The Boston Debate League needs your help to bring educational opportunities to our students.

Urban debate needs community partners to survive. Urban debate has proven success in single-handedly. increasing the quality of urban education and spurring urban school reform. The educational benefits of policy debate have been documented by many scholars of education and education reform. A concise summary, presented by the National Association of Urban Debate Leagues, shows that debate improves almost every performance indicator in urban education. Debaters' grade point averages rise eight to ten percent when they begin participating in debate programs. Debaters' literacy scores are twenty-five percent higher than their peers'. Ninety percent of urban debaters graduate from high school; seventy-five percent go to college. Urban debaters who go to college are more likely to earn scholarships than their peers. Still, until the Urban Debate movement, debate programs were often inaccessible to urban public high schools. Schools did not have the resources, the background knowledge, or the organization to access this educational research. Urban Debate Leagues like the Boston Debate League take advantage of public-private partnerships to start and sustain debate leagues for public high schools. An NAUDL pamplet, What is an Urban Debate League?, introduces the structure and function of UDLs.

The activity of competitive academic debate has been around for decades, and those fortunate enough to have the opportunity to participate in it have benefited immensely. At least five former presidents were members of their high school or college debate team: Woodrow Wilson, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton (not to mention recent presidential hopeful John Kerry, who was the president of Yale’s debate society).

Although many of these men may have been destined for greatness anyway as a result of both personal characteristics and historical circumstances, it is not a coincidence that so many of those who go on to become members of the political and cultural elite have experience with academic debate. Unfortunately, it is also not a coincidence that so many of those who have used debate as a springboard to greatness were students at Ivy League universities and private secondary schools with tuitions that rival those of the most expensive colleges. For the majority of its history, academic debate has served primarily private schools and their most well funded public counterparts, located almost universally in wealthy suburbs.

There are a number of potential causes for this phenomenon: the cost of specialized training for students and teachers, texts and materials, research opportunities, and travel are high; stereotypes about the interests and abilities of urban students have led many to assume that debate could never take hold at their schools; and a history of discrimination and exclusion have left debate communities with few role models for females, students from low-income families, and members of ethnic and racial minority groups. The result is that for several generations, academic debate has provided advantages to suburban and private school youth while countless thousands of equally deserving and talented but less privileged students at urban public schools have been left behind.

The Urban Debate League movement has begun to change all that. Confronted by an activity whose very structure seemed to exclude urban schools, those who wished to extend the benefits of academic debate to under-privileged students were forced to rebuild the game from the ground-up. They minimized the expenses of transportation and housing by creating indigenous leagues where students could compete without ever leaving their city. They overcame a lack of veteran debaters who understood the needs and experiences of urban students by developing training programs that turned urban education professionals into debate coaches. They raised money for students to attend summer institutes with the best debate coaches in the country. And while they were at it, the changed the face of academic debate forever.

Only in its second year, the Boston Debate League is touching the lives of students at six Boston area public schools. More than one hundred students have already seen the benefits of our programming. The Boston Debate League is a non-profit currently run entirely by volunteers. In order to spread the benefits of policy debate throughout the Boston Public School system, the Boston Debate League needs to add to its Advisory Board and its list of community partners.

The Boston Debate League has formed partnerships with Tufts University College for Community and Public Service, with Boston College Debate, with the Tim Averill Debate Education Fund, and with Northeastern University. These organizations have provided the Debate League with some support funding, with rooms to hold meetings and tournaments in, and with advice on institutionalization in the Boston Public School system.

The Boston Debate League is looking for three sorts of partners. First, we are looking for community partners who are able to donate to the Boston Debate League. Our community partners would provide the BDL with goods and services, and would be acknowledged for that assistance. We are looking for in-kind donations of, or discounts on, trophies and food for tournaments, photocopies of research for debaters, office and computer equipment for league infrastructure, timers for debaters, and/or transportation for debaters to and from tournaments. We are also looking for professionals to speak to our debaters. Community partners could provide professionals whose lives were influenced by competitive debate, who have some expertise in the topic, or who can talk with debaters about an issue of their concern (for example, careers in law, or how to get into college). The BDL would also accept monetary donations from community partners, either earmarked for specific funding priorities (scholarships for debaters, tournament costs, public debates) or for the general operating fund.

The second sort of partner the Boston Debate League is looking for is a community benefactor. A community benefactor is an individual or organization interested in making a monetary donation to the Boston Debate League's operating fund. Commuity benefactors sponsor either the league generally or a certain member school within the League. They fund team research, team coaching, team travel, and individual scholarships to debate institutes. They receive annual reports of the League's progress and invitations to the League's benefactor presentations. They are listed in the invitations and programs to each tournament. Corporate community benefactors can work out a visibility plan with League coordinators, while individuals can discuss an involvement plan. Benefactors may play an active role on the Board of Advisors if they are interested.

The third sort of partner the Boston Debate League is looking for members of the Board of Advisors. The Board is a group of people from all walks of life (lawyers, doctors, politicians, businesspeople, debate professionals, and education professionals) who come together to plan the Boston Debate League's advocacy and sustainability strategies. The Board meets quarterly to discuss funding options, school institutionalization options, curricular potential, and League goals.