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Our first set of qualification boards have been posted for this year’s National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) National Tournament. The first release includes qualifiers from the Northern Ohio, New England, Sunshine (FL), Tarheel East (NC), and West Iowa districts. Thank you to all of those who sent us their qualifiers.
You can access the qualification board by clicking on “Quals 15” on the right hand menu on the main page, or by clicking “Quals 15″ on the top menu if you have clicked on a content post. You can also place your cursor over the Quals 15 label and this will allow you to click on sub-menus for the International and United States Extemp qualifiers.
If you know the qualifiers from your NSDA District from previous weeks or after this week’s district tournaments conclude, please e-mail the following information to [email protected]:
- The name of the NSDA District and the state that is located in
- The names of those who will be ATTENDING nationals in IX and USX. Please do not send us the names of those who technically qualified, but opted to go in another event. We only want the names of those who will be going in the categories to avoid confusion. If something has changed – as some districts hold debate qualifiers separately from individual events – please let us know that as well!
- The schools those competitors attend.
- IF your district has an automatic qualifier from last year’s NSDA Tournament (a competitor that reached finals or semi-finals in IX and USX) and that person will be going back to NSDA in that event, please let us know.
This year’s Illinois High School Association State Speech Final was primed as a showdown between Parth Patel of Huntley High School and Vinesh Kannan of the Illinois Math and Science Academy. Last year both extempers, along with Saumya Jain of Neuqua Valley High School, shared the state championship after an unbreakable three-way tie. However, the anticipated story did not go as planned as Kannan finished one rank out of the final round and Moyo Abiona of Carl Sandburg High School defeated Patel by one rank to win Sandburg’s first-ever extemporaneous speaking state championship.
Domestic extempers can attest to the fact that questions about education reform never go away. From merit pay to vouchers to standardized testing, extempers must be able to handle topics pertaining to the American education system if they wish to successfully navigate domestic social rounds. Anxieties about American education have persisted since the nation’s founding, with President Thomas Jefferson warning that “If a nation expects to remain free and ignorant in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and what never shall be.” Americans have desired a strong education system to maintain the nation’s position as a political and economic superpower, enhance socioeconomic mobility and the “American dream,” and to solve social ills such as racial and gender inequalities. However, despite the federal government pouring more money into American schools since the 1960s, American students still lag behind their international counterparts in math, science, and reading. While political actors on both sides of the aisle agree that something must be done, they disagree over how to solve it and these divisions are being played out in Congress, states, and municipalities throughout the country.
Here is today’s premium R&D to accompany 
