Face it: public education in America is increasingly a numbers game. The criteria by which a high school or a school system is deemed successful or "failing" are based on test scores. In virtually every school where a National Forensic League chapter is active, one of the most commonly cited numbers is the school's average SAT score from year to year. Reputations, careers, and even funding are at stake. High stakes testing, indeed.
Where does this ever increasing mania regarding testing and test scores leave our forensics and debate programs? More and more, the answer is going to be "left out in the cold." All veteran and even novice coaches know in our hearts that our programs have immeasurable educational value. Nevertheless, our activities may become endangered species as they are seen more and more as expendable frills and less and less as part of the core of an effective and progressive educational program.
The question is, can we prove our worth in a concrete way-one that will persuade the increasingly numbers conscious and results oriented school administration and school board? As crass as it may sound, we need to start speaking to them in language they will understand and appreciate. We need to translate our success into numbers.
Where to start? How about the all-hallowed SAT.
Think of the millions of dollars spent each year on SAT prep classes by parents who are desperate for their teenage sons and daughters to rack up those extra hundred points that will no doubt make the difference between community college and State U, or between State U and an Ivy League school. Any real estate agent can tell you that the average SAT scores of the local high school affect home prices in the local area. Place yourself for a moment in the shoes of principals or superintendents who see the scores of a neighboring high school or school district edging above those of their own school or district. For them, losing the numbers game can mean losing their jobs.
You get the point. These scores really do matter to a lot of important people, and their significance and impact is not going to diminish any time soon. Therefore, it behooves us, the coaches and other forensics/debate stalwarts, to make the case that there is an abiding and valuable link between participation in our activities and SAT success.
I believe such a case can be made-a strong one, indeed. The connection between the skills we foster and strong performance on the verbal SAT is grounded in four fundamental areas: literacy, comprehension skills, vocabulary building, and writing skills development.
Literacy is a much-ballyhooed term in today's educational circles. We've got to get them to read, and to read more material at a higher level-and lots of different types of material-not just teen magazines and the sports page. Well, the education experts can ask any forensics coach about the scope and variety of works and genres our students explore, from classical to postmodern-from Sophocles to Shakespeare to Plath to Angelou to Vonnegut. Our students read far and wide to find appropriate pieces of prose, drama, poetry and humor. We coaches, of course, know all of this and take it for granted, but now we need to make the connection to the literacy programs our school systems are developing for the express purpose of -GUESS WHAT?!-raising test scores.
"They become more literate because they have to read a great deal to succeed in either activity." That's from teacher Frances Burnet, who offers the SAT prep at my high school (Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Maryland). Burnet, who has judged at forensics and debate tournaments the past few years, goes on to say, "The best thing about forensics is the number of non-native speakers who participate in both [debate and forensics] and how these activities help them to write better and even think better." The number of foreign born students this year on our league's list of finalists (over 20 % of the total) bears out the point that Ms. Burnet is making.
Along with enhanced literacy, our students are clearly building greater comprehension skills and larger, more sophisticated vocabularies. Again from Frances Burnet: "Forensics exposes them to a variety of literature-in fact, more variety in the types of discourse they come across while looking for material than they would in a typical English class." Laurie Gershman, who runs a private SAT prep tutoring service and has judged at forensics competitions since the 1980s, sees a clear connection between forensics and SAT skills. She observes: "It's obvious that kids who probe deeply into literature are developing higher order thinking and comprehension skills that will benefit them when they are confronted with the comprehension questions on the SAT, which require inferential, interpretive, and synthesizing skills rather than just getting the facts." Gershman also noted that the new SAT, debuting in 2005, will feature more reading comprehension questions than ever-as well as a writing component (more about that later).
Vocabulary development has always been touted as the key to SAT success. Frances Burnet notes that students increase and fine-tune their vocabulary knowledge from reading the judges' ballots. She emphasizes that when it comes to the verbal SAT "Vocabulary is what it's all about." She believes "the feedback on the debate ballot helps them learn to use and pronounce new words correctly. It teaches them to use the words correctly in context." Most important, Burnet also notes that the way students master new vocabulary in forensics and debate is much more effective than memorizing lists of words for an SAT class.
Leo Schleicher, who teaches the SAT prep classes at Watkins Mill High School (in Gaithersburg, Maryland) and who coached forensics and debate for over two decades, agrees that literacy, comprehension, and vocabulary development are all inevitable byproducts of participation in forensics/debate programs. "The intimacy that a student develops with a text when learning a forensics piece can only help them when they are analyzing a critical reading passage. Also, keeping up with current events [in preparing for extemp and debate topics] gives them a wide base of current knowledge that will make them more informed writers and thinkers."
Looming on the 2005 horizon is the dreaded "writing sample" component of the "new SAT," in which the verbal section will not only include more reading comprehension questions, but a 25 minute essay as well. According to the College Board web site, this essay will be a response to a generalization such as, "Each failure leads us closer to deeper knowledge, to greater creativity, to new lines of inquiry." Students will be required to compose their thoughts, organize them and put them on paper in less than half an hour. As Frances Burnet puts it, "Looking ahead to next year, logic and organization are really going to come into play. Students are going to need a method and organization to answer that essay question in twenty-five minutes. Extemp has got to help because of the time limit." As a veteran judge of speech as well as debate, Burnet sees the connection between the skills she will be emphasizing next year in her SAT prep class and the preparation students put in for speech writing and debating. "Logic is taught in extemp, persuasive oratory, and debate. Furthermore, I think debate in particular is terrific for those students who are not naturally organized, but because they need to be to win debates, they develop organization out of necessity."
Burnet also notes that a requirement for all forensics competitors is the writing of an informative and eloquent introduction to the piece of literature they are about to present. "As a judge, I love to hear a well written introduction," she states. Thus even the students who participate only in the oral interpretation categories are working to polish their writing skills.
In the ideal world, it would not be necessary to launch this pragmatic, utilitarian defense of the speech activities we all know and love for their intrinsic merits. But in today's world of tax cuts, tight education budgets, and high stakes testing, we must not let what we do get tossed aside as "nice enrichment activities, but not crucial to our core mission." Not only do forensics and debate foster creative and intelligent citizens for the 21st century, they may even help your local school system win the numbers game.
(William "Rusty" McCrady, is Montgomery County Forensic League President and Debate and Forensic Coach at Walter Johnson High School, MD.)
