RIP

RIP Mr. Jordan

RIP from Maine.

However, this time of year the boy from Maine might wish they were in Arizona!

Congratulations to everyone who got in! See you guys at the RR

In other words, it provides the kind of real-life perspective that I think high schoolers in general need in order to make educated decisions about not only this topic, but also their own lives as they relate to secondary education.

Resolved: On balance, vocational education better serves American interests than collegiate education.

A better way of addressing those issues is to write the topic to specifically address them. For example, I think the following resolutions would get closer to that debate:

RT: For profit institutions undermine the spirit of post-secondary education
RT: In the United States, Post-secondary education overemphasizes four-year undergraduate degrees
RT: The United States Federal Government should increase its regulation of for profit post-secondary institutions
RT: The United State Federal Government should increase incentives for vocational education.

There probably is not much ground if you only look at people who complete the degree–although there are a lot of recent graduates who are unemployed or underemployed. There is a lot of ground if you take into consideration all the people who start college and never finish. They are burdened with a lot of debt and nothing to show for it. This is especially true of people who attend for-profit colleges.

There is also a lot more ground if you compare the cost of a college education to other possibilities: vocational training and entrepreneurship.

Do we (college graduates and students on a college prep track) have our heads stuck so far in the sand about the value of a college education that we can’t discuss that there is another viable track?

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: PF topics should have whitepapers that justify the topic area and propose alternative resolutions. A paper would consist of a page or two that says what the area of conflict is, why that area is interesting, and some resolutions. I haven’t heard a single reason why this isn’t done, other than time commitments. I understand that everyone is busy, but that doesn’t seem to be a reason not to improve the committee’s operation.

I think that working with topic papers would improve the selection process and make the committee’s job easier. Instead of working to come up with two resolutions – the committee would just have to work with the white papers. Wording members could make two levels of decisions: 1) the committee could decide that a topic area does not have sufficient interest or 2) the committee could decide to change or improve the proposed resolutions. Additionally, a topic paper process could easily identify ground issues and could provide a space to work to propose ideally worded topics. It would also make the job of producing topic overviews easier; because the research behind the white paper would become the research to provide the topic overview. It would also be a way that the community could be involved in the process – instead of sending emails to the NFL (that seem like they are going into a black hole, because there is no way of confirming that the emails are received, much less read or discussed), the committee could solicit papers from the community at large.

The goal of the policy process is to word all of the papers proposed so that all of the resolutions that go to the debate community have minimal wording issues and could be the national topic. That doesn’t seem to happen in PF. Having written a policy topic paper, let me say that doing the work of developing a paper made my ideas better and made it easier to word a topic that many people could support. A truncated white-paper process for PF would help the wording committee do its job; by reducing the scope of the work involved.

I’m not sure what you are reading, Bob. I agree the topic area is ripe, but I don’t think that the current wording makes a lot of sense. I’ve also studied higher-education and I don’t think that there is much, if any aff ground. The economic literature on both the market and non-market returns to a college education are well established. Asking someone to argue that the cost outweigh the benefits is a bit like asking people to argue that global warming/climate change does not exist. There are some people who make claims to the contrary, but they are not credible and are not backed by the academic literature.

I’ll easily concede that there are interesting developments in higher education that make the college topic attractive to debate – e.g. some people are defaulting on their loans, the cost of college has risen, for profit institutions have changed higher education, etc. – However, none of those developments come close to questioning the economic research that has been established. It will be very hard to be aff on the college topic as worded, without engaging in some alternative interpretations of the resolution.

Crossfire Briefs: March 2008 is available as a free download:
http://pfdebate.com/backissues/107-crossfire-mar08.pdf

There is nothing wrong with the primaries topic. It will be very timely in January and there are plenty of arguments and evidence for each side. It has nothing to do with the November 2011 topic.

I think the college education topic is better than most of you think. As someone who works in higher education, I can tell you that there has been a lot written about this subject in the last year. I think it is an interesting discussion to had by the segment of high school students that is almost exclusively on the college prep track.

Personally, I would prefer to debate the college education topic since it is something new. However based on previous topics, I think the primaries & caucuses topic provides good arguments for both the PRO and CON.

Also a team must only prove that one side of the case is promoting the switch to a Communistic government and they will automatically win.

my kritik of choice on the college policy circuit is cap – that’s part of why I want it done =]

https://www.facebook.com/questions/287792244564726/?qa_ref=qd

The direct election topic is timeless. It has been a national high school policy debate topic, a college CEDA topic, and even a Public Forum Debate topic. There is a clearly defined literature for both sides. The number of potential arguments is manageable.

The direct election topic is just a better Public Forum Debate topic.

https://www.facebook.com/questions/287792244564726/?qa_ref=qd

The job growth topic is timely in late September, but will it still be a great debate topic by Thanksgiving? I think it is a better extemp or parli topic than a Public Forum Debate topic

I am still moving content from the old PFDebate Wiki (MediaWiki software) to the new PFDebate Resources (WordPress software) because of spammers and vandalism.

The PFDebate Forums would be a good place to organize that information. If someone (especially whoever spearheaded the effort last year) wants to organize it, we can talk about ways to put the information on PFDebate Resources.

I liked the other one *sniffle*

Printing the minutes from the NFL Executive Council meeting exclusively in The Rostrum is archaic. They should be printed in The Rostrum, but there really is no reason not to post the information online ASAP.

PF Debate has frequently considered Immigration policy (April 2005, September 2006, and September 2009) and Higher Education policy (March 2005, Nationals 2005, December 2006) – but hasn’t explicitly considered entitlement reform, transportation infrastructure, or Civil Rights (related to workplace discrimination). PF has considered relevant issues to tax policy, which would certainly come up in a discussion about entitlements (December 02, February 05, November 07). PF also considered one issue related to transportation (January 2009), but not related to infrastructure.

Having said that, I don’t know where the interest lies. I would guess that PF debaters may not be interested in immigration – but only seniors in the current class would be recycling this topic. I have no idea about how frequently PF debate coaches want to revisit past topics.

“Justified” is a meaningless term. Websters defines it as, “To demonstrate or prove to be just, right, or valid.” That doesn’t require the aff/pro to say much in order to defend current airport security measures – they have to demonstrate a reason for those measures. The aff/pro does not have to defend that reason against other reasons. These measures may be valid, but this framing ignores the larger debate as to whether these measures are excessive, effective, or infringe on personal rights. I want to see those issues debated, instead of giving the aff/pro some way to weasel out of the central issue in the resolution.

While I think the second framing opens the debate up to more than just airport security measures (e.g. the war in Iraq or Afghanistan), I am fine with this debate because it asks for the aff/pro to show that it was more beneficial than not.