Argument Essay 5- The following appeared in an editorial in the Bayside Sentinel

"Bayside citizens need to consider raising local taxes if they want to see improvements in the bayside school district. Test scores graduation and college admission rates, and a number of other indicators have long made it clear that the Bayside School district is doing a poor job educating our youth. Our schools look run down. Windows are broken, bathrooms unusable, and classroom equipment hopelessly out of date. Yet just across the bay, in new harbor school facilities are up to date and in good condition. The difference in money, New Harbor spends twenty seven percent more per student than bayside does and test scores another and other indicators of student’s performance are stronger in New Harbor as well."

Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.

The author above states that due to the low taxes the school run down, therefore taxes need to be increased to make the condition of the school well off. Being pragmatic increasing expenditures on the school infrastructure is not the only indication of the better performance of the students, there is a list of indicator which influences their performance.

Firstly the author states the rundown of school was merely due to the low expenses incurred on school. Other than the maintained there are several factors which effect the operation of school. He did not mentioned any clue about the teaching staff, and their capacity which could also be a reason for the declining the admission rates along with poor educating youth. Moreover the grading criteria in both the schools have not been mentioned. The good grades in New Harbor may be due to easier exams and loose marking where as the bad grades can be due to the harder exams and tough marking by the teacher.

Secondly he has not mentioned any of the maintenance details of school building. It may be possible that the school was renovated a longer period before, thereafter it has not be furnished, due to which the school windows are broken, and bathrooms are unusable, provided the taxes were spend on some other aspects.  But this is again not a reasonable depiction of rundown of school, and having a poor job educating our youth along with poor admission rates.

Thirdly the author totally ignores the behavior of students towards studies. Might be the students are more interested in adventures and sport activities as compared to the studies, due to which there are no satisfactory grades. Moreover no information of the faculty has been mentioned, which usually has a higher impact on grades of students and admission rates. It is also pertinent that, increasing taxes can result in proper maintained of school infrastructure, but we cannot say, it would result strong performance of the students.

Some additional aspects, which the author has missed in the above statement is that, he did not mention the total size of school and the number of students.

The author unnecessarily compares two distant schools without any basis of similarity and coherence. New Harbor school has every facility and it’s up to date, as well as it spends twenty percent more per student than bayside, but it does not mentioned any similarity of location and social set up of the school location. May be the school has proper maintained on regular basis due to which the infrastructure is good. Only a twenty percent increase spending cannot be the only reason for the good grades. Social setup including the education levels of the parents of children in each school can play another important role in defining good grades and rising job education.

Conclusively, the author claims the above statement in the light of inefficient information, therefore more strong arguments and research is required to prove why the Harbor school is progressing more as compared to the bay school.