The media coverage and commentary about academic debate has not been very positive in recent days.
Tuna Snider at the Global Debate Blog informs us that former Buhler High School (KS) and 1992 NFL Hall of Fame inductee Richard Young has been found guilty of one count aggravated indecent liberties with a child, one count indecent solicitation and two counts of indecent liberties with a child. The charges involve a 15-year-old South Korean exchange student. Just two years ago, Professor Snider and Mr. Young were working on getting AP status for speech and debate.
Mark Oppenheimer’s opinion piece, “For Argument’s Sake,” in The Wall Street Journal addresses some of the problems in collegiate debate that have trickled down to the high school level. On the positive side, Public Forum Debate is viewed as a positive development even though the activity is unnamed in the piece:
But it’s too bad that her solution is to question the premises of debate; there are other options. The National Forensic League recently introduced an event at its tournaments in which debaters can be penalized for fast-talking and jargon, and it was instantly popular.
Unfortunately, Mr Oppenheimer’s outlook for debate is not positive:
It’s unlikely that debate will fully recover. Oratory is too battered — in the schools by a misplaced egalitarianism, in national politics by an anti-intellectual populism.
Negative coverage of debate and forensics is never good, but it is especially bad news in tough economic times when administrators are looking for ways to make budget cuts.
Update: Ryan Ricard has a response to the Oppenheimer piece.
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