Benefits to Joining the Team

Competing on a speech and debate team can be a transformative experience in a student's life. Students learn the importance of teamwork, responsibility, sacrifice, and commitment. Additionally, speech and debate is widely regarded as one of the most helpful extracurricular activities a student can participate in while in high school. In addition to considerably improving a student's resume when applying to colleges, here are some of the many scholastic benefits of participating in speech and debate:

1. Critical thinking skills: Students involved in Speech & Debate consistently display higher levels of critical thinking skills, which correlate to increased problem-solving abilities and overall academic performance.

2. Higher performance on standardized tests: Speech and debate students tend to score better on standardized tests including the SAT and ACT, as well as state accountability assessments. This holds true when looking at EOC/STAAR scores over the past few academic years.

3. Improved graduation and retention rates: Students who participate in Speech & Debate are more likely to graduate high school and attend college than their peers. Additionally, 90% of debaters go on to earn at least one graduate degree (as noted by Professors Colbert & Biggers in the Journal of the American Forensic Association).

Speech & Debate additionally creates student proficiency in:

· Research methodology and information literacy

· Higher-level thinking through application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation and creativity

· Listening and speaking – two overlooked zones of language literacy