A study from the Journal of Adolescence has been making the rounds on the internet. This study found that participation in policy debate (boo LD) contributed to academic achievement.

Here is the abstract

This study investigates the relationship between participating in a high school debate program on college-readiness in the Chicago Public School district over a 10-year period. At-risk school students were identified using an index including 8th grade achievement, poverty status, and enrollment in special education. Regression analyses were used to assess the association between debate participation and graduation and ACT performance. Overall, debaters were 3.1 times more likely to graduate from high school (95% confidence interval: 2.7-3.5) than non-debaters, and more likely to reach the college-readiness benchmarks on the English, Reading, and Science portions of the ACT. This association was similar for both low-risk and at-risk students. Debate intensity was positively related to higher scores on all sections of the ACT. Findings indicate that debate participation is associated with improved academic performance for at-risk adolescents. (Contains 4 tables and 3 figures.)

In addition to the obvious school administration propaganda function this article has, I would not be surprised to see it creep into framework debates. This is because these researches did something pretty cool- they made level of participation (amount of tournaments attended, I think they called it intensity which is awesome) and competitive success variables that they looked at.