CMSDL Tournament Reporting Notebook Post-T2

The 2011/12 Chicago Middle School Debate League Tournament Reporting Notebook documents nothing less than an explosion in middle school involvement in competitive academic debate in Chicago this year. Our coaches are to be credited and thanked for their substantial and highly effective efforts — you’re on track to double the size of our debate league in its fifth year.

Here’s an explanation of each of the three sheets in the 2011/12 Chicago Middle School Debate League Tournament Reporting Notebook.

(i)

The first sheet reports on attainment of the national Urban Debate Participation Standard. The Participation Standard is eight debaters per school per tournament. The CMSDL overall is maintaining a very high level of attainment of the Participation Standard. Last year CMSDL schools attained the Standard 87% of the time, this year the level of attainment is 85%. If your school has attained the Standard two out of two times, you’ve had at a minimum a good start to the season, regardless of any other data points.

(ii)

The second sheet reports on Tournament Numbers. The sheet ranks each school by their number of tournament debaters so far this year. And at the bottom, it identifies year-over-year changes in the by-tournament numbers of debaters, and the cumulative numbers of debaters. We are right now 105% larger as a debate league after two tournaments than we were last year. And frankly the levels of middle school debater engagement are getting closer to the levels of high school debater engagement.

This very substantial expansion presents logistical and administrative challenges, including the provision of sufficient tournament judging. Be assured that we’re working hard on our end to match your efforts at the schools working with your students.

(iii)

The third sheet ranks schools based on the year-over-year change in tournament participation of students from each school.

Let us know if you have any questions on any of this.

Thanks.