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Background & Mission
"Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained." James A. Garfield
“ …what would occur if debate became as compulsory in inner-city educational culture as football or basketball? Imagine graduating from high school each year millions of underprivileged teenagers with the ability to articulate their own needs, the needs of others, and the ability to offer solutions. I am convinced that someone would be forced to listen.” Edward Lee, Memoir of a Former Urban Debate Participant
Urban Debate is at a crossroads. Driven by the thrill of competition, at-risk students nationwide build the skills they need for success. Having served thousands, we need to serve millions. The Urban Debate movement now needs an organization to capitalize on our successes and address our challenges and foster collaboration. The Associated Leaders of Urban Debate (ALOUD) will serve that role by fostering educational partnerships for urban students through training in academic debate. ALOUD promotes debate as a vehicle for urban education reform to develop civic participation and healthier communities. ALOUD will focus on capacity building, research & evaluation, and professional development through its action plan. ALOUD’s ten-step program will:
Allocate funds competitively to strengthen and build urban debate
Lead Intervention Teams to engage fledgling debate communities
Open Training & Recruiting Centers for professional development
Uncover local collaborations to replicate nationally
Develop customized curricular models
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Advocate urban debate in corporate and education reform circles
Leverage funding relationships with national potential
Operate as a national marketing & information clearinghouse
Unleash coordinated national research efforts
Deliver summer scholarships for debate institutes
PURPOSE: Our purpose is to bring "debate" to the general public, to support the organic growth of debate communities (through local leagues, universities, school systems, and debate organizations). Being a national advocate requires a larger perspective on what debate can be. Tim Sanders identified the keys to success for ALOUD as flexibility and mass appeal. Debaters understand and recognize the power of this activity. The general public does not. ALOUD is positioned to change that reality. Right now, debate is transforming the classroom as a learning tool, creating community awareness in the public sphere, fostering confidence in middle schools, and building leadership skills and critical thinking in community-based organizations. Debate should be everywhere that young people face difficult choices and need more tools to overcome the barriers they face.
METHODS: ALOUD uses broad-based approaches previously untried. Beginning with the National Campaign for Civic Discourse, ALOUD will bring debate to the public by launching coordinated national media efforts, developing co-branded products for partners in local markets, promoting research, and enlisting acclaimed individuals in marketing campaigns. ALOUD supports the organic growth of debate communities by identifying existing partnership models for replication, facilitating assessment of debate initiatives, generating funding streams for local distribution through RFPs, and offering nonprofit management assistance. These essential services resonate with local organizations, the education community and other stakeholders.
WHY URBAN DEBATE?
Debate competition involves a clash of ideas using research and reasoning. Students advance solutions to issues of national and international significance that their opponents subject to philosophical, economic and political critiques.
As 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.
Once a staple of civics education, debate vanished from many urban school districts by the 1980s due to budget cuts. Urban debate signals a revival of this co-curricular tool. Debate training improves:
- Critical thinking
- Self Confidence
- Communication skills
- Problem Solving
- Research Abilities
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.
In one city alone, urban debaters received $2.5 million in college scholarship offers over a two-year span.
Educators across the country share stories of urban debaters’ solid gains in class attendance, tests scores, and increased interest in academic achievement.
ALOUD Promotional Word Document
This is our message to America’s urban students:
Your Voice. Your Future. Debate.