Education Reform is the focus of the National Forensics Leagues 2017-2018 Policy Debate. Articles will discuss different strategies in reforming primary and secondary education in the US. American students do not rank well compared to their peers in other countries. Every administration aims to improve education through a variety of means of increased regulation, funding, standards review and teacher professional development. How has the adoption of the Common Core State Standards changed the national education landscape? Is reform still needed? How do we address the persistent achievement gap between ethnic and racial groups? What is the role of for- profit charter schools in improving failing public schools? Is a skills-based education the best for training a 21st century workforce to compete globally? What is the role of technology in improving teaching or learning? Will online K-12 education address accessibility and fairness in education? This volume will cover all the current issues in the debate on education reform including teacher training and pay, class size, flexible scheduling and standardized testing.

1.The state of American education : -- Educational states / Micah L. Issitt -- Ask better school reform questions / Frederick M. Hess, Paige Willey -- A look at the education crisis: tests, standards, and the future of American education / Ulrich Boser, Perpetual Baffour, Steph Vela -- Why the charter school debate has moved beyond "better" or "worse" / Joshua Cowen -- America's not-so-broken education system: do U.S. schools really need to be disrupted? / Jack Schneider -- What the world can learn from the latest PISA test results / The Economist -- Where school choice gets an A or B / Mark Silva. 2. Reform 2017 : -- Commercializing knowledge: reform in 2017 / Micah L. Issitt -- Tax credits, school choice and "neovouchers": what you need to know / Kevin Welner -- It's not what Trump's Education Department will do that should worry critics; it's what it won't do / Conor Williams -- Dismal voucher results surprise researchers as DeVos era begins / Kevin Carey -- Education for sale? School choice and the future of American education / Linda Darling-Hammond -- Massachusetts charter cap holds back disadvantaged students / Sarah Cohodes, Susan M. Dynarski -- An education leader with one big idea / Dan Currell. 3. In the classroom: skills, knowledge, climate : -- The modernization of education / Micah L. Issitt -- What we're missing in measuring who's ready for college / Mikhail Zinshteyn -- It's time for vocational schools to get some respect / Deborah Halber -- Forget welding: the hottest new vocational schools do digital design / Margaret Rhodes -- A plan to teach every child computer science / Emily Deruy -- Inside Silicon Valley's classrooms of the future / Hannah Kuchler -- It takes a suburb: a town struggles to ease student stress / Kyle Spencer. 4. Equity and the achievement gap : -- The achievement class / Micah L. Issitt -- College calculus: what's the real value of higher education? / John Cassidy -- Skipping class / The Economist -- Student debt payback far worse than believed / Andrea Fuller -- Sheila Bair's one weird trick to make her college less white / Shahien Nasiripour -- Bernie Sanders just introduced his free college tuition plan / George Zornick -- 10 public high school teachers explain why they're worried about Trump's pick for Education Secretary / De Elizabeth -- The outsized role of parent contributions in elementary school finance / Emily Workman. 5. Education technology : -- Hi-teach: education in the digital age / Micah L. Issitt -- Computing in the classroom: from the "teaching machine" to the promise of twenty-first-century learning technology / Sophia Nguyen -- Ex-FCC chair blasts efforts to change lifeline, net neutrality, privacy rules / Benjamin Herold -- Transforming the EdTech ecosystem: a checklist for investing / Barbara Kurhsan -- Online education pioneer boots up a jobs program for the tech industry / Tom Simonite -- The new cheating economy / Brad Wolverton.