Announcing the SY2013 CMSDL Allstate Expanding Opportunities Incentives

As you likely already know, Allstate is a major corporate sponsor of the Chicago Debate League. Allstate provides support to the Chicago Debate Commission enabling it to do all the work that it does, it underwrites occasional initiatives, and it sponsors events, e.g., the 2012 Allstate CDL Varsity Invitational, the 2013 Allstate CPS Chicago Debate Championship.

One of its signature initiatives for the past three years has been the Allstate Expanding Opportunities Initiative. This year, Allstate is extending this initiative to the CMSDL. The Allstate Expanding Opportunities Initiative provides targeted coach incentives to schools with a very high percentage (80% or more) Title I (very low-income) student population. In the CMSDL there are 10 such schools (40% of the league), as identified in the SY2013 school demographics roster:

Beasley
Carroll/Rosenwald
Chicago Jesuit
Kershaw
Key
Lovett
May
McCutcheon
Shoop
Spencer
Zapata

The Allstate Expanding Opportunities Initiative provides coaches financial incentives for involving more students in competitive academic debate at these schools. Allstate believes that academic debate training and education can be a mechanism to combat and overcome the disadvantages that growing up in a very low-income or impoverished family can impose on children. So Allstate wants to motivate and reward teachers who invest the extra, additional work required to expand the size and scope of their debate programs.

Expanding Opportunities coaches will receive $100 for every 6 additional tournament debaters their schools accumulate this year relative to their total tournament debaters last year. A special fifth sheet of the CMSDL Tournament Reporting Notebook tracks the SY2013 total tournament debaters for the 10 Expanding Opportunities schools in comparison to their SY2012 totals.

So, to take an example: Chicago Jesuit had 33 total tournament debaters in SY2012 and has 10 so far in SY2013. If Chicago Jesuit ends this season with 39 tournament debaters — requiring Chicago Jesuit to average about 10 debaters per tournament, T3 – T5 — Coach Katie McDonnell will receive $100. If Chicago Jesuit ends the season with 42 debaters — requiring an average of about 11 debaters per tournament — Coach McDonnell will receive $150 (for ending the year with 9 more tournament debaters than last year). And so on. First-year schools have their participation standard (4 debaters per tournament) plugged in as their “SY2012 baseline.” For every 6 tournament debaters that they exceed this baseline (identified per school on the CMSDL Tournament Reporting Notebook) this year, their coaches will receive $100.

Allstate and the Chicago Debate Commission hope that these incentives will add further motivation for coaches at our highest Title I schools to recruit additional debaters and introduce them to debate at T3 – T5. We hope that these incentives demonstrate to coaches that their partners in this debate project respect the additional time and effort required to expand the size and scope of your debate programs.

Of course, let us know if you have any questions.