Winning debate at St. Louis Public Schools
Two things from high school have sustained me for more than thirty years, through careers in law and newspapers and a wide variety of other assignments:
In high school, I learned to type, and I was a member of the debate team.
Both are exercises in distillation, organization and presentation. Both provided me essential tools for life.
I know first hand the magic a novice debater feels when he realizes he can handle himself on his feet — staying on topic, presenting an argument with a steady and logical flow and that is backed by carefully organized evidence at his fingertips, responding coolly and cogently to the other side.
It’s a thrill akin to what young children feel when they first learn to read — except that debaters get a glimpse of what it takes to navigate the adult world at a high level.
They know they are on their way.
Last week I visited Central Visual and Performing Arts High School and Gateway Institute of Technology and witnessed that magic again. The two south St. Louis high schools are among 11 schools that participate in the St. Louis Urban Debate League.
Lorri Leong and Kayla Massey are Central VPA sophomores. Last month, they brought home first-place honors from a national debate tournament in Chicago. Charles Roy and J.D. Spalding are from Gateway IT. They placed third nationally.
More than 100 St. Louis high school students competed this year in the Urban Debate League. All are on their way. And they know it. So do their coaches — many of them young St. Louis Public School teachers who stay after and work weekends to change the world.
Ravi Rao is a young lawyer who serves as executive director of the St. Louis Urban Debate League. The program is backed by a number of high school debate nerds who now practice law.
Mr. Rao is an alumnus of one of the St. Louis’s perennial debate powerhouses: Ladue’s Horton Watkins High School. He says city high school debaters are further along than he was at their stage. One of his former coaches judged one of the city tournaments and made this observation: The St. Louis kids need to start competing in suburban tournaments.
Heads up to future Horton Watkins teams: Get ready.
David Harris is a lawyer who serves as chairman of the St. Louis Urban Debate League, a private non-profit that supports the St. Louis Public Schools debate program. He, too, is a former high school debater.
His board is about to launch a major fund-raising campaign. The goal is to double participation in the program next school year to 200 students — to make sure every kid has a chance to compete and travel to tournaments.
St. Louis lawyers and other debate nerds, if they unite, could become a force in urban education.
* * *
Listen to the thoughts of some of the St. Louis Urban Debate League players:
Zachary Matthews is Central Visual & Performing Arts High School’s debate coach. He talks about what brought him to debate in high school and college at University of Missouri St. Louis, and describes his expectations for the program are after one of his teams brought home the Urban Debate League national championship in the first-year division:
Central VPA sophomore Kayla Massey was on the two-member team that won the national championship for first-year debaters. She describes how she feels she has benefited from debating, and looks ahead to how debate may shape her career plans:
Lorri Leong also is is a Central VPA sophomore, and was Kayla Massey’s debate partner on the national championship team. Here are some of her thoughts in the aftermath of her team’s winning season:
Ravi Rao debated at Horton Watkins High School and at Washington University. A lawyer, he’s executive director of the St. Louis Urban Debate League. He explains the basics of high school debate and his hopes for the program:
J.D. Spalding is a freshman at Gateway Institute of Technology, part of the two-person team that won third place at nationals. He talks about the personal impact becoming involved in debate has had on him, and what he has found to be most rewarding about participating in the program:
Charles Roy is a J.D.’s debate partner, and a junior at Gateway IT. He describes how debate helps students develop an understanding of the “connections” between different pieces of information, promoting a true understanding of an issue and point of view:
Jonathan Reynolds is the Gateway IT’s debate coach. He’s a history teacher who just completed his second year as a history teacher. He’s a Chicago native who came to St. Louis Public Schools through the Teach for America program. He’s a graduate of Northwestern University, where he was part of its storied debate program:
reynolds
Mr. Reynolds recruited fellow Gateway faculty member Kimberly Cordova as a debate coach. She is an English teacher who also is in her second year at Gateway IT. She too came to St. Louis Public Schools through the Teach for America program. A New York City native, Ms. Cordova graduated from the College of Holy Cross, but never debated in high school or college. She speaks poignantly about her students and her first year coaching debate:
Eddie Roth writes about education, social justice, public safety, transportation, legal affairs and historic preservation. He joined the Post-Dispatch editorial page in 2008 after six years as an editorial writer with the Dayton Daily News. But he is not new to St. Louis. Eddie grew up in Webster Groves and south St. Louis County. He's a lawyer who for many years practiced with a downtown firm, and was active in civic affairs, including serving a term on the St. Louis Police Board. He and his wife, Jeanne, and their three daughters, Emily, Julia and Alice, live in the Shaw Neighborhood.
When it comes to community organizing, he endorses Quentin Crisp's advice: Rather than keeping up with the Joneses, it's better to pull them down to your level. 
I note that Mr. Reynolds and Ms. Cordova are finishing their second (and last) year of Teach for America. Are they staying? How can we keep them here? There really isn’t a problem getting bright motivated teachers into the profession. The problem is keeping them. So far all the debate about fixing our schools identifies this problem and the need to address it but never does anything about it.
Ms. Cordova told me that she will be back next year. Mr. Reynolds has not decided, but I understand people are working very hard to keep him here.
fh451: Indeed, I think you hit the nail squarely on the head. Speaking as an outsider (ie not an educator, nor a school administrator), but as someone who has been in his fair share of classrooms, I don’t think we have a lack of bright, qualified, capable teachers in our public schools - TFA among other programs has helped ensure districts like SLPS have no shortage of energetic, innovative, and caring teachers. The real problem, IMO, is getting them to stay - or rather, building in the proper incentives to get them to want to stay. Most of the TFA teachers that I talk to seem overwhelmed and overworked, and burn out within a handful of years.
State Senator Jeff Smith recently wrote a brilliant Op-Ed piece on merit pay for teachers, which I think could be a step in the right direction. I think any debate on education reform (and what a great potential high school debate topic…) has to begin with a re-examination of our tenure system. Just my .02, speaking personally and not for SLPS or the SLUDL.
Thanks for the great story, Eddie! Really enjoyed our conversation!
-RR
This is great. Today, most kids think Forensics is something on those television crime shows.
Nice blog Mr Roth. Cograts and thanks to those folks.
Glad you like it, Tim.
jjk, could it be that you were a high school debater?
If so, Ravi Rao needs to get in touch with you.
Indeed, if there are any former debaters interested in getting involved in the St. Louis Urban Debate League, I would LOVE to hear from you! Please feel free to email me at ravirao@urbandebate.org! Thanks!
-RR
Eddie,
Any chance they will offer these teachers greater salary than some bum who has been hanging on at Roosevelt for the past 18 years and could care less about the students there? I could name a few for you but I’ve heard the union employs bounty hunters.
Looking back, I wish I would have joined the high school debate team. It just never entered my mind, I guess.
Eddie, I know you `wrote’ typing, but I’m assuming you’re using that word in place of `writing’ — you know, other than just the involved mechanics of hitting the keys. But doesn’t your argument leave out stream-of-consciousness writing? Also, a certain technique pioneered by Burroughs? And how does this account for the popularity of Hunter S. Thompson’s writing?
Correction: wrote `typing.’