Middle school is when students work out whether their own judgment is worth trusting, and most of what they encounter now answers that for them. AI produces the reasoning before they attempt it. A feed decides what they see next. The loudest disagreement they watch rewards whoever is fastest and most personal. Speech and debate puts the opposite in front of them, at the age when it still shapes what they think they are capable of.
About speech and debate
In speech, a student writes a speech and delivers it to a judge. In debate, two teams argue opposite sides of a motion in front of a judge, and each side has to answer what the other has said. Either one is called a round, and a student competes in at least two rounds at a meet.
A meet in this league runs two to three hours, after school or on a Saturday depending on venue availability. Students get feedback from the judges after each round. The regular season runs from January through March, and a championship follows.
A student in speech and debate is reading, building an argument, speaking in front of people, listening closely enough to answer, and competing, all in one activity.
How it works
THe two events this league runs
The speech event
Original Oratory
An advocacy speech. A student writes it, delivers it in a round, and the goal is to persuade. Students may memorize it or speak from notes, and they are judged on the content and the delivery.
The debate event
World Schools Debate
A three-on-three debate on a motion, which is the statement being debated. Teams prepare both sides, which is how students learn to see and understand a perspective that is not their own. Judges award a win and a loss after each round.
Both events have high school equivalents, and the skills carry further than that, into every debate event and many speech events a student might take up later.
Where it leads
The season is built to be complete on its own. A student who does one year and stops has still learned to build an argument, write and deliver a speech, and defend a position in front of people who disagree. Those hold up in a classroom and in any room where a student needs to be taken seriously.
For some students it turns into a passion, and middle school is the start of a pathway that runs a long way.
High school. More than a hundred Los Angeles high schools run NSDA programs. The California High School Speech Association has over three hundred member schools statewide and hosts the state championship. [Learn more]
The Los Angeles Metropolitan Debate League. LAMDL runs free debate programming and summer camps across thirty Los Angeles high schools, and belongs to the National Association of Urban Debate Leagues. Its graduates have gone on to debate scholarships at Cal State Fullerton, Cal State Northridge, Cal State Long Beach, and USC, and to programs at Harvard, Berkeley, and Northwestern. [Learn More]
Team USA. The NSDA sponsors the United States team in World Schools Debate, which competes at the World Schools Debating Championship and at invitationals around the world. Students selected for it take part at no cost. Because this league runs World Schools, a middle schooler here is starting in the same format. [Learn More]
College. Hundreds of colleges and universities compete in speech and debate, and many offer scholarship support to students who do.
Now, Lets get you involved
I work at a school without a speech and debate team
Advising takes about an hour a week for practice, plus six meets of two to three hours each between January and March, and a championship to close the season. No debate background is required. The league writes the topic packets, plans the practices, handles all scheduling, and trains advisors before the season starts. It also covers the school's NSDA charter membership and every student's membership in a century-old national honor society. If you are not the person who decides, this page has what you would need to bring to whoever is. If your school already has a program, we would still like to talk, since joining a league is a smaller step than starting one.
See what it takesI compete in high school speech and debate
Going back to the middle school you attended and asking them to start a program is a specific thing to put on a college application, and it takes one meeting to earn. You set up a short meeting between someone at the school and league staff, and Mike makes the case in it. Depending on your NSDA chapter, the work may count toward service recognition, so check with your coach. Anyone who does this in the first season is a Founding Student Ambassador. The commitment ends once the meeting happens, though ambassadors who want to keep going can help the new advisor recruit students, show up to a first practice or an early meet, and be the person a school calls when it is unsure about something.
Become an ambassadorMy child is in middle school
A middle schooler and a parent do this as a team. Your child is the reason a school should say yes, and a parent reaching out to their own child's school is hard to turn down. The job is only to set up a short meeting between someone at the school and league staff, and Mike makes the case in it. You are copied on every message and welcome on any call.
Sign up as a teamI want to support this
Meets need volunteer judges, and no debate background is required, because the league trains every judge. If your firm gives employees time for community service, judging is a good place for it to go. Financial support matters too, since the league covers fees and materials but a school still carries the coach stipend and transportation to meets. That support can be as small as snacks for one meet or as large as a school's first season.
Find a roleI know someone at a middle school
The hardest part of starting a league is the first conversation with a school. If you know a principal, an assistant principal, or a teacher at a Los Angeles middle school, an introduction from you does more than anything we can send them cold. Tell us the school and who you know, and we will follow up from there.