Debate
Champion Debaters
MS 50 is home to one of the largest and most successful Middle School debate teams in New York City! Whether you are a pro-debater or are brand new, there is a spot for you on our team of more than 130 students. We send students to the NSDA National Debate Tournament each year and won the National Championship in 2025!
Bilingual Debate
We believe that debate is a benefit for all students, no matter their home language. In fact, we believe it is our bilingual debaters greatest asset that they are equipped to debate in their home language. In 2019, we became the first team in NSDA history to debate in a language other than English. Check out the video above for a deeper look at our Bilingual Debate Team.
Debate as a Tool
Debate is infused into our curriculum at every level and throughout the content areas at MS 50. Students frequently take part in classroom debates in order to deepen and strengthen their understanding of a topic being discussed and to hone their rhetorical skills. We participate in a school wide “Word Generation” initiative which combines vocabulary instruction with engaging, rigorous debate across all major content areas.
Growing as Leaders
Since 2019, we have hosted a growing elementary school debate tournament for public elementary schools throughout Brooklyn. These tournaments not only introduce 3rd through 5th graders to competitive debate, but give our MS 50 debaters the chance to become the experts in the room. Our debaters serve as mentors and are partnered with an elementary school to help coach the younger students and then serve as the judges on the day of the event, running the rounds and serving as guides to how rewarding debate can be!
Brooklyn middle school students capture
top honors
in national debate competition
“‘The reason that we do debate is not because of those victories and those trophies,’ Honoroff said.
‘It is to teach our students to learn how to use their voices to be leaders for peace and justice in the world.’”
Chalkbeat・August 28, 2025
bilingual debate team among
nation’s best
For many of the students in Brooklyn’s M.S. 50, Spanish is their first language. Five years ago, Principal Benjamin Honoroff decided that no child would be left out of debating on a national stage, making the school’s debate team bilingual and challenging English-only norms at tournaments.
Fox 5 News・September 26, 2019
