The Middle School Public Debate Program was founded in 2002 by educators at Claremont McKenna College. Today the ESU MSPDP directly supports leagues in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., and is affiliated with MSPDP programs in California, Colorado, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kenya, South Africa, South Korea, and Tanzania.
The National Competition between all leagues was held on May 5th at the Nest M School in lower Manhattan. 71 teams, 213 students from 7 leagues competed on 5 topics. The last topic was debated between the top two teams. The topics were –
• Ban the practice of requiring job applicants to disclose their criminal history.
• The US should adopt a universal guaranteed annual income.
• Reptiles should not be kept as pets.
• Credit card companies should not process sales of firearms.
•The Olympic Games should include E-sports.
• A nuclear attack on North Korea should be “off the table.”
Cedar Hill Prep School finished 3rd in Overall Competition and Top School in New Jersey!
In the category of Top Speakers in the league, Arjun Agrawal won 15th place and Vishnu Gade won the 20th place. Many of our 8th graders were within one point of each other.
In the category of Top 25 teams – Aarav Gupta/Vishnu Gade/Krishna Lekhi won the top 7th and Arjun Agrawal/Abhinav Kumar/Fisayo Odukoy won the top 19th team.
Great job students!
