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Debate kit Grade 9 English Language Arts

Who Pays for Pellcott's Private-Side Lead Lines? A Debate Kit

A grade 9 debate kit on whether a fictional city should cover the full cost of private-side lead line replacement, with two-sided evidence, roles, and a rubric.

Objectives

  1. Students will build a case on a contested water policy question using evidence they did not choose themselves.
  2. Students will rebut a specific opposing point with evidence rather than with a general objection.
  3. Students will distinguish documented facts in the evidence file from illustrative material written for the debate.

Vocabulary

Service line
A service line is the small pipe that connects the water main under the street to the plumbing inside one home or building. It is the last leg of the trip water makes to your tap.
Action level
A trigger number in lead and copper testing. If too many homes test above this level, the utility must take steps like improving treatment and telling the public.
Ratepayer
A person or business that pays a utility bill. Ratepayers provide most of the money that keeps a water system running.

Also: cost share, rebuttal

Teacher overview

A lead service line has two halves. The utility owns the pipe from the main to the property line, and the homeowner owns the pipe from there into the house, which means a city can replace its own half and leave the lead in the ground. This kit sets two teams against each other on who should pay for the homeowner's half in a fictional city, with two prepared speakers and one rebuttal speaker on each side. The question is genuinely contested, because rate revenue that pays to remove lead from one household's service line also raises the bill of households that have no lead line at all.

Who Pays for Pellcott's Private-Side Lead Lines? A Debate Kit — Grade 9 English Language Arts
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Resolution & Background

Resolution: The Pellcott city council should pay the full cost of replacing the private side of every lead service line, funded through water rates.

Background. Pellcott is a fictional city of about 26,000 people. Its water system has roughly 12,000 service lines. City records are incomplete, and staff estimate that about 1,100 of those lines may contain lead.

A service line is the pipe that carries water from the street main into a building. The city owns the part in the street. The property owner owns the part from the property line into the house. Replacing only the city's half leaves lead in the ground and can even raise lead levels for a while, because cutting a lead pipe disturbs the protective coating inside it.

Federal rules are tightening. The lead action level is 15 parts per billion, and it drops to 10 parts per billion in 2027. The same rule tells water systems to replace nearly all lead service lines within about a decade. Nationally, EPA estimated in 2025 that about 4 million lead service lines remain, disproportionately in older, lower-income neighborhoods.

Money is the sticking point. In this scenario, replacing the private half of a line costs about four thousand dollars per home. Pellcott's utility is funded by water rates, so any city-paid replacement is paid by every ratepayer, including the roughly 10,900 households with no lead line at all. City staff estimate in this scenario that full coverage would add about three dollars a month to every bill for ten years.

Roles. Divide the class into an affirmative team and a negative team, with three speakers each. Assign one moderator to keep time and one panel of three judges who score with the rubric below. Speakers one and two present prepared points from the evidence file. Speaker three delivers the rebuttal and may use only points the other team actually made. Judges may ask one clarifying question at the end of each side's case.

Evidence File

Every point below names its source. Points marked as illustrative were written for this debate and are not documented facts.

Case for the city paying the full cost:

  1. Partial replacement can make the problem worse. Cutting a lead line disturbs the coating that holds lead in place, so a home with a half-replaced line may see higher lead for weeks. A program that stops at the property line spends public money without finishing the job. (Source: EPA Lead and Copper Rule Improvements materials.)
  2. The federal rule expects near-complete replacement within about a decade, and the action level drops from 15 parts per billion to 10 parts per billion in 2027. Pellcott will face the deadline whether or not homeowners can pay. (Source: EPA Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, final October 2024.)
  3. Lead lines sit disproportionately in older, lower-income neighborhoods, and EPA's 2025 estimate puts the number remaining nationally at about 4 million. A city that asks each owner to pay leaves lead longest in the homes least able to afford removal. (Sources: EPA LCRI supporting materials; EPA 2025 service line estimate.)
  4. A fictional Pellcott pediatrician submitted a letter for this debate. She writes that the families she treats cannot choose their plumbing, and that a child's exposure does not depend on who holds the deed. (Illustrative testimony created for this debate.)

Case against the city paying the full cost:

  1. Water bills are already climbing faster than inflation. Combined water and sewer bills rose about 24 percent from 2019 to 2024, and about 5.1 percent more in 2025. A widely used rule of thumb, built from two EPA benchmarks, treats combined water and sewer costs above roughly 4.5 percent of household income as a high burden. (Source: EPA affordability benchmarks; Bluefield Research rate surveys.)
  2. Rates spread the cost to everyone, including households that own no lead pipe. In this scenario about 10,900 Pellcott households would pay for a private asset they do not have and cannot use. (Illustrative figure created for this debate.)
  3. A partial cost share may reach more homes for the same money. A fictional Pellcott finance director prepared a memo for this debate arguing that paying three quarters of each replacement, with a full waiver for low-income owners, would finish more lines per year than full coverage. (Illustrative memo created for this debate.)
  4. The private pipe is private property, and paying for it sets a precedent the utility may not be able to limit. A fictional ratepayer group, the Pellcott Bill Watch, argues in testimony for this debate that the next request will be for private plumbing inside the walls. (Illustrative testimony created for this debate.)

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Rubric
Criterion Emerging Developing Proficient Advanced
Evidence use Asserts a position with no evidence from the file Cites one point without explaining its relevance Cites at least two points and explains how each supports the case Cites multiple points, explains each, and separates documented facts from illustrative material
Rebuttal quality Does not respond to the other team Responds generally without naming the opposing point Names a specific opposing point and answers it with evidence Answers the opposing team's strongest point and explains why the team's evidence outweighs it
Reasoning Reasons are missing or restate the claim Offers one reason with a gap between evidence and claim Connects each piece of evidence to the claim explicitly Connects evidence to claim and anticipates the objection before it is raised
Delivery and organization Hard to follow, no visible structure Structure present but transitions unclear Clear claim, evidence, and conclusion, delivered audibly Clear structure, confident delivery, and responsive timing within the round

Differentiation

Support

Give these students an evidence file with each point reduced to a single sentence and a highlighted key phrase, plus a case card with three slots: our claim, our best point, and why it matters. During the rebuttal round, allow them to use a frame such as "the other team said ____, but our evidence shows ____."

Extension

Assign one student on each team to prepare a third position that the resolution does not offer, such as a means-tested cost share, and to argue in the final minute why the resolution as written forces a false choice. That student must still work only from the evidence file.

ELL supports

Pre-teach service line, action level, cost share, ratepayer, and rebuttal with a labeled drawing showing the main, the property line, and the two halves of the pipe. Provide a speaking outline with time markers, and allow prepared speakers to read from a written script while the rebuttal speaker uses the sentence frame.

Extensions

After the debate, have each student write one paragraph naming the piece of evidence that most changed their own thinking and explaining why. Collect the paragraphs and count how often students name illustrative material rather than documented facts, then discuss what that says about which evidence persuades.