The following appeared as a recommendation by a committee planning a ten-year budget for the city of Calatrava."The birthrate in our city is declining: in fact, last year's birthrate was only one-half that of five years ago. Thus the number of students en

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The following appeared as a recommendation by a committee planning a ten-year budget for the city of Calatrava.

"The birthrate in our city is declining: in fact, last year's birthrate was only one-half that of five years ago. Thus the number of students enrolled in our public schools will soon decrease dramatically, and we can safely reduce the funds budgeted for education during the next decade. At the same time, we can reduce funding for athletic playing fields and other recreational facilities. As a result, we will have sufficient money to fund city facilities and programs used primarily by adults, since we can expect the adult population of the city to increase."

Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.

A first look at the recommendation above seems sound. However, the underlying assumptions and conclusion drawn by the writer is flawed because the claims are not and the associations drawn by the writer are not supported by cogent proofs.

The writers draws a weak correlation between lower birthrates and enrollment rates. To validate this recommendation, the writer has to show that the current trend would hold in the following years. Also, the writer has to show that holding other factors constant lower birthrates would lead to lower enrollment rates. Some factors the writer has to consider include the number of people that move into the city and the family structure, or adoption rates in the city. For instance if residents adopt kids rather than birth kids, the writer’s argument is weakened.

The writer further draws an spurious association between lower enrollment rates and financing public schools. Even if enrollment rates are reduced factors such as inflation and new educational technology may increase education spending. The failure to show how lower enrollment rates reduces education spending also weakens the writer’s conclusions.

Furthermore, the writer assumes that only children use athletic and recreational facilities. This premise is flawed because both adults and children use such facilities and adults may not use recreational facilities provided by the city. In addition, the writer fails to consider “new adults” that would relocate to other cities, To validate this claim, the writer can show that currently only children utilize these facilities and show future trends that the current adult and expected adults would continue to reside in the city and require these facilities.

In conclusion, the premises and recommendation stated by the writer is unconvincing and faulty. The writer needs to show that lower birth rate is the only factor responsible for lower enrollment rates. The call for reduced spending is invalid because even if there are lower enrollment rates, costs of education may increase thus weakening his claim. Likewise, the assumption that only children use recreational facilities is unsubstantiated

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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 16 15
No. of Words: 334 350
No. of Characters: 1792 1500
No. of Different Words: 158 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.275 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.365 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.77 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 134 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 102 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 76 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 47 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.875 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 11.033 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.398 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.569 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.138 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5