Urban Debate Value

Urban Debate Leagues provide tremendous value to the individual debaters, to the participating schools, and to the broader community.

Benefits to Individual Debaters

Research shows that Urban Debate Leagues have direct and life-changing benefits for the participating debaters. It narrows the academic achievement gap, encourages college attendance, and prepares them for success in a wide variety of career paths.

Improving Academic Performance

Multiple studies demonstrate that Urban Debate Leagues have proven to increase traditional measures of academic success: literacy scores increase by 25%, grade-point average increase around 10%, high school graduation rates reach nearly 100%. Other positive benefits have been documented in attendance rates and critical thinking skills. Further, preparation to debate at tournaments motivates students to conduct extensive research, much of it computer based; and to develop organized and complex spoken and written communication skills.

Refining Decision-Making Skills

Urban Debate League participants gain valuable interpersonal skills. Urban debaters have demonstrated higher levels of self-confidence and problem solving, flexibility in viewpoint, and a refined ability to think critically about the world around them. Academic debate fuses an enjoyable activity, a mental sport, with the development of skills that pay off throughout life in important ways.

Bridging High School and College

While the vast majority of urban students have parents who did not go to college and peers who will not graduate from high school, more than 75% of urban debaters go to four-year colleges. Studies have shown that Urban Debate Leagues produce college matriculation rates around 80%. Debate gives students the tools and connections to succeed in college. Participants often compete and research on college campuses, receive coaching assistance from college students, and debate in front of college recruiters. This exposure to the college environment raises expectations of debaters and instills a sense that access to the best colleges in America is obtainable.

Preparing the Path for Successful Careers

The intellectual and interpersonal benefits of participating on a debate team are equipping a new generation of urban students with the skills, motivation, confidence and ambition to pursue a wide variety of careers. Employers in growing numbers recognize the crucial necessity and virtue of diversity in their workplaces, therefore urban-educated employees with these attributes are highly valued. For example, law schools and law firms support debate as an important pipeline to legal careers for minority students. Already alums of Urban Debate Leagues have established successful careers in many fields, including: medicine, education, government, corporate sector, law, and business entrepreneurs.

Benefits to School Districts

School systems with debate programs benefit through improved test scores in the critical areas of literacy and communication. Inside the classroom, vocal debaters create critical dialogue on assigned topics and relevant debate research. Equally important, debaters serve an important role model function with their peers through an increased passion for learning, lower absenteeism, better academic performance, and higher college enrollment. Further, research has shown that debaters learn to resolve disagreements constructively.

Urban Debate Programs can have a fundamental impact on the curriculum of participating schools. An Argumentation and Debate course is offered at almost half of the schools in the Urban Debate Network. Curricular Debate, a methodology that incorporates formal debating throughout the regular curriculum, is offered in several districts. Urban debate is highly efficient and cost-effective as an out-of-school-time program. A full academic season costs under $750 per student served, compared with an industry average of nearly $1,500.

Benefits to Communities

The community-at-large benefits from Urban Debate Leagues through the production of high school graduates who are fully prepared to understand and contribute to the democratic process. Participation in debate instills the confidence and awareness that young people need in order to fulfill their roles as members of a democratic society. Young people enter the adult world prepared to respond to the two basic demands of civic responsibility: developing informed opinions and expressing them effectively. Through their intensive research, debaters learn to read and think carefully and critically about a wide variety of public policy issues.

Debate programs also prepare students to become leaders in their communities. Debaters are disproportionately represented in leadership ranks in the law, business, and academia. With expanded horizons, and by learning to lead and compete, urban debaters are equipped to improve their schools, strengthen their communities, and ultimately broaden the local and national leadership base. A survey by the National Forensic League shows that 64% of the Members of the United States Congress competed in debate or speech in high school.

Debating for an interscholastic program teaches cooperation, teamwork, and social maturity. Debaters must develop aggressive and critical listening skills. Urban debate, in particular, situates these students in a highly multi-cultural environment, providing a valuable and unique experience for thriving in today’s increasingly interconnected world.