The following is a letter from the parent of a private school student to the principal of that school:Last year, Kensington Academy turned over management of its cafeteria to a private vendor, Swift Nutrition. This company serves low-fat, low-calorie meal

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The following is a letter from the parent of a private school student to the principal of that school:

Last year, Kensington Academy turned over management of its cafeteria to a private vendor, Swift Nutrition. This company serves low-fat, low-calorie meals that students do not find enjoyable – my son and several of his friends came home yesterday complaining about the lunch options. While the intent of hiring Swift may have been to cause students to eat healthier foods, the plan is just going to cause students to bring their own, less healthy lunches instead of eating cafeteria food. If Swift is not replaced with another vendor, there will be serious health consequences for Kensington students.

Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the prediction and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the prediction.

The author of this letter is a parent of a private school student and letter is addressed to the principal of the school regarding a concern about food facilities in school. The author mentions that the school's decision to hand over the management to a private vendor Swift Nutrition is not justified. According to the author, his son and son's friends do not like the low-fat,low-calorie food provided by the private vendor. Author suggests that Swift should be replaced by another vendor. He corroborates his suggestion further by mentioning that students have started bringing their own unhealthy foods because they do not like Swift's food. Finally author warns that if Swift is not replaced by some other vendor, there will be serious health consequences for Kensington students. On the cursory glance, author's suggestion seems fair, however, on further analysis of the data presented by the author suggests that the recommendation is not convincing. It lacks of necessary data required to establish the fact that Swift is indeed not good for students's food needs.

First, there is no data provided by the author on what percentage of school students have complained about food quality of Swift. Author needs to provide a convincing amount of percentage of students who do not like Swift food. If this is a good percentage, then author's recommendation makes sense. However, in absence of such data, it's possible that only author's son and some of his friends do not like the Swift food because they are fond of junk food. In such a scenario, it's possible that majority of students and their parents actually like school's decision of this change. Hence, author's opinion could be biased.

Second, there must be some reason behind school's decision to give it's cafeteria to a private vendor. Author has not provided any information on this. It's very much possible that earlier food quality was really bad and because of that many students faced health problems. It's possible that parents and students complained about this and hence the change was brought in. Author needs to provide the adequate data about this change to convince that his recommendation is correct.

Third, author needs to provide data from a survey of students and parents. The survey should have questions which compare the present health conditions of students with previous year's health conditions. If the data reveals that there is no improvement in the health conditions of students due to the change in food vendor, then it would fortify author's suggestion. However, in absence of such data, it's possible that most of the students and their parents are satisfied with health condition now and they are happy with this change.

Finally, author's last statement about possible serious health consequences of students due to Swift vendor in future are unwarranted. Author has not provided any data related to this. To convince the principal for this fact, author needs to provide details such as increased number of health problems faced by the school students now as compared to previous year and the food being the reason for the same. If no such data is available, then it's possible that student's health have much better now and there is overall satisfaction among the students and their parents about the food vendor change.

Conclusively, it can be elicited that author has failed to provide important data which is a must to convince that handing over food facilities to private vendor Swift is a wrong decision. Author needs to provide above mentioned details to present his suggestion cogently.

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flaws:
There are issues with the last argument. how can you guarantee the new one will bring good consequence?
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