

bipartisan vote Trump may endorse it and push the House to act.
, President Donald Since Trump ended DACA, which protects young undocumented immigrants who

came to the US as children, lawmakers have worked to find a way preserve the popular program while meeting the President's and Republicans' demands for border security and immigration enforcement changes along with it. close dialog Receive Fareed Zakaria's Global Analysis
including insights and must-reads of world news Email address Activate Fareed's Briefing By subscribing you agree to our privacy policy. The White House on Monday continu ed to meet with Republican senators, many of whom are conservative hardliners, as it has remained opposed to

bipartisan proposals that have been floated thus far. Still, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pledged Monday to consider an immigration bill, including DACA ,

sometime soon . Senate approves plan to end shutdown, reopen government Senate approves plan to end shutdown, reopen government "it would be my intention to take up legislation here in the Senate that would address DACA, border security, and, related issues as well as

disaster relief, defense funding, health care, and other important matters," McConnell said Monday, saying the process would have "a level playing field" and be "fair to all sides." After a brief weekend shutdown, Congress on Monday voted to fund government until February 8 -- which
will be the new deadline for any agreement between the parties on immigration and other outstanding issues. Absent agreement, McConnell said, the Senate will move to an open debate. That was enough t o convince a number of Democrats to support the funding bill -- but they all

this is an
indicated they expected to see the promise delivered. "Trust but verify is my motto," said Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats. "He's made this commitment publicly, he made it on the floor of the Senate. ... I think

important opportunity for him to demonstrate that he will carry through ." A 'Gang of 60' or more? Bipartisan talks will
continue -- but lawmakers were expected to broaden beyond the core group of negotiators who had hammered out a compromise previously. The founders of the Gang of Six senators that had brought a bipartisan proposal to Trump, only to have it crudely rejected, said
that original group will no longer be operative as supporters of its work aim to get something that can pass the full Senate, where 60 votes are needed to advance legislation and Republicans have only a 51-49 majority. Lindsey Graham: Time for the 'Gang of 60' Lindsey
Graham: Time for the 'Gang of 60' "The Gang of Six started the process," Graham said. "That's all it was there to do. We need the Gang of 60. So the Gang of Six is going to be replaced by the Gang of 60." "It's a new gang," Durbin told CNN. "Some of the old, some of the new." And
responding to Graham's assessment of a "Gang of 60," Durbin said it may need to be even bigger. "Maybe 70, I don't know," Durbin said. "We need, if we can, to find a path to get this done." The White House and Republican leadership has been pressing for a group of the congressional
"No. 2's" -- the seconds in command in each party in each chamber -- to be the main vehicle for negotiations. White House chief of staff John Kelly and at times Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen have also been participating in those talks. But further meetings haven't been
scheduled since the government funding votes last week, aides said, and Democrats have long been skeptical the talks are just designed to slow things down. "I don't think that group was ever intended to work, it was intended to push things past the deadline," said a Democratic senator,
speaking anonymously to be candid. "It was intended to slow-roll the work." John Kelly: Immigration 'hardass' John Kelly: Immigration 'hardass' What about the GOP House? Even wi th the Senate commitment, there was no such indication from the House -- leaving senators
relying on hope that the lower chamber could follow suit should senators pass a bill. One influential House conservative, Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, said the House should pass something "as conservative as it possibly can be" and then send it back to the Senate.
"Hopefully (then) go to conference and find a compromise that we can send to the President's desk that represents the will of the people," Meadows told CNN. "But it needs to start here -- it can't start in the Senate." Immigration advocacy groups and supporters immediately criticized
Democrats for giving up too easily. "This simply kicks the can down the road with no assurance that we will protect Dreamers from deportation or fight Republican attempts to curtail or eliminate legal immigration," said Illinois Democrat R ep. Luis Gutierrez, a longtime immigration
advocate, in a statement. "I do not see how a vague promise from the Senate Majority Leader about a vague policy to be voted on in the future helps the Dreamers or maximizes leverage." White House role And immediately after the vote to break the impasse on funding, six Republican

senators including several hardliners traveled to the White House to meet on the Issue with Trump. They said the White House want ed their ideas on the four areas the President has identified as his priorities for this deal -- DACA,
border security , cutting family-based migration and ending the diversity visa lottery. "We were just talking about all the issues the President identified," Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn said of the meeting. "Different ideas about how to address them in

The White House did invite two

creative ways." Gang of Six senators furiously trying to nail down support for immigration bill Gang of Six senators furiously trying to nail down support for immigration bill

Democrats to meet with the President Monday afternoon, Sens. Joe Manchin and Doug Jones. Both have been involved in
come from deeply red states and not

immigration policy discussions. One Republican who was part of the Gang of Six, Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, expressed frustration with any partisan conversations. "I'm not doing anymore immigration negotiations with just Republicans,
that's fruitless," Flake told CNN on Saturday. He repeatedly criticized the President for changing his mind, and had pushed McConnell in multiple meetings over the weekend to commit to move regardless of Trump's approval at the time. "if we can get an agreement with the White House,
that's great. I'm not holding my breath," he added. Asked Monday what his advice for Trump was, Graham implored the President to refrain from blowing up talks. "Be constructive, just be constructive," Graham said.

Federal education debate causes polarized fighting and usurps Dem leverage
Lamiell 12 --- Patricia, Director Media Relations @ Teachers College, University Columbia, 2/10,
http://www.tc.columbia.edu/articles/2012/february/how-should-politics-influence-education-policy/

How Should Politics Influence Education Policy? How much does national education policy make a difference in classrooms, and howmuch do national
politics drive education policy in America, where schools, curricula and teaching have been controlled at
the local and state levels since the dawn of public schools? A lot, according to three distinguished education
policy analysts who took part in a panel discussion on February 8 to inaugurate the College’s new Education Policy and Social analysis (EPSA) Department —
and potentially never more so than now, as Congress weighs reauthorization of the federal No Child
Left Behind law against the backdrop of a highly polarized presidential campaign. The panel discussion, held in TC’s Cowin
Conference Center, was moderated by Jeffrey Henig, Professor of Political Science and Education and EPSA department chair. It featured Christopher T. Cross, a
former U.S. Under Secretary of Education and current Chairman of Cross & Joftus, an education-policy consulting firm; Jack Jennings, founder and recently retired
Director of the Center on Education Policy, an education research firm; and Wendy D. Puriefoy, President of the Public Education Network (PEN), the nation’s largest
network of community-based school reform organizations. Prompted by Henig, the
panelists—who were welcomed by TC President Susan Fuhrman—
discussed the often bitter and sometimes even violent disagreements on federal versus local control
of education policy that have erupted since the school desegregation battles of the 1960s. Puriefoy told how, as
a young woman, she monitored court-ordered desegregation in Boston, visiting schools and reporting back to a federal judge whose appointment owed to the
victory of Lyndon Johnson, a passionate advocate of school desegregation, in the 1964 presidential election. Reaching much further back, Puriefoy argued that
desegregation surely would never have occurred had not Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. “ Federal
politics and education policy are
inextricably linked,” she said. The bottom line for all three panelists: Most major changes to American schools have
resulted from federal law, jurisprudence or policy. Cross noted that Title I funding, enacted in 1965, provided extra funding for schools with
economically disadvantaged children. Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (later the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA)
in 1975, when the notion that children with disabilities should be educated—let alone integrated into classrooms with non-disabled children, as is happening now—
“was a revolutionary idea.” NCLB, enacted in 2002, has had an enormous effect on how and what gets taught, in Cross’s view, forcing teachers to focus on testing at
the expense of deep learning. And the Race to the Top program of the Obama administration has significantly affected spending priorities, teaching and learning in
public schools. “The question of whether national policy has influenced education unquestionably has to be answered ‘yes,’” Cross said. “The reality is
that almost everything that goes on is, in fact, guided by what happened in federal policy at some point, even though people
in the classroom may not recognize it.” T he idea that education policy is or somehow should be apolitical simply is not

borne out by history or current facts, Jennings said. A recent case in point: If John McCain had been elected president in 2008, he, unlike
President Obama, would very likely have allowed thousands of teachers’ jobs to be eliminated by drastic budget cuts made necessary by the recession. And should
Obama fail to win reelection this coming fall, a
Republican president may well seek to do away with the U.S.
Department of Education. “Policy should really be integrated into politics,” Jennings said. “If people of good will don’t deal
with policy,” he said, decisions will be left to those who are not equipped to make them—or worse, who are simply uninterested in fairness and equity in education.
The panelists were unanimous in their criticism of NCLB, which Puriefoy said has “gone horribly awry,” but they differed on what to do about it. The law has not
been amended since its bipartisan passage in early 2002, and while both Democrats and Republicans now agree it should be changed, “Republicans don’t want to
give credit to Obama for amending it,” Jennings said. Puriefoy concurred, adding that the
environment in Congress “has become much
more poisonous, and it has become more difficult to create the environment we need in order to
transform education.” And while education has always been a polarizing issue, and minorities have always had to fight
for access to good education, for the first time in the country’s history, “people don’t believe their children’s lives will be better than

theirs,” Puriefoy said. “They don’t believe in the ability of institutions to bring about change.” So can anything be done—and
is this year’s presidential election an opportunity to put national education issues before voters in a way they will notice? Cross was skeptical, but said he would like
both parties to discuss education issues after the election to find common ground. Jennings suggested creating federal-state partnerships modeled on those in
Germany, but Puriefoy noted that Germany also supports children and families with programs other than education. “Schools can’t be responsible on their own,”
she said. “They need help.” To Henig’s final question—“What would you like to see in the next administration?”—Cross replied that the U.S. Department of
Education should “get rid of the silos—English Language Learners, Special Education” and others, which are too large, bureaucratic and costly. Jennings warned that
the incoming president should not listen to the “radical right,” but instead “totally rethink” school
financing, which is currently based on property taxes, and fight the “long tradition of anti-intellectualism in this
country” by pursuing a new agenda that focuses on quality curriculum and teaching. Puriefoy called for a rededication to educating “all sectors
of children,” strong federal standards, and “getting rid of states’ rights. “This fragmentation in education is just unacceptable. We need a new intellectual contract in
this country,” she said. “Good policy follows good intention. If we resolve to educate every child in this country, regardless of ZIP code, we’re
going to
have to dismantle what we’re doing. We’re not going to get there without significant disruption.”

Ending DACA undermines growth

Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, UN
secretary-general’s special envoy for cities and climate change, 9/6/2017

(Michael, Trump’s DACA Failure Is Congress’s Opportunity,

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-09-06/trump-s-daca-failure-is-congress-s-opportunity)

The administration’s threat to rescind the legal status of 800,000 individuals would be a brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents

monumentally bad economic decision in its cruelty toward innocent people leaders that -- -- would also be patently un-American. Business I

from every major industry understand that deporting these young people would
speak with from around the country, and ,

adversely affect the labor supply as well as consumer demand Growth would suffer innovation would . ,

move overseas , and the future of our country would be dimmer. There is no sound economic case to be made for deporting a young, productive workforce and surrendering the real benefits they provide our country. According to a new analysis by New
American Economy, a coalition of business leaders I co-chair, the young people who qualify for the Obama-era program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, earn almost $20 billion in income annually. They pay more than $3 billion in local, state and federal taxes, and
they contribute almost $2 billion to Social Security and $470 million to Medicare. Another study found that passing a DREAM Act to keep young immigrants here instead of sending them abroad would pump over $300 billion into the U.S. economy over the next two decades.

Immigrants have founded more than 40 percent of our Fortune 500 companies Think of the
and their children . next Main Street

next Silicon Valley entrepreneur who

entrepreneur who grows his or her company to employ many local residents. Or the keeps America builds a company that benefits millions of Americans -- and

at the forefront of the global economy . Think too of the next award-winning teacher, or life-saving doctor. They are called Dreamers because they are pursuing the great American dream: the chance to work hard, play
 Deporting them would
by the rules, and build a better life for yourself and your children. deprive local communities of talented, hard-working and law-abiding young people, and deprive the country of
the brains and brawn it needs to continue leading the world economy .

Nuclear war
Stein Tønnesson 15, Research Professor, Peace Research Institute Oslo; Leader of East Asia Peace
program, Uppsala University, 2015, “Deterrence, interdependence and Sino–US peace,” International
Area Studies Review, Vol. 18, No. 3, p. 297-311

recent works
Several have made contributions to the current understanding of how and under
on China and Sino–US relations substantial

what circumstances nuclear deterrence and economic interdependence may reduce the risk of
a combination of

war between major powers interdependence may both inhibit and drive
. At least four conclusions can be drawn from the review above: first, those who say that

conflict Interdependence raises the cost of conflict

are right. but asymmetrical or unbalanced for all sides

dependencies and negative trade expectations generate tensions leading to trade wars among inter- may

dependent states that increase the risk of military conflict in turn (Copeland, 2015: 1, 14, 437; Roach, 2014). The risk may increase if one of the interdependent countries is governed by an
inward-looking socio-economic coalition (Solingen, 2015); second, the risk of war between China and the US should not just be analysed bilaterally but include their allies and partners. Third party countries could drag China or the US into confrontation; third, in this context it is of some

decisions
comfort that the three main economic powers in Northeast Asia (China, Japan and South Korea) are all deeply integrated economically through production networks within a global system of trade and finance (Ravenhill, 2014; Yoshimatsu, 2014: 576); and fourth,

for war are taken by very few people, who act on the basis of their future expectations
and peace . International relations theory must be

If leaders begin to seriously

supplemented by foreign policy analysis in order to assess the value attributed by national decision-makers to economic development and their assessments of risks and opportunities. on either side of the Atlantic

fear or anticipate their own nation’s decline they may blame external dependence, appeal to anti- then this on

foreign sentiments, contemplate the use of force to gain credibility, adopt protectionist policies, and respect or

refuse to be deterred by nuclear arms or prospects of socioeconomic calamities. Such a

ultimately either

dangerous shift could happen abruptly in East , i.e. under the instigation of actions by a third party – or against a third party. Yet as long as there is both nuclear deterrence and interdependence, the tensions

Asia The greatest risk is not a

are unlikely to escalate to war. As Chan (2013) says, all states in the region are aware that they cannot count on support from either China or the US if they make provocative moves. that

territorial dispute but that changes in the world economy alter those circumstances in
leads to war under present circumstances

ways that render inter-state peace more precarious . If China and the US fail to rebalance their financial and trading relations (Roach, 2014) then a trade war could result, interrupting transnational

This could have unforeseen consequences in the field of security, with

production networks, provoking social distress, and exacerbating nationalist emotions.

nuclear deterrence remaining the only factor to protect the world from Armageddon, and unreliably so .

Deterrence could lose its credibility great powers might gamble that the other yield in a cyber-war
: one of the two

or conventional war limited , or third party countries might engage in conflict with each other, with a view to obliging Washington or Beijing to intervene.
 Framing

Existential risk first

Bostrom 12 (Nick, Professor of Philosophy at Oxford, directs Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute and
winner of the Gannon Award, Interview with Ross Andersen, correspondent at The Atlantic, 3/6, “We're
Underestimating the Risk of Human Extinction”,
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/were-underestimating-the-risk-of-human-
extinction/253821/)

human extinction risks are poorly

Bostrom, who directs Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, has argued over the course of several papers that

understood and, worse still, severely underestimated by society. Some of these existential risks are fairly well known, especially the natural
ones. But others are obscure or even exotic. Most worrying to Bostrom is the subset of existential risks that arise from human technology, a subset that he expects to grow in number
and potency over the next century.¶ Despite his concerns about the risks posed to humans by technological progress, Bostrom is no luddite. In fact, he is a longtime advocate of
transhumanism---the effort to improve the human condition, and even human nature itself, through technological means. In the long run he sees technology as a bridge, a bridge we
humans must cross with great care, in order to reach new and better modes of being. In his work, Bostrom uses the tools of philosophy and mathematics, in particular probability theory,
to try and determine how we as a species might achieve this safe passage. What follows is my conversation with Bostrom about some of the most interesting and worrying existential
risks that humanity might encounter in the decades and centuries to come, and about what we can do to make sure we outlast them.¶ Some have argued that we ought to be directing
our resources toward humanity's existing problems, rather than future existential risks, because many of the latter are highly improbable. You have responded by suggesting that

existential risk mitigation may in fact be a dominant moral priority over the alleviation of present
suffering. Can you explain why? ¶ Bostrom: Well suppose you have a moral view that counts future people as being
worth as much as present people. You might say that fundamentally it doesn't matter whether someone exists at the current time or at some future time, just
as many people think that from a fundamental moral point of view, it doesn't matter where somebody is spatially---somebody isn't automatically worth less because you move them to

A human life is a human life. If you have that moral point of view that future
the moon or to Africa or something.

generations matter in proportion to their population numbers, then you get this very stark
implication that existential risk mitigation has a much higher utility than pretty much anything else
that you could do. There are so many people that could come into existence in the future if
humanity survives this critical period of time---we might live for billions of years, our descendants
might colonize billions of solar systems, and there could be billions and billions times more people
than exist currently. Therefore, even a very small reduction in the probability of realizing this
enormous good will tend to outweigh even immense benefits like eliminating poverty or curing
malaria, which would be tremendous under ordinary standards.

Use consequences
Hirschel-Burns 2016 - PhD Student in Political Science @ Yale
Danny, In Defense of Consequentialism: A Response to Shadi Hamid," Apr 19,
https://thewideninglens.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/in-defense-of-consequentialism-a-response-to-
shadi-hamid/

My difference of opinion is fundamental: I believe most US foreign policy to be short-sighted, and

consequentialism, or the weighing of long-term ramifications against the initial intended effect of a particularly intervention to
represent the ideal method of policymaking. Policies cannot solely be judged on intention, due to the
frequency with which good intentions produce negative outcomes, nor can they be judged solely on
initial effects due to the long-running causal chains produced by order-altering things like military
interventions. However, Hamid is right that it is impossible to foresee some ramifications (even if we can see general correlations) of
foreign policy, but he doesn’t apply that standard of doubt consistently across his analysis. Early in the essay, Hamid makes the point that to evaluate the Libyan intervention, it is necessary to compare the current situation with the
counterfactual: what would Libya look like if the US hadn’t intervened. In general, the assertion is correct, but the practice of counterfactuals is tricky. Hamid’s analysis of where the Libyan conflict was at when the US intervened is enlightening, but his conclusion that Libya would likely look like Syria today had the US not intervened is highly questionable. Political prediction,
especially on rare events like mass atrocities or civil wars, is really, really hard. And when you consider all the differences between Libya and Syria (total population, population density, salience of sectarian divides, regime configuration, military capability of opposition, etc.) along with all contingencies that could have occurred in the past four years, it is impossible to say with any
certainty that Libya would bear a resemblance to Syria. Syria is merely a convenient standard of comparison because it’s an ongoing civil war in the Middle East, but saying Libya would be Syria doesn’t actually tell us that much about Libya or the effects of intervention. It’s not that the intervention can’t be justified with counterfactuals, but they need to be more carefully

The central thrust of Hamid’s essay is to deride what he calls consequentialism, or evaluating the efficacy of foreign policy based on events
constructed.

years after the initial intervention in the target location. For Hamid, such an approach is particularly problematic because it a policy cannot be
retroactively deemed a mistake if the limited goal of the intervention is achieved initially. Therefore consequentialism creates an impossibly
high bar for foreign policy decisions: unless a foreign policy results in a peaceful, liberal democracy, than it’s a failure. This is, however, a major
straw man. Certainly there are some critics that would deem the Libyan intervention a failure based on
this standard, but Hamid lumps in those with reasonable concerns that a civil war (likely to continue for many
years based on what we know about civil wars and foreign intervention) at least partially produced by the NATO
intervention will have more negative long-term effects on Libyans than Gaddafi’s intended repression.
Worrying about consequences does not preclude making foreign policy decisions. Recognizing that
every decision has potential positive and negative effects is no more than an accurate framework for
analyzing policy. There are an additional two problems with Hamid’s argument here. First, the dismissal of
consequentialism is one of the central dynamics that leads Western policymakers to struggle with
conflict prevention. Short-term thinking produces short-term solutions. Policymakers become trapped
in a vicious circle of continual crises that overwhelm them and prevent longer-term thinking that
could go a long way in preventing violence. Second, Hamid’s insistence that the initial moral righteousness of an intervention
negates any negative effects, is deeply problematic. As many before me have argued, focusing only on moral imperatives
disincentives careful planning and allows policymakers to wash their hands of responsibility if the
situation starts to go south. Evaluating military interventions isn’t personal morality, because very rarely can doing the right thing in
your personal life lead to deaths of thousands of people. Afghanistan is a valid example. The United States was going after the Taliban in
response to 9/11 initially, but the war has had disastrous long-term effects for the country. It would take quite a bit of chutzpah to declare it a
success. Moral arguments without strategic and humanitarian (writ large) considerations are also prone to
abuse, because liberal interventionists and neoconservatives aren’t actually that far apart: both believe in
the wisdom of Western democracies to improve the world through military force. Without more consequentialist standards,
there’s not a clear line the prevents Iraq-like decisions. So Hamid’s own argument that Obama being right about Iraq
decreases his likelihood he’ll be right about other situations is undermined by a lack of a standard that allows leaders to tell the difference
between the two.

Predictions are accurate and key to effective policymaking

*Most don’t know basics/complexities

*hide behind lack of knowledge, psychological defense

* bad predictions about future (they are optimists, we default experts)

Shepard & Kay 12 - * Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, **Department of

Management & Organizations and Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, Duke University (Steven,
Aaron, On the Perpetuation of Ignorance: System Dependence, System Justification, and the Motivated
Avoidance of Sociopolitical Information, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology © 2011 American
Psychological Association 2012, Vol. 102, No. 2, 264 –280,
http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-102-2-264.pdf)

Individuals are often confronted with information that they do not know how to comprehend or
evaluate, even though this information can be of critical importance to the self (or society as a whole). In the case of
energy, nearly 40% of respondents in a Public Agenda (2009) survey could not identify a fossil fuel. Nearly one third
could not identify a renewable energy source and incorrectly believed that solar energy contributes to
global warming. This lack of knowledge should be of concern to these individuals, as 89% of respondents
worry about increasing fuel costs, and 71% worry about global warming. The economy serves as another example.
Approximately half of surveyed adults did not know what an increase in gross domestic product meant and
thought that “money holds its value well in times of inflation” (National Council on Economic Education, 2005). Worse
still, in a national survey of American adults, 54% of respondents did not know what a subprime mortgage was (Center for Economic and
Entrepreneurial Literacy, 2009), despite the fact that the subprime mortgage crisis was a significant contributor to the economic recession that
began in 2008, and almost certainly affected some substantial portion of those surveyed. In short, it is apparent that a
solid grasp of the
basics (let alone the complexities) of these domains elude many people, and there appears to be a
discrepancy between how much people know about social issues and their importance and relevance to
one’s day-to-day life. Energy and the economy represent just two self-relevant domains that people can feel uncertain about, both in
terms of how they operate at a societal level and how people should act on them. This kind of unfamiliarity can be problematic for day-to-day
functioning, and can also be psychologically stressful. Epistemic uncertainty compromises our ability to predict the
future (Hogg, 2007) and our ability to act and engage in relevant issues. Furthermore, actions that are made
under these circumstances are at an increased risk of being inappropriate or costly (Dunning, Johnson, Ehrlinger,
& Kruger, 2003; Maki & Berry, 1984; Sinkavich, 1995). Research has powerfully illustrated that a lack of knowledge in domains such as
energy and the environment can lead to bad decisions and erroneous beliefs that hinder a society’s ability
to create change in domains that require it (Attari, DeKay, Davidson, & Bruine de Bruin, 2010; Larrick & Soll, 2008). The need
to manage uncertainty, therefore, has been identified as a critical motive that determines behavior (Hogg, 2007; Kruglanski & Webster, 1996;
Neuberg, Judice, & West, 1997; van den Bos, 2009). How do people react, then, when they find themselves unfamiliar or unknowledgeable
about a specific domain? Logically, one
might imagine they would simply try to learn more, thereby making themselves
familiar and knowledgeable. A considerable amount of research, however, suggests
that people often engage in more
psychologically defensive, and less workintensive, processes when confronted with uncertainty (Hogg, 2007;
Kruglanski & Webster, 1996; McGregor, Nash, Mann, & Phills, 2010). Drawing our inspiration from system justification theory, we propose a
novel way in which this defensiveness may manifest itself. Feeling
unknowledgeable in the context of broad social issues, we contend,
may breed a unique form of psychological coping— one that holds the potential to powerfully
undermine individual action. Namely, feeling unknowledgeable should instigate feelings of dependence
on those who manage the system (i.e., the government) and, in turn, increase trust in the government
and the status quo, which can then be protected by the intentional avoidance of the issue at hand. The
logic underlying each of these links is explained below.
Case
 Antiblackness – 1NC

The aff re-inscribes antiblackness and is distinct from theorizing about its existence in
education policy --- black independence creates space to disrupt the exclusion of the
Black from cultural and political regard
Dumas, 16 --- Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Education and Department of African
American Studies at UC Berkeley (Michael J., Theory Into Practice, “Against the Dark: Antiblackness in
Education Policy and Discourse,” http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2016.1116852, Taylor & Francis
Online, JMP)

Education Policy as a Site of Antiblackness Education Policy as a Site of Antiblackness What does it mean to suggest that education
policy is a site of
antiblackness? Fundamentally, it is an acknowledgment of the long history of Black struggle for educational
opportunity, which is to say a struggle against what has always been (and continues to be) a struggle
against specific anti-Black ideologies, discourses, representations, (mal)distribution of material
resources, and physical and psychic assaults on Black bodies in schools. During the years of statesanctioned slavery,
white slaveowners would often beat their Black property for attempting to learn to read; for Black people in bondage, learning to read was understood not only as a
pathway to economic mobility, but, perhaps more importantly, as assertion of their own humanity, a resistance to being propertied (Anderson, 1988; Dumas, 2010).
A century later, Black children faced down snarling, spitting mobs of white parents and elected officials who were incensed that their own white children would
have to sit next to Black children, and fearful that their white education would be sullied by the presence of the Black. And this, then, is the
essence of
antiblackness in education policy: the Black is constructed as always already problem—as nonhuman;
inherently uneducable, or at very least, unworthy of education; and, even in a multiracial society, always
a threat to what Sexton (2008, p. 13) described as “everything else.” School desegregation is perhaps the most
prominent education policy of the past century in which Black people have been positioned as
problem. Racial desegregation of schools in the United States has been made necessary due to generations of
state-supported residential segregation, a form of “American apartheid” (Massey & Denton, 1993) in which
government housing policies allowed whites to accumulate land (and, therefore, wealth) at the expense of
Black people (Dumas, 2015; Roithmayr, 2014). Residential segregation was rationalized as a necessary means to avoid race mixing—the presence of Black
people particularly, but other people of color as well, was seen as a detriment to the quality of life and economic stability to which white people were entitled as a
result of their skin color. A similar narrative emerged as whites organized in opposition to school integration; anti-Black
racism was at least one
primary cause of white flight from school districts that were ordered to desegregate (Kohn, 1996). In many cities,
whites went to great lengths to create districts or school-assignment plans that concentrated whites in the most heavily resourced schools, and relegated Black
children to underfunded schools with less experienced teachers and crumbling physical infrastructures (Dumas, 2011, 2014; Horsford, Sampson & Forletta, 2013). In
short, schooldesegregation policy was precipitated by antiblackness. However, school desegregation
researchers are more likely to frame their analyses through the lenses of access and diversity,
emphasizing the educational benefits of cross-cultural interaction and the importance of providing more
equitable allocation of educational resources (Orfield & Eaton, 1996; Orfield & Lee, 2004; Wells, 1995; Wells, Duran, & White, 2008). In
contrast, theorizing antiblackness in school desegregation policy shifts the focus to interrogation of
policies that led to the displacement of Black educators and the destruction of school communities
that affirmed Black humanity (Tillman, 2004). Antiblackness allows one to capture the depths of suffering of
Black children and educators in predominantly white schools, and connect this contemporary trauma to
the longue dure´e of slavery from bondage to its afterlife in desegregating (and now resegregating)
schools. And taking Sexton’s (2008) analysis of multiracialism into account leads to a more nuanced and careful critique of how schools pit the academic
success of (some) Asian American students against and above the academic difficulties of Black students. Here, schools can be celebrated as diverse despite the
absence of Black students in the building and/ or in the higher academic tracks. Ultimately, the
slave has no place in the most privileged
and highly-regarded school spaces; the Black becomes a kind of educational anachronism, not quite
suited for our idealized multicultural learning community. Education Practice and the Possibility of Black Life W. E. B.
DuBois, writing about integration of schools in 1935, argued that segregated schools were still needed
due to the “growing animosity of the whites” (p. 328). White public opinion, he explained, was overwhelmingly
opposed to establishing racially integrated schools. In such a context, he believed, it was impossible for Black
children to receive “a proper education,” which, in his view, included “sympathetic touch between teacher and pupil” and the
teaching of knowledge about Black history and culture as a group, as citizens. One can read DuBois as
seeking an education for Black people that creates spaces to disrupt the exclusion of the Black from
the cultural and political regard extended to those who are presumed Human. Most educators would
like to believe that modern Americans live in a different time than DuBois—that the animosity of
whites against Black people has declined, or is no longer the norm, especially among well-intentioned
educators who profess to care about all children and who are likely to have been educated in colleges of
education with expressed commitments to equity and diversity. The scholarship on antiblackness insists
that the very imagination of all children was never intended to include the Black, and that the Black
becomes antagonistically positioned in relation to diversity visions and goals. It is the Black that is
feared, despised, (socially) dead. But how is any of this helpful? First, as Wilderson (2010) suggested, it is important for
educators to acknowledge that antiblackness infects educators’ work in schools, and serves as a form
of (everyday) violence against Black children and their families. This acknowledgement is
different from a broad stance against intolerance or racism, or an admission of
the existence of white privilege. Teachers, administrators, and district leaders should create
opportunities to engage in honest and very specific conversations about Black bodies, blackness, and
Black historical memories in and of the school and local community. They all might explore together
what it means to educate a group of people who were never meant to be educated and, in fact, were
never meant to be, to exist as humans. More systemically, educators might begin to imagine an
education policy discourse and processes of policy implementation that take antiblackness for granted.
Thus, any racial disparity in education should be assumed to be facilitated, or at least exacerbated, by

disdain and disregard for the Black. Differences in academic achievement; frequency and severity of school discipline;
rate of neighborhood school closures; fundraising capacity of PTAs; access to arts, music, and unstructured playtime—these are all
sites of antiblackness. That is to say, these are all policies in which the Black is positioned on the bottom, and
as much as one might wring one’s hands about it all, and pursue various
interventions, radical improvements are impossible without a broader, radical
shift in the racial order. This is perhaps, however fittingly, a pessimistic view of education policy.
However, its possibility is in fomenting a new politics, a new practice of education,
committed to Black—and therefore human—emancipation.
 Assimilation – 1NC

Desegregated schools are de facto assimilationist institutions --- colorblind curriculum

ensures that race is not discussed in a way to further cross-cultural understanding
Wells, et. al, 04 - Professor of Sociology and Education, Columbia Teacher's College
(October 2004, Amy Stuart Wells, Anita Tijerina Revilla – Assistant Professor of Women's Studies at
UNLV, Jennifer Jellison Holme – Post-doctoral Fellow, Graduate School of Education and Information
Studies at UCLA, and Awo Korantemaa Atanda – Senior Survey Specialist, Mathematica Policy Research,
Inc., Virginia Law Review, “50 YEARS OF BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION: ESSAY: THE SPACE BETWEEN
SCHOOL DESEGREGATION COURT ORDERS AND OUTCOMES: THE STRUGGLE TO CHALLENGE WHITE
PRIVILEGE,” 90 Va. L. Rev. 1721, Lexis-Nexis Academic, SR)

C. Colorblind Curriculum for Colorblind Schools: We Do Not Talk About Race Here Students
of color were further marginalized within
desegregated schools by a commonly held belief that race did not matter and that the goal of
desegregation was to create a "colorblind" society. n21 This ideology was promoted in at least two ways. First, the late 1970s
curriculum in the schools we studied endorsed a white, Eurocentric view of the world, very close to the
same curriculum that had been taught for years in these schools when all but West Charlotte High
School had been predominantly white. [*1739] Second, neither the students nor the educators in these
schools talked about race or racial issues in their efforts to work with one another on school activities or
in less formal social interactions. The absence of discussions of race meant that students and educators
could not learn from one another's experiences in confronting and resolving racial concerns. The ability to
learn from one another would have been particularly useful given that many educators and students were working and learning with people of different racial
backgrounds for the first time. Thus,
while cross-racial tensions, concerns, and discoveries were occurring all the
time, no one was talking about them. Beyond what was going on in the schools, the broader issues of racial inequality and injustice that were
(and are) rampant in these local communities were not part of what students were grappling with during school hours. Discussions of such racial conditions might
have helped to build important bridges across groups of students who were not only different in terms of their racial and ethnic backgrounds, but in terms of their

The lack of a dialogue about race combined with the maintenance of

social classes as well.

a "traditional" Eurocentric curriculum became a de facto assimilationist project.

Students of color were required to "fit" into the norms of the schools, including rules and understandings about what was right, smart, and appropriate. n22
Many African-American and Latino students were left to feel that the teachers did not value their input
or perspective. When values, racial norms, knowledge, and history go unchallenged, so does the
privilege of one racial or ethnic group over another. n23 [*1740] 1. Curriculum - Rarely a Multicultural Moment One of the more
surprising findings from this study was just how little the curriculum in the racially mixed schools we studied had changed during the 1970s, considering that the
racial makeup of the students had changed a great deal. For the most part, the schools offered a white, Eurocentric perspective on
the world. When changes were made to the curriculum, they were usually marginal changes, such as the
addition of electives or a special assembly, in reaction to racial unrest or specific demands by students of
color. Even in Topeka, Kansas, a city at the heart of the Brown v. Board of Education case, 1980 graduates do not recall learning much about race or racial
inequality in school. One Topeka High graduate who is now a lawyer noted that she had no idea how important the Brown decision and the Topeka-based case were
until she went to law school many years later. At Muir High School in Pasadena, the graduates and educators reported that for the most part, the curriculum did not
reflect a diversity of perspectives. The lack of diversity was the result of several factors, including the fact that teachers at Muir had a great deal of autonomy in
their classrooms and there was no systematic effort at Muir to expand the core curriculum in the 1970s to include nonwhite authors. Students' exposure to a more
multicultural curriculum was entirely dependent upon the individual teachers and student experiences were thus not consistent. While a few teachers made a
concerted effort to include nonwhite authors and perspectives, the vast majority of teachers were far more traditional. As one former counselor at Muir said, "as far
as the teaching goes, [desegregation] didn't really start to affect the canon until about the mid-1980s, so we were still teaching the Dead White Man for a long, long
time." The absence of overt discussions of race in the curriculum profoundly affected many of the graduates of color we interviewed, particularly those who had
been taught different lessons in their homes and communities. For instance, one African-American 1980 graduate of Austin High School spoke about the difficulties
he had accepting and relating to his high school history teacher: "He was a good teacher, it's just that I didn't believe in what they was teaching. Cause everything
was white...and I used to get so tired and frustrated...sitting and listening what all these great white people [*1741] [had done]." The lack of diversity in the
curriculum contributed to the distrust that many students of color felt toward their white teachers. When
the teachers did stray from their
Eurocentric base to add something more multicultural, they were often in uncharted territory, which
tended to leave them less certain about how to present and teach the material. A good example of the difficulties
many teachers had in presenting multicultural materials was conveyed to us by an African-American graduate of Dwight Morrow High School in Englewood. The
graduate recalled the time her white English teacher required them to read The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, n24 a story about a black girl who wants blue eyes. In
the story, someone tells the girl that if she killed a dog, she would be given blue eyes, and the girl consequently kills the dog. The graduate recalled: And so, you
know, I raised my hand and I said, well, you know, when she killed the dog she kind of killed her own beliefs in everything that was ugly about herself and dah, dah,
dah. [The teacher said] "No, I think you're reading it too deeply'... you know, I mean, and that was the type of reactions that I would get out of this woman. This
particular graduate's mother had demanded that the school place her daughter in the advanced classes after the student had been placed in regular classes despite
her high grades. Thus, this graduate was often one of a very few African-American students in advanced classes. Through her experience in these classes, she quickly
learned that race was a taboo subject, even though so much of her daily experience was grounded in race. 2. Shhhhh - Don't Talk About Race! Educators in
the schools we studied were often bent on not talking about race, either within their classrooms or as part of the extra-
curricular activities they were sponsoring. There were different reasons given for this lack of discussion about race. For some interviewees, it seemed as though
talking about or acknowledging race was bad in that it was un-American or racist. A former West [*1742] Charlotte teacher, a white woman, exemplified this: "It just
seemed like color didn't seem to make a difference to anyone. We just, again, viewed people as people. Not emphasizing, I guess would be the fact... I mean, we
emphasized the fact that we were not emphasizing color of skin." A white graduate of West Charlotte echoed the thoughts of this teacher and many others whites
interviewed for this study: "At West Charlotte we focused on how we were alike...That is one of the reasons we didn't focus on cultural diversity." What is most
interesting about this insistence on "sameness" is that it was often discussed by the same people who, in other parts of their interviews, focused on how much they
learned about people from different backgrounds by attending racially diverse schools. The lack of discussion about race was also due in
part to a desire to avoid racial conflict. In some schools, most notably Topeka High School, Austin High School, and West Charlotte High
School, there had been a great deal of racial tension and black-white fighting in the early and mid-1970s. In our interviews, nearly every student and educator we
interviewed from these schools talked about the racial turmoil that preceded the Class of 1980's arrival. School-level administrators and teachers were determined
to keep things calm. The idea of opening up issues of race or working through racial differences with students was therefore not particularly inviting. A white English
teacher from Austin High School explained that by the late 1970s and 1980s, the initial controversies and racial animosities had quieted down and no one wanted to
stir the water. She recalled that when African-American students first came to Austin High School in the early 1970s after the old Anderson High School was closed,
they were extremely unhappy because many of them had been highly involved in Anderson high school and in charge of extracurricular activities. When they came
to Austin High School, those clubs and offices were already filled. The teacher noted, however, that by 1980, "everything was all over, anything controversial or any
unhappiness, you know, that was all settled, and we were settled in as a school." Interviews with the Austin High School graduates of color present different views
on this issue, but the point is that from the perspective of the educators, [*1743] there were no racial problems, and thus there was no need to deal with racial
issues. While many white educators denied that race was an issue, some of the same people, along with many other interviewees, particularly people of color, also
talked a great deal about just how salient race was in their day-to-day experiences in these schools. For instance, as we noted above, race clearly seemed to matter
in terms of who ended up in which classes. Furthermore, in
two of the schools we studied, Topeka and West Charlotte, there
were fairly strict quotas regarding the racial make-up of popular student awards and offices, such as
homecoming courts, student government, and cheerleading squads. There was an awareness of such quotas, which in many
instances benefited white students more than black or Latino students, and an acknowledgment of their impact on students' experiences in high school. As one
white West Charlotte graduate noted, although there were no explicit discussions of race in her high school in the late 1970s, issues of race were everywhere. When
asked whether or not race was discussed in school, she replied: "Discussed," like...like we discuss things now?... No, there were no discussions of that. But, but was
it a known fact that we had three white candidates, three black candidates, and three at-large [for student government elections]? Yeah! And - I don't even
remember the ballot, but the ballot probably said it! I mean, you know, I-I don't know. But did we sit around and have round tables about... how to be better people
and like each other and live together in harmony and all that stuff? No! No. But were there white kids in the Gospel Choir? Yes!.. And we'd have, you know, the
black guys come to the Choir with cornrows, and [the African-American choir teacher] would tell them... "get rid of those cornrows, you know? Just because you're
a black boy - don't be wearing those cornrows." So... was there a discussion? No. But was race everywhere? Yeah! Thus, while race was not regularly discussed in
these schools, it was lived in a very real and intuitive sort of way. With
no forum or dialogue in which to make better sense of
the racial differences they experienced every day, many of these graduates walked away from high
school with fairly superficial understandings of race and [*1744] its role in American society,
understandings which would not lead one to challenge the racial status quo. n25
 1NC - Circumvention
White flights, devos, and local resistance all ensure circumvention
Wong 2017 -- Felicia Wong - President and CEO of the Roosevelt Institute, an economic and social
policy think tank working to re-imagine the rules so they work for all Americans, and co-author of the
forthcoming book "Rewrite the Racial Rules: Building an Inclusive American Economy. 2-6-17
(http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/05/opinions/devos-racism-public-school-opinion-wong/index.html “A
vote for DeVos is a vote for resegregation”) mba-alb
(CNN)As the Senate prepares to vote on the nomination of Betsy DeVos for secretary of education, opposition has primarily focused on questions of her basic competence. Some have also
critiqued her background and experience almost exclusively with private, religious schools: She and her children have only ever attended Christian schools, and she and her husband have
donated almost $8.6 million in recent years to Christian schooling organizations. The limited scope of DeVos' education policy experience has raised questions for many about whether she is
suited to run the federal agency charged with making American public education first-rate for all children. But there is another subterranean element to this debate, which now should be

Racial animus was a primary

surfaced, especially given our racially charged environment and the role that segregated schools have long played in our politics.

catalyst of the move toward private and religious K-12 education almost 50 years ago, and racial
segregation remains a dominant factor in all schooling, public and private, today. DeVos' track record
suggests that as secretary, she will do little to combat these trends. In the wake of the 1954 Brown v. Board Supreme Court decision,
which famously declared that separate schools for black and white children were not equal, the federal government began -- albeit slowly -- to desegregate. This applied to schools in the South

. The backlash, now

that were previously forbidden by law from educating children of different races together and to schools in the North plagued by de facto segregation

infamous but perhaps too familiar even today, was fierce. From Alabama Governor George Wallace's stance in the schoolhouse
door and his proclamations of "segregation now, segregation forever" to Louise Day Hicks leading the Boston antibusing movement, the

reaction to desegregation roiled American politics. But the Brown ruling did not apply to private schools.
Thus, an estimated half-million white students left public schools between 1964 and 1975 to enroll in schools
that were known as "segregation academies." This move to private schools was part of a larger "white
flight" movement. White flight was one of the greatest demographic shifts in American history. Millions
of whites nationwide moved out of cities and into racially isolated suburbs. Scholar Kevin Kruse has called white
flight "the most successful segregationist response to the moral demands of the civil rights movement
and the legal authority of the courts." The character and quality of most American schools today, like the
neighborhoods in which they are found and which they shape, have a racial past.

a) The fed gov doesn’t have the capacity to enforce

McGuinn 15 --- associate professor of political science and education at Drew
University. (Patrick McGuinn, “Schooling the State: ESEA and the Evolution of the U.S. Department of
Education”, Russell Sage Journal for Social Science. Volume 1 Issue 3, December
2015. http://www.rsfjournal.org/doi/full/10.7758/RSF.2015.1.3.04)//ET

Nonetheless, ongoing administrative capacity deficits within federal, state, and local education
departments present a formidable challenge to the current ambitious education reform agenda. The ED has
long lacked the staff, resources, and technical expertise to provide sustained supervision and guidance of
state compliance with federal education programs. Although its programs and grant expenditures have grown dramatically in the past thirty years,
the department itself has not. As its website notes, “In fact, with a planned fiscal year 2010 level of 4,199, ED's staff is 44 percent below the 7,528
employees who administered Federal education programs in several different agencies in 1980, when the Department was created” (U.S.
Department of Education 2012). Ironically then, the department's push to expand states’ administrative capacity to implement education
reform may ultimately be undone by the lack of adequate administrative capacity at the federal level.

b) Schools will cheat to make it look like they’re complying

Cohen -Vogel 2015 --- Lora Cohen-Vogel – UNC Professor of Education Reform, Ariel Tichnor-
Wagner – Doctoral student in policy at UNC, Danielle Allen – Post doctoral research fellow at UNC, Christopher
Harrison – teaches at UNC, Kirsten Kainz -- Professor of Social work at UNC, Allison Rose Socol – Reseracher
Assistant at National Center for Scaling Up Effective Schools, and Qi Wang. (“Implementing Educational
Innovations at Scale: Transforming Researchers Into Continuous Improvement Scientists”, Educational Policy
2015, Vol. 29. Sage Journals)//ET

Odden described findings from the first waves of research on implementation in education. Back then,
Much has changed since 1991, when Allan
Cohen-Vogel et al. 259 scholarship suggested that
local governments had neither the will nor the capacity to
implement programs initiated by higher level governments (Murphy, 1971; Pressman & Wildavsky, 1973). In fact, studies at
the time showed that local officials sometimes used money allocated for new educational programming for
purposes other than those for which the programs were designed, leading to regulations emphasizing compliance and the
correct use of funds (Barro, 1974; Peterson, Rabe, & Wong, 1991). The second wave of research, focusing on implementation after the initial start-up
years, however, challenged the notion that programming initiated by higher levels of government would never be implemented (Odden, 1991).
Instead, longitudinal
studies of state and federal categorical aid programs in education repeatedly found that time, coupled
with “mutual adaptation,” or opportunities
for educators to tailor programs to meet their local needs and
circumstances, led to support for new program initiatives, the local capacity to run them, and, ultimately, the provision of services to
targeted student populations (Berman & McLaughlin, 1975; Birman, Orland, Jung, Anson, & Garcia, 1987; Jung & Kirst, 1986; Sarason, 1982). As it
turned out, it was possible to implement state and federal education reform at the local level. However, as Odden (1991) wrote almost
25 years ago, “claiming that programs get implemented is not the same as claiming they are effective” (p. 8).
Indeed, in the early 1980s, studies began to emerge that suggested that programs, even when fully implemented, were not solving the problems for
which they were created. Although students who received extra services were fairing somewhat better than similar students who did not, theeffects
were often small and eroded over time (e.g., Baker & DeKanter, 1983; Kennedy, Birman, & Demaline, 1986). Wave 3 of research
on education policy implementation then, emanating from arguments that efforts to develop rules to influence compliance had neglected program
quality and impact, focused not only on how to get programs implemented but also on how to get them to “work” (Elmore & McLaughlin, 1983; Odden,
1991). Arguably the longest-lasting and best-funded, Wave 3 was distinct from its predecessors in terms of the features of the policies examined and
the approaches used to study them. Echoing Odden, Honig (2006) argued that— beginning in the 1980s—the shifting features of education reform
strategies away from categorical programs and toward system-wide changes in curriculum and instruction influenced not only how research was
conducted but also what we learned from it. Reforms in this period were aimed at issues at the very center of the schooling enterprise—what Ogawa
(2009) called its “core technology.” These issues included who should teach, what should be taught, and in what manner (Cohen-Vogel, 2011; Cohen-
Vogel & Rutledge, 2009; Furhman, Clune, & Elmore, 1988; Hauptli & Cohen-Vogel, 2013; Osborne Lampkin & Cohen-Vogel, 2014). 260 Educational
Policy 29(1) Studies during this period revealed that implementing programs of these types was highly complex and whether they
“worked” depended on the people

and places involved (Honig, 2006). McLaughlin (1991), for example, found that program success relied heavily on (a) the
expertise of educators in the specific practices they needed to apply and (b) opportunities for them to
collaborate with other program implementers as they tried out the practices (see also Anderson et al., 1987). Others showed that state
agency leaders, like “street level bureaucrats” themselves, were consequential to implementation (e.g., Furhman et al., 1988). Place,
too, became central to understanding program success (Honig, 2006). During this period—later referred to as the effective schools movement
(e.g., Purkey & Smith, 1983)—researchers flocked to high-performing schools, asking “What conditions explained their performance?” The key lesson
from this third wave of implementation research in education was that program effectiveness, like its implement ability, is the product of interactions
between policies, people, and places—in short, the local context in which the program is tried (Honig, 2006). In the words of Means and Penuel (2005)
then, the question for educational researchers is not simply what is implementable and what works, but instead “what works where, when, and for
whom.” Despite these understandings—understandings that date back to at least as early as 2005—the federal government
continued its focus on “what works,” a focus that began in earnest with the passage of the Educational Sciences Reform Act (ESRA) in
2002 (Cohen-Vogel & Hunt, 2007; Schoenfeld, 2006b; Slavin, 2004). Specifically, the Wave 3 What Works focus was advanced by federal investments
in building the capacity of the field to conduct randomized control trials (RCT). Since 2002, hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested in pre-
and post-doctoral training programs aimed at building Fellows’ capacity for using experimental and quasi-experimental designs to evaluate education
programs, practices, and policies and on the development of the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC). The Clearinghouse, an on-line resource,
evaluates the quality of research evidence on different programs, products, practices, and policies in education. “By focusing on the results from
high-quality research,” according to the WWC website, “we try to answer the question ‘What works in education?’” To meet WWC’s quality
benchmarks, studies must have used a limited set of research designs.1 The WWC’s highest evaluations are reserved for studies using experimental
designs. Considered by some to be the “gold standard” of research designs, experiments rely on random assignment of study participants to treatment
and control groups, a method that maximizes the ability to generalize about program effects by distributing varying conditions and characteristics
Cohen-Vogel et al. 261 between the groups. The
focus, therefore, is not on the conditions and contexts that enable
program success but on program success despite them.
 1NC – Internal Deseg
De facto segregation occurs within integrated schools in terms of classes
Green 2017 -- Erica L. Green – Baltimore Sun Reporter- 3-25-2017, ("Within integrated schools, de
facto segregation persists," baltimoresun,
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/investigations/bs-md-school-segregation-series-
howard-20170325-story.html) mba-alb
They were classmates and best friends, and they both wanted to get into the 11th-grade Advanced Placement English class at Columbia's Hammond High School. Since meeting in summer school just before ninth grade, Mikey Peterson and Eli Sauerwalt had been through a lot together.
They'd each battled depression, they'd failed classes, they'd encouraged each other to do better. As 10th-graders in English, the teens were each hoping for a prized recommendation to the AP English class for their junior year. Eli had doubts about whether AP English was for him. His
attendance had been poor, and he had barely passed some assignments. But for the teacher, he said, it was never even a question. You can do this, he recalled her saying. This is what you should do. Mikey also asked his teacher about AP English. Despite failing several assignments, he
believed he could thrive in a more competitive environment. Her response, as he remembered it: Do you really want to do that to yourself? The following fall, Eli, who is white, enrolled in AP English. "I was always kind of told I belonged," he said. Mikey, who is black, enrolled in regular

Howard County is the most integrated school district in the region

English. "That's where the black kids are," he said. , according to the Maryland Equity Project of the

Children of different races

University of Maryland. are more likely to sit next to each other — especially those who are black and white — in Howard than almost anywhere

But within that diversity, school leaders have uncovered a de facto system of segregation
else in the state. . Enrollment data

district's advanced classes — honors, gifted and talented, and AP — are

obtained by The Baltimore Sun through a public records request shows that the

disproportionately white, while the regular and remedial classes are disproportionately black. There are twice as many

In elementary school, nearly five times as many white students

white students as black students in Howard schools. But demographics alone doesn't explain the disparities.

as black students are enrolled in gifted and talented courses In middle school, it's nearly four times as .

many By high school

. ice as many white students in honors classes and
, where the menu of advanced classes expands to include honors, the gaps persist, with tw

three times as many in gifted and talented courses There is . Even if these kids are performing on par with other groups, we tend to look right past them.

unquestionably bias in the system there . This is a pervasive problem. Those courses are often an on-ramp to the coveted AP courses, considered the pinnacle of a successful high school career and the best
preparation for college. By the time students reach AP classes, white students outnumber black students 4-1. Research shows that integration benefits all students. But the experience of Howard County — consistently ranked among the strongest public school districts in the nation —

that bringing students of different backgrounds together in the same schools isn't enough to
demonstrates

ensure their success . Where educators have long spoken of the achievement gap — the differences in academic performance between white students and black, and affluent and poor — some are now focusing on the so-called opportunity gap.

'Opportunity gap' suggests that some

"'Achievement gap' situates students as deficient," said Vanessa Dodo Seriki, co-director of the Center for Innovation in Urban Education at Loyola University Maryland. "

students are afforded opportunities to experience academic success while others are not. These missed "

opportunities are a result of structural inequalities, personal bias and deficit perspectives that are
commonly held about black and brown children." It's not unique to Howard. Nationwide, about half of
all black students aren't enrolling in the AP classes they're qualified for,
, Hispanic and Native American according to the College Board. And studies show that

younger, high-performing black students are less likely than their white counterparts to be placed in
courses for the gifted and talented. Even if these kids are performing on par
Educators and academics say it's one of the nation's most pressing challenges. "

with other groups, we tend to look right past them ," said Jonathan Plucker, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education. "There is unquestionably bias in the system there. This is a
pervasive problem." Howard leaders say they have been working to close racial disparities in advanced courses and programs — work they say is crucial if they are to move the 55,000-student district forward. Superintendent Renee Foose said the effort has required the system to

confront a harsh truth. " We're battling a culture and mindset of 'Some kids can, and some kids can't,'" Foose said. "We're not giving students the opportunities they're entitled to." Researchers have studied the opportunity gap at the high

students at every level are missing opportunities

school level. Less well-documented is what happens in the years before entry to those classes. The Howard County data is a rare look that reveals black

for which they are qualified . School officials said they began finding evidence of this in 2012, when Foose took the helm of the school system. Black students who were demonstrating an ability to perform at or above grade level were being

Elementary school students were being excluded from screening for gifted and talented
placed in remedial courses, Foose said.

courses, , black students were not given

losing their chance to get on the track for high-level courses through middle school. In high school who were showing the potential for success in AP courses on standardized exams

an opportunity to take those classes, There was a lot of gatekeeping that while their white and Asian classmates who were not meeting the threshold were. "

has a lot to do with expectations and mindset," The data showed that said Grace Chesney, who heads Howard County's accountability office. " ." Foose has ordered
more testing to spot bright students who might have been missed in the past. The district is taking other measures to eliminate barriers to advanced courses, such as dropping some prerequisites, and encouraging students and their families to get more involved in the course selection
process. Those efforts, begun in the 2012-13 school year, have put Howard County at the forefront statewide in addressing the opportunity gap, Plucker said. But challenges remain. Outside Looking In Mikey sat in Eli's AP English class, taking detailed notes on "Their Eyes Were Watching
God," Zora Neale Hurston's 1937 novel about an African-American woman coming of age in early 20th-century Florida. He says he found himself growing more resentful by the minute. He knew that the connection he felt to characters in the book would be short-lived, and he'd soon be
back to shallow conversations about characters in "The Crucible" in his regular English 11 class. He had asked to sit in on Eli's AP English class — the one he says his 10th-grade teacher questioned his ability to thrive in, at the same time she encouraged his white friend to take a chance.
The teacher, who asked not to be named, said she did not want to comment on the students' accounts of their conversations because she did not want to diminish their experiences. She said she made her best call at the time. She said she was worried that Mikey wasn't ready for the AP
class, and she didn't want to set him up to fail. But the window into what could have been made him angry. "I didn't feel that was fair, that they get to learn about my culture's history," he said. "I feel like I missed out. The way they discussed the book, the way they took notes, it just felt
right." The experience, Mikey said, was emblematic of most of his educational career — he has been stuck in classes where he feels he doesn't belong, and watching as opportunities pass him by. When he was in fourth grade, his mother moved to Columbia because of its reputation for
educational opportunity and diversity. But he doesn't feel those promises worked out for him. In middle school, he felt that because he was talkative and liked to have fun in class, his teachers had written him off as average. By 10th grade, when he says his teacher asked hi m whether he
really wanted to take AP English, he felt discouraged. To get into the classes, students need either a recommendation from a teacher, or the parent or student has to sign a waiver. After talking to his mother, Mikey decided to follow his teach er's advice. It wasn't until 11th grade, he said,
that a teacher told him he should be taking AP courses. She was a minority, too. "I never had a white teacher tell me, 'You have the ability to do this,'" he said, "because they've already given that opport unity to another white person." Eli could understand why his friend felt that way. For
as long as Eli can remember, he had been challenged to do better — especially when he failed. The 17-year-old had attended schools in Howard County since third grade. "I've been hearing for years about how much great potential I have — and I just needed to get things together," he
said. "I was definitely given the benefit of the doubt in ways I know other students weren't." One of the students he meant was Mikey. Eli shared his friend's disappointment when he was promoted to AP English and Mikey wasn't. The students' suspicions that their educational

differed depending on
trajectories were guided by their race mirrors research on the subject. Researchers from Johns Hopkins who studied teachers' expectations of their students concluded that their views

the races of the student and the teacher. white teachers expected significantly In a national study of 4,000 teachers and 6,000 students, they reported

less academic success from black students than black teachers did white . When teachers evaluated the same black student, the researchers said,
teachers are almost 40 percent less likely than black teachers to expect that the student will graduate
from high school , and 30 percent less likely to predict the student will complete a four-year college degree. "If you have two teachers saying different things, one of them is wrong," said study co-author Nicholas Papageorge, a Hopkins economist. The teachers

Teachers might devote

generally agreed on their predicted outcomes for white students, the researchers said. In some cases, Papageorge said, the teachers' expectations could be accurate. But he warned they can also be self-fulfilling prophecies:

more time and attention to students they believe, have greater chances of success consciously or unconsciously, .
 1NC – Alt Causes
Changing residential segregation is necessary to solve school segregation
Rothstein, 16 --- research associate of the Economic Policy Institute, a senior fellow at the Thurgood
Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (12/12/16, Richard, “We Can’t
Meaningfully Integrate Schools Without Desegregating Neighborhoods,”
http://www.naacpldf.org/news/thurgood-marshall-institute-senior-fellow-richard-rothstein-we-
can%E2%80%99t-meaningfully-integrate-sch, accessed on 5/5/17, JMP)
A bill introduced in the New York City Council proposes to establish “an office of school diversity within the human rights c ommission dedicated to studying the prevalence and causes of racial segregation in public schools and developing recommendations for remedying such

it is not reasonable, indeed it is misleading, to study school segregation in New York City without
segregation.” But

simultaneously studying residential segregation. The two cannot be separated. School segregation is
primarily a problem of neighborhoods, not schools. Schools are segregated because the
neighborhoods in which they are located are segregated. Some school segregation can be ameliorated
by adjusting school attendance boundaries or controlling school choice, but these devices are limited
and mostly inapplicable to elementary school children, for whom long travel to school is neither feasible
nor desirable. We have adopted a national myth that neighborhoods are segregated “de facto;” i.e., because of income

neighborhoods in NYC are segregated primarily because of a 20th century

differences, individual preferences, a history of private discrimination, etc. In fact,

history of deliberate public policy to separate the races residentially, implemented by the city, state, and
federal governments . Just a few examples: when the city and state created Stuyvesant Town in the 1940s, they cleared an integrated low-income neighborhood to build a segregated development for whites only; when the government financed

suburbs like Levittown, it did so with a federal requirement that no homes be sold to African Americans, and whites left the city for these federally subsidized segregated suburbs; when the federal government and city collaborated to build public housing in the mid-twentieth century,
they built separate projects for whites (e.g., the Williamsburg Houses) and for African Americans (e.g., the Harlem River Houses). It was only after most whites in public housing were given suburban housing options in federally segregated subdivisions that vacancies in public housing for

The most important service the proposed Office of School Diversity could perform would
whites were opened to African Americans.

be to call attention to this history, educate the public about it, and develop political support to remedy
NYC’s unconstitutional residential segregation with housing policies that integrate the city. Without this,
schools in NYC will continue to be segregated. Most Americans today believe that the policies followed
by government to segregate New York City were characteristic of cities in the South, not the North,
Midwest, or West. This belief is mistaken. Such policies were pursued by government in every region
and metropolitan area in the nation. The
These policies were conscious, purposeful, not the unintended consequences of benign policies, and not pursued primarily from an accommodation with southern politicians.

policies have never been remedied; they are the cause of the school and residential segregation we see everywhere

around us.
 1NC – No Spillover
Desegregation won’t solve—racism is too entrenched in society and white privilege is
maintained within the context of desegregated schools
Wells, et. al, 04 - Professor of Sociology and Education, Columbia Teacher's College
(October 2004, Amy Stuart Wells, Anita Tijerina Revilla – Assistant Professor of Women's Studies at
UNLV, Jennifer Jellison Holme – Post-doctoral Fellow, Graduate School of Education and Information
Studies at UCLA, and Awo Korantemaa Atanda – Senior Survey Specialist, Mathematica Policy Research,
Inc., Virginia Law Review, “50 YEARS OF BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION: ESSAY: THE SPACE BETWEEN
SCHOOL DESEGREGATION COURT ORDERS AND OUTCOMES: THE STRUGGLE TO CHALLENGE WHITE
PRIVILEGE,” 90 Va. L. Rev. 1721, Lexis-Nexis Academic, SR)
While few commentators have made the connection between greater segregation and a growing achievement gap, and even fewer hav e contemplated efforts to stem the tide of racial segregation, there has been no shortage of ideas regarding how to equalize student achievement
across separate schools. Some argue in favor of tougher accountability measures, and some encourage school finance equity lawsuits designed to bring more money to segregated and poor urban schools. n6 The collective conclusion emanating from this commentary is as follows:

The Brown decision was a historic ruling Still, despite the optimism that , clearly one of the most significant Supreme Court decisions of the twentieth century.

this case fostered fifty years ago, school desegregation failed as a public policy. Thus, today, we need
to find alternative means of fulfilling the promise of Brown within more racially separate schools. Is this a

What is lost by fast-forwarding history from 1954 to

more acceptable way of saying we gave up on Brown and now we are simply trying to do right by the promise of Plessy v. Fergus on? n7

today is a consideration of the daily struggles within local communities to desegregate public schools
and how the vision of Brown was compromised by many facets of racial politics in the United States. In

if, as some have argued, segregation is but a symptom of the larger disease of white supremacy or
other words,

racism it is clear that efforts to desegregate public schools and thereby eradicate the symptom have
, n8

been compromised by the ongoing disease. In the process of attempting to alleviate segregation amid a
society still firmly grounded in a belief system based on white supremacy the public schools were , [*1723]

forced to swim against a tide so powerful and so pervasive that we should not blame them for failing,
but should applaud what progress they made in spite of larger societal forces. We have just completed a five-year study of six communities that tried

to racially balance their public schools during the 1970s. n9 Through this research we have learned of the details that lie b etween the court orders (or whatever desegregation policy existed) and the student outcome and demographic data that have been captured in quantitative

In the space between the mandates of desegregation and the results, we found that the schools
analyses.

and communities we studied often unwittingly reproduced racial inequality by maintaining white
privilege within the context of desegregated schools. Yet at the same time, these schools provided spaces where students and educators crossed the color line in ways they had never done

We argue that the school desegregation policies that existed in these school districts were
before and have not done since.

better than nothing, but simply were not enough to change the larger society single-handedly. We
illustrate how difficult it was for the people in these schools to live up to the goals of school
desegregation given the larger societal forces, including racial attitudes and politics, housing
segregation, and economic inequality working against them. We also document how deeply committed some of these actors, both educators and students, were to trying to bring
about change. In this way, our study speaks to larger lessons about the role of schools in society and the uphill but worthwhile efforts of lawyers and judges to use schools as one of very few tools for social change. The desegregated schools of the 1970s embodied both the hope and the

We should not view the disappointment as an indictment of the idea of

disappointment of Brown's promise to lessen racial inequality in the United States.

school desegregation or the legal levers that allowed it to happen in hundreds of school districts across
the country. we should use this historical, qualitative data to help us better understand the degree of
Rather,

burden we placed on the public schools to solve a systemic, societal problem that affects every
[*1724]

dimension of our lives, from where we live and how much money we make to who we pray with and
who our close friends are. Racial inequality and the resultant segregation did not begin in the public
schools; thus, we should not expect remedies in the public schools to solve the problem alone. But we can rely on
racially diverse public schools - to the extent that current policies allow them to exist - to be important sites in the struggle for a more just society. Lawyers and legal scholars who helped fight for school desegregation and who continue to push for racial diversity in educational settings
need to understand this more complex view of the history and reality of school desegregation in the United States in order to move forward with new legal strategies.
2nc
 Vouchers
School choice programs empirically reduce the achievement gap by increasing
graduation and college attendance rates
Alex Schuh 4-21-15

(Alex Schuh- earned his Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. He is the
founder and director of FRONTIER 21 Education Solutions, a company dedicated to increasing
educational achievement at the K–12 level. “Breaking Down “The Achievement Checkup”

https://www.edchoice.org/blog/breaking-down-the-achievement-checkup/) mba-alb
The plight of America’s low-income, urban children has been well-documented, through films, such asWaiting for Superman and popular books like Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities and Alex Kotlowitz’ There Are No Children

Here. As a society, we are continually sent messages about a hopelessness experienced when growing up
poor in an American city. Now that our new century is 15 years old, it’s time we ask: Are our kids in poverty still only “living just enough for the city?” For certain, children in poverty are facing tough
situations, made even tougher by steep drops in employment and wages that accompanied the early 21st Century recession and slow economic recovery. In Baltimore, for example, 29 percent of

children are living in families with income below the poverty line, compared to 11 percent statewide. That is a
dramatic statistic, given that Maryland was identified as the wealthiest state in the country in 2013 and 2014. City school systems face huge challenges today partly

because of the many needs of the low-income families they must serve. Most have very low high school
graduation rates compared with school systems outside of the cities—as much as a 50 percent difference. And many of the
children who do graduate rarely attend or succeed in college after graduation. Philadelphia, for instance, has
only a 10 percent college graduation rate among its public school students, 40 percent of whom live in poverty, and 80
percent of whom are eligible for free school lunch. An image has developed in our society of poor kids with parents who have been rendered helpless by their lack of
education and lack of access to resources. But, is it true that low-income parents are uneducated, have “given up,” or are altogether unaware of how to change their circumstances? Or are there places where those families have

found a way to live more than “just enough” for the city? In the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice’s latest research, The Achievement Checkup,I examined the long-term
academic outcomes of one of the programs attempting to help low-income families beat the odds—The
Children’s Scholarship Fund Baltimore (CSFB), an organization that provides need-based K-8 scholarships to low-income families.

The privately-endowed scholarship fund is open to all children from low-income families in kindergarten through eighth grade without other requirements or restrictions. CSF National has provided

more than $600 million in scholarships to more than 145,000 students. Because of their unique donor structure, 100 percent of every donation
made to the program goes directly to funding a child’s attendance in a tuition-based school—a school chosen

by the parent. Parents must in-turn pay $500 of their children’s education costs. CSF Baltimore has provided more than 6,000 scholarships to
students to attend more than 100 schools at a cost of more than $12 million. The “village” surrounding those students has come to include
not just their parents and friends, but also the schools that educate them and that often find additional funds for the families, the team at CSFB, and the private donors who make the scholarships possible. What has become of
some of those students since they received their scholarships? How did they perform in high school? What was their post-high school experience like? In a cross-sectional survey of seven cohorts who were eligible to graduate high

The CSF Baltimore

school by the time of the study (334 scholarship recipients in the high school class cohorts of 2008 to 2014), our firm sought to answer those questions. Here’s what we found. 1.

scholarship recipients were graduating high school at a rate of 97 percent—a much higher rate than
their peers in Baltimore public schools (between 40 and 60 percent), and a higher rate than students
across Maryland (84 percent on average). This high rate of graduation for need-based scholarship students is
consistent with other CSF programs we have studied (CSF Philadelphia, CSF Charlotte, Northwest Ohio Scholarship Fund) and those that
others have studied, which generally range from 95 percent to 98 percent. Not only are larger percentages of CSF Baltimore scholarship
recipients graduating “on time” in four years, many are graduating “early” in fewer than four years (18 percent). Compared to the percentage of students who

graduate in fewer than 4 years nationally (2.9 percent), that’s huge. (Note: CSFB survey response rate was 67 percent). 2. The CSFB alumni survey found scholarship recipients enrolled in college at a

higher rate than either the Baltimore City Public School (BCPS) ninth graders or the BCPS high school
graduates who were tracked in two local studies. In our study, 84 percent of CSFB alumni were enrolled in some type
of college five to 10 years after completing eighth grade, 2 percent were still in high school, 1 percent entered the military, and 14 percent did not attend college immediately after graduation. Recent studies conducted by

the Baltimore Education Research Consortium (BERC) found that Baltimore’s public high school graduates enrolled in two- and four-year colleges at a rate that
 between 44 percent and 61 percent. A study by the Center for Social Organization of Schools (CSOS) followed Baltimore’s public
is slightly below the national rate for low-income students,

school ninth graders and found that an average of 32 percent of the two ninth-grade classes (classes of 2009 and 2010) had enrolled in college

within five years after ninth grade. In some cases, CSFB survey responders indicated the CSFB alumni had at some point been enrolled in either a two- or four-year college but did not
indicate which type. Of those for whom college type was indicated, 73 percent were enrolled in four-year colleges, and 27 percent were enrolled in two-year colleges (community colleges). By comparison, in the CSOS study, 53
percent were found to be enrolled in four-year colleges (e.g., bachelor’s degree-granting institutions) and 47 percent were found to be enrolled in two-year colleges (e.g., associate’s degree-only institutions). Overall, parents’
educational aspirations for their CSFB scholarship recipient children were very high. A number of factors are involved that mediate the relationship between a child’s educational outcomes and a parent’s educational aspirations,
such as family poverty levels and the child’s intellectual talents. The former scholarship recipients left the program and attended 61 different high schools of all kinds, including parochial schools, traditional public schools, public
charter schools, secular private schools, and public magnet schools. The schools differed in their emphases on college preparation, but, for the most part, they provided a substantial amount of college preparation. After eighth
grade, the parents continued to seek out and choose options that fit their desire to see their children graduate high school and attend college. 4. Our survey found 79 percent of the scholarship recipients’ high schools provided
formal college counseling, although only 55 percent offered college financial counseling—a critical service for low-income families. Our study looked at many more aspects of CSFB scholarships student outcomes, which can be
examined more fully in the full report. Yet, even in the few findings presented here, we have been able to build a better understanding of a culture of low-income families that are working together with schools and supportive
organizations in their communities to produce very high levels of achievement in terms of high school graduation and college attendance. Privately-funded scholarship organizations like CSF and its affiliates are doing noble work

School choice programs, such as tax-credit scholarships, could

for low-income families, but their ability to expand to reach the more than 16 million children living in povertyin America is limited.

greatly expand the number of low-income families who might access vital educational opportunities. In
fact, 15 statesare already employing such programs and seeing positive results. Indeed, a “village” is coming together around
impoverished children, and it is making a difference for their educational attainment and, very likely, their long-term

socioeconomic mobility. We can say, at least, that school scholarships played a part in helping CSFB families live more than “just enough for the city”.

Out of 100 studies only three go affirmative

Ed choice, 6-2-16

(Ed Choice- American education reform organization "Friday Freakout: Cherry-Picking Better Than Nose-
Picking, But Not By Much," EdChoice, https://www.edchoice.org/blog/friday-freakout-cherry-picking-
better-than-nose-picking-but-not-by-much/) mba-alb

One of their favorite talking points is that

School choice opponents have no shortage of unfounded arguments aimed at blocking parents from choosing the best educational fit for their own kids.

researchers “cherry-pick” data-driven reports Time and again, the Friedman that highlight only the most positive effects from school choice.

Foundation and other choice advocates have shown that’s not the case . In fact, just last month we released the most recent edition of A Win-Win Solution, a

100 high-quality school choice studies in four areas: im

report that examines proving academic outcomes for students and schools, saving taxpayers money, reducing segregation in schools and

. Out of 100 studies, 87 found positive effects ten were neutral; and only three studies
improving students’ civic values ;

found any instance of negative effects out of 100 studies, all but three find students
. Let’s repeat those numbers for dramatic effect:

benefit in one way or another from school choice programs across the nation. If this were the track
record for an issue our opponents support, you can bet they would share it. Even the harshest critic would agree these are pretty darn good results

Third parties will create websites to spread information about schools- it’s already
happening
Jason bedrock and Lindsey burke 8-12-17

(Jason Bedrock- director of policy for edchoice and former policy analyst for Cantos center for
educational freedom. He served as a legislator in the New Hampshire House of Representatives and was
an education policy research fellow at the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy. He has published
numerous studies on educational choice programs with organizations such as the Heritage Foundation,
the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the Pioneer Institute, the Show-Me Institute, and the Caesar Rodney
Institute. Lindsey Burke- Will Skillman Fellow in Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation, where she
serves as its director of the Center for Education Policy. “School Choice Means Accountability to
Parents” https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/school-choice-means-accountability-
parents)mba-alb

Of course, parents need information to help them make good decisions about their child’s education.
Fortunately, a system of choice also creates incentives for third parties to help parents acquire that
information. In the K-12 sector, websites like GreatSchools.org and Niche.com already provide expert
ratings based on available data and give parents and students a platform to review their schools based
on their personal experience. As K-12 educational options expand, we should expect to see even more
expert reviewers and platforms for user reviews to fill the growing parental demand for information. There
is no perfect system, but educational choice policies build on strengths and correct errors far more effectively than

regulatory fiat. In a choice-based system, high-quality education providers that attract families have a
strong incentive to expand while less-effective providers must either go out of business or imitate their
more successful competitors. For this process to work, educators must have the freedom to innovate and parents
the freedom to choose the providers that work best for their children. By enacting an ESA policy, Texas can lead the way toward a
system that delivers a high-quality education for all children.

Your theory is only descriptive of less than 1 percent of parents

James P. Kelly and Benjamin Scafidi 2013

(James P. Kelly- founder and General Counsel of Georgia Community Foundation, Inc. He was the
primary author of the Georgia Charter Schools Act of 1998 and founder of Georgia GOAL Scholarship
Program, Inc., Georgia’s largest K–12 student scholarship organization. Served as a US representative on
UNESCO. Served four years as the chairman of the National Commission’s Social and Human Sciences
Committee. Jim serves as Director of International Affairs for the Washington, D.C.- based Federalist
Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He is a senior fellow at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation.
Benjamin Scafidi-director of the Education Economics Center at Kennesaw State, professor of economics
in the Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University, senior fellow with the Georgia Public
Policy Foundation, a think tank in Atlanta. “More Than Scores An Analysis of Why and How Parents
Choose Private Schools” http://www.edchoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/More-Than-
Scores.pdf) mba-alb

st
There is an even wider dispersion in answers regarding the “second most important” piece of information about private schools. Ten of the choices garnered at least 4.5 percent of parents indicating it was the second most important piece of information. The mo

common responses for the second most important piece of information were “ratio of students per
teacher and the average class size and the “curriculum and course descriptions ” (16.7 percent) ” (14.6 percent). Average test scores placed seventh,

Opponents of school choice often suggest parents will choose schools

with 6.2 percent of parents rating that piece of information as the second most important.

so that their children are in schools that are homogeneous with respect to race and ethnicity The survey .

results do not support that assertion Only 0.7 percent of parents listed “the racial, ethnic, and
. (five out of 754)

socioeconomic makeup of the student population as the most important piece of information in ”

helping them to select a private school for their children only 1.6 percent chose that piece of —

information as the second most important piece of informatio n.32

Every single gold-standard study concludes negative
Forster, 16 - Senior Fellow with the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice (Greg Forster PhD, A
WIN-WIN SOLUTION The Empirical Evidence on School Choice edition 4, “A WIN-WIN
SOLUTION The Empirical Evidence on School Choice”, *EM)
There have been 10 studies using valid empirical methods to examine school choice and racial
segregation in schools. Nine of those studies find school choice moves students into less racially
segregated classrooms. The remaining study finds school choice has no visible effect on racial
segregation. None finds choice increases racial segregation. Public schools have been growing more
racially segregated for some time. Paradoxically, this is happening even as residential segregation has
declined.49 Understandably, racial segregation in schools is an increasing concern. The issue of school
choice and racial segregation involves a number of interlocking societal concerns. Public schools are
intractably segregated by race, mostly because students are assigned to schools based on where they
live. School choice has the potential to break down those residential barriers. Even so, many people
have difficulty giving the evidence on this question a hearing. Space does not permit a discussion
of the issues here, but they are reviewed in an earlier report entitled Freedom from Racial
Barriers, and interested readers can consult that publication.50

A school choice system fosters specialized schooling in specific areas like math and
science which incentivize parents to pick what’s best for their kid ahead of racial
preferences
Benjamin Scafidi 2015

(Benjamin Scafidi- director of the Education Economics Center at Kennesaw State, professor of
economics in the Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University, senior fellow with the Georgia
Public Policy Foundation, a think tank in Atlanta. “The Integration Anomaly”
https://www.edchoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/2015-10-The-Integration-Anomaly-WEB.pdf)
mba-alb

Another argument for this claim is that under a system of universal school choice, individual schools would be more likely to
specialize than occurs in public schools today. Under a system of greater parental choice, individual schools would have a
powerful financial incentive to serve specific niches of students, such as children with special needs or
children with strong aptitude or interest in math and science, the arts, bilingual education, Montessori education, Waldorf
education, religious education, vocational education, etc. Under a public education system funded by school choice mechanisms, even

if some parents have school diversity preferences, it is more likely parents would sort their children
into schools to meet the specific interests and needs of their children. Under the current system, where public schools are fairly homogenous
and are becoming increasingly so via school finance and policy centralization, the race and income makeup of their schools are, oddly enough, some of the only factors parents can control.27 Suppose parents

do not have a preference for same-race classmates for their children. Rather, suppose parents desire the
best possible education for their children. If public schools are homogenous in terms of offerings, then
parents with means will sort into expensive neighborhoods in order to garner a higher-achieving peer
group for their children. There is strong evidence that students benefit from being surrounded by higherachieving peers. Such a system leaves families of lesser means unable to make that same choice.
Reject National Education Policy Center research – is lacks academic rigor and is
entirely agenda based – in depth study finds
Science Daily ’15 (“Education 'experts' cited in news stories may lack expertise, study finds”,
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150220133338.htm//JC)

The people most often cited as "education experts" in blogs and news stories may have the backing of influential
organizations -- but have little background in education and education policy, a new study suggests. The
findings are cause for concern because some prominent interest groups are promoting reform
agendas and striving to influence policymakers and public opinion using individuals who have
substantial media relations skills but little or no expertise in education research, say the authors of the study,
Joel R. Malin and Christopher Lubienski, both at the University of Illinois. To examine possible links between
individuals' media presence and their levels of expertise, Malin and Lubienski compiled a diverse list of nearly 300
people who appeared on the lists of experts prepared by several major education advocacy and policy
organizations, including the conservative American Enterprise Institute and the liberal National Education Policy
Center.

Empirically, the NEPC ignores results to promote agenda and attack qualified studies –
it’s funded by teachers unions
Osborne ’16 (David, “A Response to the National Education Policy Center”,
“http://www.progressivepolicy.org/blog/response-national-education-policy-center///JC)

Sadly, Professor White did not write a scholarly review, she wrote anti-charter propaganda—something we see
all too frequently these days. It’s no surprise that the NEPC is funded in part by the nation’s largest teachers union,
the National Education Association. Rather than publishing distortions aimed at discrediting charter schools, I
would invite NEPC scholars to do some research to better understand just what is driving improvement
in Denver’s public schools. Why, for instance, are all 12 of the secondary schools with the highest
academic growth rates charters? There is surely some fascinating “causality” to be unearthed there!

Vouchers reduce segregation- studies and empirics go neg- minority students can use
them and private schools under the program can’t discriminate
Ed choice 7-31-15

(Ed Choice-American education reform organization “Can school choice lead to more integrated
schools?”https://www.edchoice.org/school_choice_faqs/can-school-choice-lead-to-more-integrated-
schools/)mba-alb

students in school choice programs attend more integrated schools than their public school
The research shows that

counterparts. All of the available empirical research finds vouchers are moving students into private
schools that are substantially less segregated than public schools. On average, private school classrooms are
more integrated than nearby public school classrooms; public schools are segregated primarily because
of residential segregation. Attendance at public schools is determined largely by where people live, which guarantees that segregation in housing patterns will be reproduced in public schools.
Desegregation efforts oftentimes fail because they are geographically limited; white families who move
to the suburbs cannot be forced legally to bus their children across municipal lines. Private schools, by contrast,
can draw students with no limitation to geography. In fact, private schools typically draw from a much larger area than public schools. That means
private schools can mitigate the effects of residential segregation in a way public schools cannot.
MYTH: Vouchers will lead to increased segregation. Opponents often claim that vouchers will lead to racial segregation. They argue that white parents would use
vouchers to choose segregated schools. Many believe private schools create a segregated environment compared to public schools, and perpetuate a system of inequality. For some,
the idea of vouchers leading to racial segregation dates back to southern segregationists in the 1950s. Then, vouchers were viewed briefly as a way to maintain segregation in the classroom. Though the idea quickly died, the stigma

private
that vouchers will divide schools by race continues in the minds of some. FACT: Private schools break down racial barriers. School choice is disproportionately a minority-supported issue.1 Moreover,

schools in voucher programs are required not to discriminate. Public schools, by contrast, are heavily
segregated.2 In the current government school system, school attendance is determined by where students live. As a result, it is difficult for public schools to
avoid reproducing the segregation that arises from housing patterns. Efforts to desegregate public schools, such as busing
students to different districts, are unpopular with families and have been unsuccessful in substantially reducing racial segregation in public schools. As a result, it seems

unlikely that desegregation will be a reality in public schools in the near future. Whereas public schools must adhere to district lines,
private schools are able to draw from a much wider range of students. And parents are more likely to trust private schools to handle the challenges of a multiracial environment; federal data confirm

racial disruptions are less common in private schools than in public ones.3 This gives private schools an opportunity to create a more diverse
student body. Indeed, studies have shown that private schools are pulling ahead of public schools when it comes to

integration. EVIDENCE: Research shows private schools in voucher programs are less segregated than public
schools. To get an accurate measurement of segregation in schools, segregation must be defined in a way that measures the racial composition of the school by an objective standard. Unfortunately, some research uses
flawed methods to measure segregation. Under one common research method, a school that is 98 percent white is considered perfectly integrated if it is in a school district that is also 98 percent white. This is regarded as complete
integration even if its neighboring district is 98 percent minority. A better method is to compare each school to its metropolitan area rather than to its district or municipality (which may itself be drawn with segregated

Research based on these

boundaries). Another method is to measure racial homogeneity—for example, measuring the percentage of schools that are at least 90 percent white or minority.

methods shows private schools in voucher programs are less racially homogenous and more closely
resemble their metro areas than public schools. Nine studies using valid empirical methods have
compared segregation in voucher-participating private schools to segregation in nearby public schools.
Eight found that students using vouchers are attending private schools that are less segregated than
nearby public schools, and the ninth found that Milwaukee students who transfer into the voucher
program experience no different racial impact than students who transfer into a different public school. As
to Milwaukee, one study examined a sample of 3,669 Milwaukee Public School students who were chosen to resemble voucher students in Milwaukee. The authors then looked at those students who transferred into the voucher
program between 2006–07 and 2008–09, and compared them to students who transferred to other public schools in those years. It turned out that there was no difference in how transferring students affected racial integration
either at their original school or at their new school.4 Also in Milwaukee, racial demographics were studied in Milwaukee private schools between 1994–95 and 1998–99, as the Milwaukee voucher was being expanded. The

the voucher program “contributed to a noticeable increase in racial and ethnic balance in private
authors found

school,” while having “no major impact on overall racial and ethnic balance in the Milwaukee Public Schools.” The authors also found, between 1994–95 and 1998–99, the private school
percent-minority rose to 35.7 percent from 27.4 percent, while the percent-white dropped to 64.3
percent from 72.6 percent. Without the expansion of the voucher program, private schools would have
had more whites and fewer minorities (based on the assumption that all of the voucher recipients would have remained in public schools absent the voucher program). Moreover, a
higher proportion of minority students in Milwaukee Public Schools (54.4 percent) were in racially isolated schools (compared to 38 percent of Catholic school students and 49.8 percent of all private school students).5 The authors
of that report followed up with a study that included Milwaukee data from the 1999–2000 school year. The analysis, using data from 86 of 91 participating private schools, as well as every public school, reached similar conclusions:

42.9 percent of voucher students were in racially isolated schools, compared to 50.3 percent of public
school students. The number of students in religious schools that were racially isolated was even lower:
30.1 percent.6 A similar study found 49.8 percent of voucher students were at racially isolated schools compared to 54.4 percent of public school students.7 Also in Milwaukee, an analysis was conducted comparing
private schools to public schools and how well they mirrored the racial proportion of the metropolitan area as a whole. The author found “private schools participating in

Milwaukee’s voucher program were less segregated than Milwaukee Public Schools, with the difference
equal to about 13 points on the segregation index.”8 In Cleveland, public and voucher schools’ racial demographics were compared to the metropolitan area. It was found
that the area’s public schools were highly segregated—fully 60.7 percent of public students attended schools that were virtually all white or all black.9 To be sure, about 50 percent of voucher students also attended such schools,
but only “5.2 percent of public school students in the metropolitan area attend schools that have a racial composition that is within 10 percent of the average racial composition,” compared to 19 percent of voucher students.10
The author concluded that “despite court orders and political pressure to improve integration in the public schools, the Cleveland Scholarship Program offers families a better opportunity for a racially integrated school

private schools participating in Cleveland’s voucher program

experience.”11 In further analyzing segregation patterns in Cleveland, one author found “

were 18 points less segregated, on average, than Cleveland public schools on the segregation index, which
compares the racial composition of schools to the racial composition of school-age children in the greater metropolitan area.”12
School choice achieves integration and closes opportunity and achievement gaps —
aff authors are wrong.
D’Amato 17 — David S. D’Amato, Adjunct Professor of Law at DePaul University, Member of the
Board of Policy Advisors at the Heartland Institute and the Future of Freedom Foundation, holds a J.D.
from New England Law | Boston and an L.L.M. from Suffolk University Law School, 2017 (“Integrating
schools by expanding choice,” The Hill, March 20th, Available Online at http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-
blog/education/324886-integrating-schools-by-expanding-choice, Accessed 06-19-2017)

Last spring, a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office revealed several disturbing,
interrelated trends in U.S. public education. The GAO found that racial segregation is growing in
America’s public schools and that the color divide predictably tracks another, the troubling
concentration of poor students in these schools.

The GAO’s findings, based on a survey of data from the 2000-2001 to 2013-2014 school years, show that
schools that “had high percentages of poor and Black or Hispanic students grew from 9 to 16 percent.”
And these schools are “the most racially and economically concentrated” overall, with 75 to 100 percent
of students being either black or Hispanic and eligible for free or reduced-price lunches.

In the ‘60s and ‘70s, following the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education,
schools steadily desegregated, the plans often compelled and overseen by the courts.

But American public schools have seen a recrudescence of racial segregation since the ‘80s, even as
other social institutions and areas of life have become more integrated. In a report for EdChoice,
economist Benjamin Scafidi suggests that this increased race and class segregation may be the result of
“growing programmatic homogenization” in American public schools.

As public schools across the country grow more alike, students sort by race and class rather than
according to interest or school specialization, which has effectively been precluded.

A large and growing body of evidence suggests that introducing more choice and autonomy for parents
would help to reverse the harmful resegregation trend of the last few decades.

In assigning students to their schools based on their physical addresses, the government education
system reinforces ethnic, social, and economic homogeneity — and thus segregation — as a matter of
course. Among the most powerful and obvious arguments for school choice is that it breaks this cruel
pattern, allowing parents and their children an escape from the underperforming, indeed second-class,
schools to which American society has relegated poor and minority students.

School choice options (for example, voucher programs) allow students from low-income homes, often in
predominantly-minority urban communities, to attend better public schools in the suburbs or even
private schools that would otherwise have been too expensive.

The relationship between race issues and the cluster of discrete policies grouped together under the
term “school choice” has long been a source of controversy. Such choice-expanding policies have
followed a wide range of plans, and the desegregation impact of school choice will naturally depend on
the design of the particular program under consideration.
Considered as a whole, the empirical evidence on school choice programs recommends them as a
potent remedy to the problem of segregation. In fact, school choice policies are doubly beneficial,
providing students in the worst schools better alternatives and furthering integration in some of the
most racially segregated areas of the country.

Indeed, as a two-part installment of NPR’s This American Life titled “The Problem We All Live With”
illuminated, some critics of school choice oppose is precisely because it integrates schools; the series
highlighted a Missouri town hall meeting in which several parents express their disapproval of a school
choice policy that allowed students from a mostly-black neighboring district with failing schools to opt
for a different school. It’s easy to explain how school choice policies promote school desegregation; they
break the connection between location on a map and assigned school, a connection that has
systematically disadvantaged students of color.

As reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones observed on This American Life, “In most of the thousands of poor,
segregated schools in America, that would be it. Your zip code is the anchor that traps you.”

School choice stands to benefit these poor, minority students far more than advantaged students, those
from more affluent communities whose parents already have choices and whose public schools tend to
meet or exceed standards.

In 2013, education scholar Greg Forster surveyed the findings of eight studies on the racial integration
effects of school choice — specifically, means-tested voucher programs — in Cleveland, Milwaukee, and
Washington, DC.

In seven of the eight, voucher programs that allowed parents to send their children to private schools
were shown to increase racial integration. These findings stand to reason. Because public school
segregation tends to coincide with geographical segregation, private schools — unbound to a fixed
locale — tend to be more integrated.

All of this is to say nothing of the myriad other benefits of school choice. As mechanisms for achieving
accountability and strong student performance, choice and competition have been proven themselves
more effective than either further centralizing testing and curriculum standards or throwing more
money at the problem. Human capital and institutional culture are far more important to successful K-
12 education than is the number of dollars spent per student. And as in any other human enterprise,
accountability requires choice, options from which an individual may freely choose.

Comparisons, to be relevant and actionable from a policy perspective, must be made between the
known facts about school choice and the public education status quo as it actually exists and has
existed. It is idle to compare school choice to a counterfactual version of government-monopoly
education in which segregation has not steadily increased for more than thirty years.

At the very least, expanding the range of options available to underprivileged parents and their children,
minorities in particular, compares quite favorably to the broken status quo. Choice and competition are
inherently disruptive to the status quo, and no one is entitled to the continuation of the way things are,
whether it’s the school administrators and union bosses invested in it or the Missouri parent who
believes she’s entitled to a segregated school.
Private schools are more integrated and internally racially mixed
Benjamin Scafidi 2015

(Benjamin Scafidi- director of the Education Economics Center at Kennesaw State, professor of
economics in the Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University, senior fellow with the Georgia
Public Policy Foundation, a think tank in Atlanta. “The Integration Anomaly”
https://www.edchoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/2015-10-The-Integration-Anomaly-WEB.pdf)
mba-alb

Two studies have compared within-school segregation between public and private schools. Both find
private schools are more integrated within the school walls as compared to public schools. First, in a 1998 study, Jay
P. Greene analyzes a national sample of 12th grade classrooms and found that 54 percent of public schools classrooms were racially homogenous,

while only 41 percent of private school classrooms were racially homogenous . Further, private school students

were more likely to be in classrooms with a racial composition similar to the national average—37 percent of private
school students were in classrooms that “looked like America,” while only 18 percent of public school classrooms “looked like America.”36 The second study comes from Jay P. Greene and Nicole Mellow. They visited a random

They report that 64 percent of

sample of public and Catholic school lunchrooms in Austin, TX and San Antonio, TX. They noted to what extent students ate lunch in racially mixed groups.

private school students ate lunch with at least one student of a different race. The corresponding figure
for public school students was 50 percent.

CP solves teacher quality and student performance – provides incentive for improving
school performance.
Keating 15 – Serves as chief economist with the Small Business &Entrepreneurship Council (SBE
Council). Holds an MA in economics from New York University, an MBA in banking and finance from
Hofstra University, and a BS in business administration and economics from St. Joseph’s College
(Raymond J., “School Choice and Economic Growth,” February 2015,
https://www.edchoice.org/research/school-choice-and-economic-growth/, p. 23-25)//sy
Again, that is exactly what should be expected when decisions, including resource allocation and work rules, are governed by special interests and political
pressures, rather than by market signals and disciplines via, for example, prices, profits, losses, competition, and consumer sovereignty in a competitive
marketplace. The overarching emphasis when it comes to schooling is on spending levels, including how much is spent per pupil, on facilities, and on teachers, with
little or no regard for incentives. Economics, however, is at its core all about incentives. For example, if increased spending and
compensation are de-linked from what parents desire and from student performance, then few incentives exist to be concerned about how to create value for
parents and students. Consider the issue of teacher compensation in public education. More than a half-century ago, MiltonFriedman explained
the problem that persists to this very day: With respect to teachers’ salaries, the major problem is not that they are
too low on the average—they may well be too high on the average—but that they are too uniform and rigid. Poor
teachers are grossly overpaid and good teachers grossly underpaid. Salary schedules tend to be uniform and determined far
more by seniority, degrees received, and teaching certificates acquired than by merit…. If one were to seek deliberately to devise a system of

recruiting and paying teachers calculated to repel the imaginative and daring and self-confident and to
attract the dull and mediocre and uninspiring, one could hardly do better than imitate the system of requiring teaching

certificates and enforcing standard salary structures that has developed in the larger city and state-wide systems. It is
perhaps surprising that the level of ability in elementary and secondary school teaching is as high as it is under these circumstances.68 Decades later, Hanushek and
Woessmann noted that teacher
quality has been found to be critical to student performance, but that the
public education system is structured to work against teacher quality: The most consistent finding across a wide range of
investigations is that the quality of the teacher in the classroom is one of the most important attributes of schools. Good teachers, defined in terms of student
learning, are able to move the achievement of their students far ahead of those of poor teachers. Yet
the identification of good teachers has
been complicated by the fact that the simple measures commonly used— such as teacher experience,
teacher education, or even meeting the required standards for certification—are not closely correlated
with actual ability in the classroom.69 More broadly, Hanushek and Woessmann, and a host of others, have
acknowledged the incentive problems in the entire current education system. Hanushek and Woessmann explained:
“Pure resource policies that adopt the existing structure of school operations are unlikely to lead to the necessary improvements in learning…. [T]here is no
relationship between spending and student performance across the sample of middle- and higherincome countries with available data. Investigations within a wide
range of countries, including a variety of developing countries, further support this picture.”70 The problem? Again, it is the incentives at work. Hanushek and
Woessmann sum up: The largest problem in current school policy is the lack of incentives for improved
student performance. Neither students nor school personnel in most countries of the world are significantly
rewarded for high performance. Without such incentives, it is no surprise to find that added resources do not consistently go toward
improvement of student outcomes. Three sets of policies head the list for improving the overall incentives in

schools: strong accountability systems that accurately measure student performance; local autonomy
that allows schools to make appropriate educational choices; and choice and competition in schools so
that parents can enter into determining the incentives that schools face.71 Indeed, true choice and competition would
bring primary and secondary education in the United States in line with the rest of the economy, and with sound economic principles and basic common sense.
Again, Milton Friedman understood this in his early call for school choice, as clearly exemplified in the following three fundamental points: • “Governments

could require a minimum level of schooling financed by giving parents vouchers redeemable for a
specified maximum sum per child per year if spent on ‘approved’ educational services. Parents would then be free
to spend this sum and any additional sum they themselves provided on purchasing educational services from an ‘approved’ institution of their own choice. The
educational services could be rendered by private enterprises operated for profit, or by non-profit institutions. The role of the government
would be limited to insuring that the schools met certain minimum standards, such as the inclusion of a minimum common content in their progra ms,
much as it now inspects restaurants to insure that they maintain minimum sanitary standards.”72 • “ If present public expenditures on

schooling were made available to parents regardless of where they send their children, a wide variety of
schools would spring up to meet the demand. Parents could express their views about schools directly
by withdrawing their children from one school and sending them to another, to a much greater extent than is now possible. In general,
they can now take this step only at considerable cost by sending their children to a private school or by changing their residence. For the rest, they can express their
views only through cumbrous political channels.”73 • “Parents
who choose to send their children to private schools would
be paid a sum equal to the estimated cost of educating a child in a public school, provided that at least this sum was
spent on education in an approved school…. It would permit competition to develop. The development and improvement of all schools
would thus be stimulated. The injection of competition would do much to promote a healthy variety of schools. It would do much, also, to introduce flexibility into
school systems. Not least of its benefits would be to make the salaries of school teachers responsive to market forces. It would thereby give public authorities an
independent standard against which to judge salary scales and promote a more rapid adjustment to changes in conditions of demand and supply.”74 Unsurprisingly,
Friedman’s analysis fits perfectly with how markets work, and how individuals, businesses, and industries respond to market
incentives. There is no reason to expect incentives to work any differently in the field of education. In fact, there’s a glimmer of how it works when it comes to
higher education, whereby even with considerable government involvement, the market provides a wide array of choices for consumers, with choice only
expanding further in recent years, and into the future, with distance/online education options flourishing. Nonetheless, assorted protests are raised to expanding
choice and competition in primary and secondary education, with most springing either from special interests seeking to protect the status quo, or from economic
ignorance. For example, many seem incapable of imagining an education system that is markedly different from what exists now. They doubt Friedman’s point
about choice and competition generating “a healthy variety of schools” and introducing “flexibility into school systems.”
 states
The CP solves for racial integration better---and a focus on socioeconomic status is
critical to improving academic achievement
[Taryn Williams, 3-2-2010, "Outside the Lines: The Case for Socioeconomic Integration in Urban
School Districts," Brigham Young University Education and Law Journal,
https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&https
redir=1&article=1278&context=elj]//Rank

Socioeconomic Integration Improves Racial Integration and Student Performance Because of the ruling in

Parents Involved districts lost tools to , combat racial segregation enact ambitious, comprehensive plans to try to in their schools. So do we stop trying? Do we accept schools that

look like PS 28 in the Bronx and hope that we can close the achievement gap without students on either side of it ever going to school together? The answers must be no, for legal and for pedagogical reasons. By abandoning the idea of integrated schooling and focusing instead on
improving the instruction of children isolated by race and poverty, "education reform is out there trying to make Plessy v. Ferguson work."36 But the idea that children separated across lines of race and class can receive equal educations was dismissed by Chief Justice Warren who wrote
in Brown that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal" and therefore unconstitutional. 37 Data on student performance confirms his intuition. 3H If the hard work of finally realizing the dream of Brown and the American ideal of equal opportunity is to be done, schools

A focus on integration by socioeconomic status, instead of race, offers an

need new strategies for bringing different groups of children together.

opportunity to directly reduce racial isolation, and

in improve student academic achievement. perhaps most importantly,

Socioeconomic school integration decrease racial segregation without triggering the legalcan in schools

complications There remains a persistent correlation between race and poverty

that sunk the Seattle and Louisville plans. , frustrating in the

it is true that the schools that

United States. In 2007, 24.5 percent of blacks and 21.5 percent of Hispanics were poor, compared to only 8.2 percent of non-Hispanic whites. 39 While the correlation varies by region and within regions,

educate the poorest students are also the most racially segregated Intensely segregated schools- usually .

schools that have over 90 percent minority students-are predominantly poor schools than more than four times as likely to be

with schools with over 90 percent white students. Seventy-nine percent of white students go to a school where the majority of students are middle or upper-class. In contrast, 63 percent of black students and 64 percent of Latino students go to schools that are

Given these statistics, plans that bring children of different socioeconomic status together will
predominantly poor.40

also bring children of different races together . Such plans can never reach as precise a racial integration goal as the one attempted by the Seattle School District, for example, but then the Supreme Court

struck down that goal as failing the compelling state interest test.41 Some critics point out that socioeconomic integration cannot increase racial integration in every part of the country. For example, under the plan in Cambridge, Massachusetts, parents indicate preferences for their top
three schools, and district administrators then assign students according to those preferences with a certain percentage of the seats in each school reserved for students eligible for free or reduced price lunch, to reflect the district-wide average.42 A study done by the Boston Globe in
2007 found that while the plan had improved socioeconomic integration, schools were more racially segregated than they were under the previous plan that used racial diversity targets in school assignment. The study found that at some schools, the relative percentages of white, black,
Latino and Asian students have diverged further from the district averages, and white students continue to be the majority at the four schools most popular among parents of incoming white students.43 Although socioeconomic integration may not necessarily produce racial integration

racial isolation significantly coincides with economic isolation

everywhere, in the large urban districts that are the focus of this Article, . It is likely that for ghettoized schools in cities

socioeconomic integration would reduce racial isolation more

like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, And even if than it did in Cambridge.

classbased school integration turns out to be a less precise for achieving racial integration means than some would hope,

socioeconomic integration is worthy goal in its own right because of its likely effects on academic
a

achievement. Per

haps the most important argument for socioeconomic integration is its positive impact on student performance. As Gary Orfield has noted, racially separate schools are not inherently

unequal because "something magical happens to minority students when they sit next to whites," but
because minority schools are so often "isolated high-poverty schools that almost always have low
levels of academic competition, performance, and competition for college or jobs." The most 44

comprehensive studies of class and student performance suggest that what matters more is not the
individual student's socioeconomic status, but the socioeconomic status of the majority of the
student's peers . For example, on the 2005 National Assessment of Education Progress exam (often called "the Nation's Report Card") given to fourth-graders in math, low-income students attending more affluent schools scored on average twenty points higher

when students whose families are low-income are

than low-income students in high-poverty schools. That twenty-point gap translates into two grade levels worth of learning. 45 Indeed,
given a chance to go to a predominantly middle-class school, they even outperform middle-class
students in high-poverty schools by half a grade , on average.46 The school environment, not the child's family's socioeconomic status, is what matters most to academic achievement. Researchers
believe this to be the case because schools with predominantly middle-class students have better-qualified and better-paid teachers, more parent involvement, and higher expectations for their students, and those characteristics create a learning environment that promotes the
academic success of all the students in the school. 47 Notably, in integrated schools these improvements in the academic ac hievement of lowincome students do not translate into decreased performance of middle-class students. Research suggests that so long as there remains a critical
mass of middle-class students in a school, integration does not negatively affect their achievement. 4R That has been the case in Wake County, North Carolina, described in Part I.C, which has used socioeconomic integration to achieve the twin objectives of racial integration and improved
student academic achievement. There are reasons in addition to academic achievement why students from different backgrounds should sit together in American classrooms. Racial integration i n public schools exposes children to peers with different backgrounds and prepares them to

The parents, students, and lawyers that

participate in a multicultural society. But since the Supreme Court has made pursuit of that goal constitutionally suspect, socioeconomic integration is the next best thing.

fought for desegregation in the twentieth century were fighting for better-not just more racially
integrated-schools. They sought quality educational opportunities that would allow children of color
to access experiences and institutions previously foreclosed to the extent socioeconomic school to them. Therefore,

integration can improve the academic fortunes of minority students and narrow the achievement gap,
as data suggests it can, it is a worthy heir to the Brown legacy .
 Case

Psychic violence turn

Dumas & Ross 16. Michael J. Dumas is an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley
in the Graduate School of Education and the African American Studies Department. He earned a Ph.D. in
Urban Education with an emphasis in social and educational policy studies from The Graduate Center of
the City University of New York. His research sits at the intersection(s) of the cultural politics of Black
education, the cultural political economy of urban education, and the futurity of Black childhood(s).
Kihana Miraya Ross is a PhD candidate in the Social and Cultural Studies program in the School of
Education at University of California, Berkeley. Her program of research explores the experiences of
black students in a variety of formal educational settings with a focus on racialization, anti-blackness,
and resistance in urban schools. “Be Real Black for Me”: Imagining BlackCrit in Education”, Urban
Education. 51(4) 415-442. DOI: 10.1177/0042085916628611

School Desegregation: On Carelessly Moving Black Bodies Around School desegregation research tends to assess effectiveness
in terms of legal victories and policy compliance, the willingness of Whites to participate in busing
programs rather than flee public schools, and the extent to which desegregation contributes to cross-
cultural learning and the reduction of prejudice (Orfield & Eaton, 1996; Orfield & Lee, 2004; Wells, 1995; Wells, Duran, & White, 2008).
CRT scholars have rightly criticized school desegregation policies, and the aims of integration more broadly, as efforts which have done

more to maintain White material advantage than extend opportunities for Black children (Dumas, 2011, 2014,
2015; Horsford, Sampson, & Forletta, 2013; Ladson-Billings, 1998; Tillman, 2004). White resistance to school desegregation has always

been fierce, and opponents have used the courts and the legislative process to undermine integration altogether,
or implement policies that provide special educational benefits for White chil- dren, and create more
segregated spaces within and across schools, in which White children will not have to be in the same
classrooms as Black children. Perhaps most significantly for BlackCrit, critical race theorists have also called
attention to the myriad ways that school desegregation has been deleterious to the stability of Black
communities and families, the development of healthy Black racial identities, and the emotional and
social well-being of Black children placed at risk in what Ladson-Billings (2014) has called “a deal with the devil.” Derrick Bell (2004) in reflecting
critically on his own experience championing school desegregation, notes the damage done to Black children: In these white schools, black children all too often met
naked race-hatred and a curriculum blind to their needs. Black parents, who often lived far from the schools where their children were sent, had no input into the
school policies and little opportunity to involve themselves in school life. (p. 112) BlackCrit
follows CRT in interrogating the White
supremacy inherent in the formation of, and White resistance to, school desegregation, and embraces
CRT’s reliance on the lived experiences of Black children, parents, and com- munities as counterstories
to the liberal hegemonic frame used in assessing the effectiveness of integration policies and practices.
Where BlackCrit goes further is in analyzing the specific formations of antiblackness that serve as the

foundation for opposition to school desegregation, but which are also embedded in various attempts to implement policies intended
to bring racial balance. For example, to convince White families to send their children to predominantly Black schools, district leaders often placed attractive
magnet programs in these schools, which had often been long deprived of resources. Although these specialized programs were ostensibly open to all students, the
overwhelming number of spaces were occupied by White students. The very fact that such programs were not offered to Black students prior to integration is a
clear case of disregard for Black bodies, and is informed by a deep belief that Black people are undeserving of strong academic programs, and worse, simply would
not have the capacity to succeed in more rigorous courses of study. The
antiblackness is only compounded when Black
students—children all—had to endure seeing their White peers offered higher status and greater
resources in schools that had historically been places of Black pride and community uplift.
Local resistance takes out the aff
Vergari 12 --- associate professor in Education at State University of New York (Sandra Vergari, “The
Limits of Federal Activism in Education Policy”, Education Policy. Accessed through Sage Journals)//ET

Policies often change during implementation. This is due to practices and political demands of policy
Policy Implementation

implementers and responses from policy makers and administrators who rely on others to implement policies (Fuhrman, 2004; Mazmanian & Sabatier, 1983; McLaughlin,
1987). The federal government relies on states and localities to implement federal education policy. Across federal
policies, state administrative discretion exists along a continuum of almost no discretion to substantial freedom. Federal programs such as Social Security disability benefits reflect a strong preference for uniform implementation.

Federal education policy

States enjoy more freedom when implementing other programs so long as they comply with basic features of the enabling legislation and regulations (Nugent, 2009).

implementation is shaped by interests and capacities of agencies and administrators at all three levels
of government. The federal government has often lacked both capacity and will to enforce its education
policies fully. Although the federal role in education has expanded, staffing at the U.S. Department of
Education has not.2 In cases where states and districts are not complying with federal regulations, it may
be difficult morally and politically for the federal government to withhold funds since doing so may
impact innocent students. The extent to which states and school districts implement federal education policy in a
robust manner also varies according to their political interests and technical capacities. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001
(NCLB) has emphasized changing not only state policies but also relationships between states and school districts. In relying on states to influence districts and

schools, NCLB reflects an assumption of “far more powerful and competent state education governance
than exists” (Fuhrman, 2004, p. 145). Weak implementation in a given state may be due to lack of will, inadequate
capacity, or both. If state agencies are not effective implementers of federal policy it is difficult for school districts to “get it right” (Cross, 2004, p. 154). As experienced implementers of federal education
policy, state and local officials have special claims to knowledge about the strengths and weaknesses of a given policy. These circumstances make it difficult for federal officials to ignore state assertions about a policy and give
states power in their interactions with the federal government (Nugent, 2009). In the case of NCLB, state and local officials engaged in aggressive lobbying of the federal government. States offered vigorous resistance to threats to
their legal, fiscal, and administrative interests during the initial implementation of NCLB. Yet the federal government needed state and local cooperation to implement NCLB effectively. Thus, state and local resistance to various
components of NCLB provided leverage in securing bargains and waivers from the federal government (Dinan, 2008; Nugent, 2009; Shelly, 2008). The preceding discussion leads to the following claims: (a) implementation of federal
education policy requires state and local cooperation, (b) a state may lack will and/or capacity to hold its school districts accountable for robust policy implementation, (c) in the face of federal threats to state fiscal and
administrative interests, states act to protect their interests, (d) when states do not like a federal policy but want the attached funding, they may do the minimum necessary for compliance, (e) state and local experience and
knowledge pertaining to education policy provide bargaining power in negotiations with the federal government, and (f) states are not at the mercy of the federal government and can often change the original shape of federal
education policy during implementation. Next, I examine recent cases of education policy implementation that support these claims. State and Local Responses to Federal Activism Today’s Cabinet-level U.S. Department of
Education (ED) is just over three decades old. A product of heated political struggle, ED was created by Public Law 96-88 in 1979 and opened its doors in 1980.3 Congress recognized state legal interests and concerns about the new
department by including several provisions in Public Law 96-88. The law declared congressional intention “to protect the rights of State and local governments . . .” and that establishment of the new department “shall not increase
the authority of the Federal Government over education or diminish the responsibility for education which is reserved to the States and the local school systems and other instrumentalities of the States.” The law also prohibited
the U.S. education secretary and other ED officials from exercising “any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school, or school
system . . .” (Pub. L. 96-88, § 103).4 Controversy over the balance of governmental power over education policy during the struggle to establish the Cabinet-level ED has endured to the present day. The Goals 2000: Educate
America Act of 1994, Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994, and NCLB each include sections specifying limits on federal power.5 No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 Both individually and collectively, states and localities have taken
various steps to protect their perceived interests under NCLB. A great deal of action occurred in 2005.6 For example, the National Conference of State Legislatures 20 Educational Policy 26(1) (2005) raised questions about the
constitutionality of NCLB; and, Utah adopted a law permitting state officials to give priority to state academic standards over federal ones and to avoid implementing NCLB provisions that cost the state money.7 The first case fits
Nugent’s category of a universal state interest and the collective action focused on protecting states’ legal authority. The Utah case is an example of a state acting individually to protect its administrative and fiscal interests.
Additional events in 2005 included two federal lawsuits over NCLB implementation and costs. A suit brought by the State of Connecticut challenged NCLB’s testing requirements and alleged costs to the state. The plaintiffs lost as
the case made its way though the federal court system. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld dismissal of Connecticut v. Duncan in 2010 and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case in 2011. However,

the appeals court also indicated that the state could pursue some of its claims through the venue of
administrative proceedings.8 The second lawsuit was filed by the National Education Association (NEA), nine
school districts in three states, and NEA affiliates in 10 states. The plaintiffs argued that the U.S. education secretary was violating an alleged

prohibition on unfunded mandates in NCLB by requiring states and school districts to comply with NCLB
mandates in the absence of sufficient federal funding to pay for the compliance. The plaintiffs lost as the case made its way through
the federal court system and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case in 2010.9 States and localities have been more successful at protecting

their fiscal and administrative interests by exploiting NCLB loopholes and securing NCLB waivers and
bargains from ED.10 Indeed, NCLB shifted from a policy ‘‘imposed equally on all jurisdictions to one
dependent on what each state could negotiate with the federal administration’’ (Wong & Sunderman, 2007, p. 345). Education
Secretary Margaret Spellings granted NCLB waivers during her tenure in the George W. Bush Administration and Education Secretary Arne Duncan stepped up the pace when he approved 315 NCLB waivers in 2009.11 Below, I
discuss several examples of NCLB loopholes, waivers, and consequences. NCLB allows states to determine how large a student subgroup must be to have student test scores count toward Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)
calculations for a school. Although some states set low thresholds, others set high ones.12 In addition, more than 50% of the states ignored NCLB guidelines for identifying “persistently dangerous” schools in 2006-2007, resulting in

only 46 of the nation’s 97,000 public schools identified as such under NCLB (U.S. Vergari 21 Department of Education, 2007). In these cases, state power shaped federal education policy during implementation. States
have also used disparate methods of calculating student proficiency under NCLB. In 2005, all 50 state governors pledged to voluntarily use a
common method for calculating high school graduation rates. Four years later, only 20 states were using the method (National Governors Association, 2005, 2009). In 2008, the federal government issued new NCLB regulations that

states must also

are similar to components of the governors’ 2005 pledge, including a requirement that states calculate the percentage of students graduating within 4 years of entering high school. The

establish long-term statewide goals for graduation rates and hold schools accountable for meeting
annual targets “that reflect continuous and substantial improvement from the prior year toward meeting or exceeding the State’s graduation rate goal” (Office of the Federal Register 2008, p. 64437).
However, the states, not the federal government, establish their respective goals and targets. The extent to which states will set and uphold rigorous
targets remains to be seen.13 A recent analysis of student proficiency standards found substantial variation in the levels

of achievement that states set for proficient performance. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also called “the Nation’s Report Card,” is
sponsored by the U.S. Government. The National Center for Education Statistics (2009a) compared each state’s proficiency standards to those of NAEP for fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math. The study compared state
minimum scores for determining student proficiency with cut-points for NAEP “Proficient” and “Basic” categories.14 In 31 states, proficiency standards for fourth-grade reading were lower than the “Basic” level on NAEP and eight

analyses indicated that “students of similar academic

states had proficiency standards for eighth grade math that were lower than the NAEP “Basic” standard. The

skills, but residing in different states, are being evaluated against different standards for proficiency” (National
Center for Education Statistics, 2009a, p. 47). Although the avowed federal policy intent has been to leave no child behind in the quest for excellence in education, the proficiency standards set by many states conflict with that

supplemental educational services (SES) provision of NCLB requires school districts with lagging student
federal objective. The

performance to use some of their Title 1 funds to offer free tutoring (delivered by public and private providers) to eligible students. District
commitment to robust implementation of SES has been uneven across the nation. Some school districts
have approached the 22 Educational Policy 26(1) policy by doing what is minimally necessary for compliance and
refraining from enthusiastically encouraging student participation. In 2005, several school districts
identified as “in need of improvement” under NCLB and, thus, originally ineligible to offer SES programs
themselves, pushed for and won agreements from the U.S. education secretary that permitted them to
offer SES programs.15 These agreements demonstrated the “political power of some districts and federal
propensity to engage in bargaining during policy implementation” (Vergari, 2007, p. 331). In 2009, ED granted 28 waivers allowing states to approve
schools or school districts designated as “in need of improvement” to offer SES (U.S. Department of Education, 2010d). These waivers are evidence of state power to reshape NCLB during policy implementation. Under NCLB, states
are supposed to ensure that all students are proficient in reading and math by 2014 by setting and meeting annual proficiency targets for achieving that outcome. By 2011, states were struggling to meet their targets and, as of
June, officials in Montana, Idaho, and South Dakota had informed ED that they would not be implementing scheduled increases in their respective proficiency targets—a violation of NCLB. With reauthorization of NCLB long
overdue and uncertain in mid-2011, Duncan signaled his intention to grant states more flexibility via his NCLB waiver authority. The states are likely to engage in collective action to advance their universal interests in securing
greater flexibility on school accountability matters. Race to the Top Program Race to the Top (RTT) is a US$4 billion federal competitive grant program first authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. It is
the largest competitive education grant program in U.S. history. The program is intended to encourage and reward states that have demonstrated success in raising student achievement and have ambitious plans in four reform
areas.16 During two competition phases in 2010, a total of 11 states and the District of Columbia won RTT awards. States were eligible for US$20 million to US$700 million.17 Four states (Texas, Alaska, Vermont, and North Dakota)
did not apply in either phase; six states did not apply in Phase 1 but did so in Phase 2, and nine states applied in Phase 1 but not in Phase 2.18 It is uncommon for states to forgo the opportunity to secure tens or hundreds of
millions of federal education dollars. Below, I discuss several states that chose not to participate. Vergari 23 Texas had recently adopted new state curriculum standards and the Office of Governor Rick Perry explained that a Texas
RTT application would be penalized by ED “for refusing to commit to adopting national curriculum standards and tests or incurring related ongoing costs” (Office of the Governor, 2010a, p. 1). The Office asserted that ED was trying
to “coerce” states such as Texas to abandon locally established standards in favor of centralized standards advocated by organizations in Washington, DC. Although Texas stood to gain US$700 million in RTT funds, it would
reportedly cost about US$3 billion to realign its education system to conform to ED’s “uniform vision for public education” (Office of the Governor, 2010a, 2010b, p. 2). In Alaska, the education commissioner expressed concerns
similar to those in Texas. He characterized RTT as inflexible and urban centric; he also noted that qualifying for a RTT award would require the state to give up some of its autonomy by adopting substantial education policy changes
(Hsieh, 2010). Vermont officials asserted that RTT is better suited to urban, underperforming schools than rural states with high-performing schools. The state education commissioner noted that RTT requires states to link teacher
pay to student performance and support charter schools. Such initiatives would have required policy changes in Vermont and state officials preferred to focus on other initiatives they deemed best for Vermont (Rathke, 2010;
Weiss-Tisman, 2010). In North Dakota, an education improvement commission composed of lawmakers, public administrators, educators, and representatives of professional and business groups recommended that the state not
apply for a RTT grant. State officials expressed concerns similar to those in Vermont. North Dakota also does not have charter schools or policy linking teacher pay to student performance (Weiss, 2010). In the Texas case, state
officials sought to protect the state’s fiscal and administrative interests by rejecting RTT. Alaska, Vermont, and North Dakota officials shared categorical interests in rural education that they found underemphasized in RTT; they
rejected the program as being incongruent with their respective state priorities and administrative interests. Elsewhere, some states chose not to file a Phase 2 RTT application after receiving federal reviews of their Phase 1
applications and experiencing unresolved internal political tensions. Virginia did not submit a Phase 2 application as the governor and other officials opposed inclusion of state adoption of common core academic standards in the
RTT application guidelines (McDonnell, 2010). Indiana did not submit a Phase 2 application 24 Educational Policy 26(1) following clashes between the chief state school officer and the state’s largest teachers union (Bennett, 2010;
Indiana Department of Education, 2010; Schnellenberger, 2010a, 2010b). In 2011, Congress provided an additional US$700 million for RTT. The Department of Education planned to use US$500 million for a new RTT Early Learning
Challenge with the remaining US$200 million designated for RTT grants ranging from US$10 million to US$50 million. Given the much smaller grants than in the first two RTT phases, ED planned to require a more limited scope of
work from state applicants. Moreover, eligibility for the US$200 million was limited to nine finalist states that did not win RTT awards in 2010. Acting to defend a universal state interest, the National Governors Association
expressed concerns about how the federal government quickly rolled out the 2011 RTT programs without first securing input from governors (McNeil, 2011). One of the nine finalists, South Carolina, indicated that it would not be
applying for the new RTT funds. The state’s new education superintendent, Mick Zais, took office in 2011 along with a new governor. Zais asserted that the first two phases of RTT “were not competitive grant programs; they were
top-down directives forcing states to adopt programs favored by Washington” (Zais, 2011, p. 1). He also characterized RTT as a “quick, one-time cash infusion” to states whereby, once the grants are spent, states will be left to pay

Just as the
for programs initiated to meet RTT requirements. Thus, South Carolina officials rejected RTT as being against the state’s fiscal and administrative interests. State-Local Relations and Race to the Top

federal government faces obstacles in securing robust cooperation from states, states can encounter
local reluctance to support state policies that are aligned with federal requirements. In some of the
states that won RTT awards, some local schools and districts originally set to participate in the program
dropped out, forgoing their share of RTT funds. For example, by December 2010, 50 of the 538 original local participants in Ohio had dropped out; in Massachusetts, 19 of 276
original participants had opted out; and, three of 65 original participants in Florida had cancelled. District leaders cited implementation costs in time, work,

and money as reasons for dropping out. Reaching state and local agreement on teacher pay-for-student-
performance plans was also a challenge in some jurisdictions (Bowie, 2010; Cavanagh, 2010). A network of charter schools in Albany, New York declined RTT
funds in opposition to state mandates attached to “some token Race to the Top dollars” (Carroll, 2010, p. 1). Vergari 25 It remains to be seen how far ED will let states diverge from their original RTT plans without facing any federal

penalties. States were successful in protecting their perceived interests under prior federal education laws
including Goals 2000, the Improving America’s Schools Act, and NCLB.19 Based on this historical pattern and the facets of state power identified

in this study, there are likely to be significant differences between what states originally pledged to
secure RTT funds and what actually happens. Similar to NCLB, RTT as originally designed is likely to be altered during implementation due to states leveraging their power and ED
engaging in bargains with the states. By July 2011, all of the 12 RTT awardees had submitted amendments to their RTT plans and ED had approved a total of 30 amendments across the 11 states and DC. Many of the amendments
alter implementation time frames pledged in the original RTT applications, suggesting state success in protecting perceived administrative interests. An amendment approved for New York included more extensive changes across
17 different items including some changes in spending plans, and an amendment approved for Delaware altered the state’s original teacher evaluation plan (U.S. Department of Education, 2011b). The ED-approved changes to the
RTT applications of New York and Delaware, in particular, are indications of state power during policy implementation.

redistricting increases segregation, inequality, and destroys communities

Penn 2014– Daphne Penn –Ph.D. candidate in Education at Harvard University. Her research interests
include Social Stratification, Sociology of Education and Urban Poverty. She was a 2013 Center for
Poverty Research Visiting Graduate Scholar. 9-10—14(“School Closures and Redistricting Can Reproduce
Educational Inequality” https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/policy-brief/school-closures-and-redistricting-can-
reproduce-educational-inequality) mba-alb

In recent years, inner-city school districts have worked to balance budgets despite funding cuts and unpredictable enrollment due to
demographic changes. While redistricting—the process of changing school boundaries, closing and/or consolidating schools—can effectively address budget and enrollment problems, it can

disproportionally affect disadvantaged students and families. In a new study supported in part by the Center for Poverty Research I have found that
redistricting can increase educational inequality, increase segregation within schools and hurt already
disadvantaged students and communities. Key Facts Within the context of this study, disadvantaged parents, schools and
neighborhoods faced higher financial and opportunity costs after school redistricting. Districts could potentially solve utilization
issues by attracting middle-class families who are open to inner-city schools. It is essential that district officials work to ensure that minority and

low-income students, families, communities and schools do not bear the brunt of redistricting outcomes.
The gentrification of inner-cities across the U.S. has increased the chance for public schools to become more racially and socioeconomically diverse.[1] Studies have indicated that school diversity has modest but positive effects on
African-American student achievement, especially among high-achieving students.[2] Additionally, school diversity is positively associated with increased desire and preparedness to interact with individuals from different racial

Combined with cuts to

backgrounds.[3] Despite rapidly changing demographics in gentrifying neighborhoods and the positive outcomes associated with diversity, schools remain largely segregated.

school funding, lower rates of enrollment and utilization—due to gentrification and parents choosing to
avoid minority concentrated schools—often result in school closures. These closures disproportionately
impact black and lower-income students, families and neighborhoods. Students from these schools are sent to schools either far away from home,
less diverse or lower performing. Redistricting Students This study explored a redistricting process with qualitative

interviews of 25 parents whose children were ultimately required to change schools. The district is in a major metropolitan city
that has undergone major demographic changes over the past 20 years. This study focused on one of five geographically defined clusters within the district. Enrollments in six of the 14 predominantly black schools within the

The most contentious redistricting option would

cluster were under capacity, while the four predominantly white schools within the cluster were near- or over-capacity.

have merged over- and under-capacity schools and re-zoned some white students from affluent families
to a closer, predominantly black middle school. This option was favored by African-American parents wanting to save their neighborhood schools, and also by a small group of
white, middle-class gentry parents already utilizing the predominantly black neighborhood schools. This could have increased racial and socioeconomic

diversity within a core group of schools. After hosting multiple public forums, the district decided to close two of the predominantly black elementary schools and to rezone
students to other Title I elementary schools in the district. Options included other predominantly black schools within the district, but, according to the interviewees, that list did not include the higher performing predominantly

The predominantly black middle schools remained underutilized, leaving the four
black or white schools.

predominantly white schools near- or over-capacity. District Numbers Number of Schools in the District: 103 District-wide Utilization: 78% Number of Public Schools in
Cluster: 18 Title I Schools in the Cluster: 15 District Population by Race: Black 77%, White 15%, Hispanic 4%, Asian 1% Schools Closed: 8 (District) 2 (Cluster) Total Money Saved: $3.5 million Est. Loss in After-School Funding:

the redistricting increased racial and

$700,000 Impact on Disadvantaged Families While merging schools would have solved capacity issues and increased diversity,

socioeconomic segregation in schools with high concentrations of disadvantaged students. Additionally, many
minority and low-income students were zoned out of diverse, academically competitive feeder schools
into lower-performing, less-diverse schools. Many disadvantaged parents felt that the redistricting
placed an undue burden on their families. Parents whose main mode of transportation was either
walking or the bus system expressed concern about their future ability to reach their child’s school in
the event of an emergency. For one parent, the commute went from a seven-minute walk to a 45-minute bus ride or expensive cab ride. Many parents felt the
increased commute would also prevent them from being actively involved at the school, or from
enrolling their children in after-school activities. Impact on Low-income Communities When asked about how the redistricting impacted their community, parents
from disadvantaged backgrounds described the void that closed schools left behind. They described how
neighborhood schools served as recreational and meeting facilities with programs to benefit the
entire community. One closing resulted in the loss of a $700,000 grant to fund an after-school program
for disadvantaged students that was slated to offer GED-preparation classes and parenting workshops. White middle-class parents, who were open to predominantly black schools with at least a 30
percent white middle-class population, expressed concern that the closures would negatively impact their neighborhood’s ability to attract other middle-class families with young children. After the closures,

many of these parents enrolled their children in charter schools. Redistricting discouraged pro-public
school gentry parents from investing time and resources into district schools because they felt that
their diverse neighborhoods would always get the “short end of the stick.” Making Local Schools Attractive to All As school funding and
enrollment continue to fluctuate, districts across the country will be confronted with potentially closing or reconstituting schools. Districts might solve enrollment and underutilization issues by making schools more attractive to
middle-class families who are zoned for, but often opt-out of, neighborhood schools. In this study, white middle-class parents were very receptive to neighborhood public schools but were hesitant because of the perceived lack of
district investment in inner-city schools. Until school districts find a way to increase enrollment among zoned students, it is essential that district officials work to ensure that minority and low-income students, families,
communities and schools do not bear the brunt of redistricting outcomes.
1nr
 Da
They increase burdens and compliance in unrelated ares – schools and administrators
become scared of the same threats
Melissa Junge and Sheara Krvaric 11, attorneys and cofounders of Federal Education Group PLLC, an
education law and consulting firm in Washington, DC., 7-28-2011, "Federal compliance works against
education policy goals," AEI, https://www.aei.org/publication/federal-compliance-works-against-
education-policy-goals/

Key points in this Outlook: Federal fiscal compliance rules can stifle innovation and hinder federal education
programs from achieving their goals. States have authority and responsibility over how federal education
programs are implemented and must repay federal money if districts spend funds incorrectly; thus,
states often impose more restrictive rules than federal law requires. Congress and education policymakers should clarify
and streamline these compliance requirements so schools can focus less on compliance and more on raising student achievement. Policymakers’

discussions of “regulatory reform” often overlook fiscal and administrative compliance requirements
that impact the day-to-day implementation of federal programs. This happens for two reasons. First,
these compliance rules, by themselves, appear to be far removed from traditional education policy
discussions, until one considers how they stifle effective programs. Second, states and districts are
reluctant to raise questions or concerns about these requirements because they do not want to bring
additional scrutiny to themselves. In this environment, it is critical for federal policymakers and education
advocates to closely examine compliance rules and understand how they unintentionally hinder good
program implementation. In this Outlook, we provide examples of how the current compliance framework is often disconnected from larger federal
policy goals and–perhaps more importantly–can get in the way of states and districts trying to implement solutions that would lead to improved educational
outcomes. What Rules Apply? The Burdens of a Multilayered Compliance Structure Most major federal education programs are “state-administered programs,” in
which the state is legally responsible for ensuring that school districts receiving federal funds comply with federal requirements. The state has a very
important role, if not the primary role, in implementing federal education policies. Under federal
regulations, states may layer additional compliance requirements on top of federal requirements, if
they believe this will increase the likelihood of compliance. Adding to this complexity, while the US
Department of Education (ED) publishes guidance, including general information about how federal law
can be implemented, states have the authority to take a different approach in certain circumstances.
This multilayered approach, while useful in protecting the state’s important role in these programs,
creates confusion about how federal funds can be spent, which leads to increased burdens for both
states and districts. For example, in a state-administered grant program such as Title I or the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), ED
awards funds to a state, typically through the state department of education, which is then responsible for allocating funds to school districts. Under this

structure, the state has wide-reaching authority and responsibility over how federal education programs
are implemented[1] and is legally responsible for ensuring that school districts comply with all federal
requirements.[2] This grants states the authority to impose additional rules on districts on top of what federal law requires–including the authority to
restrict how districts use federal funds, even for things otherwise permissible under federal law. In other words, federal law sets the “floor” of what can be done
with program funds, but states have the authority to be more restrictive. This multilayered approach to compliance makes it challenging for state and local leaders
to determine how federal funds can be spent in their state. For example, ED issues guidance to explain the federal statutes and regulations that govern federal
education programs. This helps states, districts, schools, and their auditors understand what generally can and cannot be done with funds in a given federal
program, but it is not legally binding like a law or regulation. While federal guidance reflects ED’s current thinking about a program, it is only a starting point for
determining how a specific state, district, or school can spend federal money. This is because ED’s guidance does not reflect any additional requirements states may
choose to impose on their districts. Legally, once a state imposes a rule on a federal program, even if the rule is more stringent than federal law, school districts are
legally bound to follow the rule as a condition of receiving federal funds from the state. Thus, what is permitted under federal law or encouraged by ED’s guidance
may not be permitted in a particular state. Similarly, what is permitted in one state may not be in another. This creates substantial variability in the way federal
programs are implemented across the country. Layering multiple levels of rules onto federal programs also makes it hard for state, district, and school leaders to
tease out: What is actually required by federal law; Whether more stringent state-level policies regarding how federal
funds can be spent are intentional, or whether they reflect historical administrative practices, or even
occasionally a misunderstanding of federal requirements; and Whether and how federal funds could be
deployed in a different or more effective way. This presents a variety of challenges for those responsible
for implementing federal education programs at the state, district, and school levels. For example, states face the
challenge of unraveling what rules apply when. The parameters of federal legal requirements can be unclear; additionally, ED and states have latitude to interpret
the meaning of the statutory requirements in certain circumstances. Thus, states encounter situations where a rule is applied one way in one federal education
program but differently in another, or where the same rule is applied differently by different federal oversight entities. In some cases, ED gives different advice on
the same compliance rule when providing technical assistance to states. In an environment where standards vary, states may feel
compelled to “lock down” federal funds to minimize exposure to noncompliance findings and may
inadvertently impose more restrictive rules than federal law requires. This is because states are legally responsible for
repaying money in a state-administered program if a district spends funds incorrectly. The confusion regarding the baseline federal

requirements makes it challenging for state education leaders to reduce state-imposed red tape on
federal funds, or to use federal funds to implement innovative programs. Districts face a different set
of challenges. While districts are responsible for providing educational services to students, they often
have the least authority in determining how federal funds are spent and the least access to federal and
state policymakers. Therefore, state rules may make it difficult for a district leader to replicate a
successful federal program from another state (since what is permitted in one state may not be
permitted in another), or to access help from ED if the district believes the state is imposing rules that
are inconsistent with federal law. This creates a challenging environment for district leaders wishing to
use federal funds for new or innovative approaches to improving student achievement.

State and local innovation are at a high because of reduction of federal regulation
Maria Worthen and Natalie Truong,, 1-8-2018, (Vice President for Federal and State Policy at
iNACOL. "U.S. Department of Education Invites State Applications for a New Pilot on Innovative Systems
of Assessments,", https://www.inacol.org/news/u-s-department-of-education-invites-state-
applications-for-a-new-pilot-on-innovative-systems-of-assessments///)MBA HBJ

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) created an Innovative Assessment Pilot and the much anticipated application was
released last week by the United States Department of Education (USED). States can now apply for new flexibility
they’ve been seeking to create innovative, next generation models of accountability and systems of
assessments (with a smaller subset of districts in the state) since the passage of ESSA in 2015. Innovative Assessment Pilot (ESSA Section 1204) On
January 3, the U.S. Department of Education released a Federal Register official notice inviting applications from
states for the Innovative Accountability and Assessment Demonstration Authority. This is the
“Innovative Assessment Pilot” and it is also a new opportunity in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) for states
to pilot new types of assessments. The Department is trying to get a sense of which states are interested in applying to the pilot. As such,
states are encouraged to submit an optional “intent to apply” by February 2, 2018. States can still apply to the pilot without providing this notification. Final
applications will be due to the Department of Education by April 2, 2018. The
intent behind this demonstration authority was to
provide a clear, objective and viable path forward for states to pilot new types of assessments for
accountability under ESSA to support personalized, competency-based education. The Innovative
Assessment Pilot in ESSA specifically provides states with the opportunity to pilot innovative systems of
assessments with a subset of districts. The state must collaborate with districts in the development of
the assessment system. What does the fine print of the notice say? Check it out, but here are some highlights from our analysis: Up to seven states
could be approved to participate in this pilot within the first three years of the initial demonstration period. Approved states would have five years to pilot the
program. There is a high bar of quality for these systems of assessments, for comparable determinations of performance to the statewide assessment, and to meet
the same level of technical quality. States can pilot new types of assessments with a subset of districts before scaling them statewide for accountability. To apply for
the Innovative Assessment Pilot, states must meet the program requirements and selection criteria outlined in the notice, including evidence that they have
developed an innovative assessment system in collaboration with state and local stakeholders. Further information, including the application and selection criteria,
is available on the Federal Register website here. ESSA
presents states with a historic opportunity to redesign K-12
education around new definitions of student success. States can create space and support for
personalized, competency-based learning with next generation accountability systems, balanced
systems of assessments that align to student-centered learning, and modernized educator preparation
and development systems.

ESSA is a neg arg

Anne Hyslop 17, senior associate of policy and advocacy at Chiefs for Change, where she is responsible
for research, writing, and analysis of key policies, supporting advocacy on behalf of Chiefs for Change
members, 4-4-2017, "Hyslop: How the Every Student Succeeds Act Empowers States to Find Innovative
Uses for Federal Funds," No Publication, https://www.the74million.org/article/hyslop-how-the-every-
student-succeeds-act-empowers-states-to-find-innovative-uses-for-federal-funds/

ALthough the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was hailed on both sides of the aisle for restoring
balance to the state-federal relationship in K-12 education — loosening unworkable, prescriptive
mandates under No Child Left Behind and providing states and districts with more autonomy to craft
tailored solutions to their unique needs — that bipartisan consensus now seems to have disintegrated.
From the contentious, partisan confirmation hearing of Secretary Betsy DeVos to a party-line repeal of final accountability, reporting, and school improvement
regulations, to a bitter fight over the previous administration’s proposed rules for ESSA’s supplement-not-supplant provisions, it’s easy to assume the days of
common edu-ground are gone. One thing these fights have in common, however, is that they center on accountability — the stick, not the carrot — and whether
the federal government or states should wield that stick. Yes, accountability is incredibly important and proven to be effective. But it’s not the only opportunity in
ESSA to improve student outcomes, nor the sole piece of the law worth paying attention to. Forgotten
in the accountability fights is the
fact that bipartisan consensus lives on in the flexibilities ESSA provides to states — the carrots that
leaders can choose to take advantage of in order to drive meaningful change in how districts and schools
support educators and students. In particular, these opportunities come in the form of new options for
how states spend funds from the two largest pots of federal money under ESSA: Title I and Title II. “Evidence and
Funding — Connecting the Dots,” a new policy brief from Chiefs for Change, highlights these opportunities and shows how leading states are using federal funds to
back evidence-based strategies and amplify their priorities. By
changing how these formula dollars are allocated and spent,
we believe states can significantly magnify the impact of federal funds in ways that have not been
realized previously. For example, ESSA requires all states to set aside 7 percent of their Title I funds to award grants to districts for evidence-based
improvement strategies in low-performing schools. The law leaves many details for awarding these grants up to states

(including whether they’re awarded on a competitive basis and whether particular intervention models
are prioritized). This flexibility gives states an opportunity to be thoughtful about how to encourage
proven interventions among districts, while respecting that successful implementation requires local
buy-in and community support. Louisiana has struck that balance by creating an inventory of high-quality school improvement partners and
hosting a day-long “design summit” during which providers met with local leaders and shared their work so that districts could ask providers questions to determine
whether a particular partner was a good fit to support its low-performing schools. By using federal funds to support the work, Louisiana addressed a state priority to
connect external providers with smaller cities and rural areas, while providing districts with meaningful choice in identifying partners that are best suited to their
needs. This is just one example, from one program, where states can take advantage of flexible uses of
funds. States can also decide to set aside an additional 3 percent of their Title I allocations to support Direct Student Services, providing students in low-
performing schools opportunities they currently miss out on, like advanced courses not offered in their school. Further, there are myriad ways to creatively use Title
II funds to support educator quality, such as an option for states to use up to 2 percent of their Title II-A grants to establish or expand teacher, principal, or school
leader preparation academies to prepare educators to serve in high-need schools; these academies, unlike traditional prep programs, must focus on clinical
preparation and issue credentials only when educators show an impact on student learning. States may also reserve up to 3 percent of Title II-A funds to support
principals and school leaders, a departure from the professional development and class size reduction efforts many districts have typically supported with Title II
dollars. Evenas President Trump’s “skinny” budget proposes major cuts to education programs, including
Title II, a diverse array of advocates and stakeholders have come together to fight for them, often
because of the flexibility to invest these funds in better ways under ESSA.
Top down education policy creates a pattern of centralization across the board.
Martin Kurzweil 15, Columbia law lecturer, “Disciplined Devolution and the New Education
Federalism,” 103 Cal. L. Rev. 565 (2015), HeinOnline

The new education federalism demonstrates the potential of disciplined devolution. It has generated sincere and
intensive participation by states, fostered collaboration among intrastate stakeholders (at least at the initial policy formulation stage), yielded policy diversity and experimentation (at least

within states), and demonstrated strong accountability mechanisms.It is a promising model for education governance and supports the
promise of disciplined devolution as a model in other policy domains. Yet achieving the full potential of
disciplined devolution may prove elusive. The ways in which the education example fell short of disciplined devolution's predicted benefits
reflect a precarious balance of centralizing and decentralizing forces. While the internal pressure of these competing forces has
disrupted implementation, exogenous forces pose a potential systemic risk. Political change, premature legislative lock-in of substantive policy

changes, a decrease in the federal government's leverage, or a failure to recognize the nature and benefits of the new structure could each tip the model into a
mandate-based, top-down governance structure or leave policy making to states without adequate oversight. The political risk to disciplined
devolution takes three forms. First, a change in administration could lead to a change in the agency's approach to policy or interstate relations. Second, a continuing administration may change
its approach as the political calculus changes. Finally, changes in the political climate in states may disrupt the model. The potential for each of these political changes exists in the education
context, as national Republican politicians have positioned themselves against the Obama Administration's policies, 360 teachers' unions and other Democrat-leaning advocates continue to
pressure the Administration to roll back elements of the initiatives,361 and aspects of the reforms remain controversial in the states.362 A second risk for disciplined devolution is federal

Success of some policies in some contexts may

legislation that prematurely locks in substantive policies without preserving the governance structure.

convince Congress to require those policies in all contexts. Legislative incorporation of the lessons
learned through policy experimentation is helpful to disciplined devolution, but only if flexibility to
deviate is retained. Such flexibility is necessary to motivate critical policy analysis on the part of state and local actors and to permit continued experimentation and
adaptation. Legislators are liable to mistake success of a particular policy for success of the policy-making process and act on that mistake to cripple the policy-making process. There is some

premature legislative incorporation of substantive policy runs a

evidence of this risk in existing bills to reauthorize ESEA. 363 Although

risk of shifting the balance to uniform centralization, excessively delaying an update to default legislation may also undermine the framework. It
is critical for disciplined devolution that the default statutory scheme remains credible. If it is not, states will have no reason to take it seriously, and the federal agency's leverage will be
diminished. The risk of legislative obsolescence is illustrated by NCLB's requirement that all students achieve grade-level proficiency on statewide tests by the end of the 2014 school year. The
2014 deadline, and its related funding penalties, was a major motivator for states to participate in ESEA Flexibility. Now that the deadline has passed, states with waivers may assume that the
provision is moot, or that the Education Department's threats to withdraw funding are not credible, and cease to take their commitments under ESEA Flexibility seriously. The NCLB default has
also been weakened by the Education Department's willingness to negotiate alternative arrangements with the handful of states that did not apply for or were denied a waiver.365 A final,
pervasive risk is that the relevant federal and state actors fail to recognize the nature of the new governance structure and therefore unwittingly take steps that weaken it. In other words,
disciplined devolution might disappear without anyone realizing it existed in the first place. There is a high risk of such a category error in the education case study. As discussed above, most
education commentators have not focused on the structural changes of Race to the Top and ESEA Flexibility at all, and those who have generally mistake them for federal incursion or
unaccountable decentralization.366 If the Administration or Congress takes action on the basis of either of these characterizations, rather than the disciplined devolution understanding, it
would jeopardize the regime. Lessening the rigor of evaluation and monitoring to mitigate a perceived federal incursion would lead some states to shirk their substantive commitments and

making the federal role more prescriptive to combat a perceived lack of

reduce the incentive for collaborative policy experimentation. Conversely,

would limit states' flexibility to tailor policies and experiment. It might also lead
accountability or standardization

them to demonstrate formal compliance while ignoring or undermining the underlying federal goals (as under
NCLB and ESEA).

Desegregation drains resources away from educational equality and innovation

Armor ’06- Professor in the School of Public Policy, George Mason University (David J., The Benefits of
Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Elementary and Secondary Education, “The Outcomes of School
Desegregation in Public Schools,” The United States Commission on Civil Rights (Briefing), November
2006, pgs. 18-27, http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/112806diversity.pdf)//PS
Alternatives to Racial Balance Plans The fact that school desegregation fails to produce significant and consistent educational benefits does not mean that it has no
value. It is a necessary component of the law, because courts can demand school desegregation plans whenever they find discriminatory school practices.
Moreover, many parents value the opportunity to send their children to desegregated schools, and many students report that desegregation is a positive
experience, although some parents and students obviously disagree. While most parents support the concept of school desegregation, some desegregation
techniques are still controversial, as demonstrated by the Seattle and Jefferson County litigation. There
is still strong opposition to
mandatory busing, and most parents oppose using race for school assignments. There is an ample
literature on white flight that underscores this opposition. In contrast, geographic assignment is generally
accepted, and most parents support school choice policies, including integrated magnet schools, as long
as they are voluntary. Given the weak evidence for educational benefits, it is possible that the Supreme
Court will decide that school desegregation in the form of racial balance does not meet constitutional
requirements. Even if the Court finds some benefits from racial diversity, they may not rise to a “compelling governmental purpose.” Further, if the Court
permits some consideration of race in student assignment, it is possible that the “narrow tailoring” requirement will rule out racial balance plans because they are
tantamount to a use of racial quotas (unless, of course, it is a remedy for a prior constitutional violation). Does this mean that school desegregation would come to
an end? I do not think so, even if the Court prohibits any consideration of race in student assignments. There are numerous ways to create and sustain integrated
schools without explicit racial assignments. For example, school boards can create geographic attendance zones that improve racial diversity for some schools,
provided there is no racial gerrymandering. Voluntary magnet programs that are attractive to white parents can be placed in schools with predominantly minority
enrollments; this was done successfully in Savannah, Georgia. Predominantly minority city school districts can push for an open enrollment policy like that in
Minnesota, which allows students in racially isolated city schools to transfer to suburban schools which are generally more integrated. While voluntary options like
those in Savannah or Minnesota will not create racial balance in all schools, they offer a better balance between the limited evidence on benefits and the practical
issue of community support. At the very least, such policies offer the possibility of integrated schools for students and parents who want that experience, and they
do not compel parents to attend schools that they would not freely choose. A Closing Note about the Achievement Gap There are many problems facing American
schools, and none is more important than the achievement gap between white, black, and Hispanic students so clearly illustrated in Figures 1 to 4. There
are
many things we need to do to address this gap, but worrying about the racial composition of schools
is not one of them. As Figures 1 to 4 also show, the actual achievement gap exists regardless of the racial or ethnic
composition of schools, so having all schools balanced at any particular composition is clearly not a
solution. The preoccupation over racial diversity is a diversion in which valuable resources and
energies are expended to simply shuffle the schools that children attend, and it contributes nothing to
the quality of those schools. The time has come to put away this distraction and begin tackling the real
problems in American education.

Deseg doesn’t solve achievement gap- empirics and studies

Armor ’06 – Professor in the School of Public Policy, George Mason University (David J., The Benefits
of Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Elementary and Secondary Education, “The Outcomes of School
Desegregation in Public Schools,” The United States Commission on Civil Rights (Briefing), November
2006, pgs. 18-27, http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/112806diversity.pdf)//PS
A more comprehensive review of earlier research can be found in Chapter 2 of my book, Forced Justice, published in 1995.10 That review
highlights one of the best studies on the effects of desegregation on black achievement, which was a meta-analysis sponsored by the National
Institute of Education in 1984.11 In this meta-analysis, only studies with experimental or quasiexperimental designs were reviewed, so that
causal inference was more certain. The NIE study found no effect of desegregation on math scores and inconsistent results for reading scores.
Thomas Cook summarizes the findings as follows: On the average, desegregation did not cause an increase in achievement
in mathematics. Desegregation increased mean reading levels. The gain reliably differed from zero and was estimated to be between two
to six weeks [of a school year] across the studies examined….The median gains were almost always greater than zero but were lower than the
means and did not reliably differ from zero….I find the variability in effect sizes more striking and less well understood than any measure of
central tendency. Thomas Cook is not the only social scientist to conclude that
desegregation had weak and inconsistent
impact on black achievement. Similar conclusions were reached after literature reviews by St. John in
1975, Stephan in 1978, and Schofield in 1995.12 Consider the summary by Schofield, which is often cited in legal briefs in
support of the benefit thesis: First, research suggests that desegregation has had some positive impact on the
reading skills of African American youngsters. The effect is not large, nor does it occur in all situations,
but a modest measurable effect does seem apparent. Such is not the case with mathematics skills, which seem generally unaffected by
desegregation.13 Finally, for those who find the statistics confusing and the debate among researchers unhelpful, there is another body of
evidence that appeals to our common sense. Even
after the very extensive school desegregation during the 1970s
and 80s, especially in the South, the black-white achievement gap is still very large and not that much
smaller than it was in 1970. Case studies in large school districts like Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, and Wilmington New
Castle, Delaware, show that the achievement gap changed very little after extensive desegregation. These and other case studies are discussed
in a study I published in 2002; that chapter has been made available to the Commission.14 Some reviews have concluded that the long-term
benefits of desegregation are greater than short term effects (i.e., test scores).15 Since most of these studies come from
general surveys and are not evaluating the effects school desegregation plans per se, the results must be
interpreted carefully. For example, one of the common findings in these long-term studies are that students
who attended
desegregated high schools are more likely to attend predominantly white colleges as opposed to
majority black colleges (e.g., historically black colleges) or more likely to end up in desegregated employment
settings. These studies do not find that desegregation increases college attendance or improves
wages. While I accept the finding that black students in desegregated schools are more likely to be found in
desegregated colleges or work environments, these studies do not prove that the desegregated schools
were the cause. It is equally likely that self-selection bias is operating here, so that families who prefer desegregated
schools pass these preferences on to their children who also prefer desegregated life-styles when they
become adults. This is demonstrated most clearly by the findings for college attendance. While black students from
desegregated high schools are more likely to attend desegregated colleges, it is not the case that they
are more likely to attend college. In fact, the relationship between desegregation and college attendance is
similar to that for achievement test scores—weak and inconsistent. Given that achievement scores are strong
predictors of attending college, and given the weak relationship between desegregation and achievement, this is not a surprising finding. One
of earliest national studies found that therelationship between desegregation and attending college differed
between black students in the North and the South.16 Controlling for family SES, Crain and Mahard found that attending
desegregated high schools raised college attendance in the North but lowered it in the South. However, both relationships were
small and not statistically significant. Using the same data but a different analytic model, Eckard found that the
relationship between high school desegregation and college attendance was virtually zero. 17 In a later
study using the same data, Braddock and McPartland came to similar conclusions: virtually no relationship in the South and a small positive
relationship in the North that was not statistically significant.18 One of the best studies on this topic was carried out by Crain and others using
data from Project Concern, a long-running desegregation program involving transfers of black students from predominantly black schools in
Hartford, Connecticut, to desegregated suburban schools.19 The advantage of this study is that it used a quasi-experimental design, so that
Project Concern students could be compared to a control group of similar students who remained in Hartford schools. After controlling for
gender, family background, and test scores, there was no difference in going to college between all Project Concern students and the Hartford
control group. Moreover, some Project Concern students spent a substantial number of years in desegregated suburban schools, but then
returned to the Hartford schools, and they were no more likely to attend college than those who had remained in the city all along.20 Thus
spending a substantial number of years in desegregated suburban schools did not significantly increase the rate of college attendance by
Hartford black students. Finally, a study by Boozer and others used data from the National Survey of Black Americans to estimate the
relationship between the percent of black students in a high school and total years of education. After controlling for self-selection effects, the
relationship was small and not statistically significant.21 The Boozer study is also the most recent and most sophisticated analysis of the
relationship between high school desegregation and wages. There findings were similar to their findings for educational attainment: they found
a small positive impact of high school desegregation on wages but it was not statistically significant after controlling for self-selection bias.22
This rather limited research literature on the effects of desegregation on educational attainment and
wages suggests that desegregation does not have a strong or consistent influence on either of these
long-term outcomes.

Most recent data goes neg- deseg doesn’t increase academic outcomes
Armor 2016 – David Armor- Professor Emeritus of Public Policy in the Schar School of Policy and
Government at George Mason University. He has consulted on and testified as an expert witness in
more than 40 school desegregation and educational adequacy cases. 8-23-16( “Bringing back busing: Do
benefits outweigh cost?” https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-
chalkboard/2016/08/23/bringing-back-busing-do-benefits-outweigh-cost/) mba-alb
The characterization “quite variable” is not helpful to a school district about to adopt a major desegregation plan, who has to “sell” the plan to parents who may be happy with their current

school.It could mean that their desegregation plan might produce significant benefits for some children but not all, or for
some schools but not all, or, like many case studies, it could be this plan will not improve achievement for anyone.

Although one more case study will not settle the debate about the effects of desegregation, I will present the results of a new case study[2] relevant to the critical

question of whether economic desegregation can raise black achievement and thereby close the achievement gap. This case study uses 2004 and 2005 data to compare black

and white achievement in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg district after it had returned to a largely neighborhood school
district (in the late 1990s) with black and white achievement in Wake County following implementation of a
socioeconomic busing plan in 2000. Most CMS black students were in majority black schools, while most
Wake County black students were in majority white schools. The chart below shows very clearly that Wake County black
students did not have higher test scores than CMS students, after adjusting for a student’s
socioeconomic background. Moreover, the black-white gap was virtually identical in the two school districts.
From a legal and historical standpoint, it is undeniable that de jure segregation was ended by the Brown decision, but not until several subsequent court decisions that ultimately required the
use of mandatory busing did desegregation take full effect in practice. For most of the larger school districts that faced this remedy, there was considerable controversy, and a lot of
demographic change as middle class white families left and were not replaced by white families moving to those areas. Some of these demographic changes were due to other forces, but
whatever the causes, most urban school systems have substantial de facto segregation, a process aided in part by a return to unitary status by many school districts that had been under court
orders. Many civil rights advocates believe that school segregation is harmful to minority students regardless of the cause, and they continue to propose and support new desegregation plans,

these advocates have not made a

especially economic integration since the Supreme Court limited the use race when assigning students to school. In my opinion,

sufficient case that more desegregation (either racial or economic) is the best way to improve black or Hispanic achievement,
and also that large-scale desegregation is a realistic goal and can be accomplished without the same controversy and resistance that occurred in the 1970s. Indeed, the growth of
predominantly minority group charter schools suggests that preference for an “own-group” school is not limited to middle class white parents.