Public Forum debate.
This format is meant to be the most accessible and easy to understand, a stepping stone for anyone to get into any other format of debate. It should have a very low skill floor, but still end up with a high skill ceiling.
This would also necessitate having easier topics. Topics in PF should ideally be accessible to people of all ages, from the 6th and 7th graders who are just starting debate to the duo of seniors who have won every national championship and who are looking for a complex topic to learn about. It’s a fine line to pick a topic that (mostly) American students will be able to debate, especially one relevant in the current day.
It is also a line that I believe that the NSDA seems to be completely missing. The last two topics that I have debated seem extremely inaccessible to the point where I noticed a large majority of the younger kids in my debate club struggling to even understand the basics of some of the arguments being made. In January, this topic was about the African Union recognizing Somaliland as an independent state, and in February, the topic was about the US ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. I’m not trying to say these topics are inherently bad – they’re relevant issues that provide plenty of literature with arguments on either side. However, the issue resides in the fact that almost nobody who isn’t incredibly tuned in to international politics would know enough about to set a background on the issue. When I first looked at the Somaliland topic, my immediate issue was that even throughout four years of debate and reading the news almost daily, I still knew zero relevant information about either the African Union or Somaliland. I don’t expect children five years my junior to understand all the intricacies of the Rome Statute of the ICC, nor do I believe the NSDA should have these expectations.
I’m glad that the March topic, the benefits and harms of generative artificial intelligence in education, shows a reverse movement to simpler, more basic topics. It’s important for comprehension and argumentation to exist at every skill level, something that these less complex topics allow for, and this topic is a relevant issue with enough literature and argumentation on both sides that makes it work even at the highest levels of debate. I only hope that we can see more of this kind of topic going forward, so I await the release of the April topic.