M.S. 50 National Debate Champs 2025

The school year journey to defend their title begins

All seventeen of M.S. 50’s debate teams won the Winter NYC Reads Debate competition in January 2025. *Photo courtesy of M.S. 50*

For ten years, M.S. 50’s success in debate has garnered them several trophies as NYC’s best. They were one win away from the National Speech and Debate Association’s (NSDA) national championships in 2018. The team rallied to made the nationals in 2019, and they became the first to bring bilingual debate to this competition.

In January this year, the entire M.S. 50 debate squad, all seventeen teams, came in first place in NYC at the Winter NYC Reads Debate.

Then in June, at the 100^th annual NSDA competition, their entrants for competing in “Policy Debate”, Anedwin Moran and Erick Williams, won the top prize.

Anedwin Moran and Erick Williams won the National Speech and Debate Association’s Centennial Championship in the policy debate category. *Photo courtesy of M.S. 50*

The policy debate format is two teams of two debaters where one team proposes a policy plan and the other team argues against its implementation. “Each student delivers two speeches: one constructive and one rebuttal,” states the NSDA website.

The school’s first debate team began in 2013 with four students. In 2018, enrollment was at 300. Currently, M.S. 50’s website reports there are more than 130.

Part of 2018’s popularity surge is due to Principal Ben Honoroff. When he started at the school in 2015, he incorporated debate class into the curriculum for all students. This had associated benefits as three years later, the students’ math and English Language Arts test scores tripled.

The debate structure came about from the collaboration of NYC Middle School Quality Initiative and the New York City Urban Debate League. They worked together to create a debate initiative to support NYC Middle Schools in forming debate teams that would be inclusive and attract those who hadn’t participated in this forum. It is reported in a 2009 study, “low income and minority students are underrepresented in the activity, especially at the highest levels of forensics.” M.S. 50 reportedly has a student poverty rate of nearly 90%.

“We teach our kids: debates are stronger when we don’t just quote debate.com, but when we integrate our research with our personal experience to make sense of the world around us,” said Principal Ben Honoroff in 2021.

Here’s to another shining year for these young debaters.