Debate topics about education include funding education and teaching the curriculum. Speakers can argue about funding topics and how the government pays for schools, how much money is paid to teachers and what the government spends per child. Topics focusing on the curriculum can address controversial theories such as creationism, using standardized tests to gather assessment data and teaching foreign languages at a young age. In addition, educational debate topics include the merits of granting tenure, policing academic dishonesty and determining the value of a degree that comes from an online university.
The national health-care debate leaves debaters with a number of topics to consider relating to patient care and a national-run health-care system. Debate topics such as choosing the sex of a baby, physician-assisted suicide, bioethics and malpractice all contain arguments rooted in politics, ethics and religion. Topics about a government-run system include many focus areas such as who will pay for the program, how the current system will adapt to the changes and the success of similar systems overseas.
Debate topics on the environment include political and scientific arguments in areas such as the existence of global warming, the need for drilling offshore for oil, exploration attempts for natural gas and the safety of nuclear energy. Debaters can also examine how legislation affects the environment and how regulation limits looking for new sources of energy. Topics can also consist of global environmental policy and how to force other countries to adopt environmental law. Topics can also infuse economic angles such as giving tax breaks to create businesses that support solar, wind and hydroelectric power.
Social problems provide good debate content because many topics contain controversial elements with differing opinions about how to resolve each issue. Debatable topics including the war on drugs, poverty and capital punishment. All of these issues involve years of government research, data and statistics that debaters can use to make their points. Speakers can argue about increasing funding to fight the drug war, spending more to combat poverty and eliminating the death penalty because it is inhumane. To the contrary they can also argue spending less on fighting the drug wars, decreasing money for poverty issues and strengthening laws to allow more executions.