| Urban Debate League |
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| CATEGORIES ABOUT URBAN DEBATE LEAGUE | |
| non-profit organizations based in the united states | |
| policy debate | |
| student debating societies | |
| forensics speech and debate | |
| youth organizations based in the united states | |
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HISTORY The first Urban Debate League (UDL) was established as the Detroit Public School Debate in 1984 by Wayne State University 's College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts and the Detroit Public Schools. The Barkley Forum of Emory University founded the Atlanta Urban Debate League in 1985, in partnership with Atlanta Public Schools. A search in the 1990s by George Soros ' foundation, the Open Society Institute (OSI), led to Melissa Wade , Larry Moss and the local success of urban debate in Atlanta. This program formed the basis for a national model where Nonprofit groups, university Debate programs and interested academics received grants from OSI to create Urban Debate Leagues. OSI is an organization committed to increasing public participation in social institutions and increasing awareness about public policy. They aspire to help local neighborhoods in terms of rule of law, education and health care. These grants cover the cost of tournament operations, local administration and participation in existing debate leagues for Title I high schools. OSI convened a summit meeting of leading academics and debate activists in Atlanta for the first-ever IDEAFEST to share thoughts about strategies for bringing debate to needy populations. Open Society Institute formed a partnership with the Barkley Forum and the IMPACT Coalition to replicate the model in New York City in 1996. Later in 1997 with the assistance of lead consultants, Melissa Wade and Larry Moss, and OSI program officer, Beth Breger, the New York Urban Debate League (NYUDL) was founded in 1997 with 14 schools and 140 students with the local assistance of IMPACT. The NYUDL’s success led to replication in Kansas City, Baltimore, Chicago, Washington DC, Seattle and 16 other cities across the country. As OSI began to phase out its funding of urban debate, discussions began about the need for a national presence. The discussions led to the formation of the National Urban Debate Initiative which evolved into the National Association of Urban Debate Leagues (NAUDL). NAUDL provides materials for both administrators and students to begin their participation. In 2003, urban debate moved into national prominence with an article in US News & World Report and a feature story on 60 Minutes about the Baltimore Urban Debate League. The sudden attention and the reduction of OSI support led to the formation of the National Debate Project in Atlanta and domestic activities by the International Debate Education Association (IDEA). The National Debate Project is a consortium of colleges and local practitioners dedicated to building new debate leagues, creating assessment tools for debate and supporting new models of debate. In 2005, there was a call for unity in the movement and an outreach to powerful leaders to determine how to make that happen. The Associated Leaders of Urban Debate (ALOUD), led by New York University (NYU) President John Sexton and Pitney Bowes CEO Michael Critelli represents the leading force for making debate available to the general public and fosters educational partnerships among urban debate communities, universities and school systems in cities around the United States. ALOUD promotes the work of the National Debate Project, NAUDL and IDEA as a unifying force within the urban debate landscape possessing the media savvy to coordinate national marketing efforts and the academic credentials to garner attention on Capitol Hill. It is estimated that 25,000 at-risk youth have participated in UDL programs, of which the majority have gone on to college. Over 100 colleges and universities now recruit intercollegiate debaters in cities with UDLs offering millions in scholarship support. First Lady Laura Bush recognized the National Debate Project’s success of Atlanta’s computer-assisted debate program. Funding The goal of the OSI's Urban Debate Program is to offer the initial support to fund debate programs within urban communities, develop local stakeholders (e.g. university partners, community funders and/or school system support) and then to exit the equation. The concept is that initial entry into the activity of policy debate can be quite challenging but once local actors see the value of the program, sustaining imvestment in debate becomes easier. HOW IT WORKS To see how Urban Debate Leagues work, one of the best places to look is at the league websites (listed below). One can get a sense of how these leagues have developed in their own way to serve their communities and yet how the overarching goal is still to encourage high school students from urban areas to participate in academic pursuits. Starting an urban debate league is not easy. There is a lot of administrative work that is entailed, including starting teams at schools, finding schools, and, most importantly, finding coaches. Many of the coaches are either teachers at the high schools who volunteer their time to coach students, or college students who compete in intercollegiate policy debate, the style of debate the high schoolers model. Many work on a completely volunteer basis as debate still struggles to gain recognition for its value as an integrated co-curricular learning system. Local debate programs have spawned other methods to integrate debate into their communities. Urban debate has expanded to include debate across the curriculum (a classroom learning tool), public debates (partnering with community-based organizations), debates in prisons and middle school competitions. Urban debate is no longer only about starting high school policy debate leagues in cities across the country. EXTERNAL LINKS
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