Brighton High School student Dayanna Serrano makes her argument in a mock Spanish-language debate demonstration for middle school students in the New York City Urban Debate League. (Photo courtesy of Boston Debate League)

MASSACHUSETTS HAS LONG been a leader in K-12 education, yet it has struggled to close the longstanding achievement gap between lower-income students and students of color and their white and more affluent peers. The pandemic only made things worse, as Massachusetts saw the largest widening of that gap of any state studied by researchers at the Center for Education Research Policy at Harvard and the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford. 

Effective approaches that can close persistent achievement gaps have been elusive. Yet a proven strategy to do just that exists in our backyard. What’s more, it’s one that excites and energizes young people while helping them develop skills that are crucial to success in high school and beyond. 

Debate team competition has typically been an activity more associated with students in well-off suburbs. But more than 700 students across 40 schools in Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Chelsea, Everett, and Malden participate in afterschool policy debate, where they showcase their skills at advancing an argument in competition against other teams. And there is now evidence that taking part in policy debate is not just an engaging extracurricular activity, but can help boost academic achievement among students from historically-underserved backgrounds and put them on a college-bound trajectory.   

Daniel Martinez, a debater from the Margarita Muñiz Academy in Boston, goes over some last points with his coach, Juan Gomez, at tournament held at Suffolk University. (Photo courtesy of Boston Debate League)

A 2023 study, conducted by Beth Schueler from the University of Virginia and Katherine Larned from Harvard University, looked at the impact of participation in the Boston Debate League, a 20-year-old nonprofit, among Boston Public Schools students from 2008 to 2017. The researchers analyzed data from 3,515 student debaters and a control group of comparable BPS students who did not take part in debate. The study found a statistically significant correlation between student participation in BDL’s debate program and gains in English language arts achievement on MCAS as well as increases in the likelihood that students graduate from high school and enroll in post-secondary education.  ,

BDL debaters perform significantly better than their peers, in particular, on the set of English language arts MCAS questions that require critical thinking and analysis, gaining the equivalent of an additional two-thirds of a full year of average 9th grade learning. Ninth-grade debaters who started in the lowest performing English language arts quartile of the MCAS made the biggest gains. The study’s authors wrote that “policy debate represents a rare program with high potential to help reduce educational inequality on literacy and critical thinking skills among secondary school students.”  

The Boston Debate League, founded in 2005 and part of a network of urban debate leagues across the country, was established to make policy debate accessible to students who wouldn’t typically have opportunity to take part in such an activity: Black and brown students, students from lower-income communities, students who may speak English as a second language, and those who may be immigrants or may have an individualized educational plan. 

Through this activity, students at all levels can dive into rigorous text, work collaboratively with classmates and educators, and think critically about real world problems.  

In debate competitions, upwards of 250 young people pack into a conference-style room on a college campus or a high school cafeteria on a Friday afternoon or Saturday morning, ready to compete in a tournament. The room is buzzing as they go over last-minute notes with their coaches and teammates, perfecting their arguments for the day’s debate rounds.  

The energy is similar to that of the first big game of the season. Each tournament is the culmination of weekly afterschool debate practices where students hone their arguments, explore both the affirmative and negative sides of an argument — because they must be prepared to argue both — research their points, and find evidence to back up their claims. 

But debate isn’t limited to the podium. The same buzz of energy is present in area classrooms where educators use innovative debate-inspired practices to encourage students to build their argumentation skills and think critically.  

Through this instructional approach, students learn how to consider multiple perspectives, analyze and question evidence, consider sources and their credibility, and prepare an argument. The Boston Debate League works with nearly 250 educators each year, coaching them on how to engage about 3,000 students annually with debate-inspired practices. 

Whether it’s an English, science, history or math class, this debate-inspired approach allows students to feel empowered to express their viewpoint, backed up by evidence from the text, or to explain the reasoning behind their approach to solving a problem. This is critical thinking in action – the very skill many people say we need to do more to foster to prepare students for college and career success.  

Many potential initiatives have been tried and have failed to close the achievement gap between lower-income students and students of color with their white and more well-off peers. That makes a proven, research-backed program like debate a rare thing in education.  

The students shown by the recent study to make big strides linked to debate participation are the same ones the state is struggling to bring up to speed. Making it even more powerful is the study finding that debate participation is not just linked to a narrowing of the achievement gap but to higher rates of high school completion and post-secondary enrollment. 

Whether it is a policy debate class, an afterschool debate team, or professional development to help educators integrate debate-inspired practices into their teaching, debate-related activities shouldn’t be limited to districts that can afford the investment. They should be accessible to every student and teacher across the state.  

Debate programs like the Boston Debate League largely depend on philanthropy, while also receiving some money in fees paid by participating schools and districts and some funding through a state budget line item. The Legislature should prioritize making more funding available to less well-resourced school districts to incorporate policy debate and debate-inspired practices into their curriculum. The state should also direct funding to schools of education at public higher education institutions to incorporate debate-inspired teaching practices and training into their educator training programs for new educators. 

Scaling effective education strategies is always a challenge, but bringing debate to the much larger population of Massachusetts students and teachers who would benefit from its impact will require more public resources. 

Massachusetts recently made a big commitment of new educational funding when it launched an initiative providing free community college for all residents. Making a far more modest investment in debate programs — now backed by research showing their impact on educational outcomes among groups of students who have struggled the most — should be a winning argument.   

Jackney Joseph is managing director of external affairs at the Boston Debate League. She was a fellow with the Civic Action Project, a Massachusetts nonprofit focused on training the next generation of civic leaders, and took part in CommonWealth Beacon’s New Voices training program on effective op-ed writing, a partnership with the Civic Action Project and the Institute for Nonprofit Practice.