NAUDL : National Association for Urban Debate Leagues

Achieving the Common Core Standards for Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening: How Urban Debate Leagues Motivates Students in the Lowest Performing Schools to Master Effective Evidence-Based Argumentation

The National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), in partnership with Achieve, ACT, and the College Board, have launched a joint effort to develop Common Core Standards. Governors and state commissioners of education from around the country have committed to this state-led process to develop common core state standards, and are making significant progress towards the adoption of research-backed, evidence-based, and internationally benchmarked college- and career-ready standards.

Argument at a Glance

The Common Core Standards represent the goals which school systems nationwide have set as instructional imperatives - the skills without which no high school graduate is adequately prepared to face the demands of his or her future. Urban debate participation enhances broader efforts to improve teaching and learning by promoting key components of the Common Core Standards. The most recent public draft of the Common Core Standards for English and Language Arts emphasizes argument identification, construction, and interaction, skills which are uniquely cultivated by debate participation.

The Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening standards center on evidence, argumentation, and audience. In privileging the importance of evidence, the standards contend that students who are college and career ready exhibit these capacities:

Students cite specific textual evidence when offering an oral or written interpretation of a piece of writing. They use relevant evidence when supporting their own points in writing and speaking, making their reasoning clear to the reader or listener, and they constructively evaluate others' use of evidence.

In framing the purpose of the writing standards, the Common Core begins with argument:

Make an Argument: While many high school students have experience presenting their opinions, they need to be able to make arguments supported by evidence in order to be ready for careers and college. Students must be able to frame the debate over a claim, present the reasoning and evidence for the argument, and acknowledge and address its limitations. In some cases, students will make arguments to gain entry to college or to obtain a job, laying out their qualifications or experience. In college, students might defend an interpretation of a work of literature or of history; in the workplace, employees might write to recommend a course of action.

In describing how communication must respond to the varying demands of audience, task, purpose, and discipline, the standards remind policy makers and practitioners that students are prepared for post-secondary success when:

Students consider their reading, writing, and speaking and listening in relation to the contextual factors of audience, task, purpose, and discipline. They appreciate nuances, such as how the composition and familiarity of the audience should affect tone. They also know that different disciplines call for different types of evidence (e.g., documentary evidence in history, experimental evidence in the natural sciences).

Urban Debate Leagues (UDLs) employ policy debate, a method of academic competition that incentivizes effective communication of arguments based on evidence. Debate engages students by using a proven competition format to motivate and establish academic norms to teach evidence-base argument within reading, writing, speaking and listening.

I. The Common Core Standards Program Implements Key Educational Goals Across States

Forty-six states, two territories, and the District of Columbia have agreed to coordinate their curricular standards along a metric of “core standards.” These standards provide the participating states with specific educational goals, comprised of detailed skills sets, which they then use to create their curriculum.1

As the states examine ways to implement and meet these standards, policymakers should consider Urban Debate Leagues as a tool to raise achievement in line with the Common Core Standards for English language arts. Urban debate fosters skills that perfectly match key components of the English CCS, especially standards for argumentation skills. Argumentation has been identified by employers and colleges as an invaluable tool for undergraduate, postgraduate, and workplace success.2 Urban debate leagues also make sense for schools which struggle to implement curriculum changes due to lack of funding or policymaker attention – difficulties which afflict schools in urban areas with a high number of low-income students and students of color.3 Urban debate works alongside the existing curriculum to offer a proven means of raising English and Language Arts achievement in key skill areas.

The Common Core Standards for English and Language Arts have three strands, each of which is aligned with policy debate:

  • Reading. Students must critically engage with complex texts and be able to evaluate the evidence used to advance arguments. Debaters read and evaluate many texts as they research evidence, engage opponents, search for arguments and assess argumentative legitimacy.
  • Writing. Students must be able to outline, source, and defend an argument. Debate research develops these skills as debaters identify an argument, break the argument into its component parts, search for evidence to support each of those parts, and anticipate answers to counter-arguments.
  • Speaking & Listening. Students must find, evaluate, and defend quality sources to bolster argumentative points via a verbal presentation. Students must also engage their opponents’ arguments, analyzing weaknesses and strengths. These skills are at the very heart of competitive debate.

II. Participation in Urban Debate Raises English Language Arts Skills

A. Urban Debate Leagues – A Public-Private Partnership to Improve the Lowest Performing Schools

Urban Debate Leagues train and enable students to participate in competitive policy debate. Teacher-coaches supervise student-directed projects, including research for debate arguments, public speaking in time-pressured competitive settings, and argumentative advocacy. The National Association for Urban Debate Leagues (NAUDL) builds, strengthens, expands and connects UDLs. The NAUDL organizes UDLs as partnerships between urban school systems and local private leaders. Following the NAUDL best practices approach, UDLs have already been established in many of the most populous urban school districts,4 and in most of the school systems with the highest number of critically low-performing schools.5 The NAUDL continues to bring the UDL approach to scale in cities around the country, aiming to facilitate participation in organized debate activities for as many urban students as possible.6

B. Research Supports the Link between Urban Debate Participation and Increased Skill in English Language Arts

Research conducted by Dr. Briana Mezuk, in conjunction with the University of Michigan, the Consortium on Chicago School Research, and Chicago Public Schools, examined the effects of urban debate on academic achievement for students in the Chicago school system.7 Her findings suggest that students who participate in urban debate are more likely to reach college readiness benchmarks in English language arts.

Dr. Mezuk’s study used the ACT English and Reading subject test benchmarks as an indicator of English language arts skills. The English test examines skills linked to CCS goals such as sentence construction, critical reasoning, and vocabulary.8 The ACT Reading test implicates CCS goals as well, focusing on reading comprehension and critical assessment of reading assignments. Students who participated in urban debate were 50 percent more likely to score above the ACT English benchmark. When Dr. Mezuk narrowed her findings to African American males, a subgroup which is particularly likely to perform poorly on academic tests, she found that these students were 50 percent more likely to reach the ACT English benchmark as their non-debater counterparts.9 Moreover, she found that African American males were 70 percent more likely than their non-debater counterparts to reach the benchmark for ACT Reading.10 These score increases were linked with intensity of participation, such that the students who participated most intensely in debate, defined as competing in 25 or more rounds, showed the most dramatic differences over their peers.11

Selective improvements in debaters’ reading-oriented subject test scores indicate debate participation is responsible for raising ACT scores. Students who participated in urban debate exhibited higher scores than their peers in the ACT subject tests for reading-oriented subjects (English and Reading), but not for math and science.12 This outcome strongly suggests that urban debate was the cause of the increased scores, since the skills fostered by debate are mostly verbal and literacy-based. If the urban debaters were simply more motivated or engaged students, their ACT performance would likely increase across non-debate related tests.

C. Urban Debate Participation Cultivates Skills from Each of the English Language Arts Common Core Standards Benchmarks

1. Debate Fosters Effective Student Practices Which Undergird the Goals of the Common Core Standards

Ultimately, the Common Core Standards are designed to cultivate “student practices” – that is, habits and understandings which will serve students well in their later college or career work. The practices thus identified emphasize several skills which urban debate cultivates extremely well. First, the educators emphasized the need for independent work. Skills such as critical thinking, extensive research, and evaluative reading cannot be learned by lecture alone. The competitive incentive fostered by urban debate participation significantly increases self-motivation and student-directed skill development. Rather than working to fulfill the dictates of a teacher, the student works for the thrill of winning a debate round.

Second, the educators emphasize that the students must learn the value of evidence-backed claims – they must “privilege evidence”. Few activities are as evidence-oriented as policy debate. Arguments from the debaters' own beliefs or unsourced claims are unlikely to prevail against evidence-backed arguments, strongly incentivizing debaters to research.

Third, students must understand the importance of precision in communication, writing, and research. Debate rounds turn on precise distinctions between arguments, or precise interpretations of topic wording. The debaters keep track of their own and their opponents' arguments, even to a micro-level, on paper. This record of the arguments made is one of the most important tools in the round, letting the students identify key concessions or key internal problems with their opponents' arguments. Often such concessions are mere oversights, teaching the students the value of precise communication.

Finally, effective student practices must contain a solid base of critical thinking, as expressed both orally and through written projects. The educators emphasize the tremendous importance of such critical thinking in both college and the workplace. If schools and policymakers wish to set up an intervention which to foster critical thinking, competitive policy debate merits consideration.

2. Debate Participation Increases Mastery of Skills from Each of the Common Core Standards English Language Strands

The English language arts Common Core Standards are organized into three “strands”: Reading, Writing, and Speaking and Listening.13 These strands are further subdivided into specific goals for the students. Certain elements of the standards are combined to form two “applications:” Research and Media.14 The skills fostered by urban debate support key English language arts benchmarks contained within each category. The authors of the Common Core Standards also provided a list of the broader objectives of the strands, focusing on the skill set that the students steeped in the Standards would ultimately master. This list of broader objectives is discussed first, followed by an explanation of the specific goals supported by debate participation.

Student Practices in Reading, Writing, and Speaking and Listening15

  • They demonstrate independence as readers, writers, speakers, and listeners. Debate cultivates self-motivation - the students have to go through the debate round on their own, where a significant portion of their critical thinking, speaking, and reading takes place. Teacher-coaches assign research projects along a basic argument, leaving the student largely in control of how the arguments will be found and organized.
  • They build strong content knowledge . . . across a wide range of subject matter . . . become proficient in new areas through research and study . . . read purposefully and listen attentively . . . refine their knowledge and share it through substantive writing and speaking. Debating a single resolution all year exposes the student to both broad areas of knowledge and narrow nuances of argument. For example, the 2009-10 resolution dealing with domestic policy to reduce poverty will expose students to questions of housing fairness, immigration policy, political theory, economic repercussions from various changes in policy, and moral questions related to poverty and suffering. This knowledge will evolve through research and through verbal argument so that at the end of the year students are intimately familiar with previously unfamiliar subjects.
  • They respond to the varying demands of audience, task, purpose, and discipline. Students must adapt to a wide range of judges, some who have very little debate experience or expertise in the topic discussed. They also must adapt to the unique conundrum of "switchside debate" - debating against the resolution in one round, and upholding it in the next.
  • They comprehend as well as critique. Debate requires both: without comprehension of an argument or of evidentiary claims, the student is ill-prepared to defend against surprising tactics by an opponent. Critique of opponents' claims and evidence is, of course, crucial to winning.
  • They privilege evidence. Few activities are as evidence-oriented as debate. Arguments from the debaters' own beliefs or unsourced claims are incredibly unlikely to prevail against evidence-backed arguments, strongly incentivizing debaters to research.
  • They care about precision. Debate rounds turn on precise distinctions between arguments, or precise interpretations of topic wording. The debaters keep track of their own and their opponents' arguments, even to a micro-level, on paper. This record of the arguments made is one of the most important tools in the round, letting the students identify key concessions or key internal problems with their opponents' arguments. Often such concessions are mere oversights, teaching the students the value of very precise communication.
  • They use technology strategically and capably. Debate teams frequently need to produce several arguments in a short amount of time, which demands a familiarity with electronic resources and research. The competitive demands of the activity have forced debaters to become familiar with technology, article databases, and various search functions while other students were still primarily using the library.

The Three Strands

  1. Reading:16 This set of standards is formulated with the ultimate goal of cultivating critical engagement with texts.17 A significant portion of the standards grapple with the student’s ability to extract arguments, determine authorial advocacy, and compare/contrast the received information with the student’s existing knowledge. Debaters develop these skills in two frequently-encountered situations. First, while they read texts during the process of producing evidence, debaters scan a vast body of potential evidence from political, economic, opinion, philosophical, and policy-oriented sources, sorting out relevant information. Second, within the debate round, debaters confront their opponents’ evidence, and have a short time to evaluate and critique the quality of the evidence and its logical support for the opponents’ claims. These experiences align with the following goals from the Common Core Standards:
    • (1). “Determine what the text says explicitly and use evidence within the text to infer what is implied by or follows logically from the text.” In debate, evaluating a text’s argumentative claims is key to completing research assignments and to successfully attacking opponents’ evidence during competition.
    • (2). “Support or question statements about the text by citing the text explicitly and accurately.” A research assignment is based around a central argumentative idea, and the student collects support for that central idea by finding and citing specific textual support. Within the debate round, students read each others’ evidence and query its application to their opponents’ evidence, cultivating critical reading skills.
    • “Assess the contributions that significant details as well as larger portions of the text make to the whole.” Debaters frame the research they present within the frame of a larger argument they are trying to make, cultivating a step-by-step understanding of how arguments are composed of small logical elements. And, of course, the debaters win by identifying logical flaws in their opponents’ arguments. The activity presses students to move continually between micro-level details and macro-level themes: in round, students analyze the contribution of small arguments to their larger strategy; outside the round, students craft tailored arguments out of the general ground created by the debate topic for the year.
    • (4). “Summarize the ideas, events, or information in the text and determine the main ideas and themes.” The process of creating a research base and using that research within the debate round involves distilling the key argument of the author to a few important claims, and offering the extracted sections in support of this claim.
    • (9). “Analyze how the organizational structure advances the argument, explanation, or narrative.” Research involves two basic elements: organization, in which the debaters set forth a desired outline of their proposed argument structure, and fill in the pieces of the argument with evidence from various authors; and evaluation, or quality control, in which debaters seek not just a brief restatement of their desired claim, but for authoritative evidence that provides both claim and warrant and offers a legitimate, persuasive basis for the debaters’ argument. Moreover, since multiple disparate arguments may be raised during the course of a debate round, the debaters who keep their evidentiary claims mentally organized will likely prevail.
    • (10). “Interpret data, graphics, and words in the text, and combine these elements of information to achieve comprehension.” This skill arises as debaters evaluate evidentiary claims in technical or policy-oriented texts, which often contain data and graphical representations of data. Comprehension is tested when debaters are forced to articulate their understanding in a round.
    • (11). “Follow the reasoning that supports an argument or explanation and assess whether the evidence provided is relevant or sufficient.” Urban debate students evaluate opponents’ arguments, searching for weaknesses and for places where their own arguments provide answers. In their final rebuttal speeches, they solicit the vote of the judge by weighing the internal logic and credibility of their own claims and evidence and comparing this logic to their opponents’.
    • (12). “Ascertain the origin and credibility of print and online sources when conducting research.” Judges and opponents quickly pounce on sources whose overblown hyperbole suggests an illegitimate source. Debaters therefore have an incentive to question the legitimacy of all sources, both print and online. To facilitate the evaluation of sources during competition, debaters are required to cite the source of all evidence used in rounds and expected to include in that citation authors’ qualifications.
    • (13). “Analyze how two or more texts with different styles, perspectives, or argument address similar topics or themes.” Debaters usually must seek evidence from multiple texts in order to synthesize a single argument. For example, debaters may search through coverage of a specific political issue from more neutral news reporters and nonpartisan think tanks, but also from authors advocating specific outcomes using strategies intended to persuade the general public or a specific audience.
    • (14). “Apply knowledge and concepts drawn from texts to other texts, contexts, and circumstances.” Most commonly, debaters contest an opponent’s evidence by applying contradictory claims from their own evidence, analyzing reasons why those claims make more sense, more specifically address the topic at hand given the context, or directly answer the competing claims.
  2. Writing: 18 A key aspect of the writing strand focuses on the student’s ability to “frame and defend an argument.”19 During debate practices and in preparation for competition, students routinely produce written documents, in the form of organized research assignments for specific topics and briefer advocacy documents outlining the reasons and evidence supporting a debate resolution. Students who learn the skills cultivated by debate-related writing will be better prepared to make arguments in academic writing. Debate-related writing especially supports the following Common Core Standards goals:
    • (1). “Select and refine a topic or thesis that addresses the specific task and audience.” At the beginning of the year, a general topic is announced in the form of a “resolution” which the debaters must both critique and defend in alternate debate rounds. The debaters then decide, as a school or as a team, how best to pursue a position which supports or refutes the resolution. Ultimately, debaters produce a written advocacy of a narrowed version of the general topic resolution.
    • (2). “Sustain focus on a specific topic or argument through careful presentation of essential content.” Research files produced through debate each deal with a single core argument. This argument is separated into its component claims, and each claim is supported by a separate extract from an author. Creating this product requires the debater to identify and select essential evidence from a variety of sources, then to combine that evidence into a single, coherent presentation of an argument.
    • (3). “Create a logical progression of ideas and use transitions effectively to convey the relationships among them.” To persuade the judge and withstand attack from opponents, the component claims of the debaters’ argument must not only be individually strong, but must also be connected to one another to function as a series of intuitive links, supported by evidence. Thus, debaters learn to convey and defend not only arguments, but relationships between arguments.
    • (5). “Develop and maintain a style and tone appropriate to the purpose and audience.” Each research assignment focuses on developing a narrow argument for use in an oral advocacy debate round. Because of these strictures, the format, tone, and objective of each research assignment is tightly regulated, requiring the debater to learn how to work within specific confines to produce quality work. Moreover, judges vary widely in their experience with either the topic or even with the activity, which forces the debaters to tailor their arguments and their style to persuade many different kinds of audiences.
    • (10). “Establish a substantive claim, distinguishing it from alternate or opposing claims.” Debaters develop research files of evidence to refute frequently-heard oppositional claims. Developing these preemptive answers requires the debaters to evaluate their argument even in the process of writing it, scouring the authors’ answers to their critics, and clarifying their argument against common misrepresentations.
    • (11). “Link claims and evidence and ensure that the evidence is relevant and sufficient to support the claims.” This goal is the very essence of the debate research assignment. If links are poor or absent, debaters will be swiftly punished by their opponents in rounds.
    • (12). “Acknowledge competing arguments or information, defending or qualifying the initial claim as appropriate.” While compiling an answers section in each research file, as explained in regard to standard (10) above, debaters take account of known refutations, refine their arguments to avoid or preempt these refutations, and prepare to defend the argument with the best evidence.
    • (13). “Synthesize information from multiple relevant sources, including graphics and quantitative information when appropriate, to provide an accurate picture of that information.” The effective research assignment functions exactly in this way, as an accurate synthesis of multiple sources.
    • (14). “Convey complex information clearly and coherently to the audience through careful selection, organization, and presentation of the content.” Although debaters may delve into jargon-filled sources, or unusually complex and layered arguments, their ultimate goal is to extract evidence that is useful in a time-pressured, competitive situation. Thus, debaters have an incentive to strive for clarity and brevity in presentation.
    • (15). “Demonstrate understanding of the content by getting key facts right, covering the essential points, and anticipating reader misconceptions.” Errors within a research file are costly, exposing the debater to unanticipated attacks from opponents or a scolding (and a loss) from a judge. Filling in gaps in factual knowledge and ensuring accurate grasp of content is therefore highly important to the debater both in writing the research assignment and arguing it in a round. Again, the practice of writing preemptive answers to anticipated refutations forces debaters to anticipate misconceptions and misrepresentations.
  3. Speaking and Listening:20 Speaking and listening skills are, naturally, at the core of debate participation. The most recent version of the CCS emphasizes not just general public speaking skills, but a speeches and presentations which convey an argument, persuade specific audiences, and engage critically with other speakers.
    • (1). “Present information and findings clearly and persuasively, selecting an appropriate format, organization, and register for the purpose and audience.” Each member of the urban debate team gives two speeches per round, concisely introducing and interpreting the team’s evidence using the format of an oral presentation. In addition to choosing a winning team, judges rate students individually on the effectiveness of their speaking style, including organization and clarity.
    • (2). “Respond constructively to clarify points and to build on or challenge ideas.” During debate rounds, each debater conducts a cross-examination of an opponent and answers an opponent’s cross-examination. These cross-examination periods naturally build on the immediately preceding speeches. These extemporaneous exchanges further develop debaters’ abilities to defend their claims and evidence and to ask appropriate clarifying questions. During speeches, debaters are also clarifying, building on, and challenging arguments introduced previously. Early in the round, debaters use constructive speeches to extend (i.e., build on) the arguments made by their partners earlier in the round. At the end of the round, each debater gives a rebuttal speech, in which she or he attempts to persuade the judge to vote her or his team over the other by articulating how the team won the clash created by challenging the opponents’ ideas.
    • (3). “Listen to complex information and understand what was said, identifying main ideas and supporting details.” Arguments which the debater does not answer are considered conceded. Debaters must listen for and concentrate on opponents’ arguments, taking careful notes so they can be sure to address all arguments. Given a limited amount of time for speaking, debaters are forced to distill opponents’ arguments into concise points to be refuted.
    • (4). “Follow the progression of the speaker's message and evaluate the speaker's credibility and use of evidence.” One again, these skills are at the heart of the speech aspects of the debate round, since debaters closely follow their opponents’ arguments and organization in order to contest the arguments and evidentiary bases.

Two Applications of the Standards

  • Research and Evidence Gathering:This application uses standards from each of the preceding strands.21 Students who participate in urban debate are assigned significant research files on important national and global topics, spanning issues such as economics, Congressional agendas, climate change, hegemony, executive power, and jurisprudence. The size and scope of these assignments usually dwarfs the requirements for the average high school research paper. Debaters have a significant competitive incentive to do thorough, high-quality research because debate highly privileges targeted evidence within logically organized arguments. The kind of reading that debaters do in service of their research projects focuses their energies on culling quality argumentation from multiple texts, a major focus of the application’s Reading elements. Debaters produce written products which outline claims, collect research from multiple sources in service of each of these claims, and qualify initial arguments as necessary in light of common counterarguments. Within the context of the debate round, the students must present the research findings clearly.
  • Media:Like the Research application, Media coordinates goals from the other three standards.22 The Media application looks to teach students how to grapple with electronic and technological progress.23 Debate fosters these skills since debaters are taught electronic research, including the special problems which arise in internet-based searches related to potentially unreliable sources.

III. Recommendations to Decision-Makers

Educators concerned with finding the most important skills for college and workplace success have developed Common Core Standards which focus on argument, research, and critical evaluation – skills which are taught by debate participation. Education policy makers and practitioners familiar with the evidence take seriously the notion that expanding access to UDLs is one proven, innovative approach to securing real student improvement. Dr. Briana Mezuk has found important connections between debate participation and educational achievement in her recent research, conducted in conjunction with the University of Michigan, the Consortium on Chicago School Research, and Chicago Public Schools.

The best current evidence shows that, in order to effectively increase academic achievements, educators and decision-makers should strive to do the following: (1) broaden access to academically rigorous programs that extend learning opportunities throughout the school year, week, and day; (2) support co-curricular programs that focus on secondary literacy skills and incorporate complex reading materials into instructional time; (3) implement programs that prepare and motivate students to excel at school-based learning; and (4) invest in innovative programmatic approaches backed by empirical evidence. Broadening participation in academic debate for as many urban students as possible is a proven approach to realize these objectives.





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1. Council of Chief State School Officials and National Governors’ Association, Common Core Standards Initiative, http://www.corestandards.org/Files/CCSSIOne-Page.pdf (accessed Aug. 25, 2009) (hereinafter “CCSSO”).

2. Achieve, Ready or Not: Creating a High School Diploma that Counts, AMERICAN DIPLOMA PROJECT 3 (2004), at http://www.achieve.org/files/ADPreport_7.pdf (accessed Aug. 25, 2009).

3. Neild, R., & Balfanz, R., An Extreme Degree of Difficulty: The Educational Demographics of Urban Neighborhood High Schools, J. OF EDU. FOR STUDENTS PLACED AT RISK 123-24, 126-27 (2006); see also Kasarda, J., Cities as Places Where People Live and Work: Urban Change and Neighborhood Distress 20, in CISNEROS, H, Ed., INTERWOVEN DESTINIES: CITIES AND THE NATION 81–124 (W.W. Norton 1993).

4. See GAROFANO, A. & SABLE, J. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE 100 LARGEST PUBLIC ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOL DISTRICTS IN THE UNITED STATES: 2005–06 (NCES 2008-339) iii (Nat’l Center for Edu. Statistics, Institute of Edu. Sciences, U.S. Dept. of Edu.,2008), available at http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2008/2008339.pdf (listing the 100 highest-density school districts which educate the majority of students); http://www.urbandebate.org (listing the cities in which Urban Debate Leagues have been formed, which track the top fifty of that 100).

5. BALFANZ, R., AND LEGTERS, N., LOCATING THE DROPOUT CRISIS: WHICH HIGH SCHOOLS PRODUCE THE NATION’S DROPOUTS? WHERE ARE THEY LOCATED? WHO ATTENDS THEM? (CRESPAR Report 70, Sept. 2004), available at http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/1b/a3/a0.pdf (finding that schools in high-density, majority-minority, low-income districts are “dropout factories” where poor academic performance is deeply entrenched); http://www.urbandebate.org (listing the cities in which urban debate leagues have been formed, which tracks the top range of the dropout factories).

6. http://urbandebate.org/mission.shtml

7. Mezuk, B., Urban debate and high school educational outcomes for African American males: The case of the Chicago Debate League, J. of NEGRO EDU. 290, 292-93 (Oct. 2009).

8. ACT, ACT COLLEGE READY ENGLISH STANDARDS (ACT, 2009).

9. Mezuk, supra note 7, at 298.

10. Id.

11. Id. at 299.

12. Id. at 300.

13. Council of Chief State School Officials and National Governors’ Association, College and Career Readiness Standards for Reading, Writing, and Speaking and Listening vii (Draft Version, Sept. 2009), available at http://www.corestandards.org/Files/ELAStandardsSources.pdf (hereinafter “Core Standards”).

14. Id.

15. Id. at iii-iv

16. Id. at 1-B.

17. Id. at 1-A (“Because most college and workplace reading is nonfiction, students need to hone their ability to acquire knowledge from informational texts. Workplace and discipline-specific reading will often require students to demonstrate persistence as they encounter a large amount of unfamiliar and often technical vocabulary and concepts . . . . Students need to be able to perform a close reading of a much higher volume of texts and to sort efficiently through large amounts of print and online information in search of specific facts or ideas.”).

18. Id. at 2-B.

19. Id. at 2-A (“While many high school students have experience presenting their opinions, they need to be able to make arguments supported by evidence in order to be ready for careers and college. Students must be able to frame the debate over a claim, present the reasoning and evidence for the argument, and acknowledge and address its limitations.”).

20. Id. at 3-B.

21. Id. at 4-A (explaining that Research contains Reading Informational and Literary Texts standards 4, 10, 11, 12, 13; Writing standards 1, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15; and Speaking and Listening standard 1).

22. Id. at 4-B (explaining that Media contains Reading Informational and Literary Texts standards 4, 10, 12, 13; Writing standards 6, 13, 14, 15; and Speaking and Listening standards 1, 3, 4).

23. Id.