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competitive debate
Debate is offered in suburban, private and elite public schools, but is often missing from urban public high schools. Formal debate is a structured academic activity and has a special role to play in education. Debate competition involves a clash of ideas using research and reasoning. Through debate, students are challenged to examine issues of public policy in terms of their legal, social, economic, political, moral, and ethical implications.
Over the last decade, several innovative educators and a handful of funders worked to return debate to America’s public high schools through a competitive venture called urban debate. Urban debate leaders focused on the neediest students in the neediest schools first. In each case, these students gained a renewed sense of self-worth through debate and went on to succeed at the highest levels of competition against students from elite public and private schools. The power of urban debate was self-evident and some educators moved beyond the competitive outlets to use urban debate in their classroom and in public forums.
ALOUD’s initiative offers support to an often under-served population: young people who thrive on challenging, competitive opportunities to demonstrate their abilities in a non-traditional academic setting. Students advance solutions to issues of national and international significance that their opponents subject to philosophical, economic and political critiques. Once a staple of civics education, debate vanished from many urban school districts by the 1980s due to budget cuts.
Students succeed in debate by becoming independent learners who invest in learning during their free time. Tournament competitions together with sustained preparation activities immerses thousands of students and hundreds of coaches each year in the most rigorous of all academic enrichment pursuits. The intellectual training and discipline creates a ripple effect throughout the school district. The presence of effective student debaters elevates the level of critical analysis and research/fact based discussions in classrooms throughout the school district.
RETURN ON INVESTMENT
Debate training improves critical thinking, self confidence, communication skills, problem solving and research abilities. Henry Giroux suggests: The first responsibility of public schools is not to test students…but to address what it means to provide them with the critical reading, writing, language, technological skills, knowledge, social experiences, and resources they need. ...to transform the world in which they live.
Urban debate signals a revival of this co-curricular tool. Educators across the country share stories of urban debaters’ solid gains in class attendance, tests scores, and increased interest in academic achievement. Recent research efforts are uncovering debate’s far-reaching effects. A national study concluded that urban debate increases literacy by as much as 25% in a single year and debaters are three times less likely to engage in risk taking behaviors that lead to crime, drug use and violence. Urban debate also represents a new method for students living in poverty to pay for college. In one city alone, urban debaters received $2.5 million in college scholarship offers over a two-year span.
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By framing debate as a program for use inside AND outside the classroom, ALOUD customizes debate initiatives to match the objectives of the strategic plan of individual school districts.
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This is our message to urban students:
Your Voice. Your Future. Debate.
2007 Associated Leaders of Urban Debate
330 West 42nd Street Suite 2420
New York, NY 10036
(Tel) 1-866-4DEBATE, (fax) 212-471-8664