Research and Testimonials
Testimonials and Research Supporting Speech & Debate
Studies by Yale and Truman State University have shown that participation dramatically boosts critical thining skills and that debaters score better on the SAT, ACT, and State accountability assessments.
A Colbert and Biggers study found that former Speech and Debate students "are disproprtionately likely to become leaders."
The Wall Street Journal found that being named captain of their debate team "improved an applicant's chances (for college) by more than 60% compared with the rest of the pool." For comparison, the Journal found that being a newspaper reporter boosted chances by 3%, a sports team captainship boosted it by 5%, and being named class president resulted in a 5% boost.
Studies have proven that students involved in either speech or debate scored "significantly higher on state administered writing tests" and "significantly higher on a nationally normed reading test" (Peters 2009).
According to the Wall Street Journal: State and national award winners have a 22% to 30% higher acceptance rate at top tier colleges.
An informal survey found 99% of competitive forensic students intended to attend college (NSDA)
Documented improvement in grades following performance (Fine, 1999; Winkler, 2008)
“The best writing course imaginable is high school debate.”
- J.E. Carr Fulbright Scholar at the London School of Economics
Nearly two out of three members of the 104th Congress (1996-1997) were former debaters
Vaughn and Winner’s (2000) 12 year study found that the highest SAT scores were achieved by “students taking acting/play production courses…” the Verbal and Mathematics score relationships was even more evident concluding that participation in acting lead to “higher test scores”
A year long study found that urban public schools that participated in debate improved reading scores by 25% more than their counterparts (Open Society Institute, 2004)