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Considering a reasonable argument

Andrew Carroll arranged a debate on equality in education Thursday evening, Oct. 13, at Kump Education Center.  Mr. Carroll is uniquely qualified to stimulate a higher level of rhetorical discourse in Randolph County.  He hails from the Eastern Panhandle, but he loves Elkins and has adopted our town as his home.

Elkins High School Principal Russ Collett hired Mr. Carroll to teach English knowing he had skills for coaching debate.  Mr. Carroll was on the debate team at Davis & Elkins College before he graduated in June. When high school debate team members Micah Schwab and Heidi Mach were ready for an exhibition debate, Mr. Carroll called upon his friends Emily Coffman and Sierra Carney to challenge his high school students on neutral ground at Kump Education Center.

On Thursday night the EHS team argued the affirmative side on the resolution: This house believes that the funding for public education is unequal. Debaters from EHS collected data showing better performance for students from West Virginia counties where more funding is available. They argued that equal funding is necessary for equal quality of education.

On the negative side D&E debaters took a careful look at the differences between the words equality and equity. They argued that equal funding means that the same amount of money is spent on each child, but equal funding does not guarantee equity and true fairness for students with special needs. The exhibition debate ended in a tie.

Academic debate is a far more reasonable exercise than the vitriolic display of emotion staged between political candidates on television. Most personal attacks that we have seen on TV would be discounted as ad hominem fallacies because they attack the man [or woman] not the logic and the facts presented in an argument. Serious debaters try to avoid attacking their opponents, and they abide by rules of personal civility and logical rhetoric trying to avoid logical fallacies or ignorant statements.

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