Dallas Urban Debate Alliance celebrated their students, coaches and volunteers during the organization's Fifth Annual Awards Gala on Friday, May 9th at Jim Lee's Starlight Room in Downtown Dallas. The organization turned to Dallas Light and Sound for production expertise for the event. Thank you for this opportunity to work for an organization that supports such a great group of kids.The support of patrons at the gala not only allowed the organization to showcase the achievements of students, but also helped raise the necessary resources to expand the program to the many Dallas ISD students and schools currently on the group's waitlist. Harriet Miers, Dallas Urban Debate volunteer and notable attorney, served as keynote speaker at the event.
Dallas Urban Debate Alliance has a proven track record of delivering outstanding academic opportunities to public school students in Dallas. Here’s Dallas Urban Debate by the numbers:
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| Urban Alliance Debaters show their medals following a debate tournament in March |
- Debate is making a difference for kids in our community: About 1,000 DISD students were touched by debate programming this school year (2013-14).
- At Dallas ISD’s request, the Dallas Urban Debate continues to grow and now has 24 high schools and 15 middle schools in the program, a 30% increase over last year. Dallas Urban Debate was named the 2012 Outstanding League of the year out of 20 other cities!
- Through February alone, Dallas Urban Debate has facilitated over 3,000 debate rounds this school year. Each of these one to two-hour debate rounds is a high level discussion of the effects of US economic policies in Latin America.
- Over 80% of Dallas urban debaters are students of color and over 70% are economically disadvantaged. The large majority of urban debaters have parents who did not attend college and peers who will not graduate from high school.
- Multiple peer-reviewed studies have shown that debate increases student academic performance. How? Participation in an urban debate program increases literacy scores, increases grade-point averages and increases high school graduation rates. Debaters are also three times less likely to engage in high-risk behavior as compared to their peers.
