About Us
Our Mission
The Baltimore Urban Debate League (BUDL) enriches the academic experience of students from Baltimore City's public middle and high schools through participation in team policy debate. Through debate, students become engaged learners, critical thinkers and citizens and leaders who are effective advocates for themselves and their communities.
Debate's Impact
Debate's profound effect is demonstrated in both local and national data, research reports and media. According to national studies:
- Debate improves educational performance.
- Debate reduces violence.
- Debate enhances social development.
- Debate improves schools and communities.
According to a local study, "Assessing the Role of the Baltimore Urban Debate League on Academic and Social Development Outcomes of Students," (Center for Applied Research and Technology, 2002):
- BUDL students voluntarily receive up to 500 additional hours of academic instruction each year
- Participation in BUDL leads to a rapid increase in self esteem, increase in attention to school and achievement, increase in attendance rates and greater engagement in their non debate classes.
- BUDL participants see themselves as college material and aim high. Ninety percent of BUDL's graduates since 2004 have graduated on time and were accepted into colleges across the nation, many receiving full or partial debate scholarships.
National studies indicate results are consistent for urban debaters across the country:
- Urban debate league students have a 25% higher rate of increase on annual literacy assessment measures than their non debating peers.
- Debaters are three times less likely to engage in high risk behaviors.
- Debaters are almost twice as likely to go on to college and to pursue college immediately after high school.
- Debate students showed greater increases in GPA and over one year when compared to their non debating peers.
(Source: "Argument for Success: A Study of Academic Debate in the Urban High schools of Chicago, Kansas City, New York, St. Louis and Seattle," Linda M. Collier, JD. University of Missouri, 2004)
Our History
BUDL was founded in 1999 as part of a national initiative driven by the Open Society Institute to bring debate back into the urban classroom.
From the League's modest beginnings in 1999 when 90 pioneering students and 16 teachers in 8 of the City's most challenged neighborhood high schools began to learn the skills and techniques of competitive policy debate, the League has expanded to involve more than 1,000 middle and high school students and more than 75 BCPSS teachers from 35 high schools and 25 middle schools each year in a rigorous program of after-school debate training, independent research activities, debate team practice sessions, and monthly competitive policy debate tournaments.
Today the Baltimore Urban Debate League is a flagship within an urban debate movement which now includes over 400 public schools from urban debate leagues in 16 of the nation's largest cities.
For more information on debate's results, please click here.
