High school graduates on average, earn $9,200 more per year than high school dropouts, and about $1 million more over their lifetime. Urban debaters in many cities graduate high school at rates above 90% (national avg. 72%).
A school system with roughly 10,000 teachers and a turnover rate of 20% would save approximately $500,000/year by reducing turnover by 1 percentage point. Debate increases teacher retention as they watch students develop critical thinking skills before their eyes. They reconnect to the mission that first attracted them to education.
Only 32% of all students leave high school qualified to attend four-year colleges. When ALOUD informs parents that debaters receive millions in scholarships just for debating, they see new options for their children. More than 150 colleges offer debate scholarships. Universities use urban debaters to diversify their entering classes with promising students from neighborhoods they cannot access normally.
Creating positive culture is a key component of building district-wide norms of academic excellence. Reaching just 5% of students with the ALOUD model has driven schools to add AP courses, upgrade their libraries, and expand their educational objectives for all students. Debate works. It’s why debate was required in every school district for decades
High school graduates live longer, have better general health and are less likely than high school dropouts to use publicly financed health insurance programs. If the 18-year-olds who failed to graduate had advanced one grade, it would save nearly $2.3 billion in publicly financed medical care, aggregated over a lifetime
1.2 million students fail to graduate on time costing the nation more than $312 billion in lost wages, taxes and productivity over their lifetimes. For every city where debate flourishes, their earning potential increases exponentially, saving billions
Articles written on the benefits of debate:
"The Value of Debate," by Jeffery Parcher
"Quail Roost Report on Tenure for Forensic Directors," AFA Policy Caucus Working Group
"The Values of Participating in Debate: A Selected Bibliography," by Glenda J. Treadway, comp.
Research on the Effectiveness of Debate
Debate improves critical thinking skills by 44% in one year
Students who participated in organized debate for at least one year improved their critical thinking skills by 44 percent. Communication Education
Debate reduces disciplinary referrals for at-risk middle schoolers by 50%
First, student conduct has improved. Disciplinary referrals included all in-school detentions, out-of-school suspensions, or mandatory teacher/parent conferences. After the completion of the pilot year, the number of referrals for the student body remained relatively constant, with a small decline of only 1%. Referrals for CAD students fell 50%.
Carol Winkler, Ph.D.Chair, Department of Communication, Georgia State University Reporting at the 2005 White House Conference on Helping America’s Youth. Compared the average number of disciplinary referrals for the entire student body against those for students who, on average, attended debate at least twice a week. In the year before the debate program, the general student population had, on average, slightly more disciplinary referrals per student (2 ¾) than did the CAD participants (2 ½).
Debate improves h. s. reading skills by as much as 25% in a single year
The reading scores of all students improved over the school year, but debate students improved by 25 percent more than non-debaters. The results from debate students also generally improved regardless of how well - or poorly - they were doing in school before they began debating.
Collier, L.M. (2004). Argument for success: A study of academic debate in the urban high schools of Chicago, Kansas City, New York, St. Louis, and Seattle. The study tested 209 debaters and 212 non-debaters at 27 urban high schools at the beginning and at the end of the school year, using a standardized reading test designed to meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind legislation. Paper presented at the Hawaii International Conference on Social Sciences. Honolulu, HI, June 16-19, 2004.
Debate raises high school graduation rates above 90%
98% students participating in DEBATE-Kansas City graduated on time in both 2002 and 2003.
Debate leads to a measurable increase GPA in middle schools
Seventh grade students had a four point gain based on a comparison of their end-of-the-year GPA's from 2003 to 2004. Eighth grade students had a two-point gain on average over the same period.
Dr. Carol Winkler, Computer Assisted Debate Project 2004-2005 Assessment Report Students participated in 109 days of after school instruction (2 hrs/day), 7 days of competition (8 hrs/ day), 4 days of field trip instruction & 10 days of school-based summer camp instruction for six hours per day.
Active construction is essential for effective learning
Learning involves the active construction of knowledge. Teachers and texts can provide information that is useful for constructing new knowledge, but the mere memorization of this information does not constitute effective learning. Studies show that information that is merely memorized will remain inert even though it is relevant in new situations (192).
Bransford, J. D. & Vye, N.J. 1989. Cognitive research and its implications for instruction. In L. B. Resnick & L. E. Klopfer (Eds.), Toward the thinking curriculum: Current cognitive research, 173-205. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
ACADEMIC REASONS WHY DEBATE WORKS
There is an additional base of literature that has analyzed debate for decades through surveys and qualitative studies that consistently found support for the special benefits debate conveys when it is done in a rigorous manner that includes formal structures and opportunities for competition.
Debate develops emotional maturity and social skills
Debate helps students develop the emotional maturity to win and lose graciously; acquire the social skills necessary to work with a colleague and compete against other students; and use spoken English in an increasingly sophisticated way.
Sodikaw, Richard B. "Pogo the Possum Lives, or We Have Met the Enemy, and They Still Are Us: A Response to Frana and Wallmark." NFL Conference on the State of Debate, 1985, 20p. [ED 272 940]
Debate accesses 5 of the 6 recommended methods of active construction
Research has demonstrated that interactive formats are the preferred method for achieving critical thinking, problem solving ability, higher level cognitive learning, attitude change, moral development, and communication skill development (Gall). Of the six recommended methods for active learning, debate utilizes five; they include writing, oral presentation, small group strategies, instructional games or role-playing and field study methods
Nyquist, J.D. and Wulff, D.H. "Selected Active Learning Strategies," in Teaching Communication: Theory, Research and Methods. Eds. John A. Daly, Gustav F. Frederich, and Anita L. Vangelisti. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1990.
Debate is a uniquely beneficial educational tool
Debate is a uniquely beneficial educational tool in part because of the value of argumentation theory itself. The creation of an argument is one of the most complex cognitive acts that a person can engage in. Creating an argument requires the research of issues, organization of data, analysis of data, synthesis of different kinds of data, and an evaluation of information with respect to which conclusion it may point. After this process, the formulation of an argument requires the debater to consider differing methods of critiquing reason, the decision-making formula, the audience and the criteria of decision making. In the end, arguments must be communicated to an audience clearly and succinctly - a difficult cognitive process requiring conversion between thought, written rhetoric and oral rhetoric. At the end, the debate itself requires the processing of other's arguments and then the reformulation and defense of one's original position.
Parcher, Jeffrey The Value of Debate Philodemic Debate Society, Georgetown University, 1998
Parent Groups Support Debate
Although the popularity of debate is rising, many schools do not have a debate program in place. The National PTA encourages parents to approach their children’s school administrators with concerns about student programs or the lack thereof.
National Parent Teacher Association http://www.connectwithkids.com/
Debate is an Integrator of Knowledge
Because debate topics are so multi-faceted and cut across disciplines, debaters gain knowledge from unique disciplines outside the students' major, minor, or regular class load. - Freeley & Steinberg, Argumentation and Debate , Chapter 2, 2000
Debate improves critical thinking skills by 44% in one year
Students who participated in organized debate for at least one year improved their critical thinking skills by 44 percent. Communication Education
Your Voice. Your Future. Debate.
