NAUDL : National Association for Urban Debate Leagues

Urban Debate Leagues: An Effective and Proven Solution to Increase College and Career Readiness for Urban Students

The knowledge economy demands that high schools equip graduates with the skills necessary to succeed in college and careers. Committed national, state, and local leaders are working to identify and implement proactive, evidence-based interventions to ensure that students in the lowest-performing urban districts and schools have opportunities to learn and prepare for post-secondary success. According to an emerging body of evidence, Urban Debate Leagues are an effective approach that urban schools can use to prepare low-performing students for college and life.

When the urban high school curriculum fails to prepare students for college, under-prepared college freshmen are often forced to spend time and money taking remedial classes simply to keep pace. Urban students from low-performing schools are especially likely to end up in remedial classes, contributing to low college completion rates for these students. College-bound high school graduates are not the only students let down by under-performing urban schools. In the knowledge economy, high school graduates heading into the workplace must also demonstrate advanced academic skills, including the comprehension of complex texts and advanced writing skills. Those who lack these skills will find difficulty obtaining higher-level careers.1

The findings from a new research study conducted by Dr. Briana Mezuk in conjunction with the University of Michigan, the Consortium on Chicago School Research, and Chicago Public Schools, demonstrate that urban debate participation improves student outcomes across two key measures of college and career readiness: GPA and scores on the English and Reading ACT subject tests. These findings reinforce an emerging body of research that indicates urban debate is an effective academic intervention.

Findings at a Glance

  • Urban debaters who participated intensely (25 rounds or more) in urban debate increased their GPA by 0.20 (20 percent of a letter grade), compared to students who participated minimally or not at all in urban debate.
  • African American male urban debaters who participated intensely in urban debate increased their GPA by 0.5 (50 percent of a letter grade) above the GPA of students who participated minimally or not at all in debate.
  • The cumulative ACT score for urban debaters was 20.3, compared to 18.5 for non-debaters.
  • The cumulative ACT for African American male urban debaters was 19.4, compared to 17.0 for non-debater African American males.
  • Compared to non-debaters, urban debaters were 50 percent more likely to reach the ACT English benchmark.
  • Compared to African American male non-debaters, African American male urban debaters were twice as likely to reach the ACT English benchmark.
  • Compared to African American male non-debaters, African American males who participated in urban debate were 70 percent more likely to reach the ACT benchmark in Reading.

I. Urban Students Lag in College Readiness and Completion

Urban school systems face well-documented challenges that deserve the attention of federal, state, and local policymakers. The schools that serve the most densely populated cities2 represent a small number of the total number of school districts in America, yet they educate about a quarter of American students, including 40 percent of the nation’s students of color and 30 percent of low-income students.3 Students attending these low performing schools consistently perform far below the national averages in key academic achievement measurements, including secondary literacy and writing,4 college readiness,5 and college completion.6

“College readiness” can be measured along several axes,7 but fundamentally the term refers to the level at which a high school curriculum has prepared a student to successfully apply to, complete coursework at, and graduate from college.8 Students who lack college readiness must devote time and resources to remedial classes before they can begin their main courses of study. The students who take such remedial classes are disproportionately students of color from disadvantaged backgrounds.9 Because they enter college unprepared, these students are at a disadvantage relative to their peers; the burden of remedial coursework means they often take longer to finish college and many decide to drop out.10 Simply put, the groundwork laid in high school is a determining factor in college completion.11

The same skills that prepare high school graduates to succeed in college also help prepare students for success in careers. Although tests such as the ACT are usually discussed in the context of college entrance and college success, the ACT test writers correlate their tests to skills that employers require for workplace success.12 Employers want employees who can differentiate good writing from bad and grapple with a diverse range of complex texts.13 Students need proficiency in such skills in order to begin a career which offers a salary sufficient to keep a family of four above the poverty line, and chances for meaningful advancement, within flourishing industries.14

Educators are exploring a range of options to ensure students in low-performing urban schools are prepared to meet the demands of college and careers. Now, an emerging body of research points to a strategy worth further consideration: Urban Debate Leagues (UDLs), policy debate programs specifically geared to urban students. Recent research has examined the impact of urban debate on the academic achievement of students in the Chicago public school system. Using student records from a ten year period, this study found that students who participated in urban debate were less likely to drop out of high school, raised their GPAs, and significantly improved their secondary literacy skills as measured by ACT results.15 The study also included an investigation of the outcomes for a specific, oft-neglected subgroup, African American males, and found that for these traditionally underperforming students, urban debate participation creates even more dramatic effects in terms of graduation rates, GPAs, and performance on both the ACT English and ACT Reading tests.16

These findings suggest that UDLs deserve the attention of educators who are concerned with setting local, state, and national policies designed to align teaching and learning in high schools with college and career readiness standards. UDLs are an innovative approach to ensure that urban high schools benefit from effective teachers, rigorous courses of study, and extensive opportunities for students to acquire knowledge and skills for post-secondary school success. Urban Debate Leagues are a co-curricular, teacher-centered intervention that has proven effective in a range of urban school systems – an innovative approach that works.

UDLs deserve the attention of educators grappling with setting state-wide and national strategies for improving school completion. Identifying innovative solutions that have been demonstrated to improve outcomes in the lowest performing schools in urban districts is a national priority because the challenges facing these schools will not remain isolated. As immigration increases and American cities struggle to compete in the global economy, educators who have never before taught in settings with these structural challenges will need to embrace approaches that help secure academic success.17 Additionally, college readiness involves economic repercussions with significance for the national economy, as college readiness is directly tied to college completion and the benefits thereof. While a high school diploma provides some economic benefit, a college diploma not only provides greater opportunities to the individual, but also has implications for the national economy. In an increasingly competitive and knowledge-based job market, college educated students are better able to thrive.18 These competitive jobs bring higher salaries, which mean greater tax revenues and potential for reinvestment in education and other priorities.19 Successful efforts to change flagging achievement numbers in districts with the highest concentrations of low performing schools20 can have real effects on national progress.21

II. High Schools and Colleges Seek to Increase College Readiness in Urban Communities, but Urban Students Have Yet to Benefit Significantly

Over the past several years, national, state, and local leaders have made college and career readiness a clear and urgent priority. The college degree now serves as a minimum qualification for an increasing number of jobs. Thus, the question of whether American high-school graduates can smoothly transition to college has moved to the forefront of educational policy discussions. ACT has notably encouraged widespread discussion of the knowledge components required for college success, implementing tests and curriculum changes.22 Employers’ increasing demand for college degrees has prompted colleges to step up efforts to recruit and enroll low-income students and students of color, which has in turn forced consideration of how to ensure that these students successfully complete college.23 Despite these efforts, college readiness among low-income students of color living in urban settings lags behind that of their peers from different backgrounds.24 The disparity in college readiness explains, in part, the low rates of college completion among students of color.25 Without college degrees, these students are put at a disadvantage in the job market. But the solution to this problem cannot be solved merely by focusing on enrollment. Recruitment efforts cannot produce measurable gains in college completion if students are unable to deal with the coursework once in college.26 To address disparities in college completion, policymakers and educators must tackle the problem at its root, ensuring America’s high schools adequately prepare all graduates for college and careers.

III. Research Shows Urban Debate Promotes College Readiness for At-Risk Students

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,27 and in most of the school systems with the highest number of critically low-performing schools.28 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.29

B. Research Indicates that Urban Debate is Highly Effective for Urban Students

College readiness can be measured in several different ways: tests such as the ACT which are specifically designed to check students’ ability to enter the college classroom; GPA; and examinations of skill-sets deemed common to successful college students. Urban debate demonstrably increases achievement along each of these measurements.30

One commonly-cited measure of college readiness is Grade Point Average (GPA).31 Intensity of participation in urban debate tracked higher GPAs in 12th grade. Urban debaters who participated in the activity at an intense level, defined in the study as 25 or more debate rounds, saw their GPA increase by 0.20 (or about 20 percent of a letter grade) above students who debated five rounds or less.32 These results held true even when the results were corrected for eighth grade GPAs and eighth grade standardized test scores.33 For African American males, students who participated in 25 or more rounds had GPAs about 50 percent of a letter grade higher than minimally participating peers.34 GPA works as a signal to colleges that the student is likely to be qualified to enter the classroom and succeed.35

Another common tool for evaluating college readiness is performance on the ACT college readiness exams.36 Urban debate participants saw increases in both their cumulative ACT score and in their ACT English and ACT Reading scores.37

The ACT cumulative score for urban debaters was 20.3, compared to a score of 18.5 for students who did not debate.38 For African American males, students who participated in debate averaged a score of 19.4, while non-debater African American male students averaged 17.0.39 The individual subject tests on the ACT (English, Reading, Science, and Mathematics) are governed by “benchmarks,” which serve to indicate whether a student can be successful in a freshman college class requiring similar skills.40

For African American males, a population which generally exhibits the lowest levels of college preparedness, participation in urban debate significantly increased this measure of college readiness. In this study, African American male debaters were 70 percent more likely to score above the ACT benchmark for college readiness in English and Reading.41 Among the entire sample of students, urban debaters were 50 percent more likely to score above the benchmark in English.42 As with the findings on GPA increases, score increases were linked with intensity of participation, such that the students who participated intensely showed the most dramatic differences over their peers.43

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 changes in their ACT subject tests for literacy-oriented subjects (English and Reading), but not for math and science. This targeted effect suggests the association between debate participation and academic achievement is causal, not coincidental. It refutes suggestions that the students who choose to debate differ systematically on unobservable characteristics that make them more likely to score well. If self-selection accounted for the entirety of the observed effects on ACT scores, the study would have found improvement on all subject tests, not just the tests of skills practiced in debate.44

Students involved in urban debate also gain skills which, while less explicitly measured on the ACT, contribute significantly to the ability to complete college successfully. Such skills include logical reasoning, extraction of argumentative content from a reading assignment, “problem solving,”45 research skills, and engagement with both sides of a complex issue.46 These skills, described as “centrally important to college success,”47 are cultivated by an activity that requires research gathering, framing of research in service of an argumentative point, understanding perspective and audience, critical thinking, analyzing the limitations, and step by step construction of arguments.

C. The NAUDL’s Approach Complements Existing School Arrangements

The UDL approach deploys an evidence-based design firmly grounded in research on effective practices regarding what works in the urban educational settings in which it will be deployed. As policymakers work toward comprehensive systems improvement, they should consider strategies which require modest investment and can be implemented quickly while achieving significant results. Such targeted-approaches strategies deserve consideration as they are a highly effective yet low-cost solution that can be implemented quickly. UDLs complement existing curriculums by extending learning time and fostering academic skills, curiosity, and engagement among underserved urban students.

IV. Educational Decision-Makers Should Increase Support for Urban Debate Leagues and Broaden Access to UDL Programs

Education practitioners and policymakers 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 Chicago Consortium on 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 realizing these objectives.

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1. ACT, ACT’S COLLEGE READINESS SYSTEM: MEETING THE CHALLENGE OF A CHANGING WORLD (ACT Inc. 2008), available at http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/43/bd/76.pdf (“[W]orkplace readiness demands the same level of knowledge and skills as college readiness. While not every student plans to attend college after high school, many of the jobs that can support a family require knowledge and skills comparable to those expected of the first-year college student.”) (hereinafter “ACT 2008”).

2. Fredricks, L, & Dickson, S., Framing the Problem 1, in EDU. COMM’N OF THE STATES, IMPROVING ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN URBAN DISTRICTS: WHAT STATE POLICYMAKERS CAN DO 1-10 (Edu. Comm’n of the States, Dec. 2003).

3. 100 school districts educate 24 percent of the nation’s children, including 40 percent of the total student of color and 30 percent of the total low-income students. Id. at 1; see also 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.

4. Snipes, J., & Horowitz, A., Advancing Adolescent Literacy in Urban Schools 3, RESEARCH BRIEF, (Council of the Great City Schools, Fall 2008), available at http://www.cgcs.org/Pubs/ResearchBrief_08.pdf.

5. Steinberg, A., & Almeida, C., The Dropout Crisis: Promising Approaches in Prevention and Recovery 4 (White Paper for U.S. Dep’t of Education, Office of Vocational & Adult Education, published by Jobs for the Future, June 2004), available at http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/30/af/36.pdf.

6. Students of color have a higher incidence of being “incidental” college attenders who do not complete college. See ADELMAN, C. PRINCIPAL INDICATORS OF STUDENT ACADEMIC HISTORIES IN POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION, 1972-2000 30-35 (U.S. Dept. of Edu., Institute of Edu. Sciences 2004), available at http://www.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/prinindicat/prinindicat.pdf.

7. Roderick, M., Nagakoa, J. & Coca, V., College Readiness for All: The Challenge for Urban High Schools, FUTURE OF CHILDREN 185, 187-88 (Spring 2009), available at http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/44/58/2e.pdf (identifying several methods of evaluating college readiness, primarily GPA, test scores, and quality of high school classes).

8. Greene, J. & Forster, G., Public High School Graduation and College Readiness Rates in the United States 7-8 (Education Working Paper No. 3, Sept 2003), available at http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/31/9a/7e.pdf.

9. VENEZIA, A., KIRST, M., and ANTONIO, A. BETRAYING THE COLLEGE DREAM: HOW DISCONNECTED K-12 AND POSTSECONDARY SYSTEMS UNDERMINE STUDENT ASPIRATIONS 8-9 (Jossey-Bass 2004), available at http://www.stanford.edu/group/bridgeproject/betrayingthecollegedream.pdf.

10. Id.

11. Id. at 9-10.

12. ACT, READY FOR COLLEGE AND READY FOR WORK: SAME OR DIFFERENT? (ACT, Inc. 2006), available at http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/1b/ce/8b.pdf (analyzing data from employers at companies which require less than a college diploma but provide a salary sufficient to keep a family of four above the poverty line to find out what skills those companies require of their entry-level hires, and applying this skill set to the benchmark requirements of the ACT college readiness test) (hereinafter ACT 2006).

13. Id.

14. ACT 2008, supra note 1, at 1.

15. 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).

16. Id. at 295-99.

17. 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, 126-27 (2006).

18. WYNER, J., BRIDGELAND, J., & DIIULIO, J., ACHIEVEMENTRAP: HOW AMERICA IS FAILING MILLIONS OF HIGH-ACHIEVING STUDENTS FROM LOWER-INCOME FAMILIES 29 (Jack Kent Cooke Foundation & Civic Enterprises 2007), available at http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/41/df/69.pdf.

19. A college degree produces at least 17 percent more income over the lifetime of the household compared to a high school diploma only. GOUSKOVA, E. & STAFFORD, F. TRENDS IN HOUSEHOLD WEALTH DYNAMICS, 2001-2003 4, 8-9 (Institute for Social Research, Univ. of Mich. 2005), available at http://psidonline.isr.umich.edu/Publications/Papers/TrendsIndynamics1999-2001.pdf.

20. GAROFANO & SABLE, supra note 3.

21. 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.

22. ACT 2008, supra note 1, at 1.

23. Greene, J., & Winters, M., Public High School Graduation and College-Readiness Rates: 1991–2002, 8-9 (CCI Education Working Paper No. 8, Feb. 2005), available at http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/33/2c/d5.pdf.

24. Id. at i.

25. ADELMAN, supra note 6.

26. Greene & Winters, supra note 23.

27. See GAROFANO & SABLE, supra note 1 (listing the 100 largest school districts); www.urbandebate.org (listing the cities in which Urban Debate Leagues have been formed, which track the top fifty of that 100).

28. BALFANZ & LEGTERS, supra note 21, at 31-32 (listing the schools with the lowest promoting power); www.urbandebate.org (listing the cities in which urban debate leagues have been formed, which tracks the top range of the dropout factories).

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

30. Mezuk, supra note 15, at 299.

31. Roderick, Nagakoa, & Coca, supra note 7, at 190-91.

32. Mezuk, supra note 15, at 297.

33. Id. at 293-94.

34. Id. at 297.

35. Roderick, Nagakoa, & Coca, supra note 7, at 190-91.

36. Id. at 193-94.

37. Mezuk, supra note 15, at 298.

38. Id.

39. Id.

40. ACT 2006, supra note 12.

41. Mezuk, supra note 15, at 298.

42. Id.

43. Id. at 299.

44. Id. at 300.

45. Conley, D., Rethinking College Readiness, NEW DIRECTIONS FOR HIGHER EDUCATION 3, 3 (Win. 2008).

46. Id. at 5.

47. Id. at 3.

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