While no one instrument can accurately evaluate or assess every college or university debate program, two separate frameworks can be established based in forensics and assessment literature. The first framework is a descriptive/analytic/evaluative framework for a debate program based on the philosophies of the several national conferences on forensics and debate, the literature on directing forensics, and on debate program surveys. The second framework is a more empirical/qualitative one based on recent trends in assessing the outcomes of college education and is still in the process of being formulated. Prospectively, the framework can be applied to many debate program goals but currently it has one "half-way-worked-out" exemplar, that being the template for evaluating a debate program vis-a-vis its development of critical thinking. Forensics educators are going to have to operationalize the goals of debate and find or create empirical tests to measure how well they teach students. (Thirty-four footnotes are included.) (RS)