An urban debate league (UDL) is a group of high school policy debate teams from urban high schools in the United States. Because each school may have a number of individual teams, there can be a very large number of students who have participated in an urban debate league. Usually, UDL's are located in large cities throughout the US, and work with predominantly minority students. Policy debate is a form of speech competition in which teams of two debate whether or not a specific policy action should be enacted. ...

History

Early years

The first Urban Debate League was established in Philadelphia in 1982 and then extended some years later to Atlanta, Georgia under the auspices of a three year $5,000 urban debate league challenge grant (for three consecutive years) sponsored by Phillips Petroleum and the National Forensic League in the late 1980s and early 90s. These grants were spearheaded by the see below)and by the President of the NFL, Dr. James Copeland, who envisioned the grants as ways to establish pilot programs in urban debate in various cities in the United States. Nickname: City of Brotherly Love, Philly, the Quaker City Motto: Philadelphia maneto (Let brotherly love continue) Location in Pennsylvania Coordinates: Country United States State Pennsylvania County Philadelphia Founded October 27, 1682 Incorporated October 25, 1701 Mayor John F. Street (D) Area    - City 369. ... ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) was founded by the merger of the Conoco Inc. ... The National Forensic League is one of two major U.S. national organizations which direct high school competitive speech events. ...

Philadelphia

In 1985 the Philadelphia Bar Association, under the leadership of Leonard Bernstein, Esquire, and the Young Lawyers Division of the PBA also founded a UDL in Philadelphia, which provided lawyer volunteers to each of the Philadelphia public high schools, sponsored a fall debate program at each of the Philadelphia public high schools, and also sponsored an annual debate tournament held at Temple University, with the final rounds of Lincoln-Douglas Debate held at the Federal Courthouse in Downtown Philadelphia, with final rounds judged by standing United States Federal Judges. The founding of the Philadelphia Debate League antedated the first wave of Phillips Grants by five years. In 1989, Catherine Olanich Raymond, Esquire, a former Villanova Debate Coach, and Arthur J. Kyriazis, Esquire, a former Harvard debater and college and high school debate coach, and co-chairs of the Philadelphia Law-Related Education Programs and Debate Programs, had several meetings with with Dr. James Copeland of the National Forensic League about their program. After discussions, Dr. Copeland decided in 1989 to fund Philadelphia as the pilot program in urban debate under the Phillips Petroleum grants, along with two other cities, Atlanta and one additional pilot program, for a three year period. Year 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link displays 1985 Gregorian calendar). ... The Philadelphia Public School District is a public school district based in Philadelphia, Mississippi (USA). ... Temple University is a university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. ... Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Known by some previous debaters as value debate and for slang sometimes called Lincoln-Douglas, LD debate, or simply, LD, is a style of debate practiced in National Forensic League competitions, and widely used in related debate leagues such as the National Catholic Forensic League, National Educational...

The Open Society Institute

The Atlanta Urban Debate Grant was to the Barkley Forum of Emory University, which founded the Atlanta Urban Debate League in 1985, in partnership with Atlanta Public Schools. This program formed the basis for a national model where [[|non profit organization|non profit]] groups, university debate programs and interested academics received additional grants from OSI to create additional Urban Debate League pilot projects and outright UDLs in other cities. These grants covered the cost of tournament operations, local administration and participation in debate leagues. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... The Barkley Forum, named after Emory alumnus and former United States Vice-President Alben W. Barkley, is the intercollegiate debate and forensics organization at Emory University. ... Emory University is a private university located in the city of Atlanta, Georgia. ... Year 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link displays 1985 Gregorian calendar). ... Atlanta Public Schools is a school district based in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. ...

Philadelphia Success; Atlanta Success; The Word Spreads; League flourishment

The Philadelphia program was the first UDL in the United States to receive NFL recognition for their work and also the first to receive funding from the National Forensic League. Moreover, through their debate contacts, the heads of the Philadelphia program, Kyriazis and Olanich, had advised all of the major debate coaches in the United States, including notably John Meany at Claremont College, Dallas Perkins at Harvard University, Tuna Snider at University of Vermont, Prof. Unger at American University, Prof. Louden of Wake Forest, Prof. Wade at Emory, and many others, of the program; and of course Dr. Copeland had advised all of the grant recipients of the activities of the other pilot projects, so Atlanta knew what Philadelphia was doing as well since they, too, were a Phillips Petroleum/NFL grant recipient. The National Forensic League is one of two major U.S. national organizations which direct high school competitive speech events. ...

The urban debate program in Philadelphia was part of a broader thrust at the high schools, including a mock trial program, an oratory program, a lawyer in the classroom program, and other similar programs aimed at urban speech and debate outreach in Philadelphia. Many of the pilot program ideas in Philadelphia were widely floated in debate coaching circles and made known to other debate coaches, and the essentials of the urban debate league movement was founded by the NFL-Philadelphia Bar Association experience in Philadelphia in the mid-1980s by the Philadelphia Bar Ass'n, Len Bernstein, Art Kyriazis and Catherine Olanich Raymond, along with several hundred lawyer volunteers from the Philadelphia Bar Ass'n who served as coaches, judges etc. The Bar Ass'n of Philadelphia funded those efforts with @$5,000 grant monies from the NFL and line item funds from the Bar Ass'n of @ $5,000 granted outright to the programs annual; along with the assistance of the Temple-LEAP program at Temple Law School each year. Kyriazis and Olanich-Raymong stepped down from their posts running the Philadelphia program in 1997 after ten years of running the programs just as Atlanta and Prof. Wade were taking the program national and international with the assistance of Dr. Soros and grants (see below). Within Philadelphia, the Bar Ass'n program drew a great deal of media attention, and was heavily publicized; indeed, Superintendent of Schools Connie Clayton in 1993 awarded special certificates of merit to Kyriazis and Olanich-Raymond for their work on Law-Related Education and service to the School District of Philadelphia, and commended the Bar Ass'n of Philadelphia generally. The Philadelphia Bar Ass'n was awarded numerous ABA awards including a national ABA service award in 1989 for the debate and law-related education programs, and was voted outstanding young lawyers section in america in 1990 for this work.

New leagues

Turning back to Atlanta and OSI, OSI convened a summit meeting of leading academics and debate activists in Atlanta for the first-ever IDEA-FEST 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 with 14 schools and 140 students with the local assistance of IMPACT. OSI also helped fund UDL start-ups in 16 other cities across the country, including Baltimore, Chicago, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Seattle, and Washington, DC. Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... Year 1997 (MCMXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1997 Gregorian calendar). ... The Baltimore Urban Debate League (BUDL, pronounced boodle), is a non profit urban debate league, which is intended as an educational and mentorship program for inner city middle school and high school students in Baltimore, Maryland. ... The District of Columbia Urban Debate League (DCUDL) is an urban debate league located in Washington DC. // The majority of the schools, middle and high, are public schools that are apart of the DC Public School system. ...

As it began to phase out its funding of urban debate, OSI formed the National Urban Debate Initiative in 2002, which evolved into the National Association for Urban Debate Leagues (NAUDL) in 2005. The NAUDL's mission is to increase the number of urban debaters across the country. The NAUDL comprehensively reviewed the record of the first decade of the urban debate network and, based on those results, formulated an organizational model that institutionalizes UDLs in urban school systems and establishes a UDL Advisory Board to bring together community leadership to support the school-based project. With the continuing support of the founder of the Urban Debate Network, OSI, the NAUDL has developed a range of programs that build, expand, and connect Urban Debate Leagues around the country.

UDLs today

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). At about this time Urban Debate Leagues began to develop their connections with the growing after-school programs movement: in 2004 and 2005 the NAUDL was invited to make presentations at the National Institute for Out of School Time and the Alliance for Excellent Education annual conferences. Not to be confused with a BBC news magazine program of the same name. ... The Baltimore Urban Debate League (BUDL, pronounced boodle), is a non profit urban debate league, which is intended as an educational and mentorship program for inner city middle school and high school students in Baltimore, Maryland. ... The International Debate Education Association (IDEA) is an association that develops, organizes and promotes debate and debate-related activities in communities throughout the world. ... The Alliance for Excellent Education (AEE) is a national policy, research and advocacy organization that works to develop a national consensus and policy agenda to transform American high schools. ...

In 2005, the Associated Leaders of Urban Debate (ALOUD) was formed, led by New York University (NYU) President John Sexton and CEO Michael Critelli. It is estimated that 34,000 at-risk youth have participated in UDL programs, of which more than 75% have gone on to college. Over 100 colleges and universities now recruit intercollegiate debaters in cities with UDLs offering millions in scholarship support. Stuart Singer, Esq. and President Sexton are both prominent former debaters/debate coaches as well as extremely prominent members of the community at large. Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... New York University (NYU) is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational institution in New York City. ... John Sexton at NYU commencement John Edward Sexton (born 1942) is the fifteenth President of New York University, having held this position since 2002. ...

Funding

The goal of the OSI's Urban Debate Program was to offer 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 was once local actors see the value of the program, sustaining investment in debate would become easier.

Today, with OSI finishing up its funding of local urban debate programs, Urban Debate Leagues are funded primarily by one of three local institutions: urban public school systems, non-profit organizations dedicated to establishing a local UDL, or university debate programs engaged in community outreach.

How it works

Most UDLs function in their own unique way, and use different teaches methods to get urban students used to the format and application of policy debate. Most urban debate leagues recruit and train urban educators as coaches, though many also use university debaters or former debaters within the community to serve as assistant coaches. While all UDLs attempt to recruit volunteer support (tournament judges, tournament "tab room" coordinators, lecturers at debate workshops for students, etc.), certain core costs of a UDL must be funded in order for the program to be sustainable: coach stipends, debate materials, transportation to tournaments.

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 now about even more than starting high school policy debate leagues.

UDLs have demonstrated a very high level of cost-effectiveness averaging less than $650 per student for a year's involvement in a program that researchers and media observers have widely recognized as unusually intensive in its academic focus, relative to other after-school programs.

Current UDLs and associations

Main article: List of urban debate leagues

This is a list of current urban debate leagues in the United States. ...

External links

• National Forensic League
• National Debate Coaches Association
• National Catholic Forensics League
• National Christian Forensics and Communications Association
• National Association for Urban Debate Leagues
• International Debate Education Association
• Cross-x
• Planet Debate
• Victory Briefs
• West Coast Debate PolicyFiles
• HS Debate
• Policy Debate on Forensics Wiki