Overview

The Broome County Debate Alliance (BCDA) was founded by Joe Schatz. He is the Director of Debate at Binghamton University, holds a PhD in English, and has two kids, ages 10 and 12. His debate program has consistently been ranked in the top ten in the nation by the Cross-Examination Debate Association and he has continually qualified teams to the National Debate Tournament. The BCDA was founded after Joe began teaching courses online and realized the overwhelming demand for digital debate courses. The organization's mission is to use debate as a tool for education to further the advocacy and critical thinking skills necessary to create a better tomorrow. The staff who make up this organization have all participated in both in-person and digital debate workshops and have received training in the curriculum that Joe created when he first started teaching on Outschool. The majority of the staff are Binghamton University debaters and alumni. The remaining staff are comprised of rival debaters and alumni from other debate programs who we became friends with, and who also have helped run similar workshops in their local areas. Outside of Outschool, the BCDA runs regular after school and summer workshops for local elementary and middle school kids in Broome County, NY. All classes are run with a lead instructor and multiple teaching assistants. This allows us to divide kids into smaller groups in breakout sessions to provide more individual attention. The specific lead instructor and teaching assistants might vary based upon the session. Some of our instructors are national champions and others are captains of their debate teams. All are extremely qualified to teach debate. We believe that part of the best way to learn is to receive feedback from different people, who might explain things in a way that might click differently when described by someone else. The intro video includes some of our most frequent lead instructors.